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Longitudinal trajectories of quality of life among people with mild-to-moderate dementia: a latent growth model approach with IDEAL cohort study data
Get PDFYesObjectives: We aimed to examine change over time in self-rated quality of life (QoL) in people with
mild-to-moderate dementia and identify sub-groups with distinct QoL trajectories.
Method: We used data from people with mild-to-moderate dementia followed up at 12 and 24 months
in the IDEAL cohort study (baseline n=1537). A latent growth model approach examined
mean change over time in QoL, assessed with the QoL-AD scale, and investigated
associations of baseline demographic, cognitive and psychological covariates with the
intercept and slope of QoL. We employed growth mixture modelling to identify multiple
growth trajectories.
Results: Overall mean QoL scores were stable and no associations with change over time were
observed. Four classes of QoL trajectories were identified: two with higher baseline QoL
scores, labelled Stable (74.9%) and Declining (7.6%), and two with lower baseline QoL
scores, labelled Stable Lower (13.7%) and Improving (3.8%). The Declining class had higher
baseline levels of depression and loneliness, and lower levels of self-esteem and optimism,
than the Stable class. The Stable Lower class was characterised by disadvantage related to
social structure, poor physical health, functional disability, and low psychological well-being The Improving class was similar to the Stable Lower class but had lower cognitive test scores.
Discussion: Understanding individual trajectories can contribute to personalised care planning. Efforts to
prevent decline in perceived QoL should primarily target psychological well-being. Efforts to
improve QoL for those with poorer QoL should additionally address functional impairment,
isolation, and disadvantage related to social structure.This work was supported by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, part of UK Research and Innovation, UKRI) and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) grant ES/L001853/2. Alzheimer‟s Society Centre of Excellence grant 348, ASPR2-16-00
Living with knee osteoarthritis: the positive impact of reducing the knee torque induced when sleeping supine. A randomised clinical trial
Get PDFYesWhen lying supine, due to the reaction force from the mattress acting mostly through the heel, an external knee-extension joint-torque is induced that keeps the knee fully extended. This
torque becomes zero if the feet are hung over the end of the support. This study investigated, in patients with knee-osteoarthritis (knee-OA) who routinely sleep supine, whether a change to such
a sleeping position would ameliorate the knee pain and associated physical problems they suffer. Patients were recruited (General-Practitioners Centre, UK) over a 9-month period; those eligible (51/70) were randomly allocated to an intervention (65% female; age 71.5 [11.3] yrs; BMI, 29.20 [5.54] kg/m2; knee-OA severity, 20 mild–mod/3 severe) or control group (63% female; age, 68.3 [9.7] yrs; BMI, 28.69 [5.51] kg/m2; knee-OA severity, 17 mild–mod/2 severe). The primary outcome was
improvements (0 [worst] to 100 [best]) in knee pain at 3 months and was rated in the Knee-Injury-and-Osteoarthritis-Outcome-Score questionnaire (KOOS). Secondary outcomes were improvements (0–100) in the other four KOOS-subscales. There were no differences between groups in KOOS
outcomes at baseline, and there were no changes in KOOS outcomes in the control group at 3 months. Relative to the baseline KOOS values in Knee-Pain (50.1), Symptoms (52.5), Activities-of-Daily-Living (53.8) and Quality-of-Life (31.5), were all seen to improve at 3 months in the intervention group
(by between 11.9 and 12.9); however, when comparing to controls, only the improvements in the subscale Activities-of-Daily-Living (which improved by 12.2) were statistically significant. Findings
indicate that for those with knee-OA who routinely sleep supine, sleeping with the feet over the end of the mattress (to prevent the knee being pushed into/held in full extension) can help ameliorate the
physical problems they suffer
Proposing a Three-Stage Model to Quantify Bradykinesia on a Symptom Severity Level Using Deep Learning
No full textNoTypically characterised as a movement disorder, bradykinesia can be represented according to the degree of motor impairment. The assessment criteria for Parkinson’s disease (PD) is therefore well defined due to its symptomatic nature. Diagnosing and monitoring the progression of bradykinesia is currently heavily reliant on clinician’s visual judgment. One of the most common forms of examining bradykinesia involves rapid finger tapping and is aimed to determine the patient’s ability to initiate and sustain movement effectively. This consists of the patient repeatedly tapping their index finger and thumb together. Object detection algorithm, YOLO, was trained to track the separation between the index finger and thumb. Bounding boxes (BB) were used to determine their relative position on a frame-to-frame basis to produce a time series signal. Key movement characteristics were extracted to determine regularity of movement in finger tapping amongst Parkinson’s patients and controls
Framework for Digitally Managing Academic Records Using Blockchain Technology
No full textNoResearch studies report that there are a growing number of falsified educational certificates being produced by dishonest job seekers and higher education applicants across the world. Technological development in the image-processing domain makes editing the document so simple that any individual can perform this kind of forgery without having high-level skills in image editing. Most national governments have put in place stringent policies and procedures to verify and authenticate academic documents. However, due to the amount of human intervention in the process, the efficiency of such measures is debatable. Such systems leave open the possibility that unethical insiders may engage in forgery. In addition, the process of document verification and authentication consumes substantial amounts of time and money. Existing systems of document attestation do not provide a simple and instant way of verifying the authenticity of certificates from transcript level onward. In response to the above issues, this project proposes a prototype model for digitally managing and attesting the academic records using permissioned blockchain technology. By this method, the block-chaining of a student record begins from the time of admission to the Higher Education Institute (HEI) and continues to record the academic progress until graduation, having the graduation details stored as the last block in the chain. The whole blockchain of the student record will remain in the system with the participants enabling any indirect stakeholder to verify the details instantly based on the hash code or QR code. Additional privileges will be provided for direct stakeholders such as (here in Oman) the Ministry of Manpower and the Ministry of Higher Education to access further details of the certificate-holder. The system includes the student as a stakeholder and also as a participant to ensure transparency for her/his academic records
Efficient and Physics-based Facial Blendshapes based on ODE sweeping Surface and Newton's second law
No full textNoOnline games require small data of 3D models for low storage costs, quick transmission over the Internet, and efficient geometric processing to achieve real-time performance, and new techniques of facial blendshapes to create natural facial animation. Current geometric modelling and animation techniques involve big data of geometric models and widely applied facial animation using linear interpolation cannot generate natural facial animation and create special facial animation effects. In this paper, we propose a new approach to integrate the strengths of ODE (ordinary differential equation) sweeping surfaces and Newton's second law-based facial blendshapes to create 3D models and their animation with small data, high efficiency, and ability to create special facial effects
Book Review. Living Pharmaceutical Lives. 1st edition. Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Health of Illness
No full textYe
A wide-angle pattern diversity antenna system for mmWave 5G mobile terminals
Get PDFYesA shared ground shared radiator with wide angular coverage for mmWave 5G smartphones is proposed in this paper. A four-element corporate-fed array with conventional impedance matched power divider is designed. Stepped impedance transformers are integrated with the corner most elements to achieve pattern diversity with wide angular coverage without signifi-cant compromise in gain. The proposed three-port shared radiator conformal commercial an-tenna could be easily integrated with commercial mmWave 5G smartphones. All the three ports' excitations operate in the 28 GHz band. Radiation pattern bandwidth of the multi-port system is high. The gain variation is from 6 to11 dBi amongst the ports and across the operating spectrum. The highest mutual coupling is 10 dB, in spite of the electrically connected structure. The pro-posed shared radiator element has a wide angular coverage of 100°, maintaining high front-to-back ratio when the respective port is excited. Simulation and measurement results for the proposed structure are illustrated in detail.Moore4Medical project, funded within ECSEL JU in collaboration with the EU H2020 Framework Programme (H2020/2014-2020) under grant agreement H2020-ECSEL-2019-IA-876190, and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (ECSEL/0006/2019)
In the Future, We Will Create a Typology for Thrift Store Tags
Get PDFYesIn many ways, the thrift store reflects the greater goals of archaeology as a discipline, in which we develop the bigger picture of the past, but also take time to examine the smaller threads of everyday lives. Intermingling of contexts is already a frustrating problem for current day archaeologists – but imagine the horror that would face you within a thrift store
Evaluation of the Impact of Collaborative Research on Robust Design Methodologies: A Large Scale Empirical Case Study with an Automotive OEM
Get PDFYesThe evaluation of impact of collaborative research on robust design methodologies and methods is important to both academic and industry stakeholders. This paper introduces a framework for impact evaluation which combines the broader framework adopted for the academic research impact assessment with the organisation viewpoint centred on business results, process improvement and product development teams capability improvement. A large scale empirical study conducted with evidence from technical reports on workplace projects from an automotive OEM proved the validity of the proposed framework
Towards a Model-Based Systems Engineering Approach for Robotic Manufacturing Process Modelling with Automatic FMEA Generation
Get PDFYesThe process of generating FMEA following document-centric approach is tedious and susceptible to human
error. This paper presents preliminary methodology for robotic manufacturing process modelling in MBSE
environment with a scope of automating multiple steps of the modelling process using ontology. This is
followed by the reasoning towards automatic generation of process FMEA from the MBSE model. The
proposed methodology allows to establish robust and self-synchronising links between process-relevant
information, reduce the likelihood of human error, and scale down time expenses