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A Wearable E-Textile Force-Sensing Garment for Characterising Caring Touch
Get PDFTo enable better human-machine and human-robot interaction in healthcare applications, there is a need to improve haptic devices, assistive and companion robots to touch humans in a way that can be perceived as comfortable, safe and trusting.Towards this vision, we developed a flexible, wearable matrix force-sensing garment capable of recording dynamic force behaviour of caring touch from four healthcare experts in their natural therapy environment, and enable the touch recipient to provide feedback on the perceived quality of the same touches. Instead of assuming particular touch gestures are caring, we explored the application of the sensing and analysing system to characterise a caring quality of touch across different gestures. We were able to characterise distinctive features for touch aimed for sensory aspects and for moving the body. Our findings demonstrate that caring touch is not limited to specific gestures or a single parameter but is rather characterised by how the touch is performed across multiple features, with deliberateness - the careful and smoothness in the increasing and decreasing of force, emerging as a shared characteristic of caring touch regardless of the specific gesture employed. The study also demonstrates the feasibility of using raw tactile sensor data to assess subjective touch quality
Capture of isoflurane from anaesthetised dogs and cats following methadone, medetomidine and ketamine administration
Get PDFBackgroundVolatile anaesthetic agents contribute to climate change, and reducing this impact is a commendable ambition. We evaluated the efficiency of a veterinary capture device for isoflurane (VET-can/VET-dock, SageTech Veterinary) in anaesthetised cats and dogs.MethodsPurposeful sampling was used to recruit enough animals undergoing isoflurane general anaesthesia to fill one VET-can to at least 95% capacity. The vaporiser and VET-can were weighed pre- and post-anaesthesia to determine in vivo mass transfer (MT) of isoflurane and water. The primary outcomes were capture efficiency (isoflurane delivered: desorbed, %) and in vivo MT. The secondary outcomes were associations between MT and patient characteristics and anaesthesia variables.ResultsThirty anaesthetics (21 cats and nine dogs) were required to fill the VET-can to capacity. The overall capture efficiency was 81% isoflurane with 4% water' as it's the isoflurane capture efficiency that matters here and the water capture explains the difference in overall efficiency and MT.LimitationsInterchangeable use of sidestream and mainstream capnography resulted in a difference in times to end-tidal isoflurane 0%.ConclusionsCapture efficiency was 81%. The device prevented a mean release of 3.2 kgCO2e for each 20-minute anaesthetic period, approximately the equivalent of 13 miles driven in an average UK car
Trees Ancient and Modern: Woodland Cultures and Conservation
No full textWhile trees are celebrated as symbols of natural beauty, they are increasingly at risk from climate change, disease, fires and urban expansion. Trees Ancient and Modern explores humanity’s deep connection with trees and woodlands, highlighting their beauty and importance and the challenges they face. The book looks at debates about creating new woodlands, exploring questions of location, ownership and management.Using diverse sources such as literature, art, historical records, scientific surveys and oral histories, Charles Watkins reveals how people have used, valued and understood forests over time. He also assesses modern threats to woodlands and considers how best to conserve them. Richly illustrated, this is a global social and cultural history of forests that provides valuable insights for future management
Food security under climatic extremes in the Asia-Pacific region
Get PDFClimate-related extreme events are exerting significant pressure on food security in the Asia-Pacific Region, home to over half of the world’s population. China, Thailand, Vietnam, and many Southeast Asian countries are major producers and exporters of food globally. Recent climatic extremes associated with El Niño have caused significant crop losses, further compounded by war and trade embargoes that threaten food security. To address these challenges, four measures are essential: (i) Taking action on climate adaptation; (ii) Coordinated, rules-based regional food-aid mechanisms; (iii) Protecting domestic production and conserving soils, and (iv) Advancing zero-carbon farming practices. Together, these strategies are necessary to sustain future food security in the region
Two-stage Temporal Modelling Framework for Video-based Depression Recognition using Graph Representation
Get PDFVideo-based automatic depression analysis provides a fast, objective and repeatable self-assessment solution, which has been widely developed in recent years. While depression cues may be reflected by human facial behaviours of various temporal scales, most existing approaches either focused on modelling depression from short-term or video-level facial behaviours. In this sense, we propose a two-stage framework that models depression severity from multi-scale short-term and video-level facial behaviours. The short-term depressive behaviour modelling stage first deep learns depression-related facial behavioural features from multiple short temporal scales, where a Depression Feature Enhancement (DFE) module is proposed to enhance the depression-related cues for all temporal scales and remove non-depression related noise. Two novel graph encoding strategies are proposed in the video-level depressive behavior modeling stage, i.e., Sequential Graph Representation (SEG) and Spectral Graph Representation (SPG), to re-encode all short-term features of the target video into a video-level graph representation, summarizing depression-related multi-scale video-level temporal information. As a result, the produced graph representations predict depression severity using both short-term and long-term facial behaviour patterns. The experimental results on AVEC 2013, AVEC 2014 and AVEC 2019 datasets show that the proposed DFE module constantly enhanced the depression severity estimation performance for various CNN models while the SPG is superior than other video-level modelling methods. More importantly, the result achieved for the proposed two-stage framework shows its promising and solid performance compared to widely-used one-stage modelling approaches
Short-term pre-meal whey protein microgel supplementation reduces postprandial glycemia and appetite in adults with overweight: An open-label randomised controlled trial
Get PDFBackground: Premeal whey protein (WP) consumption may reduce postprandial glucose (PPG) levels and appetite. We assessed the effects of twice daily consumption of a low-dose non-gelling novel WP formulation (WP microgel [WPM]) on PPG, self-reported appetite, and ad-libitum food consumption. Methods: This was a randomized, prospective, open-label, controlled, single-center crossover study, and adults with BMI 27–35 kg/m2 were randomized to consume either 125 mL of 10 g WPM or control (water) 15 min before breakfast and lunch for four consecutive days. Three days were under free-living conditions, and the 4th day was at the clinic where breakfast (09:00 a.m.) was standardized (323 kcal, 7.0 g proteins), and lunch (12:00 p.m.) ad-libitum (pizza, 228.8 kcal/9.9 g proteins per 100 g). Following a 3-day wash-out, participants were switched to the opposite regimen. The primary confirmatory endpoint was breakfast 2 h-PPG (assessed using CGM) analyzed as iAUC-15-120min using a linear mixed effects model. Appetite was captured by frequent self-reporting (hunger, desire, amount, fullness, satisfaction) using a visual analogue scale (0–100 mm). Ad-libitum food consumption (lunch) was assessed by weighing the amount consumed. Result: 18 individuals (8 females, median age 57 years, BMI 29.8 kg/m2, HbA1c 5.5 %) were randomized and consumed products. The breakfast 2 h-PPG iAUC was 39.3 % lower with WPM compared with control (LSM iAUC Ratio WPM/control (95 % CI): 0.607 [0.4 43, 0.831], p = 0.0047), and during lunch numerically reduced (p = 0.0649). Appetite scores during breakfast and lunch supported a modest suppressing effect of the WPM. Food consumption during the ad-libitum lunch was significantly reduced by 9.4 % (WPM vs Control −66.8 kcal [-133.1, −0.6], p = 0.0482). Conclusions: A 125 mL pre-meal dose of WPM consumed twice daily before breakfast and lunch for 4 days in adults with obesity significantly reduced breakfast PPG and had a moderate appetite-suppressing effect, which led to a significantly lower energy consumption during ad-libitum lunch (NCT06593769)
Isolating the effects of carbohydrate and lipid availability on exercise-induced skeletal muscle signalling in males
Get PDFTraining with low carbohydrate availability can increase AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation, but whether increased AMPK activation is the result of low carbohydrate availability per se or concurrent increases in fatty acid availability/oxidation is unclear. This study assessed the independent effects of carbohydrate and fatty acid availability on exercise-induced skeletal muscle AMPK activation and downstream signalling. Eight active males who were aged between 18 and 60 years with a body mass index in the range 18.0–30.0 kg m−2 cycled on three occasions for 60 min at 95% of lactate threshold 1 with ingestion of either carbohydrate (CARB), niacin (NIACIN) or placebo (FAST) in a crossover design (11 ± 6 days washout). Blood and exhaled breath were sampled throughout exercise and muscle was sampled pre- and post-exercise. Fat oxidation and plasma non-esterified fatty acid concentrations were both lower in CARB vs. FAST with negligible difference between CARB vs. NIACIN. Plasma insulin concentrations were higher in CARB compared with both FAST and NIACIN. Net muscle glycogen use was greater with NIACIN vs. CARB. Although no evidence for differences were observed for phosphorylated AMPK, the downstream target, phosphorylated acetyl-CoA carboxylase was decreased with CARB vs. both FAST (–0.7 ± 0.6 fold, P = 0.04) and NIACIN (–1.0 ± 0.8 fold, P = 0.02). RNA-sequencing displayed several canonical changes with exercise but little difference between conditions. These data suggest carbohydrate ingestion suppresses exercise-induced phosphorylation of acetyl-CoA carboxylase independent of fatty acid availability. (Figure presented.). Key points: It is currently unknown whether the enhanced physiological adaptation to regularly exercising in a fasted-state are explained by low carbohydrate availability and/or the concomitant increase in fatty acid availability. This study used fasted exercise with niacin ingestion to reduce the lipaemic response associated with fasted exercise to isolate the effects of carbohydrate vs. fatty acid availability on exercise-induced skeletal muscle signalling. Our data show niacin ingestion increases muscle glycogen utilisation compared to carbohydrate ingestion during exercise, but both niacin and carbohydrate ingestion suppress fatty acid availability and fat oxidation to a similar extent. Our data demonstrate carbohydrate ingestion during exercise suppresses acetyl-CoA carboxylase phosphorylation compared to both niacin ingestion and extended overnight fasting. These data suggest that high carbohydrate availability inhibits exercise-induced acetyl-CoA carboxylase phosphorylation in human skeletal muscle, independent of circulating fatty acid concentrations
Evolving insights into viral hepatitis: Advances, evidence, and expert perspectives from the ESCMID Study Group for Viral Hepatitis (ESGVH) – Part 1: hepatitis A, E, and herpesvirus-associated liver disease
No full textViral hepatitis remains a global health concern, with growing recognition of the impact of hepatitis A virus (HAV), hepatitis E virus (HEV), and herpesvirus-associated hepatitis, particularly in vulnerable groups. This narrative review from the ESCMID Study Group for Viral Hepatitis (ESGVH) summarizes recent advances and expert perspectives. For HAV, insights into viral evolution, epidemiology, and risk groups underline the preventable nature of severe disease. HEV is increasingly recognized as both a hepatotropic and a systemic pathogen, with expanding knowledge on natural and vaccine-induced immunity. Herpesvirus-associated hepatitis, while rare, poses significant challenges, especially in patients with immunosuppression or during pregnancy, where early suspicion and empirical antiviral therapy can be lifesaving. Collectively, these evolving insights highlight the importance of strengthened diagnostics, targeted prevention, and tailored management strategies to mitigate the burden of these underappreciated but clinically significant causes of viral hepatitis
Assessing the impact of posture on brain volume in healthy subjects with a rotatable cryogen-free 1.5T superconducting MRI
Get PDFBackground: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is crucial for detailed visualization of brain structure and function. However, conventional supine imaging limits the exploration of how posture impacts brain morphology. While recent advancements in upright MRI systems have enabled studies of postural effects on various body systems, investigations into posture’s impact on brain anatomy remain limited.Method: This study investigated volumetric differences between upright and supine positions to establish a baseline for future investigations into how posture influenced brain structure. Thirty-one healthy volunteers underwent scans using a rotatable cryogen-free 1.5T MRI scanner in supine and upright postures. The 3D T1-weighted MP-RAGE brain images were segmented into 109 regions, and volume changes across these regions were analyzed.Result: Volumetric analysis across 109 brain regions in both supine and upright postures shows minimal changes, with most regions displaying variations within a ±5% range. The coefficient of variation (COV) indicated that posture-induced volume changes are even smaller than the measurement precision of the method. These findings provide a solid groundwork for future studies on the effects of posture on brain structure.Conclusion: The majority of brain regions exhibited no significant volumetric differences between supine and upright positions, suggesting that brain structure remains consistent and stable across different postures. These findings offer valuable insights for future research on the postural influences on brain morphology
Should I Travel? Moral Motivation During Crises
Get PDFWhile our travel decisions involve many decisions related to the right or wrong way to behave, our understanding of morality in tourism is largely underdeveloped. Currently, we are hoping for a more responsible and sustainable future after the pandemic. However, we still lack understanding of how moral motivations influence people’s travel behavior during a crisis for better crisis management. Against the background of COVID-19, this study develops the moral motivation of travel amid public health crisis (MMTPHC) scale and tests its influence on travel behavior to advance our understanding of morality in tourism. Specifically, two moral motivations (compliance with anti-epidemic policy related to traveling and shame) discourage people’s travel intentions. However, concern about public denunciations and empathy toward others encourage travel intention. We also found shame and concern for public denunciations mediate the relationships between face concerns and travel intentions. Practical implications are suggested
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