4208 research outputs found
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A Smart System for Continuous Sitting Posture Monitoring, Assessment, and Personalized Feedback
Full text linkProlonged sitting and the adoption of unhealthy sitting postures have been a common issue generally seen among many adults and the working population in recent years. This alone has contributed to the alarming rise of various health issues, such as musculoskeletal disorders and a range of long-term health conditions. Hence, this study proposes the development of a novel smart-sensing chair system designed to analyze and provide actionable insights to help encourage better postural habits and promote well-being. The proposed system was equipped with two 32 × 32 pressure sensor mats, which were integrated into an office chair to facilitate the collection of postural data. Unlike traditional approaches that rely on generalized datasets collected from multiple healthy participants to train machine learning models, this study adopts a user-tailored methodology—collecting data from a single individual to account for their unique physiological characteristics and musculoskeletal conditions. The dataset was trained using five different machine learning models—Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)—to classify 19 distinct sitting postures. Overall, CNN achieved the highest accuracy, with 98.29%. To facilitate user engagement and support long-term behavior change, we developed SitWell—an intelligent postural feedback platform comprising both mobile and web applications. The platform’s core features include sitting posture classification, posture duration analytics, and sitting quality assessment. Additionally, the platform integrates OpenAI’s GPT-4o Large Language Model (LLM) to deliver personalized insights and recommendations based on users’ historical posture data
Unravelling Employee Retention: Exploring Psychological Contract’s Role in Bangladesh’s Garment Sector
Full text linkEmployee turnover remains a major concern for businesses globally. In Western contexts, the concept of psychological contract breach (PCB) is often employed to understand this phenomenon. This paper takes Bangladesh’s readymade garment (RMG) sector as a case study to explore the factors that support employee retention in their jobs, despite reported poor working conditions and associated issues in garment factories. Data were gathered among 400 RMG workers and linear regression analysis was used to answer this question. We demonstrated that while PCB was positively related to turnover intention, its impact on the retention of Bangladeshi garment workers was relatively minimal. Qualitative data showed how cultural and social factors distinct from known Western retention causes shaped our findings. The evidence presented in this paper sheds new light on employee retention in a Bangladeshi context, where socio-cultural issues challenge the PCB theory, which was developed largely based on Western economies
"A Ronin Without a Master": Exploring Police Perspectives on Digital Evidence in England and Wales
Full text linkDespite digital evidence (DE) now being a major component of most criminal investigations, very few studies have examined how police officers themselves evaluate and use DE over the course of an investigation. Drawing on in-depth interviews with N = 13 police officers from England and Wales, four themes are presented: (i) Sense-making and handling of digital devices and DE in investigations; (ii) The interpretation and reliability of DE; (iii) Strategic use of DE in investigative interviews with suspects, with a subtheme of Digital devices and DE in victim-centered interviews; and (iv) DE in the courtroom. While often seen as objective and infallible, DE is fragile, volatile, and legally complex, highlighting the cognitive and interpretive work that officers must do when dealing with DE. This is important because this work has a direct impact on how investigations proceed, including what is taken from crime scenes and how it is used in investigative interviews. Findings show how DE creates unique challenges and opportunities within investigative interviewing, extending research on strategic disclosure into the digital domain. Future directions include setting up better communication workflows to reduce epistemic drift and offering more DE interpretation training to help officers in an increasingly digital environment
Lower limb muscle strength profiles and injury associations: a two-season prospective cohort study in men's professional rugby union
Full text linkObjectives: To profile professional rugby union players using longitudinal hip, groin and hamstring strength measures and identify characteristics associated with non-contact lower limb injury and reinjury. Design: Prospective cohort study. Methods: 248 players were involved in the study. Over 24 months, injury surveillance data was collected, and a battery of strength tests were conducted at the start of each pre-season and mid-season. The strength tests included: Nordic hamstring exercise (Nordic); hip abduction and adduction at 60° (ABD60, ADD60); and 90° of hip flexion (ABD90 and ADD90). Results: Strength profiles are presented. For the 55 players who featured at the first and last test of the study; Nordic, ADD90 and ABD90 increased in the forwards only (P = 0.002 to 0.01). Strength changes at the end of the study were correlated with measures obtained at the start (r = − 0.38 to − 0.49), and amongst the test battery measures (r = 0.42 to r = 0.68). Hamstring, and hip/groin made up 43 % of lower limb non-contact injuries. Those who sustained a hip/groin injury had greater odds (OR = 4.0, P = 0.0016) of also suffering a hamstring injury. For injured players, only ABD60 reduced post-injury (P = 0.0021). Players who reinjured were characterised by lower pre-injury ADD90; and either higher pre-injury Nordic or an ADD90 that did not improve post-index injury. Pre-season strength profiles remained unchanged for uninjured players. Conclusions: Strength changes were observed overtime, and post-injury. Players who were weaker from the outset improved whilst those who were stronger struggled to maintain strength. Changes from pre-season to in-season are important since most prospective injury studies only measure strength during pre-season. Strong knee flexor strength alone may not protect from reinjury, and further investigations are required to further support the observations that adductor strength is a protective factor in lower limb non-contact reinjury in rugby union players.</p
The clinical and physiological profiles of kissing stents in endovascular reconstruction of aortoiliac occlusive disease
Full text linkAortoiliac occlusive disease affecting the abdominal aorta and iliac arteries is conventionally treated with open surgical repair and is the mainstay of treatment. Endovascular techniques have become a less invasive alternative, especially for high‐risk patients. Kissing stents are particularly useful in this situation and involve the placement of two stents at the aortic bifurcation to achieve satisfactory perfusion to both the iliac arteries. These stents can be bare‐metal or covered stents with varied physiological characteristics and differing clinical outcomes. Bare‐metal stents are more prone to restenosis due to neointimal hyperplasia, whereas covered stents minimise tissue ingrowth and are associated with improved patency. Both in vitro and in vivo studies have demonstrated that stent design and deployment significantly influence blood flow patterns, shear stress and long‐term patency. Radial mismatch and turbulent flow have also been reported to impact the durability of kissing stents. Covered stents tend to outperform bare‐metal stents in complex lesions with lower reintervention rates and improved perfusion as indicated by improvement in ankle‐brachial indices. While short‐term outcomes for kissing stents are favourable, especially in high‐risk patients, long‐term patency remains a concern and requires further evaluation. This review evaluates kissing stents’ clinical performance and physiological implications in aortoiliac occlusive disease and discusses anatomical and pathological considerations in selecting the optimal endovascular strategy
Socio‐economic deprivation and functional exercise capacity: a retrospective observational cohort study
Full text linkThe impact of Medical Associate Professions (MAPs) on the productivity, quality of care, patient and healthcare workforce satisfaction, and budget implications in various healthcare settings: a systematic review
Full text linkBackground Healthcare staff planning in the NHS in the UK has undergone significant changes in recent years, driven by declining productivity, staff shortages, and rising patient demand. Innovative staff planning decisions include implementing new non-medical roles, collectively referred to as “Medical Associate Professions” (MAPs). The MAP roles were established in 2014 and encompass Physician Associates (PAs), Anaesthetic Associates (AAs), and Surgical Care Practitioners (SCPs). This systematic review has been conducted to evaluate and synthesise international evidence on the impact of MAPs on health system productivity, quality of care, patient satisfaction, perceptions of the healthcare workforce regarding roles, and the budget implications of their implementation in various healthcare settings.Method Electronic database searches were conducted using the Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science, and PubMed databases for studies published between 2004 and 2024. Blinded parallel processes were used to screen abstracts and full text of the studies that met the inclusion criteria. Data extraction, narrative synthesis and quality assessments were undertaken for the included studies. The impact on productivity, quality of care, patient and colleague perceptions, and cost-effectiveness of the roles were chosen as the key outcomes of interest. Results A total of 8725 papers were identified following the systematic searching of the databases, and 69 papers were included in the review. These included cost-effectiveness analysis (n=1), cross-sectional studies (n=18), cohort studies (n=29), qualitative studies (n=9), case series studies (n=1), case-control study (n=1), and mixed-method studies (n=10).Conclusions MAPs have the potential to complement traditional workforce configuration to support productivity and quality of care. There is evidence that they are acceptable to patients, and there is mixed evidence about their contribution in the eyes of clinical colleagues. A modest amount of data is available on PAs and much less on SCPs and AAs. Despite most of the papers being of moderate to poor quality, our rigorous and innovative systematic review reflects the evidence that incorporating PAs and SCPs into healthcare can have a positive impact on productivity and the quality of care provided, reduce overall personnel and care costs, and elicit positive feedback from both patients and colleagues when appropriately implemented.PROSPERO registration number CRD42023457692.<br/
