Dimensionality of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale: an exploratory bi-factor analytic study

published_or_final_versio

Managing stress and anxiety through qigong exercise in healthy adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

published_or_final_versio

The effect of qigong on depressive and anxiety symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

published_or_final_versio

Supporting women throughout the postpartum period: marital satisfaction and their emotional health

Conference Theme: Women's Health through the Life Cycle: the Asia PerspectivesPoster Presentation: no. 2postprintThe 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Centre of Research and Promotion of Women's Health, School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 2-3 March 2011. In Symposium Abstract Book, 2011, p. 4

Use of Preference Analysis to Identify Early Adopter Mind-Sets of Insect-Based Food Products

Insects may potentially provide an alternative protein source. However, consumers may not easily accept insects due to feelings of disgust. Therefore, identifying early adopters of insect-based food products may determine their future acceptance. This study was conducted to (1) identify early adopter Mind-Sets of insect-based food products, (2) determine product features early adopters would prefer in an insect-based food product, and (3) determine differences in Mind-Sets in different countries. Two studies were distributed online in the US and the Philippines. The first study included information about insects, while the second study had no information on insects. The experimental design included elements, or product features, regarding insect-based products that participants evaluated. Preference Analysis was used to segment the participants into Mind-Sets. Based on the results, participants neither liked nor disliked the elements used. Participants in the studies without insect information were found to have higher liking when comparing liking. Participants who were aware of the study being about insects may have had less interest when evaluating the elements, as the response times between the US studies were significantly different (p < 0.05). The role of information and segmentation of the participants demonstrates the importance of experimental design when using Preference Analysis

Detecting neuroimaging biomarkers for schizophrenia:a meta-analysis of multivariate pattern recognition studies

Multivariate pattern recognition approaches have recently facilitated the search for reliable neuroimaging-based biomarkers in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. By taking into account the multivariate nature of brain functional and structural changes as well as their distributed localization across the whole brain, they overcome drawbacks of traditional univariate approaches. To evaluate the overall reliability of neuroimaging-based biomarkers, we conducted a comprehensive literature search to identify all studies that used multivariate pattern recognition to identify patterns of brain alterations that differentiate patients with schizophrenia from healthy controls. A bivariate random-effects meta-analytic model was implemented to investigate the sensitivity and specificity across studies as well as to assess the robustness to potentially confounding variables. In the total sample of n=38 studies (1602 patients and 1637 healthy controls), patients were differentiated from controls with a sensitivity of 80.3% (95% CI: 76.7–83.5%) and a specificity of 80.3% (95% CI: 76.9–83.3%). Analysis of neuroimaging modality indicated higher sensitivity (84.46%, 95% CI: 79.9–88.2%) and similar specificity (76.9%, 95% CI: 71.3–81.6%) of rsfMRI studies as compared with structural MRI studies (sensitivity: 76.4%, 95% CI: 71.9–80.4%, specificity of 79.0%, 95% CI: 74.6–82.8%). Moderator analysis identified significant effects of age (p=0.029), imaging modality (p=0.019), and disease stage (p=0.025) on sensitivity as well as of positive-to-negative symptom ratio (p=0.022) and antipsychotic medication (p=0.016) on specificity. Our results underline the utility of multivariate pattern recognition approaches for the identification of reliable neuroimaging-based biomarkers. Despite the clinical heterogeneity of the schizophrenia phenotype, brain functional and structural alterations differentiate schizophrenic patients from healthy controls with 80% sensitivity and specificity

Balancing wheeled robot

Inverted pendulum has long been the interest of control engineers. The concept of two wheeled balancing robot is based on the inverted pendulum theory. A suitable control system is needed to control the system so that it is balanced and stable. The main purpose of this project is to use a good control strategy to keep the body of the robot upright. This dissertation applies the idea of non-linear control strategy and analyses its effectiveness. The non-linear control strategy requires a good understanding of the inverted pendulum system. The knowledge is then implemented in programming to program the microcontroller. This is particularly important in low-level assembly language, which is used in this project