1,475 research outputs found
Rest intervals during virtual reality gaming augments standing postural sway disturbance
Immersive virtual reality (VR) can cause acute sickness, visual disturbance, and balance impairment. Some manufacturers recommend intermittent breaks to overcome these issues; however, limited evidence examining whether this is beneficial exists. The aim of this study was to examine whether taking breaks during VR gaming reduced its effect on postural sway during standing balance assessments. Twenty-five people participated in this crossover design study, performing 50 min of VR gaming either continuously or with intermittent 10 min exposure/rest intervals. Standing eyes open, two-legged balance assessments were performed immediately pre-, immediately post- and 40 min post-exposure. The primary outcome measure was total path length; secondary measures included independent axis path velocity, amplitude, standard deviation, discrete and continuous wavelet transform-derived variables, and detrended fluctuation analysis. Total path length was significantly (p < 0.05) reduced immediately post-VR gaming exposure in the intermittent rest break group both in comparison to within-condition baseline values and between-condition timepoint results. Conversely, it remained consistent across timepoints in the continuous exposure group. These changes consisted of a more clustered movement speed pattern about a lower central frequency, evidenced by signal frequency content. These findings indicate that caution is required before recommending rest breaks during VR exposure until we know more about how balance and falls risk are affected.Ross Allan Clark, Ancret Szpak, Stefan Carlo Michalski, and Tobias Loetsche
Added value of frailty and social support in predicting risk of 30-day unplanned re-admission or death for patients with heart failure: an analysis from OPERA-HF
Background:
Models for predicting the outcome of patients hospitalized for heart failure (HF) rarely take a holistic view. We assessed the ability of measures of frailty and social support in addition to demographic, clinical, imaging and laboratory variables to predict short-term outcome for patients discharged after a hospitalization for HF.
Methods:
OPERA-HF is a prospective observational cohort, enrolling patients hospitalized for HF in a single center in Hull, UK. Variables were combined in a logistic regression model after multiple imputation of missing data to predict the composite outcome of death or readmission at 30âŻdays. Comparisons were made to a model using clinical variables alone. The discriminative performance of each model was internally validated with bootstrap re-sampling.
Results:
1094 patients were included (mean age 77 [interquartile range 68â83] years; 40% women; 56% with moderate to severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction) of whom 213 (19%) had an unplanned re-admission and 60 (5%) died within 30âŻdays. For the composite outcome, a model containing clinical variables alone had an area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.68 [95% CI 0.64â0.72]. Adding marital status, support from family and measures of physical frailty increased the AUC (pâŻ<âŻ0.05) to 0.70 [95% CI 0.66â0.74].
Conclusions:
Measures of physical frailty and social support improve prediction of 30-day outcome after an admission for HF but predicting near-term events remains imperfect. Further external validation and improvement of the model is required
Jastrow-type calculations of one-nucleon removal reactions on open - shell nuclei
Single-particle overlap functions and spectroscopic factors are calculated on
the basis of Jastrow-type one-body density matrices of open-shell nuclei
constructed by using a factor cluster expansion. The calculations use the
relationship between the overlap functions corresponding to bound states of the
-particle system and the one-body density matrix for the ground state of
the -particle system. In this work we extend our previous analyses of
reactions on closed-shell nuclei by using the resulting overlap functions for
the description of the cross sections of reactions on the open -
shell nuclei Mg, Si and S and of S
reaction. The relative role of both shell structure and short-range
correlations incorporated in the correlation approach on the spectroscopic
factors and the reaction cross sections is pointed out.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Quenching of Weak Interactions in Nucleon Matter
We have calculated the one-body Fermi and Gamow-Teller charge-current, and
vector and axial-vector neutral-current nuclear matrix elements in nucleon
matter at densities of 0.08, 0.16 and 0.24 fm and proton fractions
ranging from 0.2 to 0.5. The correlated states for nucleon matter are obtained
by operating on Fermi-gas states by a symmetrized product of pair correlation
operators determined from variational calculations with the Argonne v18 and
Urbana IX two- and three-nucleon interactions. The squares of the charge
current matrix elements are found to be quenched by 20 to 25 % by the
short-range correlations in nucleon matter. Most of the quenching is due to
spin-isospin correlations induced by the pion exchange interactions which
change the isospins and spins of the nucleons. A large part of it can be
related to the probability for a spin up proton quasi-particle to be a bare
spin up/down proton/neutron. We also calculate the matrix elements of the
nuclear Hamiltonian in the same correlated basis. These provide relatively mild
effective interactions which give the variational energies in the Hartree-Fock
approximation. The calculated two-nucleon effective interaction describes the
spin-isospin susceptibilities of nuclear and neutron matter fairly accurately.
However 3-body terms are necessary to reproduce the compressibility. All
presented results use the simple 2-body cluster approximation to calculate the
correlated basis matrix elements.Comment: submitted to PR
Phase Behavior of Bent-Core Molecules
Recently, a new class of smectic liquid crystal phases (SmCP phases)
characterized by the spontaneous formation of macroscopic chiral domains from
achiral bent-core molecules has been discovered. We have carried out Monte
Carlo simulations of a minimal hard spherocylinder dimer model to investigate
the role of excluded volume interations in determining the phase behavior of
bent-core materials and to probe the molecular origins of polar and chiral
symmetry breaking. We present the phase diagram as a function of pressure or
density and dimer opening angle . With decreasing , a transition
from a nonpolar to a polar smectic phase is observed near ,
and the nematic phase becomes thermodynamically unstable for . No chiral smectic or biaxial nematic phases were found.Comment: 4 pages Revtex, 3 eps figures (included
Kinetics of plasma cellâfree DNA and creatine kinase in a canine model of tissue injury
Background:
Cellâfree DNA (cfDNA) comprises short, doubleâstranded circulating DNA sequences released from damaged cells. In people, cfDNA concentrations correlate well with disease severity and tissue damage. No reports are available regarding cfDNA kinetics in dogs.
Objectives/Hypothesis:
Cellâfree DNA will have a short biological halfâlife and would be able to stratify mild, moderate, and severe tissue injury. Our study aims were to determine the kinetics and biological halfâlife of cfDNA and to contrast them with those of creatine kinase (CK).
Animals:
Three groups of 10 dogs undergoing open ovariohysterectomy, surgery for cranial cruciate ligament rupture (CCLR), or hemilaminectomy.
Methods:
Plasma for cfDNA and CK analysis was collected at admission, at induction of anesthesia, postsurgery (time 0) and at 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, and 72 hours after surgery.
Results:
The biological halfâlife of plasma cfDNA and CK were 5.64 hours (95% confidence interval [CI 95], 4.36â7.98 hours) and 28.7 hours (CI95, 25.3â33.3 hours), respectively. In the hemilaminectomy group, cfDNA concentrations differed significantly from admission at 6â12 hours after surgery. Creatine kinase activity differed among the surgical groups and reached a peak 6 hours after surgery. In the ovariohysterectomy and CCLR groups, plasma CK activity 72 hours after surgery did not differ from admission activity of the ovariohysterectomy group. In contrast, in the hemilaminectomy group, plasma CK activity after 72 hours did not return to the ovariohysterectomy group admission activity.
Conclusions and Clinical Importance:
Plasma CK activity has a longer biological halfâlife than previously thought. In contrast to plasma CK activity, cfDNA has a short halfâlife and could be a useful marker for peracute severe tissue injury
Theory of laser ion acceleration from a foil target of nanometers
A theory for laser ion acceleration is presented to evaluate the maximum ion
energy in the interaction of ultrahigh contrast (UHC) intense laser with a
nanometer-scale foil. In this regime the energy of ions may be directly related
to the laser intensity and subsequent electron dynamics. This leads to a simple
analytical expression for the ion energy gain under the laser irradiation of
thin targets. Significantly, higher energies for thin targets than for thicker
targets are predicted. Theory is concretized to the details of recent
experiments which may find its way to compare with these results.Comment: 22 pages 7 figures. will be submitted to NJ
Review of progress in Fast Ignition
Copyright 2005 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Physics of Plasmas, 12(5), 057305, 2005 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.187124
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