Track Your Stress: Konzeption und Realisierung einer mobilen (Android) Anwendung zur Messung des Stresslevels

Ein immer wichtiger werdendes Thema in unserer heutigen Gesellschaft ist Stress. Von vielen Personen unbewusst oder bewusst unterschätzt, schleichen sich stetig verschiedene Stressfaktoren und Stressauslöser in unser Leben. Sei dies im alltäglichen Leben, Zuhause, bei der Arbeit, beim Sport oder sogar im Familienurlaub. Die meisten Menschen kommen nicht darum herum, hin und wieder gestresst zu sein und stressbedingte Krankheiten werden in unserer Gesellschaft leider immer häufiger. Wie negativ sich andauernder Stress oder zu viel Stress auf die Gesundheit eines jeden Menschen auswirken kann, wird immer öfter studiert und ist auch teilweise schon erwiesen worden. Langfristig sollte es das Ziel sein, möglichst alle Stressursachen zu verringern oder gar zu eliminieren, um der Gesellschaft ein stressfreies und somit auch gesünderes Leben zu ermöglichen, denn schon in der Antike gab es die Weisheit „Mens sana in corpore sano“, was grob übersetzt „ein gesunder Geist in einem gesunden Körper“ bedeutet1. In Zukunft sollen daher auch Unternehmen und Arbeitgeber dazu verpflichtet sein, den Stresslevel eines Arbeitnehmers zu erfassen und auf Grundlage dieser Erhebungen den Stresslevel einer jeden Person möglichst gering zu halten. Das Projekt Track Your Stress soll ein Anfang sein, um das Stresslevel einer jeden Person messen und bestimmen zu können, sowie die teilnehmenden Personen sensibler auf dieses oftmals unterschätzte Thema reagieren zu lassen. Hierfür zeigt die Arbeit, wie auf mobilen (Android) Geräten das jeweils eigene Stresslevel, unter unterschiedlichen Bedingungen und zu unterschiedlichen Zeitpunkten, wahrgenommen wird und wie dies visualisiert werden kann. Dies wird im Detail vorgestellt, sowie aus technischer Sicht betrachtet. Weiter wird aufgezeigt, wie ein solches Projekt architektonisch zu realisieren ist. Zusätzlich wird in dieser Arbeit auf spezielle Implementierungsthemen eingegangen. Am Ende entstand eine voll funktionsfähige mobile Anwendung zur Unterstützung der Messung des Stresslevels einer jeden Person bzw. eines jeden Nutzers der mobilen Anwendung. Des Weiteren kann das Projekt in dieser Form auch auf andere Zwecke übertragen und genutzt werden, wie z.B. zur Ermessung und Unterstützung bei chronischen Erkrankungen, bezüglich deren Symptome und daraus entstehenden Einschränkungen etc.

Konzeption und Realisierung eines Moduls für auditorische Stimulationen für eine multizentrische und multinationale mHealth-App für eine paneuropäische Tinnitus-Studie

Im Rahmen des europäischen UNITI-Projekts soll eine multizentrische und multinationale mHealth-Applikation entwickelt und realisiert werden, wobei ein Modul für eben jene auditorische Stimulation implementiert und integriert wird. Diese Arbeit zeigt, wie sich Personen bzw. Patienten selbstständig auf mobilen Android Geräten, innerhalb jener UNITI-Applikation, jederzeit auditiv stimulieren können. Ferner soll diese Arbeit dazu beitragen Betroffene mit ihrer Erkrankung zu unterstützen und zu einem besseren Wohlbefinden führen, indem die wahrgenommenen Geräusche reduziert werden. Zudem erhofft sich die Forschung im Bereich Tinnitus für die Zukunft, durch Feedbacks und Befragungen der Patienten, bessere Therapieverfahren und Heilungsmöglichkeiten zu erhalten. Die Gesamtfunktionalität dieser Android mHealth-Applikation und vor allem die Funktionalität des Moduls für auditorische Stimulation werden detailliert dargestellt, sowie aus technischer Sicht betrachtet. Weiter wird aufgezeigt, wie ein solches Projekt architektonisch zu realisieren ist. Zusätzlich werden in dieser Arbeit spezielle Implementierungsthemen hervorgehoben. Am Ende steht eine voll funktionsfähige mobile Applikation zur Unterstützung von Tinnitus Patienten. Vermutet wird, dass eine auditive Stimulation viele positive Effekte mit sich bringt, wodurch das Projekt in dieser Form auch auf andere Zwecke übertragen werden kann. Beispiele hierfür sind die Unterstützung bei psychischen Erkrankungen, Schlafstörungen, Hörproblemen oder die Verbesserung der Aufmerksamkeit und Konzentration, sowie eine Hilfe beim Entspannen

Scanning Tunneling Microscope Operating as a Spin-diode

We theoretically investigate spin-polarized transport in a system composed of a ferromagnetic Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) tip coupled to an adsorbed atom (adatom) on a host surface. Electrons can tunnel directly from the tip to the surface or via the adatom. Since the tip is ferromagnetic and the host surface (metal or semiconductor) is non-magnetic we obtain a spin-diode effect when the adatom is in the regime of single occupancy. This effect leads to an unpolarized current for direct bias (V > 0) and polarized current for reverse (V < 0) bias voltages, if the tip is nearby the adatom. Within the nonequilibrium Keldysh technique we analyze the interplay between the lateral displacement of the tip and the intra adatom Coulomb interaction on the spindiode effect. As the tip moves away from the adatom the spin-diode effect vanishes and the currents become polarized for both V > 0 and V < 0. We also find an imbalance between the up and down spin populations in the adatom, which can be tuned by the tip position and the bias. Finally, due to the presence of the adsorbate on the surface, we observe spin-resolved Friedel oscillations in the current, which reflects the oscillations in the calculated LDOS of the subsystem surface+adatom.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Submitte

How defects in lanthanum iron manganite perovskite structures promote the catalytic reduction of NO by CO

Adjusting the defect level during synthesis of A- and B-site deficient lanthanum iron manganite (LFM) perovskites shows that non-stoichiometry can beneficially influence the catalytic reactivity to N2 in the reduction of NO by CO on noble metal-free LFM-based perovskites. Optimal steering of La deficiency and the associated redox chemistry to reduce the near-surface regions during catalytic operation at low temperatures is the key factor. Surface enrichment by reducible B site cations and a proper design of structural defects resulting from the optimum introduction of La defects exclusively cause in-situ reduction of surface-near regions by CO oxidation, as well as formation of oxygen vacancies for enhanced NO and N2O reactivity. Excess doping with defects causes structural instability and continuous supply of oxygen from the catalyst bulk to the surface at elevated temperatures. Introduction of B site vacancies leads to surface enrichment by non-reducible lanthanum cations, causing suppressed catalyst activity undercutting even stoichiometric LFM

Hsp70 enhances presentation of FMDV antigen to bovine CD4+ T cells in vitro

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) is the causative agent of a highly contagious acute vesicular disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals, including cattle, sheep and pigs. The current vaccine induces a rapid humoral response, but the duration of the protective antibody response is variable, possibly associated with a variable specific CD4+ T cell response. We investigated the use of heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) as a molecular chaperone to target viral antigen to the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class II pathway of antigen presenting cells and generate enhanced MHC II-restricted CD4+ T cell responses in cattle. Monocytes and CD4+ T cells from FMDV vaccinated cattle were stimulated in vitro with complexes of Hsp70 and FMDV peptide, or peptide alone. Hsp70 was found to consistently improve the presentation of a 25-mer FMDV peptide to CD4+ T cells, as measured by T cell proliferation. Complex formation was required for the enhanced effects and Hsp70 alone did not stimulate proliferation. This study provides further evidence that Hsp70:peptide complexes can enhance antigen-specific CD4+ T cell responses in vitro for an important pathogen of livestock

Corona Health -- A Study- and Sensor-based Mobile App Platform Exploring Aspects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Physical and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic is typically assessed via surveys, which might make it difficult to conduct longitudinal studies and might lead to data suffering from recall bias. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) driven smartphone apps can help alleviate such issues, allowing for in situ recordings. Implementing such an app is not trivial, necessitates strict regulatory and legal requirements, and requires short development cycles to appropriately react to abrupt changes in the pandemic. Based on an existing app framework, we developed Corona Health, an app that serves as a platform for deploying questionnaire-based studies in combination with recordings of mobile sensors. In this paper, we present the technical details of Corona Health and provide first insights into the collected data. Through collaborative efforts from experts from public health, medicine, psychology, and computer science, we released Corona Health publicly on Google Play and the Apple App Store (in July, 2020) in 8 languages and attracted 7,290 installations so far. Currently, five studies related to physical and mental well-being are deployed and 17,241 questionnaires have been filled out. Corona Health proves to be a viable tool for conducting research related to the COVID-19 pandemic and can serve as a blueprint for future EMA-based studies. The data we collected will substantially improve our knowledge on mental and physical health states, traits and trajectories as well as its risk and protective factors over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and its diverse prevention measures

Quality of life in South East Asian patients who consult for dyspepsia: Validation of the short form Nepean Dyspepsia Index

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

COordination of Standards in MetabOlomicS (COSMOS): facilitating integrated metabolomics data access

Metabolomics has become a crucial phenotyping technique in a range of research fields including medicine, the life sciences, biotechnology and the environmental sciences. This necessitates the transfer of experimental information between research groups, as well as potentially to publishers and funders. After the initial efforts of the metabolomics standards initiative, minimum reporting standards were proposed which included the concepts for metabolomics databases. Built by the community, standards and infrastructure for metabolomics are still needed to allow storage, exchange, comparison and re-utilization of metabolomics data. The Framework Programme 7 EU Initiative ‘coordination of standards in metabolomics’ (COSMOS) is developing a robust data infrastructure and exchange standards for metabolomics data and metadata. This is to support workflows for a broad range of metabolomics applications within the European metabolomics community and the wider metabolomics and biomedical communities’ participation. Here we announce our concepts and efforts asking for re-engagement of the metabolomics community, academics and industry, journal publishers, software and hardware vendors, as well as those interested in standardisation worldwide (addressing missing metabolomics ontologies, complex-metadata capturing and XML based open source data exchange format), to join and work towards updating and implementing metabolomics standards

Toward interoperable bioscience data

© The Author(s), 2012. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Genetics 44 (2012): 121-126, doi:10.1038/ng.1054.To make full use of research data, the bioscience community needs to adopt technologies and reward mechanisms that support interoperability and promote the growth of an open 'data commoning' culture. Here we describe the prerequisites for data commoning and present an established and growing ecosystem of solutions using the shared 'Investigation-Study-Assay' framework to support that vision.The authors also acknowledge the following funding sources in particular: UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) BB/I000771/1 to S.-A.S. and A.T.; UK BBSRC BB/I025840/1 to S.-A.S.; UK BBSRC BB/I000917/1 to D.F.; EU CarcinoGENOMICS (PL037712) to J.K.; US National Institutes of Health (NIH) 1RC2CA148222-01 to W.H. and the HSCI; US MIRADA LTERS DEB-0717390 and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (ICoMM) to L.A.-Z.; Swiss Federal Government through the Federal Office of Education and Science (FOES) to L.B. and I.X.; EU Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Open PHACTS 115191 to C.T.E.; US Department of Energy (DOE) DE-AC02- 06CH11357 and Arthur P. Sloan Foundation (2011- 6-05) to J.G.; UK BBSRC SysMO-DB2 BB/I004637/1 and BBG0102181 to C.G.; UK BBSRC BB/I000933/1 to C.S. and J.L.G.; UK MRC UD99999906 to J.L.G.; US NIH R21 MH087336 (National Institute of Mental Health) and R00 GM079953 (National Institute of General Medical Science) to A.L.; NIH U54 HG006097 to J.C. and C.E.S.; Australian government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS); BIRN U24-RR025736 and BioScholar RO1-GM083871 to G.B. and the 2009 Super Science initiative to C.A.S