Patellar Tendon Morphology in Trans-tibial Amputees Utilizing a Prosthesis with a Patellar-tendon- Bearing Feature

A patellar-tendon-bearing (PTB) bar is a common design feature used in the socket of trans-tibial prostheses to place load on the pressure-tolerant tissue. As the patellar tendon in the residual limb is subjected to the perpendicular compressive force not commonly experienced in normal tendons, it is possible for tendon degeneration to occur over time. The purpose of this study was to compare patellar tendon morphology and neovascularity between the residual and intact limbs in trans-tibial amputees and healthy controls. Fifteen unilateral trans-tibial amputees who utilized a prosthesis with a PTB feature and 15 age- and sex- matched controls participated. Sonography was performed at the proximal, mid-, and distal portions of each patellar tendon. One-way ANOVAs were conducted to compare thickness and collagen fber organization and a chi-square analysis was used to compare the presence of neovascularity between the three tendon groups. Compared to healthy controls, both tendons in the amputees exhibited increased thickness at the mid- and distal portions and a higher degree of collagen fber disorganization. Furthermore, neovascularity was more common in the tendon of the residual limb. Our results suggest that the use of a prosthesis with a PTB feature contributes to morphological changes in bilateral patellar tendons

Integration of corporate social responsibility into new product development

This study investigated seven core subjects of ISO 26000 to explore the way in which new product development (NPD) links corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy with product development planning. This study thoroughly discussed the implementation of policies that achieve social responsibility within the context of NPD planning. Rapid changes in science and technology mean customer needs are changing faster than ever before, making it increasingly difficult to identify critical customer needs in a timely manner. NPD therefore is essential to enhance enterprise competitiveness. The construction of a CSR-based NPD model can help enterprises in NPD. Using the CSR based NPD model to plan materials selection, specification setting, manufacturing procedures and methods, distribution, servicing and recycling increases enterprise friendliness and happiness, and benefits their sustainable development. The findings of this study suggest that traditional enterprise activities focus on profit maximization and cost minimization. The profit-oriented strategy influences product design, purchase, production, manufacture and delivery. Poor working environment, overtime, low wages, neglect of health and safety, and various deficiencies in CSR frequently occur. If a CSR based perspective is initially adopted to implement public expectations regarding product design, it can be both beneficial and environmentally friendly

Interaction and Interrelation in Social Enterprise Between Entrepreneurship and Social Issues

Social enterprises have gained attention in recent decades. Many universities, private institutions, and government agencies promote social enterprises to solve social problems and create social value. Social entrepreneurship can be materialized in two ways: one from social issues to entrepreneurship and the other from entrepreneurship to social issues. The process from social issues to entrepreneurship is mainly concerned with assisting individuals, disadvantaged groups, or communities in addressing social issues in relation to establishing social enterprises. The process from entrepreneurship to social issues leads existing enterprises or entrepreneurs to explore social issues that may reveal economic opportunities and create social enterprises. This study focuses on these two types of social entrepreneurship and attempts to determine differences between the entrepreneurship and business model, characteristics and entrepreneurial spirits, and social impact. This study employs comprehensive thinking, collation, and analysis of different management patterns and content patterns of social enterprises to understand the different entrepreneurial styles. This study found that social enterprises created from social issues to entrepreneurship were more concerned with other people's problems. Their funding appeared less reliant on earning and repayment. The resources were more diverse. Such social enterprises might focus their care on people or communities they missioned to help and not practice profit or surplus distribution to shareholders. On the contrary, social enterprises from entrepreneurship to social issues were inspired by their own issues. A large part of such social enterprises' funding might be from earnings or repayment. Such social enterprises might involve fewer volunteers, make less use of free services, focus on exchanges of products or services for repayment, and distribute profit or surplus to shareholders

Associations of lower-limb muscle strength performance with static and dynamic balance control among older adults in Taiwan

BackgroundAging is an inevitable process of life development. These physical changes can cause a decline in the functional adaptability and health status of older adult individuals.AimsThe purpose of this study was to investigate the association of lower-limb muscle strength performance with static and dynamic balance control among older adults in Taiwan.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study and reviewed data derived from the National Physical Fitness Survey in Taiwan 2015–2016. A total of 20,846 Taiwanese older adult individuals aged 65 years old or older were recruited as study participants. Demographic characteristics, anthropometric assessments, lifestyle habits, and health-related physical fitness measurements from this dataset were analyzed using the chi-square test, one-way analysis of variance, and linear regression analysis. Lower-limb muscle strength performance was classified into 4 groups based on quartile (Quartile 1 [Q1], Quartile 2 [Q2], Quartile 3 [Q3], and Quartile 4 [Q4]) values.ResultsIncreased lower-limb muscle strength levels were significantly associated with static balance in men (Q2: β = 2.539, p < 0.0001; Q3: β = 4.590, p < 0.0001; Q4: β = 7.700, p < 0.0001) and women (Q2: β = 2.022, p < 0.0001; Q3: β = 4.179, p < 0.0001; Q4: β = 6.920, p < 0.0001) after adjusting for potential confounders. In addition, we observed that increased lower-limb muscle strength levels were significantly associated with dynamic balance in men (Q2: β = −1.661, p < 0.0001; Q3: β = −2.434, p < 0.0001; Q4: β = −3.091, p < 0.0001) and women (Q2: β = −1.660, p < 0.0001; Q3: β = −2.548, p < 0.0001; Q4: β = −3.196, p < 0.0001) after adjusting for potential confounders.ConclusionLower-limb muscle strength was the most important factor, as it was an improved method for static and dynamic balance control in both genders

Leseverständnisfragen und ihre Auswirkungen auf Freude und Leistungen beim mathematischen Modellieren: Was nutzt ein tieferes Situationsverständnis?

Leseverständnis gilt als wichtige Voraussetzung für das erfolgreiche Lösen von Modellierungsaufgaben. Im Beitrag wird berichtet, inwiefern die Modellierungsleistung von Neuntklässlern und ihre Freude an der Aufgabenbearbeitung (N=165) durch das Stellen von Leseverständnisfragen und die damit einhergehende tiefere Beschäftigung mit dem Aufgabentext positiv beeinflusst werden kann

Clinical Temporal Relation Extraction with Probabilistic Soft Logic Regularization and Global Inference

There has been a steady need in the medical community to precisely extract the temporal relations between clinical events. In particular, temporal information can facilitate a variety of downstream applications such as case report retrieval and medical question answering. Existing methods either require expensive feature engineering or are incapable of modeling the global relational dependencies among the events. In this paper, we propose a novel method, Clinical Temporal ReLation Exaction with Probabilistic Soft Logic Regularization and Global Inference (CTRL-PG) to tackle the problem at the document level. Extensive experiments on two benchmark datasets, I2B2-2012 and TB-Dense, demonstrate that CTRL-PG significantly outperforms baseline methods for temporal relation extraction.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 7 tables, accepted by AAAI 202

Gender-Differential Associations between Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Symptoms and Youth Health Risk Behaviors

Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the common developmental disorders that generally receives clinical attention at learning ages, and some symptoms may persist in young adulthood.1 Past research has demonstrated a consistent association between ADHD and youth health risk behaviors (e.g., cigarette smoking), which often develop during adolescence and contribute to early morbidity and mortality among young adults.2 However, ADHD symptoms are not routinely screened in adolescents and emerging adults during their visits to healthcare providers.3 The six-item Adult Self-Report Scale (ASRS-6) for ADHD has been validated in the young population for screening purposes.4 This short form is time-saving and also provides a comparable predictivity of ADHD diagnosis as that of the original long version.5 Although accumulating evidence has demonstrated the association between ADHD symptoms and youth health risk behaviors, this issue has scarcely been explored in the Taiwanese youth population.6 Therefore, this study was conducted to validate the psychometric property of the Chinese version of ASRS-6 and examine the gender-stratified association between ADHD symptoms and youth health risk behaviors