Multiscale Modeling of the Ventricles: From Cellular Electrophysiology to Body Surface Electrocardiograms

This work is focused on different aspects within the loop of multiscale modeling: On the cellular level, effects of adrenergic regulation and the Long-QT syndrome have been investigated. On the organ level, a model for the excitation conduction system was developed and the role of electrophysiological heterogeneities was analyzed. On the torso level a dynamic model of a deforming heart was created and the effects of tissue conductivities on the solution of the forward problem were evaluated

Hochzeitsreisen: Formen und Inhalte : eine empirische Studie zur Hochzeitsreise-Praxis in der Schweiz

Es ist ein weit verbreiteter Brauch in der Schweiz, dass Brautpaare nach ihrer Hochzeit auf Reisen gehen. Lagen die Motivationslagen bis in die späten 1970er Jahren vorab darin, den neuen Ehepartner besser kennen zu lernen und sich auf die kommende Haushaltsgründung einzustellen, sind die Begründungskontexte heute weniger evident. Was veranlasst Brautpaare dazu, einen Brauch weiterzuführen, der vor dem Hintergrund der gewandelten Wert- und Normvorstellungen scheinbar seiner vormaligen Funktionen verlustig gegangen ist? Dieser Frage wird in dieser Untersuchung ebenso nachgegangen, wie der Frage nach den konkreten Formen und Inhalten der Hochzeitsreise von Schweizer Brautpaaren. Als Datengrundlage dienen Interviews mit Hochzeitsreisenden, eine Umfrage unter heiratswilligen Paaren sowie die Befragung wichtiger Akteure im Hochzeitsreisemarkt. Die Untersuchung weist auf der Mikroebene eine vielfältige Hochzeitsreise-Praxis aus. Auf der Makroebene zeigt sich ein wirkungsvoller Hochzeitsreise-Diskurs, der in ein Skript mündet, welches inhaltlich und formal vorgibt, wie eine Hochzeitsreise auszusehen hat. Die Untersuchung "zerlegt" die Hochzeitsreise in ihre Einzelteile und zeigt, dass sich diese trotz variationsreichem Handeln der Hochzeitsreisenden in den individuell arrangierten Reisen wiederfinden. Die Brautpaare positionieren sich in ihrer Hochzeitsreise-Praxis irgendwo zwischen dieser Skriptvorgabe, dem damit einhergehenden, über weite Strecken standardisierten Massenkonsum und der Suche nach der persönlichen, auf die eigenen Bedürfnisse abgestimmte Hochzeitsreise. It is a widespread custom in Switzerland for the bride and groom to go off on honeymoon after their wedding. Up until the late 1970s, the main aim of this trip was for the newlyweds to get to know each other better and as preparation for sharing a household, but the reasons behind honeymoons are less clear today. What makes newlywed couples perpetuate a custom that seems to have lost its previous function as people's values and conventions have changed? This study seeks to provide some answers to this question as well as to give information about the real style and content of Swiss newlyweds' honeymoons. Interviews with honeymooning couples and a survey of couples planning to get married provide the main research data, as well as a questionnaire sent to the major players on the honeymoon market. The study reveals extremely varied practices at the micro level. At the macro level, it shows that there is an effective discourse about honeymoons resulting in a script that prescribes, both in terms of style and content, what a honeymoon has to look like. The study dissects the honeymoon into its constituent parts and shows how these reoccur in each honeymoon in spite of the fact that honeymoon couples plan their trips individually and quite differently from one another. Each couple makes a choice somewhere between what the script requires, what the widely standardised mass market offers in response and their personal search for a honeymoon to match their wishes

Virtual Reality as a Therapy Tool for Walking Activities in Pediatric Neurorehabilitation: Usability and User Experience Evaluation

Background: Many essential walking activities in daily life, such as crossing a street, are challenging to practice in conventional therapeutic settings. Virtual environments (VEs) delivered through a virtual reality (VR) head-mounted display (HMD) would allow training such activities in a safe and attractive environment. Furthermore, the game-like character and high degree of immersion in these applications might help maintain or increase children's motivation and active participation during the rehabilitation process. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the usability, user experience, and acceptability of an immersive VE experienced through a VR HMD to train everyday life walking activities in pediatric neurorehabilitation. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 21 youths (median age 12.1 years; range 6.8-17.7 years) with a neuromotor impairment undergoing inpatient or outpatient neurorehabilitation tested a VE experienced through the VR HMD Oculus Quest. The participants, accompanied by their physiotherapists, moved freely around a 4.4 by 10-meter VE, displaying a magical forest and featuring various gamified everyday activities in different game designs. Using their hands, represented in the VE, the participants could interact with the virtual objects placed throughout the VE and trigger visual and auditory feedback. Symptoms of cybersickness were checked, and usability, user experience, and acceptability were evaluated using customized questionnaires with a visual analog scale for youths and a 5-point Likert scale for their therapists. Results: None of the participants reported any signs of cybersickness after 20 minutes of VR HMD exposure time. They rated comfort (median 10/10) and movement ability (median 10/10) with the VR HMD as high. The VE was perceived as being really there by the majority (median 8/10), and the participants had a strong feeling of spatial presence in the VE (median 9.5/10). They enjoyed exploring the virtual world (median 10/10) and liked this new therapy approach (median 10/10). Therapists' acceptance of the VR HMD was high (4/5). There were 5 patients that needed more support than usual, mainly for supervision, when moving around with the VR HMD. Otherwise, therapists felt that the VR HMD hardly affected their patients' movement behavior (median 4.75/5), whereas it seemed to increase their level of therapy engagement (median 4/5) compared to conventional physiotherapy sessions. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the usability of an immersive VE delivered through a VR HMD to engage youths in the training of everyday walking activities. The participants' and therapists' positive ratings on user experience and acceptance further support the promising application of this technology as a future therapeutic tool in pediatric neurorehabilitation. Keywords: adolescent; auditory; child; feasibility study; feedback; head-mounted display; pediatric; rehabilitation; therapy; tool; usability; user; virtual reality; visual; walking; youth

What do perform competence models? Educational drafts as basis for Dialogic Learning at the Gymnasium

"Kompetenzmodelle, die von Lehrkräften im täglichen Fremdsprachenunterricht verwendet werden, sollten von der natürlichen Komplexität menschlichen Sprachhandelns ausgehen und nicht (nur) auf einer segmentierenden Grammatikprogression basieren. Zudem sollten sie personale, soziale und fachliche Kompetenzen der Schülerinnen und Schüler gleichermaßen fördern". Die Autoren stellen zwei Kompetenzmodelle vor, "welche sich auf unterschiedliche Weise mit Schreibkompetenz in einer Fremdsprache befassen": 1. das Kompetenzmodell aus dem "Gemeinsamen europäischen Referenzrahmen für Sprachen" (GeR), 2. ein Kompetenzmodell, das auf dem Konzept Dialogischen Lernens basiert. (DIPF/Orig./Un)Competency models used by teachers of foreign languages for planning and assessing their courses should be based on the complexity of authentic human communication rather than grammatical progression alone. They should also support and integrate personal, social and demand-specific competencies of students. (DIPF/Orig.

First validation of a novel assessgame quantifying selective voluntary motor control in children with upper motor neuron lesions

Julia Balzer - ORCID 0000-0001-7139-229X https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7139-229XThe question whether novel rehabilitation interventions can exploit restorative rather than compensatory mechanisms has gained momentum in recent years. Assessments measuring selective voluntary motor control could answer this question. However, while current clinical assessments are ordinal-scaled, which could affect their sensitivity, lab-based assessments are costly and time-consuming. We propose a novel, interval-scaled, computer-based assessment game using low-cost accelerometers to evaluate selective voluntary motor control. Participants steer an avatar owl on a star-studded path by moving the targeted joint of the upper or lower extremities. We calculate a target joint accuracy metric, and an outcome score for the frequency and amplitude of involuntary movements of adjacent and contralateral joints as well as the trunk. We detail the methods and, as a first proof of concept, relate the results of select children with upper motor neuron lesions (n = 48) to reference groups of neurologically intact children (n = 62) and adults (n = 64). Linear mixed models indicated that the cumulative therapist score, rating the degree of selectivity, was a good predictor of the involuntary movements outcome score. This highlights the validity of this assessgame approach to quantify selective voluntary motor control and warrants a more thorough exploration to quantify changes induced by restorative interventions.This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant numbers 32003B_156646 and 32003B_179471)https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-56495-89pubpu

Treatment of Resistant Fever: New Method of Local Cerebral Cooling

Background: Fever in neurocritical care patients is common and has a negative impact on neurological outcome. The purpose of this prospective observational study was (1) to evaluate the practicability of cooling with newly developed neck pads in the daily setting of neurointensive care unit (NICU) patients and (2) to evaluate its effectiveness as a surrogate endpoint to indicate the feasibility of neck cooling as a new method for intractable fever. Methods: Nine patients with ten episodes of intractable fever and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage were treated with one of two different shapes of specifically adapted cooling neck pads. Temperature values of the brain, blood, and urinary bladder were taken close meshed after application of the cooling neck pads up to hour8. Results: The brain, blood, and urinary bladder temperatures decreased significantly from hour0 to a minimum in hour5 (P<0.01). After hour5, instead of continuous cooling in all the patients, the temperature of all the three sites remounted. Conclusion: This study showed the practicability of local cooling for intractable fever using the newly developed neck pads in the daily setting of NICU patient