Translating the Dutch walking stairs, walking ability and rising and sitting questionnaires into German and assessing their concurrent validity with VAS measures of pain and activities in daily living

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Dutch Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires are three validated instruments to measure physical activity and limitations in daily living in patients with lower extremity disorders living at home of which no German equivalents are available. Our scope was to translate the Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires into German and to verify its concurrent validity in the two domains pain and activities in daily living by comparing them with the corresponding measures on the Visual Analogue Scale.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We translated the Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires according to published guidelines. Demographic data and validity were assessed in 52 consecutive patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 of the lower extremity. Information on age, duration of symptoms, type of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 and type of initiating event were obtained. We assessed the concurrent validity in the two domains pain and activities in daily living by comparing them with the corresponding measures on the Visual Analogue Scale.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that variability in the German Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Rising and Sitting Questionnaires was largely explained by measures of pain and activities in daily living on the Visual Analogue Scale.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study shows that the domains pain and activities in daily living are properly represented in the German versions of the Walking Stairs, Walking Ability and Raising and Sitting Questionnaires. We would like to propagate their use in clinical practice and research alike.</p

German translation and external validation of the Radboud Skills Questionnaire in patients suffering from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1

BACKGROUND: Patients suffering from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome commonly complain of substantial limitations in their activities of daily living. The Radboud Skills Questionnaire measures alterations in the level of disability of patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, but this instrument is currently not available in German. The goals of our study were to translate the Dutch Radboud Skills Questionnaire into German and to assess its external criterion validity with the German version of the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire. METHODS: We translated the Radboud Skills Questionnaire according to published guidelines. Demographic data and validity were assessed in 57 consecutive patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 of the upper extremity. Information on age, duration of symptoms, type of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 and type of initiating event was obtained. We assessed the external criterion validity by comparing the German Radboud Skills Questionnaire and the German Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire and calculated the prediction intervals. RESULTS: Score values ranged from 55.4 +/- 22.0 for the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire score and 140.1 +/- 39.2 for the Radboud Skills Questionnaire. We found a high correlation between the Radboud Skills Questionnaire and the Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand Questionnaire (R2 = 0.83). CONCLUSION: This validation of the Radboud Skills Questionnaire demonstrates that this German version is a simple and accurate instrument to assess and quantify disabilities of patients suffering from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 of the upper extremity for clinical and research purposes

Complex regional pain syndrome 1 – the Swiss cohort study

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the course of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome 1 and potential factors influencing the course of this disorder over time. The goal of this study is a) to set up a database with patients suffering from suspected CRPS 1 in an initial stadium, b) to perform investigations on epidemiology, diagnosis, prognosis, and socioeconomics within the database and c) to develop a prognostic risk assessment tool for patients with CRPS 1 taking into account symptomatology and specific therapies. METHODS/DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. Patients suffering from a painful swelling of the hand or foot which appeared within 8 weeks after a trauma or a surgery and which cannot be explained by conditions that would otherwise account for the degree of pain and dysfunction will be included. In accordance with the recommendations of International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF model), standardised and validated questionnaires will be used. Patients will be monitored over a period of 2 years at 6 scheduled visits (0 and 6 weeks, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months). Each visit involves a physical examination, registration of therapeutic interventions, and completion of the various study questionnaires. Outcomes involve changes in health status, quality of life and costs/utility. DISCUSSION: This paper describes the rationale and design of patients with CRPS 1. Ideally, potential risk factors may be identified at an early stage in order to initiate an early and adequate treatment in patients with increased risk for delayed recovery

Pantropical modelling of canopy functional traits using Sentinel-2 remote sensing data

Funding Information: This work is a product of the Global Ecosystems Monitoring (GEM) network (gem.tropicalforests.ox.ac.uk). J.A.G. was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; NE/T011084/1 and NE/S011811/1) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under the Rubicon programme with project number 019.162LW.010. The traits field campaign was funded by a grant to Y.M. from the European Research Council (Advanced Grant GEM-TRAIT: 321131) under the European Union‘s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), with additional support from NERC Grant NE/D014174/1 and NE/J022616/1 for traits work in Peru, NERC Grant ECOFOR (NE/K016385/1) for traits work in Santarem, NERC Grant BALI (NE/K016369/1) for plot and traits work in Malaysia and ERC Advanced Grant T-FORCES (291585) to Phillips for traits work in Australia. Plot setup in Ghana and Gabon were funded by a NERC Grant NE/I014705/1 and by the Royal Society-Leverhulme Africa Capacity Building Programme. The Malaysia campaign was also funded by NERC GrantNE/K016253/1. Plot inventories in Peru were supported by funding from the US National Science Foundation Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology program (LTREB; DEB 1754647) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Andes-Amazon Program. Plots inventories in Nova Xavantina (Brazil) were supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Long Term Ecological Research Program (PELD), Proc. 441244/2016-5, and the Foundation of Research Support of Mato Grosso (FAPEMAT), Project ReFlor, Proc. 589267/2016. During data collection, I.O. was supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF-327990). GEM trait data in Gabon was collected under authorisation to Y.M. and supported by the Gabon National Parks Agency. D.B. was funded by the Fondation Wiener-Anspach. W.D.K. acknowledges support from the Faculty Research Cluster ‘Global Ecology’ of the University of Amsterdam. M.S. was funded by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic (INTER-TRANSFER LTT19018). Y.M. is supported by the Jackson Foundation. We thank the two anonymous reviewers and Associate Editor G. Henebry for their insightful comments that helped improved this manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin

Identification of Linear Vegetation Elements in a Rural Landscape Using LiDAR Point Clouds

Modernization of agricultural land use across Europe is responsible for a substantial decline of linear vegetation elements such as tree lines, hedgerows, riparian vegetation, and green lanes. These linear objects have an important function for biodiversity, e.g., as ecological corridors and local habitats for many animal and plant species. Knowledge on their spatial distribution is therefore essential to support conservation strategies and regional planning in rural landscapes but detailed inventories of such linear objects are often lacking. Here, we propose a method to detect linear vegetation elements in agricultural landscapes using classification and segmentation of high-resolution Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) point data. To quantify the 3D structure of vegetation, we applied point cloud analysis to identify point-based and neighborhood-based features. As a preprocessing step, we removed planar surfaces such as grassland, bare soil, and water bodies from the point cloud using a feature that describes to what extent the points are scattered in the local neighborhood. We then applied a random forest classifier to separate the remaining points into vegetation and other. Subsequently, a rectangularity-based region growing algorithm allowed to segment the vegetation points into 2D rectangular objects, which were then classified into linear objects based on their elongatedness. We evaluated the accuracy of the linear objects against a manually delineated validation set. The results showed high user’s (0.80), producer’s (0.85), and total accuracies (0.90). These findings are a promising step towards testing our method in other regions and for upscaling it to broad spatial extents. This would allow producing detailed inventories of linear vegetation elements at regional and continental scales in support of biodiversity conservation and regional planning in agricultural and other rural landscapes

Introducing gene deletions by mouse zygote electroporation of Cas12a/Cpf1

CRISPR-associated (Cas) nucleases are established tools for engineering of animal genomes. These programmable RNA-guided nucleases have been introduced into zygotes using expression vectors, mRNA, or directly as ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes by different delivery methods. Whereas microinjection techniques are well established, more recently developed electroporation methods simplify RNP delivery but can provide less consistent efficiency. Previously, we have designed Cas12a-crRNA pairs to introduce large genomic deletions in the Ubn1, Ubn2, and Rbm12 genes in mouse embryonic stem cells (ESC). Here, we have optimized the conditions for electroporation of the same Cas12a RNP pairs into mouse zygotes. Using our protocol, large genomic deletions can be generated efficiently by electroporation of zygotes with or without an intact zona pellucida. Electroporation of as few as ten zygotes is sufficient to obtain a gene deletion in mice suggesting potential applicability of this method for species with limited availability of zygotes.</p

Whole Body magnetic resonance imaging features in diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis in conjunction with clinical variables to whole body MRI and clinical variables in ankylosing spondylitis

OBJECTIVE Discrimination of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) can be challenging. Usefulness of whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (WB-MRI) in diagnosing spondyloarthritis has been recently proved. We assessed the value of clinical variables alone and in combination with WB-MRI to distinguish between DISH and AS. METHODS Diagnostic case-control study: 33 patients with AS and 15 patients with DISH were included. All patients underwent 1.5 Tesla WB-MRI scanning. MR scans were read by a blinded radiologist using the Canadian-Danish Working Group's recommendation. Imaging and clinical variables were identified using the bootstrap. The most important variables from MR and clinical history were assessed in a multivariate fashion resulting in 3 diagnostic models (MRI, clinical, and combined). The discriminative capacity was quantified using the area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve. The strength of diagnostic variables was quantified with OR. RESULTS Forty-eight patients provided 1545 positive findings (193 DISH/1352 AS). The final MR model contained upper anterior corner fat infiltration (32 DISH/181 AS), ankylosis on the vertebral endplate (4 DISH/60 AS), facet joint ankylosis (4 DISH/49 AS), sacroiliac joint edema (11 DISH/91 AS), sacroiliac joint fat infiltration (2 DISH/114 AS), sacroiliac joint ankylosis (2 DISH/119 AS); area under the ROC curve was 0.71, 95% CI 0.64-0.78. The final clinical model contained patient's age and body mass index (area under the ROC curve 0.90, 95% CI 0.89-0.91). The full diagnostic model containing clinical and MR information had an area under the ROC curve of 0.93 (95% CI 0.92-0.95). CONCLUSION WB-MRI features can contribute to the correct diagnosis after a thorough conventional workup of patients with DISH and AS