34 research outputs found
Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the VISA-A questionnaire for German-speaking Achilles tendinopathy patients
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Achilles tendinopathy is the predominant overuse injury in runners. To further investigate this overload injury in transverse and longitudinal studies a valid, responsive and reliable outcome measure is demanded. Most questionnaires have been developed for English-speaking populations. This is also true for the VISA-A score, so far representing the only valid, reliable, and disease specific questionnaire for Achilles tendinopathy. To internationally compare research results, to perform multinational studies or to exclude bias originating from subpopulations speaking different languages within one country an equivalent instrument is demanded in different languages. The aim of this study was therefore to cross-cultural adapt and validate the VISA-A questionnaire for German-speaking Achilles tendinopathy patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>According to the "guidelines for the process of cross-cultural adaptation of self-report measures" the VISA-A score was cross-culturally adapted into German (VISA-A-G) using six steps: Translation, synthesis, back translation, expert committee review, pretesting (n = 77), and appraisal of the adaptation process by an advisory committee determining the adequacy of the cross-cultural adaptation. The resulting VISA-A-G was then subjected to an analysis of reliability, validity, and internal consistency in 30 Achilles tendinopathy patients and 79 asymptomatic people. Concurrent validity was tested against a generic tendon grading system (Percy and Conochie) and against a classification system for the effect of pain on athletic performance (Curwin and Stanish).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The "advisory committee" determined the VISA-A-G questionnaire as been translated "acceptable". The VISA-A-G questionnaire showed moderate to excellent test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.60 to 0.97). Concurrent validity showed good coherence when correlated with the grading system of Curwin and Stanish (rho = -0.95) and for the Percy and Conochie grade of severity (rho 0.95). Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for the total VISA-A-G scores of the patients was calculated to be 0.737.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The VISA-A questionnaire was successfully cross-cultural adapted and validated for use in German speaking populations. The psychometric properties of the VISA-A-G questionnaire are similar to those of the original English version. It therefore can be recommended as a sufficiently robust tool for future measuring clinical severity of Achilles tendinopathy in German speaking patients.</p
Are earth sciences lagging behind in data integration methodologies?
This article reflects discussions German and South
African Earth scientists, statisticians and risk analysts
had on occasion of two bilateral workshops on Data
Integration Technologies for Earth System Modelling
and Resource Management. The workshops were
held in October 2012 at Leipzig, Germany, and April
2013 at Pretoria, South Africa, and were attended by
about 70 researchers, practitioners and data managers
of both countries. Both events were arranged as
part of the South African-German Year of Science
2012/2013. The South African National Research
Foundation (NRF, UID 81579) has supported the two
workshops as part of the South African--German Year
of Science activities 2012/2013 established by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
and the South African Department of Science and
Technology.http://link.springer.com/journal/12665hb201
Boundary value problems with compatible boundary conditions
summary:If is a subset of the space , we call a pair of continuous functions , -compatible, if they map the space into itself and satisfy , for all with . (Dot denotes inner product.) In this paper a nonlinear two point boundary value problem for a second order ordinary differential -dimensional system is investigated, provided the boundary conditions are given via a pair of compatible mappings. By using a truncation of the initial equation and restrictions of its domain, Brouwer’s fixed point theorem is applied to the composition of the consequent mapping with some projections and a one-parameter family of fixed points is obtained. Then passing to the limits as tends to zero the so-obtained accumulation points are solutions of the problem