Employing Environmental Data and Machine Learning to Improve Mobile Health Receptivity

Behavioral intervention strategies can be enhanced by recognizing human activities using eHealth technologies. As we find after a thorough literature review, activity spotting and added insights may be used to detect daily routines inferring receptivity for mobile notifications similar to just-in-time support. Towards this end, this work develops a model, using machine learning, to analyze the motivation of digital mental health users that answer self-assessment questions in their everyday lives through an intelligent mobile application. A uniform and extensible sequence prediction model combining environmental data with everyday activities has been created and validated for proof of concept through an experiment. We find that the reported receptivity is not sequentially predictable on its own, the mean error and standard deviation are only slightly below by-chance comparison. Nevertheless, predicting the upcoming activity shows to cover about 39% of the day (up to 58% in the best case) and can be linked to user individual intervention preferences to indirectly find an opportune moment of receptivity. Therefore, we introduce an application comprising the influences of sensor data on activities and intervention thresholds, as well as allowing for preferred events on a weekly basis. As a result of combining those multiple approaches, promising avenues for innovative behavioral assessments are possible. Identifying and segmenting the appropriate set of activities is key. Consequently, deliberate and thoughtful design lays the foundation for further development within research projects by extending the activity weighting process or introducing a model reinforcement.BMBF, 13GW0157A, Verbundprojekt: Self-administered Psycho-TherApy-SystemS (SELFPASS) - Teilvorhaben: Data Analytics and Prescription for SELFPASSTU Berlin, Open-Access-Mittel - 201

Shopping in a Virtual Reality: A Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) based Systematic Literature Review

The virtual reality (VR) technology has become increasingly relevant in recent years due to the advantages that occur through the representation of the real within a virtual world. One promising application area of VR is virtual shopping, i.e., providing customers with the ability to visit virtual stores instead of purchasing products on 2D websites or brick-and-mortar stores. To gain insights into the opportunities of the technology in the realm of shopping, we emphasize and discuss the literature on the use of VR for shopping based on a systematic literature review, thereby deepening our understanding of virtual retail concepts and synthesizing the empirical evidence on the advantages of VR. For this purpose, we developed a Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) based framework to summarize the key findings. The results comprise suggestions for VR shopping applications as well as possible future research avenues

Canary Bornavirus (Orthobornavirus serini) Infections Are Associated with Clinical Symptoms in Common Canaries (Serinus canaria dom.)

While parrot bornaviruses are accepted as the cause of proventricular dilatation disease (PDD) in psittacine birds, the pathogenic role of bornaviruses in common canaries is still unclear. To answer the question of whether canary bornaviruses (species Orthobornavirus serini) are associatednwith a PDD-like disease in common canaries (Serinus canaria f. dom.), the clinical data of 201 canary bird patients tested for bornaviruses using RT-PCR assays, were analyzed for the presence of PDD-like gastrointestinal or central nervous system signs and for other viruses (mainly circovirus and polyomavirus), yeasts and trichomonads. Canary bornavirus RNA was detected in the clinical samples of 40 out of 201 canaries (19.9%) coming from 28 of 140 flocks (20%). All nucleotide sequences obtained could unequivocally be determined as canary bornavirus 1, 2, or 3 supporting the current taxonomy of the species Orthobornavirus serini. PDD-like signs were found associated with canary bornavirus detection, and to a lesser extent, with circoviruses detection, but not with the detection of polyomaviruses, yeasts or trichomonads. The data indicate that canary bornaviruses contribute to a PDD-like disease in naturally infected canaries, and suggest a promoting effect of circoviruses for the development of PDD-like signs

Radial extracorporeal shock wave treatment harms developing chicken embryos

Radial extracorporeal shock wave treatment (rESWT) has became one of the best investigated treatment modalities for cellulite, including the abdomen as a treatment site. Notably, pregnancy is considered a contraindication for rESWT, and concerns have been raised about possible harm to the embryo when a woman treated with rESWT for cellulite is not aware of her pregnancy. Here we tested the hypothesis that rESWT may cause serious physical harm to embryos. To this end, chicken embryos were exposed in ovo to various doses of radial shock waves on either day 3 or day 4 of development, resembling the developmental stage of four- to six-week-old human embryos. We found a dose-dependent increase in the number of embryos that died after radial shock wave exposure on either day 3 or day 4 of development. Among the embryos that survived the shock wave exposure a few showed severe congenital defects such as missing eyes. Evidently, our data cannot directly be used to draw conclusions about potential harm to the embryo of a pregnant woman treated for cellulite with rESWT. However, to avoid any risks we strongly recommend applying radial shock waves in the treatment of cellulite only if a pregnancy is ruled out

Radial extracorporeal shock wave treatment harms developing chicken embryos

Radial extracorporeal shock wave treatment (rESWT) has became one of the best investigated treatment modalities for cellulite, including the abdomen as a treatment site. Notably, pregnancy is considered a contraindication for rESWT, and concerns have been raised about possible harm to the embryo when a woman treated with rESWT for cellulite is not aware of her pregnancy. Here we tested the hypothesis that rESWT may cause serious physical harm to embryos. To this end, chicken embryos were exposed in ovo to various doses of radial shock waves on either day 3 or day 4 of development, resembling the developmental stage of four- to six-week-old human embryos. We found a dose-dependent increase in the number of embryos that died after radial shock wave exposure on either day 3 or day 4 of development. Among the embryos that survived the shock wave exposure a few showed severe congenital defects such as missing eyes. Evidently, our data cannot directly be used to draw conclusions about potential harm to the embryo of a pregnant woman treated for cellulite with rESWT. However, to avoid any risks we strongly recommend applying radial shock waves in the treatment of cellulite only if a pregnancy is ruled out

Development and Application of the Owner-Bird Relationship Scale (OBRS) to Assess the Relation of Humans to Their Pet Birds

Only a few birds besides domestic pigeons and poultry can be described as domesticated. Therefore, keeping a pet bird can be challenging, and the human-avian relationship will have a major influence on the quality of this cohabitation. Studies that focus on characterizing the owner-bird relationship generally use adapted cat/dog scales which may not identify its specific features. Following a sociological approach, a concept of human-animal relationship was developed leading to three types of human-animal relationship (impersonal, personal, and close personal). This concept was used to develop a 21-item owner-bird-relationship scale (OBRS). This scale was applied to measure the relationship between pet bird owners (or keepers) (n = 1,444) and their birds in an online survey performed in Germany. Factor analysis revealed that the relationship between owner and bird consisted of four dimensions: the tendency of the owner to anthropomorphize the bird;the social support the bird provides for the owner;the empathy, attentiveness, and respect of the owner toward the bird;and the relationship of the bird toward the owner. More than one quarter of the German bird owners of this sample showed an impersonal, half a personal, and less than a quarter a close personal relationship to their bird. The relationship varied with the socio-demographic characteristics of the owners, such as gender, marital status, and education. This scale supports more comprehensive quantitative research into the human-bird relationship in the broad field of human-animal studies including the psychology and sociology of animals as well as animal welfare and veterinary medicine

Evidence for West Nile Virus and Usutu Virus Infections in Wild and Resident Birds in Germany, 2017 and 2018

Wild birds play an important role as reservoir hosts and vectors for zoonotic arboviruses and foster their spread. Usutu virus (USUV) has been circulating endemically in Germany since 2011, while West Nile virus (WNV) was first diagnosed in several bird species and horses in 2018. In 2017 and 2018, we screened 1709 live wild and zoo birds with real-time polymerase chain reaction and serological assays. Moreover, organ samples from bird carcasses submitted in 2017 were investigated. Overall, 57 blood samples of the live birds (2017 and 2018), and 100 organ samples of dead birds (2017) were positive for USUV-RNA, while no WNV-RNA-positive sample was found. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the first detection of USUV lineage Europe 2 in Germany and the spread of USUV lineages Europe 3 and Africa 3 towards Northern Germany. USUV antibody prevalence rates were high in Eastern Germany in both years. On the contrary, in Northern Germany, high seroprevalence rates were first detected in 2018, with the first emergence of USUV in this region. Interestingly, high WNV-specific neutralizing antibody titers were observed in resident and short-distance migratory birds in Eastern Germany in 2018, indicating the first signs of a local WNV circulation

Die Mensch-Tier-Beziehung in der tierärztlichen Praxis

Welche Relevanz hat die Beziehung des Besitzers zu seinem Tier für die Tätigkeit einer tierärztlichen Praxis? Es kann von einem Interaktionsdreieck gesprochen werden, in dem sich Besitzer, Tier und Tierarzt/Tierärztin gegenseitig beeinflussen (Taubert 2015). Diverse Studien konnten einen Zusammenhang zwischen dem Einfluss des Menschen auf das Wohlbefinden des Tieres und der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung zeigen (Bergler et al. 2011; Klaphake und Smith 2002; Kurdek 2008; Lue et al. 2008; Patronek et al. 1996). Für die vorliegende Studie wurde die Mensch-Tier-Beziehung aus der Perspektive der tierärztlichen Untersuchung und Behandlung von Heimtieren in den Blick genommen. Mittels der Dimensionen: „Serie von Interaktionen“, „personale Entität, Du-Evidenz“, „Gegenseitigkeit“, „Emotionales Band“ und „Empathie“ wurden drei Konzepte der Mensch-Tier-Beziehung vorgeschlagen (unpersönliche, persönliche sowie enge persönliche Mensch-Tier-Beziehung). In einem interdisziplinären Ansatz zwischen Tiermedizin und Soziologie wurde eine psychometrische Skala („Owner-Bird-Relationship-Scale“) als Instrument zur Erfassung der Mensch-Vogel-Beziehung entwickelt und getestet. Dieses Messinstrument wurde in einem standardisierten Online-Fragebogen an Vogelhalter in Deutschland verbreitet. Die Auswertung der Befragung von 1458 Vogelhaltern erfolgte mittels multivariater Analyseverfahren. Die Beziehung zwischen Vogelhaltern und ihren Vögeln ließ sich im Rahmen von Faktorenanalysen mittels vier Beziehungsdimensionen beschreiben und war spezifisch für die jeweilige Besitzer-Vogel-Konstellation. Anhand der Ausprägungen der Beziehungsdimensionen konnten mit Hilfe clusteranalytischer Verfahren fünf verschiedene Typen von Vogelhaltern identifiziert werden. Es konnte mittels multivariater linearer und logistischer Regressionsverfahren gezeigt werden, dass die Beziehung des Halters zu seinem Vogel Einfluss auf das Verhalten des Besitzers in der tierärztlichen Untersuchung und Behandlung hat. Es bestand ein Zusammenhang zwischen der Mensch-Vogel-Beziehung und jeweils der Bereitschaft hohe Tierarztkosten zu tragen, dem Informationsverhalten des Halters, dem Verhalten im Erkrankungsfall sowie der Bedeutung der Spezialisierung eines Tierarztes für den Vogelhalter

A Taxonomy of Virtual Reality Applications for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders are one of the most common psychiatric disorders. Exposure therapy has proven to be a suitable way of treatment for anxiety symptoms. Currently, there are ambitions to digitalise exposure therapy based on Virtual Reality (VR). While a variety of studies verify the effectiveness of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET), less research focus on the application of VRET in practice. The objective of this paper is to identify and compare VRET application scenarios from a theoretical and empirical perspective to develop a taxonomy of VRET applications. The findings suggest that companies should focus on holistic VR environments, concentrate their applications on specific age groups and integrate features for the treatment of mild symptoms. Research opportunities occur with regards to the examination of the effectiveness of VRET for mild symptoms and VRET as a new type of stand-alone therapy