Six weeks of home enteral nutrition versus standard care after esophagectomy or total gastrectomy for cancer: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Each year approximately 3000 patients in the United Kingdom undergo surgery for esophagogastric cancer. Jejunostomy feeding tubes, placed at the time of surgery for early postoperative nutrition, have been shown to have a positive impact on clinical outcomes in the short term. Whether feeding out of hospital is of benefit is unknown. Local experience has identified that between 15 and 20% of patients required ‘rescue’ jejunostomy feeding for nutritional problems and weight loss while at home. This weight loss and poor nutrition may contribute to the detrimental effect on the overall quality of life (QoL) reported in these patients. Methods/Design: This randomized pilot and feasibility study will provide preliminary information on the routine use of jejunostomy feeding after hospital discharge in terms of clinical benefits and QoL. Sixty participants undergoing esophagectomy or total gastrectomy will be randomized to receive either a planned program of six weeks of home jejunostomy feeding after discharge from hospital (intervention) or treatment-as-usual (control). The intention of this study is to inform a multi-centre randomized controlled trial. The primary outcome measures will be recruitment and retention rates at six weeks and six months. Secondary outcome measures will include disease specific and general QoL measures, nutritional parameters, total and oral nutritional intake, hospital readmission rates, and estimates of healthcare costs. Up to 20 participants will also be enrolled in a qualitative sub-study that will explore participants’ and carers’ experiences of home tube feeding. The results will be disseminated by presentation at surgical, gastroenterological and dietetic meetings and publication in appropriate peer review journals. A patient-friendly lay summary will be made available on the University of Leicester and the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust websites. The study has full ethical and institutional approval and started recruitment in July 2012. Trial registration: UKClinical Research Network ID #12447 (Main study); UKCRN ID#13361 (Qualitative sub study); ClinicalTrials.gov #NCT01870817 (First registered 28 May 2013

DATASET for the Article: On the Parameter Adaptation in the Self-Organizing Migrating Algorithm Based on Diversity

The dataset contains diversity measurements of the self-organizing migrating algorithm (SOMA), the JAVA source code of novel adaptive self-organizing migrating algorithm, and the flowchart diagram of the adaptive self-organizing migrating algorithm

DATASET for the Article: On the Parameter Adaptation in the Self-Organizing Migrating Algorithm Based on Diversity

The dataset contains diversity measurements of the self-organizing migrating algorithm (SOMA), the JAVA source code of novel adaptive self-organizing migrating algorithm, and the flowchart diagram of the adaptive self-organizing migrating algorithm

An algorithm for swarm robot to avoid multiple dynamic obstacles and to catch the moving target

This paper presents a method for swarm robot to catch the moving target and to avoid multiple dynamic obstacles in the unknown environment. An imaginary map is built, including the highest mountain, some small hills, and a lowest lying land, respectively corresponding to the starting position of the robot, the detected obstacles, and the target. The robot is considered as a flow of water flowing from high to low. The flow of water is the robot trajectory that is divided into a set of points created by an algorithm called Self-organizing migrating algorithm. Simulation results are also presented to show that the obstacle avoidance and catching target task can be reached using this method. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019.VSB-Technical University of Ostrava [SGS 2019/137]; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech RepublicMinistry of Education, Youth & Sports - Czech Republic [LO1303 (MSMT-7778/2014)]; European Regional Development Fund under the Project CEBIA-Tech [CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0089