Effectiveness of an mHealth intervention combining a smartphone app and smart band on body composition in an overweight and obese population: Randomized controlled trial (EVIDENT 3 study)

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) is currently among the supporting elements that may contribute to an improvement in health markers by helping people adopt healthier lifestyles. mHealth interventions have been widely reported to achieve greater weight loss than other approaches, but their effect on body composition remains unclear. Objective: This study aimed to assess the short-term (3 months) effectiveness of a mobile app and a smart band for losing weight and changing body composition in sedentary Spanish adults who are overweight or obese. Methods: A randomized controlled, multicenter clinical trial was conducted involving the participation of 440 subjects from primary care centers, with 231 subjects in the intervention group (IG; counselling with smartphone app and smart band) and 209 in the control group (CG; counselling only). Both groups were counselled about healthy diet and physical activity. For the 3-month intervention period, the IG was trained to use a smartphone app that involved self-monitoring and tailored feedback, as well as a smart band that recorded daily physical activity (Mi Band 2, Xiaomi). Body composition was measured using the InBody 230 bioimpedance device (InBody Co., Ltd), and physical activity was measured using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Results: The mHealth intervention produced a greater loss of body weight (–1.97 kg, 95% CI –2.39 to –1.54) relative to standard counselling at 3 months (–1.13 kg, 95% CI –1.56 to –0.69). Comparing groups, the IG achieved a weight loss of 0.84 kg more than the CG at 3 months. The IG showed a decrease in body fat mass (BFM; –1.84 kg, 95% CI –2.48 to –1.20), percentage of body fat (PBF; –1.22%, 95% CI –1.82% to 0.62%), and BMI (–0.77 kg/m2, 95% CI –0.96 to 0.57). No significant changes were observed in any of these parameters in men; among women, there was a significant decrease in BMI in the IG compared with the CG. When subjects were grouped according to baseline BMI, the overweight group experienced a change in BFM of –1.18 kg (95% CI –2.30 to –0.06) and BMI of –0.47 kg/m2 (95% CI –0.80 to –0.13), whereas the obese group only experienced a change in BMI of –0.53 kg/m2 (95% CI –0.86 to –0.19). When the data were analyzed according to physical activity, the moderate-vigorous physical activity group showed significant changes in BFM of –1.03 kg (95% CI –1.74 to –0.33), PBF of –0.76% (95% CI –1.32% to –0.20%), and BMI of –0.5 kg/m2 (95% CI –0.83 to –0.19). Conclusions: The results from this multicenter, randomized controlled clinical trial study show that compared with standard counselling alone, adding a self-reported app and a smart band obtained beneficial results in terms of weight loss and a reduction in BFM and PBF in female subjects with a BMI less than 30 kg/m2 and a moderate-vigorous physical activity level. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to ensure that this profile benefits more than others from this intervention and to investigate modifications of this intervention to achieve a global effect

Directed assembly of optoelectronically active alkyl-<i>π</i>-conjugated molecules by adding <i>n</i>-alkanes or <i>π</i>-conjugated species

Supramolecular assembly can yield ordered structures by taking advantage of the cumulative effect of multiple non-covalent interactions between adjacent molecules. The thermodynamic origin of many self-assembled structures in water is the balance between the hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments of the molecule. Here, we show that this approach can be generalized to use solvophobic and solvophilic segments of fully hydrophobic alkylated fullerene molecules. Addition of n-alkanes results in their assembly--due to the antipathy of C60 towards n-alkanes--into micelles and hexagonally packed gel-fibres containing insulated C60 nanowires. The addition of pristine C60 instead directs the assembly into lamellar mesophases by increasing the proportion of π-conjugated material in the mixture. The assembled structures contain a large fraction of optoelectronically active material and exhibit comparably high photoconductivities. This method is shown to be applicable to several alkyl-π-conjugated molecules, and can be used to construct organized functional materials with π-conjugated sections

A Benchmarking Framework for Background Subtraction in RGBD Videos

The complementary nature of color and depth synchronized information acquired by low cost RGBD sensors poses new challenges and design opportunities in several applications and research areas. Here, we focus on background subtraction for moving object detection, which is the building block for many computer vision applications, being the first relevant step for subsequent recognition, classification, and activity analysis tasks. The aim of this paper is to describe a novel benchmarking framework that we set up and made publicly available in order to evaluate and compare scene background modeling methods for moving object detection on RGBD videos. The proposed framework involves the largest RGBD video dataset ever made for this specific purpose. The 33 videos span seven categories, selected to include diverse scene background modeling challenges for moving object detection. Seven evaluation metrics, chosen among the most widely used, are adopted to evaluate the results against a wide set of pixel-wise ground truths. Moreover, we present a preliminary analysis of results, devoted to assess to what extent the various background modeling challenges pose troubles to background subtraction methods exploiting color and depth information

Criterios para la selección de condiciones de referencia en los ríos mediterráneos. Resultados del proyecto GUADALMED

La Directiva Marco del Agua (DMA) establece la necesidad de definir las condiciones de referencia, que sirvan de patrón del estado ecológico del resto de estaciones del mismo ecotipo. Varios son los criterios que pueden ser utilizados para la selección de las condiciones de referencia. En el proyecto GUADALMED cinco localidades por cuenca muestreada, fueron escogidas a priori según la experiencia de los expertos en cada zona, uno de los criterios contemplados en la DMA. Los resultados mostraron en muchas de las estaciones seleccionadas (un 72%) una calidad biológica alterada (IBMWP <100 en todas las campañas muestreadas) y un bosque de ribera perturbado (QBR <75). A partir de estos resultados se analizó si era posible el establecimiento de una serie de criterios que ayudaran a establecer condiciones de referencia. Para ello se seleccionaron diferentes criterios como la conservación del bosque de ribera, los usos naturales de la cuenca, la naturalidad del canal fluvial, la ausencia de embalses que regularan el caudal, un hábitat del lecho adecuado y concentraciones bajas de parámetros físico-químicos, en cada uno de los puntos estudiados. Algunas estaciones cumplían todos los criterios, mientras que otras podrían fácilmente cumplirlos reubicando el punto de muestreo aguas arriba o abajo del río o mediante técnicas de restauración. Los resultados fueron comparados con la tipología mediante el Sistema B establecida en otro trabajo de este volumen. En algunos ecotipos, la falta de estaciones de referencia y la imposibilidad de encontrarlas dadas las características de la cuenca y el tramo, implica la imposibilidad de establecer condiciones de referencia y la necesidad de establecer el Máximo Potencial Ecológico. Al comparar los criterios establecidos para cada estación con los valores de los índices biológicos hallados en todas las campañas, se observa que los criterios establecidos son adecuados, ya que las estaciones que los cumplen tienen un IBMWP y QBR superior. Este trabajo pretende establecer unos criterios generales que serán utilizados como base para la selección y validación de condiciones de referencia en la segunda fase del proyecto GUADALMED. ABSTRACT The water Frame Directive (WFD) establishes the need to define reference conditions in order to determine the ecological status of all the test sites from each ecotype. Several criteria may be used to select reference conditions. In the GUADALMED project, five localities per basin were selected a priori according to the experience of experts, which is one of the criteria considered in the WFD. Results showed that in 72% of selected reference conditions, water quality was poor (IBMWP<100 in all sampled seasons) and the riparian vegetation, altered (QBR<75). Consequently, we established a set of new criteria for appropriate selection of reference conditions for natural riparian vegetation status, natural basin uses, unaltered fluvial channel, absence of reservoirs, diverse river habitat conditions and low nutrient concentrations. A few sites conform to all these criteria, whereas others may comply when a site upstream or downstream is considered instead, or after restoration techniques are applied. Results obtained were compared with the previously established System B typologies. For some ecotypes, no reference sites were found occasionally because of the difficulty in finding given basin or river reach characteristics. In these cases, a"Maximum Ecological Potential" was used instead of the reference condition. When the criteria established were compared with the biological indices across seasons for each site, a positive and significant relationship was found between all criteria and the IBMWP and QBR indices. Here, we present a set of criteria for use as a general framework to select and validate reference condition during the second phase of the project GUADALMED