Seasonal changes in energy expenditure, body temperature and activity patterns in llamas (Lama glama)

The authors thank Knut Salzmann und Arne Oppermann for technical help and for taking care of the animals and Anna Stölzl for help with the administering of the ruminal unit of the telemetry system. The study was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to A.R. (RI 1796/3-1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

End-User Programming of Mobile Services: Empowering Domain Experts to Implement Mobile Data Collection Applications

The widespread use of smart mobile devices (e.g., in clinical trials or online surveys) offers promising perspectives with respect to the controlled collection of high-quality data. The design, implementation and deployment of such mobile data collection applications, however, is challenging in several respects. First, various mobile operating systems need to be supported, taking the short release cycles of vendors into account as well. Second, domain-specific requirements need to be flexibly aligned with mobile application development. Third, usability styleguides need to be obeyed. Altogether, this turns both programming and maintaining mobile applications into a costly, time-consuming, and error-prone endeavor. To remedy these drawbacks, a model-driven framework empowering domain experts to implement robust mobile data collection applications in an intuitive way was realized. The design of this end-user programming framework is based on experiences gathered in real-life mobile data collection projects. Facets of various stakeholders involved in such projects are discussed and an overall architecture as well as its components are presented. In particular, it is shown how the framework enables domain experts (i.e., end users) to flexibly implement mobile data collection applications on their own. Overall, the framework allows for the effective support of mobile services in a multitude of application domains

Lack of cortisol response in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) undergoing a diagnostic interview

Background: According to DSM-IV, the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) requires the experience of a traumatic event during which the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. In order to diagnose PTSD, clinicians must interview the person in depth about his/her previous experiences and determine whether the individual has been traumatized by a specific event or events. However, asking questions about traumatic experiences can be stressful for the traumatized individual and it has been cautioned that subsequent "re-traumatization" could occur. This study investigated the cortisol response in traumatized refugees with PTSD during a detailed and standardized interview about their personal war and torture experiences. Methods: Participants were male refugees with severe PTSD who solicited an expert opinion in the Psychological Research Clinic for Refugees of the University of Konstanz. 17 patients were administered the Vivo Checklist of War, Detention, and Torture Events, a standardized interview about traumatic experiences, and 16 subjects were interviewed about absorption behavior. Self-reported measures of affect and arousal, as well as saliva cortisol were collected at four points. Before and after the experimental intervention, subjects performed a Delayed Matching-to-Sample (DMS) task for distraction. They also rated the severity of selected PTSD symptoms, as well as the level of intrusiveness of traumatic memories at that time. Results: Cortisol excretion diminished in the course of the interview and showed the same pattern for both groups. No specific response was detectable after the supposed stressor. Correspondingly, ratings of subjective well-being, memories of the most traumatic event(s) and PTSD symptoms did not show any significant difference between groups. Those in the presumed stress condition did not perform worse than persons in the control condition after the stressor. However, both groups performed poorly in the DMS task, which is consistent with memory and concentration problems demonstrated in patients with PTSD. Conclusion: A comprehensive diagnostic interview including questions about traumatic events does not trigger an HPA-axis based alarm response or changes in psychological measures, even for persons with severe PTSD, such as survivors of torture. Thus, addressing traumatic experiences within a safe and empathic environment appears to impose no unacceptable additional load to the patient

Preventing further trauma: KINDEX mum screen - assessing and reacting towards psychosocial risk factors in pregnant women with the help of smartphone technologies

The KINDEX mum screen has been designed to be administered by gynecologists and midwives during pregnancy for the assessment of the main psychosocial developmental risk factors, which include traumatic experiences of the parents, intimate partner violence, drug abuse, a history of mental health problems, poverty, acute stress, and others. In addition, we have developed a self-assessment version that runs on tablet computers (iPads). Validation of the KINDEX has been successfully completed in Germany, Spain, Greece, and Peru. Gynecologists or midwives interviewed 80120 pregnant women in each country. A randomized sub sample of respondents was assessed by trained clinical psychologists using standardized structural interviews to assess perceived stress and mental disorders. 14-months after giving birth the new mothers were interviewed again and the predictive value of the KINDEX was assessed by structured clinical interviews and the analysis of the cortisol levels (deposited in hair over a month) of mother and child as indicator for stress. The results show that the KINDEX assesses valid information about existing risk factors through a structured 15-minute interview with the pregnant women or through the application of this instrument as self-rating on a tablet computer. The tablet computer application in addition to the paperpencil version has the advantage of automatic analysis of the data and instant recommendation for further support of the pregnant woman

Detecting adverse childhood experiences with a little help from tablet computers

Adverse childhood experiences, ranging from abuse to emotional neglect, damage the mental and physical health and may impede the treatment of mental disorders. However, validated instruments that assess childhood adversity including the full range of childhood maltreatment are lacking. The adverse childhood experiences index (ACE; Dube et al., 2003; Felitti et al., 1998) retrospectively assessed different forms of abuse, neglect, and household dysfunctioning during the first 18 years of life, and quantified the ‘‘breadth of the experienced adversities’’, by means of the ACE score. Thus, this instrument allows quantifying the magnitude or ‘‘dose’’ of toxic childhood experiences. A recent modification of the ACE index, by Teicher and colleagues (2011, MACE Scale), gathers in even greater detailed and in more comprehensive ways information about the various types of maltreatment: self experienced abuse or neglect, as well as peer victimization and witnessing domestic violence are all explored in detail. Supplementary information gained about emotional reactions to the events, and temporal anchoring of the experienced, are highly valuable for psychotherapeutic and research purpose. We present short versions of the MACE and a pediatric version (Isele et al., in prep.), adjusted to the cognitive and emotional development status of minors. These new versions fill the need for structured clinical interviews, mapping abuse, and neglect in this sample. Their application in clinical research and therapeutic contexts is shown including an electronic tablet-computer supported assessment

Energy expenditure and body temperature variations in llamas living in the High Andes of Peru

The authors thank Emma Quina and Yurguen Peña for organising the field trips and for technical help and two anonymous reviewers for their help improving the manuscript. The study was supported by a research grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to A.R. (RI 1796/3-1). The data analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A generic questionnaire framework supporting psychological studies with smartphone technologies

Many psychological studies are performed with specifically tailored ‘‘paper & pencil’’-questionnaires. Such a paper-based approach usually results in a massive workload for evaluating and analyzing the collected data afterwards, e.g., to transfer data to electronic worksheets or any statistics software. To relieve researchers from such manual tasks and to improve the efficiency of data collection processes, we realized smart device applications for existing psychological questionnaires (e.g., the KINDEX, PDS, or CAPS questionnaire). Based on these applications, we were able to demonstrate the usefulness of smart devices (e.g., smartphones or tablets) for mobile data collection in the context of psychological questionnaires. Although the implemented applications already have shown several advantages in respect to data collection and analysis, they have not been suitable for psychological studies in the large scale yet, e.g., due to the high maintenance efforts for the psychologists. More precisely, changes to a questionnaire or its structure still must be accomplished by computer scientists, since its implementation is hard-coded. What is needed instead is an easy-to-use and self-explaining framework for creating, running, and evolving the questionnaires of psychological studies on mobile and smart devices. In this context, supporting the complete questionnaire lifecycle is essential, i.e., IT support for creating, using, evaluating, and archiving questionnaires is required to assist end-users having no programming background. We present our generic questionnaire framework, which encompasses the following three parts: a questionnaire configurator to create the questions and questionnaires, a way of integrating mobile devices to deploy, run and log questionnaires, and a middleware enabling a secure data exchange. Finally, we discuss how smartphone technology and mobile devices can be used to suitably support psychologists in their daily work with questionnaires. As major benefit of the framework, better data quality, shorter evaluation cycles, and significant decreases in workload will result

The Erasmus programme for postgraduate education in orthodontics in Europe: an update of the guidelines

In 1989, the ERASMUS Bureau of the European Cultural Foundation of the Commission of the European Communities funded the development of a new 3-year curriculum for postgraduate education in orthodontics. The new curriculum was created by directors for orthodontic education representing 15 European countries. The curriculum entitled ‘Three years Postgraduate Programme in Orthodontics: the Final Report of the Erasmus Project' was published 1992. In 2012, the ‘Network of Erasmus Based European Orthodontic Programmes' developed and approved an updated version of the guidelines. The core programme consists of eight sections: general biological and medical subjects; basic orthodontic subjects; general orthodontic subjects; orthodontic techniques; interdisciplinary subjects; management of health and safety; practice management, administration, and ethics; extramural educational activities. The programme goals and objectives are described and the competencies to be reached are outlined. These guidelines may serve as a baseline for programme development and quality assessment for postgraduate programme directors, national associations, and governmental bodies and could assist future residents when selecting a postgraduate programm

Swallowing Physiology after Anterior and Posterior Cervical Spine Surgery: A Comparison on Videofluoroscopy Pre- and Post-surgery

Duchac S, Hielscher-Fastabend M, Müller HM, et al. Swallowing Physiology after Anterior and Posterior Cervical Spine Surgery: A Comparison on Videofluoroscopy Pre- and Post-surgery. International Journal of Neuroscience and Behavioral Science. 2017;5(4):71-79