Safety, Feasibility and Effectiveness of the remotely delivered Pulmonary Hypertension And Home-Based (PHAHB) Physical Activity intervention

Background Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a heterogeneous condition, associated with a high symptom burden and a substantial loss of exercise capacity. Despite prior safety concerns regarding physical exertion, exercise training as a supportive therapy is now recommended for PH patients. Currently, most programs are hospital-based, which limits accessibility. There is a need to provide alternative approaches for physical activity engagement for PH patients. The aim of this research was to develop, implement and evaluate the safety, feasibility, and effectiveness of home-based physical activity intervention for PH. Methods An entirely remotely delivered home-based exercise intervention underpinned by behaviour change theory and informed by end-users, was assessed using a single-arm feasibility study design. Participants (n=19; 80% female) with a mean (±sd) age of 49.9±15.9 y with a diagnosis of PH undertook a 10-week, home-based exercise intervention with induction training, support materials, telecommunication support, health coaching, exercise training, and assessments, all remotely delivered. Training involved respiratory training along with a combination of aerobic and resistance exercises. Results The intervention was deemed safe as no adverse events were reported. A high level of feasibility was demonstrated as the protocol was implemented as intended, sustained a high level of engagement and adherence and was well accepted by participants in terms of enjoyment and utility. There was a significant improvement in functional capacity, physical activity, exercise self-efficacy and quality of life (QoL), between baseline and post-training. Conclusion The study demonstrates that an entirely remotely delivered home-based exercise program is safe, feasible and effective in improving functional capacity, physical activity, and QoL in PH patients

Combining interactive hierarchy visualizations in a web-based application

\u3cp\u3eIn this paper we describe a web-based tool combining several hierarchy visualization techniques. Those run in a browser and support the communication of hierarchy data that is omnipresent in many application fields like biology, software engineering, sports, or in algorithmic approaches like hierarchical clustering. To this end we provide node-link diagrams, Pythagoras trees, circular, as well as 3D treemaps also called 3D step-trees to give several visual perspectives on the same data and to improve data exploration tasks. The visualizations are interactive and linked, while the tool is available online, making it easily accessible for people all around the world without installing extra software or relying on additional libraries and frameworks. Hierarchy datasets can be uploaded to a server and shared with others. The visualizations were primarily implemented using JavaScript, and more specifically, rendered using the D3.js library. We illustrate the usefulness of the interactive visualization by applying them to the NCBI taxonomy and the Influenza dataset.\u3c/p\u3