A multicenter international prospective study of the validity and reliability of a COVID-19-specific health-related quality of life questionnaire

Purpose: To develop and validate a health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire for patients with current or previous coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in an international setting. Methods: This multicenter international methodology study followed standardized guidelines for a four-phase questionnaire development. Here, we report on the pretesting and validation of our international questionnaire. Adults with current or previous COVID-19, in institutions or at home were eligible. In the pretesting, 54 participants completed the questionnaire followed by interviews to identify administration problems and evaluate content validity. Thereafter, 371 participants completed the revised questionnaire and a debriefing form to allow preliminary psychometric analysis. Validity and reliability were assessed (correlation-based methods, Cronbach’s α, and intra-class correlation coefficient). Results: Eleven countries within and outside Europe enrolled patients. From the pretesting, 71 of the 80 original items fulfilled the criteria for item-retention. Most participants (80%) completed the revised 71-item questionnaire within 15 min, on paper (n = 175) or digitally (n = 196). The final questionnaire included 61 items that fulfilled criteria for item retention or were important to subgroups. Item-scale correlations were > 0.7 for all but nine items. Internal consistency (range 0.68–0.92) and test–retest results (all but one scale > 0.7) were acceptable. The instrument consists of 15 multi-item scales and six single items. Conclusion: The Oslo COVID-19 QLQ-W61© is an international, stand-alone, multidimensional HRQoL questionnaire that can assess the symptoms, functioning, and overall quality of life in COVID-19 patients. It is available for use in research and clinical practice. Further psychometric validation in larger patient samples will be performed.publishedVersio

Health-related quality of life in patients with COVID-19; international development of a patient-reported outcome measure

Background We aimed to create a questionnaire to assess the health-related quality of life including functioning, symptoms, and general health status of adult patients with current or previous COVID-19. Here, we report on Phase I and II of the development. Methods Internationally recognized methodology for questionnaire development was followed. In Phase I, a comprehensive literature review was performed to identify relevant COVID-19 issues. Decisions for inclusion, exclusion, and data extraction were completed independently in teams of two and then compared. The resulting issues were discussed with health care professionals (HCPs) and current and former COVID-19 patients. The input of HCPs and patients was carefully considered, and the list of issues updated. In Phase II, this updated list was operationalized into items/questions. Results The literature review yielded 3342 publications, 339 of which were selected for full-text review, and 75 issues were identified. Discussions with 44 HCPs from seven countries and 52 patients from six countries showed that psychological symptoms, worries, and reduced functioning lasted the longest for patients, and there were considerable discrepancies between HCPs and patients concerning the importance of some of the symptoms. The final list included 73 issues, which were operationalized into an 80-item questionnaire. Conclusion The resulting COVID-19 questionnaire covers health–related quality of life issues relevant to COVID-19 patients and is available in several languages. The next steps include testing of the applicability and patients’ acceptability of the questionnaire (Phase IIIA) and preliminary psychometric testing (Phase IIIB)

Saccadic latency in hepatic encephalopathy: a pilot study

Hepatic encephalopathy is a common complication of cirrhosis. The degree of neuro-psychiatric impairment is highly variable and its clinical staging subjective. We investigated whether eye movement response times—saccadic latencies—could serve as an indicator of encephalopathy. We studied the association between saccadic latency, liver function and paper- and pencil tests in 70 patients with cirrhosis and 31 patients after liver transplantation. The tests included the porto-systemic encephalopathy (PSE-) test, critical flicker frequency, MELD score and ammonia concentration. A normal range for saccades was established in 31 control subjects. Clinical and biochemical parameters of liver, blood, and kidney function were also determined. Median saccadic latencies were significantly longer in patients with liver cirrhosis when compared to patients after liver transplantation (244 ms vs. 278 ms p < 0.001). Both patient groups had prolonged saccadic latency when compared to an age matched control group (175 ms). The reciprocal of median saccadic latency (μ) correlated with PSE tests, MELD score and critical flicker frequency. A significant correlation between the saccadic latency parameter early slope (σE) that represents the prevalence of early saccades and partial pressure of ammonia was also noted. Psychometric test performance, but not saccadic latency, correlated with blood urea and sodium concentrations. Saccadic latency represents an objective and quantitative parameter of hepatic encephalopathy. Unlike psychometric test performance, these ocular responses were unaffected by renal function and can be obtained clinically within a matter of minutes by non-trained personnel

Insight into the evolution of the Solanaceae from the parental genomes of Petunia hybrida

Petunia hybrida is a popular bedding plant that has a long history as a genetic model system. We report the whole-genome sequencing and assembly of inbred derivatives of its two wild parents, P. axillaris N and P. inflata S6. The current assemblies include 91.3% and 90.2% coverage of their diploid genomes (1.4 Gb; 2n=14) containing 32,928 and 36,697 protein-coding genes, respectively. The Petunia lineage has experienced at least two rounds of paleohexaploidization, the older gamma hexaploidy event, which is shared with other Eudicots, and the more recent Solanaceae paleohexaploidy event that is shared with tomato and other Solanaceae species. Transcription factors that were targets of selection during the shift from bee- to moth pollination reside in particularly dynamic regions of the genome, which may have been key to the remarkable diversity of floral color patterns and pollination systems. The high quality genome sequences will enhance the value of Petunia as a model system for basic and applied research on a variety of unique biological phenomena

Consensus in smart camera networks

Melanie SchranzKlagenfurt, Alpen-Adria-Univ., Master-Arb., 2011KB2011 27(VLID)241481

Design space exploration for coordination and control strategies in visual sensor networks

The focus of this thesis is on dynamic clustering in resource-aware visual sensor networks (VSNs). A VSN consists of spatially distributed visual sensor nodes. They have the ability to retrieve the observations from the environment by an image sensor, process these observations locally and exchange the pre-processed data among the other nodes in the VSN. These nodes are usually battery-powered with limited resources in processing, storage and communication capacity. Furthermore, they have overlapping and non-overlapping field of views (FOVs). The overlapping case is preferable as it enables coordination and control among the nodes as simultaneous observations of a specific object are provided. Coordination of the nodes is referred to the data exchange and processing in a VSN controlled by the local observations and resources. These observations allow the cameras to exchange and optimize their local object's state, typically presented as position and velocity. There are many different ways to design and deploy a VSN with its nodes. Therefore, a design space is explored to show the most important design criteria in four dimensions describing the design possibilities of the node and protocols in the VSN. The design space assigns, e.g., a fully distributed state estimation on the object's observations. Therein, each node exchanges its states with all other nodes in the network. This wastes a lot of resources in processing, storage and communication and introduces redundant data on all nodes. Contrary to the distributed, a dynamic clustering approach is used to coordinate and control the visual sensor nodes of a VSN. This protocol is called Resource-Aware dynamic CLustering (oRACLe). A visual sensor node can become a cluster member only if it has the same object in its FOV. Moreover, there is only a single visual sensor node the cluster head that gets the responsibility of processing computational complex tasks, as given with state estimation. For the composition of a cluster, a market-based approach is used, where after an auction initiation of the cluster head, the cluster members can bid for the specific object, if it is in their FOV. This bid is constituted with the local tracking performance on the object and the locally available resources. For evaluating the proposed protocol a new simulator for VSNs is designed and deployed. The simulation results show that with the dynamic clustering utilized with a market-based approach, the resources can be decreased drastically when comparing the proposed protocol with the fully distributed approach.Keine Zusammenfassung vorhandenDipl.-Ing. Melanie SchranzAlpen Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Dissertation, 2015OeBB(VLID)240975

Zwischen Freud´ und Leid - Leben und Sterben in der Frühen Neuzeit auf der Schwäbischen Alb

Die vorliegende Dissertation widmet sich der historisch-demographischen Untersuchung der sechs evangelisch geprägten Nachbardörfer Waldhausen, Schalkstetten, Bräunisheim, Sontbergen, Stubersheim und Hofstett-Emerbuch auf der Schwäbischen Alb (Baden-Württemberg). Um Informationen über das Leben, Reproduktion und Verhalten der Menschen in der Frühen Neuzeit zu generieren, wurden vitalstatistische Daten von mehr als 20.000 Personen aus Kirchenbüchern (Tauf-/Ehe-/Sterbe-/Kommunikantenregister) sowie Familienregistern (Dorf-/Ortssippenbücher) zusammengetragen. Dies geschah unter Anwendung der Familienrekonstitutionsmethode mit Hilfe des genealogischen Datenbankprogramms OMEGA. Elektronische Karteikarten lieferten die Basis für eine Vielzahl an Untersuchungen, bei denen auch die aggregative, nicht-nominative Methode Anwendung fand. Neben der Bevölkerungsentwicklung, rekonstruiert anhand der Nicht-/Kommunikanten, galt das Hauptaugenmerk den demographischen Parametern Nuptialität, Fertilität, eheliche Fruchtbarkeit sowie Mortalität. Die Arbeit macht deutlich, dass das menschliche Zusammenleben im untersuchten Zeitraum (1600-1800) in den Albdörfern sehr stark von gesellschaftlichen Wertvorstellungen und Traditionen sowie obrigkeitlichen und kirchlichen Richtlinien beeinflusst wurde. Auch die landwirtschaftlich geprägte Lebens-/Arbeitsweise spielte eine entscheidende Rolle, ebenso wie kriegerische Auseinandersetzungen und klimatische Schwankungen (Kleine Eiszeit). Zu den zentralen Ergebnissen zählen: hohes Erstheiratsalter, niedrige Ledigenquote, häufige Wiederverheiratungen, wochentagspezifische Hochzeiten, hohes Geburtenaufkommen, wenige uneheliche Kinder, geringe Lebenserwartung, hohe Säuglings- und Müttersterblichkeit. In der Frühen Neuzeit lagen Freude und Leid nah beieinander. Dabei bot vor allem eines Halt – die Gemeinschaft beziehungsweise das System Familie.This dissertation thesis deals with the historical demographic analysis of the six neighboring Protestant villages of Waldhausen, Schalkstetten, Bräunisheim, Sontbergen, Stubersheim and Hofstett-Emerbuch on the Swabian Alb (Baden-Württemberg, Germany). In order to generate information about the lives, reproduction and behavior of people living in the early modern age, personal data from more than 20,000 individuals were collected from church registers (baptism/marriage/death/communicant registers) as well as family registers (Dorf-/Ortssippenbücher). This was done by using the family reconstitution method with help of the genealogical database program OMEGA. Electronic index cards were used as a basis for a large number of analyses also using the aggregative, non-nominative method. Besides the population development, reconstructed via non-/communicants, the main focus was put on the demographic parameters of nuptiality, fertility, marital fertility and mortality. This study illustrates that the social coexistence of the people in these communities in the researched era (1600-1800) was strongly influenced by moral concepts and traditions as well as by authorities and ecclesiastical guidelines. Furthermore, the rural living and working conditions played a determining role, as well as acts of war and climatic changes (associated with the Little Ice Age). Among the pivotal results are: high age of first marriage, low quota of unmarried people, frequent remarriages, weekday-specific weddings, high number of births, few illegitimate children, low life expectancy, high infant and maternal mortality rates. In the early modern age joy and sorrow were closely linked. And yet one thing offered a strong hold – the community and the system of family respectively

Resource-Aware Dynamic Clustering Utilizing State Estimation in Visual Sensor Networks

Generally, resource-awareness plays a key role in wireless sensor networks due the limited capabilities in processing, storage and communication. In this paper we present a resource- aware cooperative state estimation facilitated by a dynamic cluster-based protocol in a visual sensor network (VSN). The VSN consists of smart cameras, which process and analyze the captured data locally. We apply a state estimation algorithm to improve the tracking results of the cameras. To design a lightweight protocol, the final aggregation of the observations and state estimation are only performed by the cluster head. Our protocol is based on a market-based approach in which the cluster head is elected based on the available resources and a visibility parameter of the object gained by the cluster members. We show in simulations that our approach reduces the costs for state estimation and communication as compared to a fully distributed approach. As resource-awareness is the focus of the clusterbased protocol we can accept a slight degradation of the accuracy on the object’s state estimation by a standard deviation of about 1.48 length units to the available ground truth