How to Motivate Children with Severe Disabilities to Adhere to Their Therapy?

Rehabilitation therapies after a serious accident or disease are usually repetitive and lengthy, requiring high motivation and adherence of the patients to achieve therapy goals. Moreover, the exercises are often painful leading to a decrease in motivation. Keeping motivation and adherence on a high level is even more challenging when the patient is a child or youth. In this paper, we address the question how to motivate this patient group to continuously attend therapy sessions and repeat the painful exercises. To address this issue, we developed the mobile application PAPP with integrated motivation concept that stimulates intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by corresponding features within the app. The intrinsic motivation is considered by means of gamification. An ice bear called "Teddy" and his journey to Spitzbergen is introduced and accompanies the patient journey. The extrinsic motivation is implemented by introducing the virtual currency "Papp-Taler" with integrated rewarding system. The usability test results show promising results. The app still requires extensions such as an external data storage to enable therapists and parents to monitor the progress. In future, it will be possible to use the app in a study to investigate whether it can motivate young patients to adhere to their therapy and whether that has a positive influence on the therapeutic outcome

Dynamic Pocket Card for Implementing ISBAR in Shift Handover Communication.

A risk factor for patient safety are communication failures among health professionals. Communication standards such as SBAR or ISBAR (situation, background, assessment, recommendation) aim at improving the exchange of information between health professionals by specifying a certain structure and content of information. However, those tools are not well established in daily clinical practice and IT support is missing which results in unstructured, inefficient and error prone information exchange. In this paper, we address this issue by presenting a mobile application that implements the ISBAR communication standard for the intensive care unit (ICU). The system can serve as digital pocket card supporting nurses in preparation for reporting and in a structured information provision during shift handover and in daily reporting. We collected requirements in collaboration with a hospital and developed a prototype. Within the application, nurses can take notes on the five information categories of ISBAR, which allows to reproduce the information in reporting situations in a structured manner. In future, it will be assessed in a pilot phase whether the digital pocket card is suitable for everyday clinical use

Ecosia – Who Cares About a Green Search Engine?

The environmental impact of IT is facing increasing public attention. The search engine Ecosia takes advantage of thissituation by pursuing a Social Business model. Search engines need electricity to provide their services and indirectlyproduce CO2. The estimation of greenhouse gas emissions for the average search query using the market leader Googlefluctuate between 0.2 g and 10.0 g of CO2. The search engine Ecosia tries to compensate the emissions by donating most ofits revenues to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and save rainforest from deforestation. Rainforests process CO2 throughphotosynthesis and store it as carbon. The question arises if Social Business models in general possess potential for success inthe search engine market. To investigate this question we apply case study research. Additionally, we use a survey to evaluatewhat is important to users and which aspects of search engines influence the customer’s attitude towards social business

Infra-red sheet heating assisted Superplastic Forming

International audienc

Nitrogen affects cluster root formation and expression of putative peptide transporters

Non-mycorrhizal Hakea actites (Proteaceae) grows in heathland where organic nitrogen (ON) dominates the soil nitrogen (N) pool. Hakea actites uses ON for growth, but the role of cluster roots in ON acquisition is unknown. The aim of the present study was to ascertain how N form and concentration affect cluster root formation and expression of peptide transporters. Hydroponically grown plants produced most biomass with low molecular weight ON>inorganic N>high molecular weight ON, while cluster roots were formed in the order no-N>ON>inorganic N. Intact dipeptide was transported into roots and metabolized, suggesting a role for the peptide transporter (PTR) for uptake and transport of peptides. HaPTR4, a member of subgroup II of the NRT1/PTR transporter family, which contains most characterized di- and tripeptide transporters in plants, facilitated transport of di- and tripeptides when expressed in yeast. No transport activity was demonstrated for HaPTR5 and HaPTR12, most similar to less well characterized transporters in subgroup III. The results provide further evidence that subgroup II of the NRT1/PTR family contains functional di- and tripeptide transporters. Green fluorescent protein fusion proteins of HaPTR4 and HaPTR12 localized to tonoplast, and plasma- and endomembranes, respectively, while HaPTR5 localized to vesicles of unknown identity. Grown in heathland or hydroponic culture with limiting N supply or starved of nutrients, HaPTR genes had the highest expression in cluster roots and non-cluster roots, and leaf expression increased upon re-supply of ON. It is concluded that formation of cluster roots and expression of PTR are regulated in response to N suppl

4,5-Dibromo-1,2-dimethyl-1H-imidazol-3-ium bromide

In the title salt, C5H7Br2N2 +·Br−, the cation and anion are connected by an N—H⋯Br hydrogen bond. In the crystal, there are inter­calated layers parallel to (10-2) in which bromide ions are located between the cations. Weak inter­molecular C—H⋯Br hydrogen bonds are also observed

1,3-β-d-Glucan Antigenemia for Early Diagnosis of Invasive Fungal Infections in Neutropenic Patients with Acute Leukemia

Background. Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are life-threatening complications in neutropenic patients with hematological malignancies. Because early diagnosis of IFI is difficult, new noninvasive, culture-independent diagnostic tools are needed to improve clinical management. Recent studies have reported that detection of 1,3-β-d-glucan (BG) antigenemia may be useful for diagnosis of IFI. The aim of the present prospective study was to evaluate the usefulness of monitoring BG in patients undergoing chemotherapy for acute leukemia. Methods. BG antigenemia was measured by a colorimetric assay twice weekly in the absence of fever and daily in the presence of fever. IFIs were classified according to the criteria of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer/Mycoses Study Group. Results. During 190 consecutive neutropenic episodes (median duration, 22 days; range, 7-113 days) in 95 patients, 30 proven or probable IFIs (13 aspergillosis, 15 candidiasis, and 2 mixed IFIs) were diagnosed. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and efficiency of 2 consecutive BG values ⩾7 pg/mL for diagnosis of proven or probable IFI was 0.63 (95% confidence interval, 0.44-0.79), 0.96 (95% confidence interval, 0.89-0.98), 0.79 (95% confidence interval, 0.57-0.92), 0.91 (95% confidence interval, 0.84-0.95), and 0.89, respectively. The time interval between onset of fever as first sign of IFI and BG antigenemia was significantly shorter than the time to diagnosis of IFI by clinical, microbiological, radiological, and/or histopathological criteria (P50 pg/mL were observed in only 2 patients, both of whom experienced failure of antifungal therapy. Conclusion. Monitoring of BG antigenemia is a useful noninvasive method for early diagnosis of IFI in patients with acute leukemi