15,163 research outputs found
Feasibility randomised controlled trial comparing TRAK-ACL digital rehabilitation intervention plus treatment as usual versus treatment as usual for patients following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction
Objectives: To evaluate the feasibility of trialling taxonomy for the rehabilitation of knee conditions-ACL (TRAK-ACL), a digital health intervention that provides health information, personalised exercise plans and remote clinical support combined with treatment as usual (TAU), for people following ACL reconstruction. Methods: The study design was a two-arm parallel randomised controlled trial (RCT). Eligible participants were English-speaking adults who had undergone ACL reconstruction within the last 12 weeks, had access to the internet and could provide informed consent. Recruitment took place at three sites in the UK. TRAK-ACL intervention was an interactive website informed by behaviour change technique combined with TAU. The comparator was TAU. Outcomes were: recruitment and retention; completeness of outcome measures at follow-up; fidelity of intervention delivery and engagement with the intervention. Individuals were randomised using a computer-generated random number sequence. Blinded assessors allocated groups and collected outcome measures. Results: Fifty-nine people were assessed for eligibility at two of the participating sites, and 51 were randomised; 26 were allocated to TRAK-ACL and 25 to TAU. Follow-up data were collected on 44 and 40 participants at 3 and 6 months, respectively. All outcome measures were completed fully at 6 months except the Client Service Receipt Inventory. Two patients in each arm did not receive the treatment they were randomised to. Engagement with TRAK-ACL intervention was a median of 5 logins (IQR 3-13 logins), over 18 weeks (SD 12.2 weeks). Conclusion: TRAK-ACL would be suitable for evaluation of effectiveness in a fully powered RCT
Hyperextended Cosmological Perturbation Theory: Predicting Non-linear Clustering Amplitudes
We consider the long-standing problem of predicting the hierarchical
clustering amplitudes in the strongly non-linear regime of gravitational
evolution. N-body results for the non-linear evolution of the bispectrum (the
Fourier transform of the three-point density correlation function) suggest a
physically motivated ansatz that yields the strongly non-linear behavior of the
skewness, , starting from leading-order perturbation theory. When
generalized to higher-order () polyspectra or correlation functions, this
ansatz leads to a good description of non-linear amplitudes in the strongly
non-linear regime for both scale-free and cold dark matter models. Furthermore,
these results allow us to provide a general fitting formula for the non-linear
evolution of the bispectrum that interpolates between the weakly and strongly
non-linear regimes, analogous to previous expressions for the power spectrum.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures. Final version accepted by ApJ. Includes new
paragraphs on factorizable hierarchical models and agreement of HEPT with the
excursion set model for white-noise Gaussian fluctuation
The Scottish economy [July 1981]
The current economic situation is extremely depressed and recent events suggest that, without significant increases in economic activity, the political and social fabric of this country may be several strained. However, as argued in the UK section, the prospects for recovery are bleak and reliance on a purely financial strategy to restore growth is in itself inadequate. The source of real economic growth lies in the ability of labour, capital and enterprise to come together in a manner conducive to increased productivity over time. It is therefore worthwhile examining these factors of production to determine the effect of current policies upon them
Controlled single electron transfer between Si:P dots
We demonstrate electrical control of Si:P double dots in which the potential
is defined by nanoscale phosphorus doped regions. Each dot contains
approximately 600 phosphorus atoms and has a diameter close to 30 nm. On
application of a differential bias across the dots, electron transfer is
observed, using single electron transistors in both dc- and rf-mode as charge
detectors. With the possibility to scale the dots down to few and even single
atoms these results open the way to a new class of precision-doped quantum dots
in silicon.Comment: 3 figures, 3 page
A note on the universality of the Hagedorn behavior of pp-wave strings
Following on from recent studies of string theory on a one-parameter family
of integrable deformations of proposed by Lunin and
Maldacena, we carry out a systematic analysis of the high temperature
properties of type IIB strings on the associated pp-wave geometries. In
particular, through the computation of the thermal partition function and free
energy we find that not only does the theory exhibit a Hagedorn transition in
both the and class of pp-waves, but that the Hagedorn
temperature is insensitive to the deformation suggesting an interesting
universality in the high temperature behaviour of the pp-wave string theory. We
comment also on the implications of this universality on the
confinement/deconfinement transition in the dual
Leigh-Strassler deformation of Yang-Mills theory.Comment: 25 pages; fixed minor typo; added reference
About the connection between vacuum birefringence and the light-light scattering amplitude
Birefringence phenomena stemming from vacuum polarization are revisited in
the framework of coherent scattering. Based on photon-photon scattering, our
analysis brings out the direct connection between this process and vacuum
birefringence. We show how this procedure can be extended to the Kerr and the
Cotton-Mouton birefringences in vacuum, thus providing a unified treatment of
various polarization schemes, including those involving static fields
Non-abelian Harmonic Oscillators and Chiral Theories
We show that a large class of physical theories which has been under
intensive investigation recently, share the same geometric features in their
Hamiltonian formulation. These dynamical systems range from harmonic
oscillations to WZW-like models and to the KdV dynamics on . To the
same class belong also the Hamiltonian systems on groups of maps.
The common feature of these models are the 'chiral' equations of motion
allowing for so-called chiral decomposition of the phase space.Comment: 1
Using fiberless, wearable fNIRS to monitor brain activity in real-world cognitive tasks
Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a neuroimaging technique that uses near-infrared light to monitor brain activity. Based on neurovascular coupling, fNIRS is able to measure the haemoglobin concentration changes secondary to neuronal activity. Compared to other neuroimaging techniques, fNIRS represents a good compromise in terms of spatial and temporal resolution. Moreover, it is portable, lightweight, less sensitive to motion artifacts and does not impose significant physical restraints. It is therefore appropriate to monitor a wide range of cognitive tasks (e.g., auditory, gait analysis, social interaction) and different age populations (e.g., new-borns, adults, elderly people). The recent development of fiberless fNIRS devices has opened the way to new applications in neuroscience research. This represents a unique opportunity to study functional activity during real-world tests, which can be more sensitive and accurate in assessing cognitive function and dysfunction than lab-based tests. This study explored the use of fiberless fNIRS to monitor brain activity during a real-world prospective memory task. This protocol is performed outside the lab and brain haemoglobin concentration changes are continuously measured over the prefrontal cortex while the subject walks around in order to accomplish several different tasks
A novel GLM-based method for the Automatic IDentification of functional Events (AIDE) in fNIRS data recorded in naturalistic environments.
Recent technological advances have allowed the development of portable functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) devices that can be used to perform neuroimaging in the real-world. However, as real-world experiments are designed to mimic everyday life situations, the identification of event onsets can be extremely challenging and time-consuming. Here, we present a novel analysis method based on the general linear model (GLM) least square fit analysis for the Automatic IDentification of functional Events (or AIDE) directly from real-world fNIRS neuroimaging data. In order to investigate the accuracy and feasibility of this method, as a proof-of-principle we applied the algorithm to (i) synthetic fNIRS data simulating both block-, event-related and mixed-design experiments and (ii) experimental fNIRS data recorded during a conventional lab-based task (involving maths). AIDE was able to recover functional events from simulated fNIRS data with an accuracy of 89%, 97% and 91% for the simulated block-, event-related and mixed-design experiments respectively. For the lab-based experiment, AIDE recovered more than the 66.7% of the functional events from the fNIRS experimental measured data. To illustrate the strength of this method, we then applied AIDE to fNIRS data recorded by a wearable system on one participant during a complex real-world prospective memory experiment conducted outside the lab. As part of the experiment, there were four and six events (actions where participants had to interact with a target) for the two different conditions respectively (condition 1: social-interact with a person; condition 2: non-social-interact with an object). AIDE managed to recover 3/4 events and 3/6 events for conditions 1 and 2 respectively. The identified functional events were then corresponded to behavioural data from the video recordings of the movements and actions of the participant. Our results suggest that "brain-first" rather than "behaviour-first" analysis is possible and that the present method can provide a novel solution to analyse real-world fNIRS data, filling the gap between real-life testing and functional neuroimaging
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