Lebenswissenschaften und Ethik
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Hintergrund:
Eltern stehen im Rahmen der eigenen Impfung und der Kinderimpfung mit einem COVID-19-Vakzin vor einer Impfentscheidung. Zum aktuellen Zeitpunkt gibt es keine (vollständige) Impfempfehlung.
Fragestellung:
Die Studie untersucht die Impfbereitschaft von Eltern minderjähriger Kinder und Personen ohne minderjährige Kinder, wobei insbesondere Geschlechtsunterschiede überprüft werden.
Methoden:
Die Studie basiert auf einer Zufallsstichprobe (Telefon-Survey, n = 2014, Erhebung zwischen 12.11.2020 und 10.12.2020). Die Auswertung stützt sich insbesondere auf die Teilstichprobe von Personen mit minderjährigen Kindern im Haushalt (n = 461).
Ergebnisse:
Eltern weisen durchgängig eine geringere Impfbereitschaft mit einem COVID-19-Vakzin auf als Befragte ohne minderjährige Kinder (54,1 % vs. 71,1 %). Väter weisen eine stärker ausgeprägte eigene Impfbereitschaft auf als Mütter. Darüber hinaus sind Männer eher als Frauen bereit, das eigene Kind mit einem COVID-19-Vakzin impfen zu lassen.
Schlussfolgerungen:
Bei Eltern und insbesondere Müttern ist eine erhebliche Fehleinschätzung von Impfrisiken und häufiger Glaube an Impfverschwörungstheorien zu beobachten. Empfohlen werden anschauliche und leicht verständliche Informationen über die Wirkung und Nebenwirkungen der Impfung mit einem COVID-19-Vakzin durch zuständige Institutionen und Ärzte.
Nach einer Fraktur ist Mobilisierung Behandlungsziel und Therapiesäule. Das Festlegen von Outcomes basiert jedoch auf vielen Unsicherheiten, da Assessments nicht für alle Patient/-innen geeignet sind. Sie können agesabhängig beeinflusst und subjektiv geprägt sein. Sensorbasiertes Bewegungsmonitoring bietet eine Ergänzung zur Operationalisierung der Gehfähigkeit. Für Längsschnittuntersuchungen, die auch im häuslichen Umfeld durchgeführt werden, eignet sich die tägliche Schrittzahl als Variable. Sie kann durch einen handelsüblichen Fitnesstracker beobachtet
werden.
Objective: Artificial intelligence (AI) may reduce underdiagnosed or overlooked upper GI (UGI) neoplastic and preneoplastic conditions, due to subtle appearance and low disease prevalence. Only disease-specific AI performances have been reported, generating uncertainty on its clinical value.
Design: We searched PubMed, Embase and Scopus until July 2020, for studies on the diagnostic performance of AI in detection and characterisation of UGI lesions. Primary outcomes were pooled diagnostic accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of AI. Secondary outcomes were pooled positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values. We calculated pooled proportion rates (%), designed summary receiving operating characteristic curves with respective area under the curves (AUCs) and performed metaregression and sensitivity analysis.
Results: Overall, 19 studies on detection of oesophageal squamous cell neoplasia (ESCN) or Barrett's esophagus-related neoplasia (BERN) or gastric adenocarcinoma (GCA) were included with 218, 445, 453 patients and 7976, 2340, 13 562 images, respectively. AI-sensitivity/specificity/PPV/NPV/positive likelihood ratio/negative likelihood ratio for UGI neoplasia detection were 90% (CI 85% to 94%)/89% (CI 85% to 92%)/87% (CI 83% to 91%)/91% (CI 87% to 94%)/8.2 (CI 5.7 to 11.7)/0.111 (CI 0.071 to 0.175), respectively, with an overall AUC of 0.95 (CI 0.93 to 0.97). No difference in AI performance across ESCN, BERN and GCA was found, AUC being 0.94 (CI 0.52 to 0.99), 0.96 (CI 0.95 to 0.98), 0.93 (CI 0.83 to 0.99), respectively. Overall, study quality was low, with high risk of selection bias. No significant publication bias was found.
Conclusion: We found a high overall AI accuracy for the diagnosis of any neoplastic lesion of the UGI tract that was independent of the underlying condition. This may be expected to substantially reduce the miss rate of precancerous lesions and early cancer when implemented in clinical practice.
Evaluation of muscle recruitment and muscle models in musculoskeletal simulation of dynamic motion
(2021)
Musculoskeletal simulation plays an increasingly important role in sports biomechanics. In the last years, the field of application widened from orthopaedics and ergonomics to sports [1]. A muscle recruitment algorithm with a quadratic objective function is usually used to calculate muscle activity in dynamic movements. The agreement of calculated and measured thigh muscle activity has already been investigated [2]. They found a strong agreement for sprinting and running, while the correlation decreased for side-cutting manoeuvres. Nevertheless, the influence of different muscle recruitment criteria on muscle activity in dynamic musculoskeletal simulations is currently unknown. Hence, this study aimed to analyse the effect of different muscle recruitment criteria and muscle models on the correlation of numerical and measured muscle activity in highly dynamic movements.
Subacromiales Impingment
(2021)
Degradation and release of tannic acid from an injectable tissue regeneration bead matrix in vivo
(2021)
The development of multifunctional biomaterials as both tissue regeneration and drug delivery devices is currently a major focus in biomedical research. Tannic Acid (TA), a naturally occurring plant polyphenol, displays unique medicinal abilities as an antioxidant, an antibiotic, and as an anticancer agent. TA has applications in biomaterials acting as a crosslinker in polymer hydrogels improving thermal stability and mechanical properties. We have developed injectable cell seeded collagen beads crosslinked with TA for breast reconstruction and anticancer activity following lumpectomy. This study determined the longevity of the bead implants by establishing a degradation time line and TA release profile in vivo. Beads crosslinked with 0.1% TA and 1% TA were compared to observe the differences in TA concentration on degradation and release. We found collagen/TA beads degrade at similar rates in vivo, yet are resistant to complete degradation after 16 weeks. TA is released over time in vivo through diffusion and cellular activity. Changes in mechanical properties in collagen/TA beads before implantation to after 8 weeks in vivo also indicate loss of TA over a longer period of time. Elastic moduli decreased uniformly in both 0.1% and 1% TA beads. This study establishes that collagen/TA materials can act as a drug delivery system, rapidly releasing TA within the first week following implantation. However, the beads retain TA long term allowing them to resist degradation and remain in situ acting as a cell scaffold and tissue filler. This confirms its potential use as an anticancer and minimally invasive breast reconstructive device following lumpectomy.
CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) systems are one of the most fascinating tools of the current era in molecular biotechnology. With the ease that they provide in genome editing, CRISPR systems generate broad opportunities for targeting mutations. Specifically in recent years, disease-causing mutations targeted by the CRISPR systems have been of main research interest; particularly for those diseases where there is no current cure, including cancer. KRAS mutations remain untargetable in cancer. Mutations in this oncogene are main drivers in common cancers, including lung, colorectal and pancreatic cancers, which are severe causes of public health burden and mortality worldwide, with no cure at hand. CRISPR systems provide an opportunity for targeting cancer causing mutations. In this review, we highlight the work published on CRISPR applications targeting KRAS mutations directly, as well as CRISPR applications targeting mutations in KRAS-related molecules. In specific, we focus on lung, colorectal and pancreatic cancers. To date, the limited literature on CRISPR applications targeting KRAS, reflect promising results. Namely, direct targeting of mutant KRAS variants using various CRISPR systems resulted in significant decrease in cell viability and proliferation in vitro, as well as tumor growth inhibition in vivo. In addition, the effect of mutant KRAS knockdown, via CRISPR, has been observed to exert regulatory effects on the downstream molecules including PI3K, ERK, Akt, Stat3, and c-myc. Molecules in the KRAS pathway have been subjected to CRISPR applications more often than KRAS itself. The aim of using CRISPR systems in these studies was mainly to analyze the therapeutic potential of possible downstream and upstream effectors of KRAS, as well as to discover further potential molecules. Although there have been molecules identified to have such potential in treatment of KRAS-driven cancers, a substantial amount of effort is still needed to establish treatment strategies based on these discoveries. We conclude that, at this point in time, despite being such a powerful directed genome editing tool, CRISPR remains to be underutilized for targeting KRAS mutations in cancer. Efforts channelled in this direction, might pave the way in solving the long-standing challenge of targeting the KRAS mutations in cancers.
Blood flow in channels of varying diameters <500μm exhibits strong non-linear effects. Multiphase finite volume approaches are feasible, but still computationally costly. Here, the feasibility of applying convolutional neural networks for blood flow prediction in artificial lungs is investigated. Training targets are precomputed using an Eulerian two-phase approach. To match with experimental data, the interphase drag and lift, as well as intraphase shear-thinning are adapted. A recursively branching regression network and convolution/deconvolution networks with plain skip connections and densely connected skips are investigated. A priori knowledge is incorporated in the loss functional to prevent the network from learning non-physical solutions. Inference from neural networks is approximately six orders of magnitude faster than the classical finite volume approach. Even if resulting in comparably coarse flow fields, the neural network predictions can be used as close to convergence initial solutions greatly accelerating classical flow computations.
Convolutional Neural Networks for Approximation of Internal Non-Newtonian Multiphase Flow Fields
(2021)
Neural networks (NNs) as an alternative method for universal approximation of differential equations have proven to be computationally efficient and still sufficiently accurate compared to established methods such as the finite volume method (FVM). Additionally, analysing weights and biases can give insights into the underlying physical laws. FVM and NNs are both based upon spacial discretisation. Since a Cartesian and equidistant grid is a raster graphics, image-to-image regression techniques can be used to predict phase velocity fields as well as particle and pressure distributions from simple mass flow boundary conditions. The impact of convolution layer depth and number of channels of a ConvolutionDeconvolution Regression Network (CDRN), on prediction performance of internal non-Newtownian multiphase flows is investigated. Parametric training data with 2055 sets is computed using FVM. To capture significant non-Newtownian effects of a particle-laden fluid (e.g. blood) flowing through small and non-straight channels, an Euler-Euler multiphase approach is used. The FVM results are normalized and mapped onto an equidistant grid as supervised learning target. The investigated NNs consist of n= {3, 5, 7} corresponding encoding/decoding blocks and different skip connections. Regardless of the convolution depth (i.e. number of blocks), the deepest spacial down-sampling via strided convolution is adjusted to result in a 1 × 1 × f · 2nfeature map, with f = {8, 16, 32}. The prediction performance expressed is as channel-averaged normalized root mean squared error (NRMSE). With a NRMSE of < 2 · 10-3, the best preforming NN has f = 32 initial feature maps, a kernel size of k = 4, n = 5 blocks and dense skip connections. Average inference time from this NN takes < 7 · 10-3s. Worst accuracy at NRMSE of approx 9 · 10-3is achieved without any skips, at k = 2, f = 16 and n = 3, but deployment takes only < 2 · 10-3s Given an adequate training, the prediction accuracy improves with convolution depth, where more features have higher impact on deeper NNs. Due to skip connections and batch normalisation, training is similarly efficient, regardless of the depth. This is further improved by blocks with dense connections, but at the price of a drastically larger model. Depending on geometrical complexity, spacial resolution is critical, as it increases the number of learnables and memory requirements massively.
Für die Aufbereitung und Systematisierung wissenschaftlicher Forschungsergebnisse und Beantwortung klinischer Fragestellungen im Hinblick auf Entscheidungen in der alltäglichen Versorgungspraxis bieten das Modell der Forschungspyramide und die Systematik eines Pyramiden-Reviews die Grundlage zur Bewertung und Integration externer Evidenz aus unterschiedlichen Forschungsansätzen. Dieser Beitrag stellt die jüngste Revision der Evidenzklassen in einem Update vor.
Menschen mit Aphasie erleben häufig Einbussen in Lebensqualität, Identitäts- und Autonomieerleben sowie in sozialer Teilhabe. Aphasie-Selbsthilfegruppen (ASHG) können soziale Inklusion und Anpassungsprozesse sowie Sinnerleben fördern. Von Betroffenen geleitete psychosozial ausgerichtete Gruppen können in besonderer Weise Selbstwerterleben und Partizipation sowohl der Gruppenleitungen als auch der -mitglieder fördern. Meist werden die ASHG jedoch professionell oder von Angehörigen geleitet und integrieren Betroffene und Angehörige. Das Ziel des Projekts shalk ist, Menschen mit Aphasie durch eine passgenaue Schulung und Begleitung mit Moderationsübungen und biographischen Inhalten zu befähigen, die Leitung von ASHG zu übernehmen. Mit der Ausrichtung auf biographische Inhalte sollen explizit die Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen veränderten Identität und damit das Selbstwerterleben stimuliert werden. Die Maßnahme wurde in einem Mixed-Methods-Design mit Vor- und Nachtest sowie einer
Follow-up-Untersuchung nach sechs Monaten evaluiert. Erste quantitative Daten für zwei Gruppen zeigen signifikante Verbesserungen der Lebensqualität. Sowohl Schulung als auch Transfer in die ASHG können gelingen. Dabei sind ein flexibles, übungsorientiertes Vorgehen in den Schulungen sowie eine systematische Begleitung essenziell. Einflussfaktoren für das Gelingen wie etwa die Gruppenzusammensetzung gilt es zu untersuchen, um so das passende Vorgehen für individuelle Gruppen und die Anleitung in der sprachtherapeutischen Intervention bestimmen und das Selbsthilfepotential optimal ausschöpfen zu können.
Introduction Paediatricians, general practitioners (GPs) and midwives in primary care are important sources of information for parents on early childhood allergy prevention (ECAP). Research has shown that preventive counselling by health professionals can be effective in improving patients' health literacy (HL) and health behaviour. Providing effective advice relies on two factors. First, health professionals need be up-to-date with research evidence on ECAP, to consider popular misconceptions and fears and to translate this knowledge into clear recommendations for parents (knowledge translation). Second, they need to know and apply counselling techniques and create a practice setting which accommodates parental HL needs (health literacy-responsive care). The objective of this study is to explore and assess how German health professionals take up and translate ECAP evidence into appropriate recommendations for parents, how they consider HL in counselling and practice organisation and what barriers and enablers they find in their performance of HL-responsive ECAP. Methods and analysis The study has a sequential mixed-method design, in two phases. In the first phase, qualitative semi-structured expert interviews will be conducted with health professionals (paediatricians, GPs and midwives) at primary care level and professional policy level. Data collection is ongoing until January 2022. In the second phase, based on the qualitative results, a standardised questionnaire will be developed, and pilot-tested in a wider population of German health professionals. The findings of both phases will be integrated. Ethics and dissemination The study has received ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of the University of Regensburg (18-1205-101). The results will be published in international peer-reviewed open access journals and via presentations at scientific conferences. The results will also be shared with German health professionals, decision-makers and potential funders of interventions.
Das vorliegende Lehr- und Arbeitsbuch, das im Wesentlichen die mathematische Grundausbildung im ersten Studienjahr technisch- und naturwissenschaftlich orientierter Studiengänge abdeckt, verfolgt zwei Ziele: Zum einen sollen praxisrelevante mathematische Methoden eingeübt werden, wie es etwa in ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Studiengängen gefordert wird. Zum anderen sollen Studierende die Fähigkeit erwerben, sich selbstständig in unbekannte mathematische Texte einzuarbeiten. Letzteres ist notwendig, weil eine mathematische Grundausbildung niemals alle Themen abdecken kann, die im weiteren Studium oder später im Arbeitsleben möglicherweise gebraucht werden. Hier würden auswendig gelernte Kochrezepte scheitern – stattdessen sollten Zusammenhänge erkannt werden. Das vorliegende Buch erleichtert dies durch einen formal-theoretischen Rahmen sowie einen logisch konsistenten Aufbau inklusive ausführlicher Beweise für fast alle Behauptungen. Praxisbezüge werden insbesondere hergestellt zur Physik, Signal- und Systemtheorie sowie Energietechnik. Weitere didaktische Besonderheiten des Buches: Im Text sind kleine Übungen und Verständnisfragen eingestreut, die den Leser beim Durcharbeiten des Stoffes zum aktiven Mitmachen anregen. Nach jedem Abschnitt werden außerdem Übungsaufgaben angeboten, die in Rechen- und Theorieaufgaben unterteilt sind. Erstere dienen dem Anwenden und Einüben der wesentlichen Rechenmethoden, letztere dem Verstehen und Erkennen von Zusammenhängen. Über 250 Abbildungen und Diagramme stärken die Anschauungskraft des Lesers.
Even though artificial intelligence and machine learning have demonstrated remarkable performances in medical image computing, their level of accountability and transparency must be provided in such evaluations. The reliability related to machine learning predictions must be explained and interpreted, especially if diagnosis support is addressed. For this task, the black-box nature of deep learning techniques must be lightened up to transfer its promising results into clinical practice. Hence, we aim to investigate the use of explainable artificial intelligence techniques to quantitatively highlight discriminative regions during the classification of earlycancerous tissues in Barrett’s esophagus-diagnosed patients. Four Convolutional Neural Network models (AlexNet, SqueezeNet, ResNet50, and VGG16) were analyzed using five different interpretation techniques (saliency, guided backpropagation, integrated gradients, input × gradients, and DeepLIFT) to compare their agreement with experts’ previous annotations of cancerous tissue. We could show that saliency attributes match best with the manual experts’ delineations. Moreover, there is moderate to high correlation between the sensitivity of a model and the human-and-computer agreement. The results also lightened that the higher the model’s sensitivity, the stronger the correlation of human and computational segmentation agreement. We observed a relevant relation between computational learning and experts’ insights, demonstrating how human knowledge may influence the correct computational learning.
Barrett's esophagus denotes a disorder in the digestive system that affects the esophagus' mucosal cells, causing reflux, and showing potential convergence to esophageal adenocarcinoma if not treated in initial stages. Thus, fast and reliable computer-aided diagnosis becomes considerably welcome. Nevertheless, such approaches usually suffer from imbalanced datasets, which can be addressed through Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). Such techniques generate realistic images based on observed samples, even though at the cost of a proper selection of its hyperparameters. Many works employed a class of nature-inspired algorithms called metaheuristics to tackle the problem considering distinct deep learning approaches. Therefore, this paper's main contribution is to introduce metaheuristic techniques to fine-tune GANs in the context of Barrett's esophagus identification, as well as to investigate the feasibility of generating high-quality synthetic images for early-cancer assisted identification.
Background and aims: The accurate differentiation between T1a and T1b Barrett’s cancer has both therapeutic and prognostic implications but is challenging even for experienced physicians. We trained an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system on the basis of deep artificial neural networks (deep learning) to differentiate between T1a and T1b Barrett’s cancer white-light images.
Methods: Endoscopic images from three tertiary care centres in Germany were collected retrospectively. A deep learning system was trained and tested using the principles of cross-validation. A total of 230 white-light endoscopic images (108 T1a and 122 T1b) was evaluated with the AI-system. For comparison, the images were also classified by experts specialized in endoscopic diagnosis and treatment of Barrett’s cancer.
Results: The sensitivity, specificity, F1 and accuracy of the AI-system in the differentiation between T1a and T1b cancer lesions was 0.77, 0.64, 0.73 and 0.71, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference between the performance of the AI-system and that of human experts with sensitivity, specificity, F1 and accuracy of 0.63, 0.78, 0.67 and 0.70 respectively.
Conclusion: This pilot study demonstrates the first multicenter application of an AI-based system in the prediction of submucosal invasion in endoscopic images of Barrett’s cancer. AI scored equal to international experts in the field, but more work is necessary to improve the system and apply it to video sequences and in a real-life setting. Nevertheless, the correct prediction of submucosal invasion in Barret´s cancer remains challenging for both experts and AI.
The evaluation and assessment of Barrett’s esophagus is challenging for both expert and nonexpert endoscopists. However, the early diagnosis of cancer in Barrett’s esophagus is crucial for its prognosis, and could save costs. Pre-clinical and clinical studies on the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Barrett’s esophagus have shown promising results. In this review, we focus on the current challenges and future perspectives of implementing AI systems in the management of patients with Barrett’s esophagus.
Wissens- und Technologietransfer (WTT) hat innerhalb der letzten Jahrzehnte stark an Bedeutung gewonnen und reiht sich nicht nur im Hochschulbereich als Third Mission neben Lehre und Forschung ein (vergleiche Roessler et al. 2015, 4). Über den Hochschulbereich hinaus bewegt dieses Thema auch außerakademische Sektoren. Zur Bewertung und Steuerung der Transferaktivitäten und vor allem der Transferleistung von Transferprozessen bedarf es einer adäquaten Auswahl an Transferindikatoren zur Erreichung der Transferziele (vergleiche Molas-Gallert 2002; Hachmeister et al. 2016; Frondizi et al. 2019). Somit sollte das Interesse an einer sinnvollen Transferindikatorik bei jedem Akteur liegen, der aktiv am Transfermanagement teilnimmt. Doch welches Set an Kennzahlen ist geeignet, um die eigenen Transferaktivitäten zu beobachten und deren Leistung zu steuern?
Introduction
International studies show a relation between functional dysphonia and mental disorders. The aim of this study was to determine a correlation between functional dysphonia, anxiety and depression for Germany. Methods
A cross-sectional study including 66 patients with functional voice disorder was conducted. The data was collected using standardized self-reported instruments for measuring voice disorders (VHI-30), anxiety and depression (HADS-D, STADI (T)).
Results
High self-assessment values for dysphonia indicate a higher probability of anxiety and depression. A high value in HADS-D predict a high value in VHI-30.
Conclusion
For this sample a relation between voice disorders, anxiety and depression has been proven.
We present two methods that combine image reconstruction and edge detection in computed tomography (CT) scans. Our first method is as an extension of the prominent filtered backprojection algorithm. In our second method we employ l1-regularization for stable calculation of the gradient. As opposed to the first method, we show that this approach is able to compensate for undersampled CT data.
Der Beitrag zeigt, dass es sich bei der populären Figur eines ‚richtigen‘ oder gesunden Körpergewichts um eine diskursive soziale Konstruktion handelt, die aus der Veralltäglichung eines genuin naturwissenschaftlichen Diskurses im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert hervorging. Das 21. Jahrhundert steht für die Etablierung eines Wissensregimes und gleichzeitig für neue Spielräume gesellschaftlichen Wissens, die sich in einer sogenannten „Bildergesellschaft“ unter anderem in den sozialen Medien konstituieren. Eine wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse medizinischer und wissenschaftlicher Fachliteratur, gesundheitspolitischer Kampagnen, einschlägiger Internetforen, -seiten und Blogs von Body Positive-Aktivist*innen entschlüsselt dynamische Bewegungen und Gegen-Bewegungen im Umfeld des ‚richtigen‘ Körpergewichts. Die bisherige hierarchische Ordnung von Wissen weist zwei Diskursstränge auf: Eine negative Bewertung und Moralisierung von Übergewicht sowie die Konjunktur eines Body Shaping. Gegen die kollektive Selbstoptimierung in Richtung eines fitten, schlanken Körpers formiert sich allerdings seit einiger Zeit Widerstand. Dieser organisiert sich zum einen in wissenschaftlicher Hinsicht, zum anderen wird ein neues Schönheits- und Körperverständnis populär. Die Initiativen der Fat Studies und der Body Positivity-Bewegung erreichen bereits weltweit diskursive Sichtbarkeit und könnten normatives Wissen langfristig entmachten.
Der Beitrag untersucht die Nutzung altersgerechter Assistenz-systeme und insbesondere Roboter. Die Studie basiert auf einem Scoping Review, das einen Überblick über aktuelle Forschungsergebnisse zum Einsatz von Robotern in der Pflege gibt, sowie auf Ergebnissen einer qualitativen und quantitativen Studie. In die-ser Untersuchung zeigen sich einige Diffusionshemmnisse, aber auch Chancen für den Einsatz, die anhand eines Fallbeispiels zum Einsatz von Telepräsenzrobotern zu Pflege und Therapie diskutiert werden.
This article describes the transitions of an existing lecture “Communication Systems” from a conventional presence format to a virtual format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The process of transformation, the evolution of the lecture during the virtual semester and the lessons learned are characterized. The changed exam format from presence to virtual format with the experiences are described. Results of a student evaluation at the end of the semester are shown.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the course Communication Systems was transferred from presence to a virtual lecture. No hands-on lab experiments were possible. Therefore, a GNU Radio practical part was integrated into the lecture. A tutorial was written to guide students through the first steps with GNU Radio to decrease initial problems and increase student motivation. Several examples were given regarding digital signal processing, analogue and digital modulation and demodulation. Software Defined Radio receivers were set up in the amateur radio lab of the university and connected to the internet so that students were able to get real radio data to be analyzed and demodulated with their own GNU Radio models. This enables a knowledge transfer from simulated signal processing to the analysis and demodulation of real live signals. Students showed medium to high interest in practical examples during the lectures and tried their own GNU Radio simulations. Overall, the integration of GNU Radio and Software Defined Radio receivers into this virtual lecture gave additional benefits for the students to deal with signal processing and demodulation experiments. It is planned to use GNU Radio in the future for complementary practical examples to the hands-on experiments in the lab.
Kinder und Jugendliche mit Behinderung erfahren in der aktuellen Kindheits- und Jugendforschung bislang noch wenig Aufmerksamkeit. Im Beitrag wird zunächst entlang verschiedener disziplinärer Perspektiven der Begriff Behinderung definiert und diskutiert. Nach einem Blick auf den gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit Kindern und Jugendlichen mit Behinderung erfolgt anhand quantitativer und qualitativer Studien ein knapper Überblick über vorliegende Befunde zur Lebenssituation von Kindern und Jugendlichen mit Behinderungen in den Lebensbereichen Bildung, Freizeit, soziale Eingebundenheit und Verselbstständigung.
Würdevolles Sterben muss an jedem Ort möglich sein, auch im Krankenhaus, und hier nicht nur auf einer Palliativstation. Immer noch kommt es am Lebensende zu unnötigen, nicht dem Patientenwohl dienenden, Verlegungen vom Heim oder der eigenen Wohnung in das Krankenhaus, vom Krankenhaus bspw. in ein Hospiz oder innerhalb des Krankenhauses von einer Normal- auf die Intensivstation. Damit die Zahl vermeidbarer Verlegungen im Krankenhaus reduziert wird, wurden im Rahmen eines Projektes zur Versorgungsforschung (Avenue-Pal), gefördert über den Gemeinsamen Bundesausschuss aus dem Innovationsfonds des Bundes, Entscheidungshilfen erarbeitet.
Hintergrund:
Knapp 80% aller Menschen sterben in Deutschland in stationärer Versorgung, ca. jeder fünfte von ihnen wird in seiner letzten Lebensphase nochmals in einen anderen Versorgungsbereich verlegt. Dies sind mehr als 150.000 Menschen, die oft ohne Indikation verlegt werden. 13 Risikofaktoren wurden für diese nicht indizierten Verlegungen identifiziert.
Methode:
Unter Begleitung der AWMF wurden zwei regional wirksame Leitlinien entwickelt und in einem Krankenhaus der Maximalversorgung sowie einer Pflegeeinrichtung implementiert. In dem Krankenhaus wurde ein palliativer Konsildienst etabliert. In der Pflegeeinrichtung wurde eine umfassende Personal- und Organisationsentwicklung betrieben. Unterschiedliche Kooperationen mit relevanten regionalen Partnern beider Modelleinrichtungen wurden systematisch ausgeweitet.
Ergebnisse und Schlussfolgerungen:
Die Verlegungen konnten trotz kurzer Laufzeit des Projekts signifikant reduziert werden. Gelingen konnte dies auch durch die Etablierung von Entscheidungshilfen und einer digitalisierten Implementierungsunterstützung. Die Ergebnisse der ethischen und sozialen Begleitforschung rechtfertigen das Vorgehen.Die Zufriedenheit von Angehörigen und Mitarbeitern steigt.
One of the fundamental challenges in L-PBF of filigree geometries, such as aortic stents used in biomedical applications, is the requirement for a robust yet easily removable support structure that allows each component to be successfully fabricated without distortion. To solve this challenge, an integrative experimental approach was attempted in the present study by identifying an optimal support structure design and an optimized support removal strategy for this design. The specimens were manufactured using four different support structure designs based on the geometry exposed to the laser beam during the L-PBF. Support removal procedures included sand blasting (SB), glass bead blasting (GB), and electrochemical polishing (ECP). The two best-performing designs (line and cross) were chosen due to shorter lead times and lower material consumption. As an additional factor that indicates a stable design, the breaking load requirement to remove the support structures was determined. A modified line support with a 145° included angle was shown to be the best support structure design in terms of breaking load, material consumption, and manufacturing time. All three procedures were used to ensure residue-free support removal for this modified line support design, with ECP proving to be the most effective.
Vorgestellt wird das Forschungsvorhaben des interdisziplinären Forschungsprojekts „DeinHaus 4.0 – Telepräsenzroboter für die Pflege und Unterstützung von Schlaganfallpatientinnen und -patienten (TePUS)“. Über geeignete Robotersysteme sollen den Proband*innen individuell abgestimmte Angebote aus den Bereichen Telenursing und Teletherapie
zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Hierbei werden einerseits Telepräsenzsitzungen durchgeführt, anderseits kommen verschiedene Apps zum Einsatz. Die Interventionen werden mittels eines Mixed-Methods-Ansatzes evaluiert. Begleitend werden Technikakzeptanz und Nutzungsbereitschaft untersucht.
Mitten im Job - und Lust, fachlich und persönlich weiter zu kommen? Wem es im Sozialwesen so geht, der hat gut lachen. Denn die vielen berufsbegleitenden Studiengänge versprechen neue Perspektiven. Wie die aussehen und welche Fallstricke es gibt, hat unser Autor - selbst Hochschullehrer - für sie notiert.
Zeit strukturiert grundlegend unsere Wahrnehmung. Konzeptualisiert wird sie in der Theorie der Sozialen Arbeit allerdings kaum. Dabei haben Zeitressourcen einen erheblichen Einfluss auf Beratungshandeln. Michael Görtler zeigt theoretische wie praktische Perspektiven einer Beschäftigung mit der Zeit auf.
Swen Günther, Michael Brucksch, Paula-Marie Bormann, Thomas Falter, Gabriele Lang, Rüdiger Wink und Vivien Findeisen greifen mit ihrem Beitrag Auf dem Weg zur kennzahlenbasierten Steuerung von Transferprozessen in Hochschulen – Modelltheoretische Grundlagen und konzeptionelle Umsetzung ein Themenfeld auf, das in Anbetracht der verstärkten Bemühungen von Hochschulen um Transfer auf unterschiedlichen Handlungsebenen äußerst aktuell ist.
Ihr Beitrag entstand vor dem Hintergrund, dass sich in der einschlägigen Literatur zum Wissens- und Technologietransfer von Hochschulen und Forschungseinrichtungen zahlreiche Ansätze und insgesamt mehrere hundert Vorschläge von Indikatoren respektive Kennzahlen finden. Diese resultieren u.a. aus unterschiedlichen Begriffsverständnissen und wissenschaftlichen Dispositionen. Die Autor*innen stellen nun einen prozessorientierten Ansatz als modelltheoretische Grundlage vor, um auf dessen Basis eine kennzahlenbasierte Steuerung von Transferprozessen in Hochschulen zu entwickeln. Dabei werden – im Rahmen einer Betrachtung der beteiligten Subsysteme – die Erfolgsfaktoren für den Transfer herausgearbeitet sowie die Ableitung von Kennzahlen beispielhaft aufgezeigt. Hierfür wird auf Forschungsergebnisse des Verbundforschungsprojektes „Transferindikatorik“ zurückgegriffen.
Purpose: In this trial, we used a previously developed prototype software to assess aesthetic results after reconstructive surgery for congenital breast asymmetry using automated anthropometry. To prove the consensus between the manual and automatic digital measurements, we evaluated the software by comparing the manual and automatic measurements of 46 breasts.
Methods: Twenty-three patients who underwent reconstructive surgery for congenital breast asymmetry at our institution were examined and underwent 3D surface imaging. Per patient, 14 manual and 14 computer-based anthropometric measurements were obtained according to a standardized protocol. Manual and automatic measurements, as well as the previously proposed Symmetry Index (SI), were compared.
Results: The Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed no significant differences in six of the seven measurements between the automatic and manual assessments. The SI showed robust agreement between the automatic and manual methods.
Conclusion: The present trial validates our method for digital anthropometry. Despite the discrepancy in one measurement, all remaining measurements, including the SI, showed high agreement between the manual and automatic methods. The proposed data bring us one step closer to the long-term goal of establishing robust instruments to evaluate the results of breast surgery.
Projekt MAGGIE
(2021)
Im Projekt MAGGIE werden innovative Methoden der energetischen Gebäudesanierung im genossenschaftlichen Wohnquartier Margaretenau Regensburg getestet. Im Beitrag zur Sozialstudie wird die Erhebung der Akzeptanz einer energetischen Sanierung vorgestellt. Vor der Sanierung wurde eine schriftliche Haushaltsbefragung durchgeführt. Der Vortrag geht auf theoretische Aspekte der Nachhaltigkeit und Ergebnisse ein. Ein Fokus liegt dabei auf der sozialen Nachhaltigkeit im Sinne der Sozialverträglichkeit.
Sind Impfbereitschaft und Impfablehnung rational erklärbar?
Und wenn ja: Welche Rolle spielen dabei Verschwörungsüberzeugungen
und die Nutzung sozialer Medien?
Welchen Einfluss haben Freunde und Bekannte und das
Wohl der Gesellschaft? Und inwieweit vertraut die Bevölkerung
in Deutschland überhaupt in Impfungen und staatliche
Institutionen wie das Robert Koch-Institut?
Mit der Zuwanderung von Geflüchteten seit dem Jahr 2014/2015 hat sich die Bevölkerungsstruktur und insbesondere die Struktur der Personen mit Migrationshintergrund in Deutschland stark gewandelt. Syrische Staatsangehörige sind laut AZR 2019 die drittgrößte Gruppe ausländischer Staatsangehöriger in Deutschland (Quelle: BAMF 2019:
Migrationsbericht 2018) und laut Mikrozensus 2017 die siebtgrößte Gruppe unter den Personen mit Migrationshintergrund (Quelle: Destatis 2019). Über diese Bevölkerungsgruppe und ihre Familien liegen
bislang wenige Auswertungen amtlicher Daten vor. Erschwert werden Analysen durch das Wohnen in Gemeinschaftsunterkünften und die fehlende Erhebung von Merkmalen bei diesen Bevölkerungsgruppen. Mit der IAB-BAMF-SOEP-Befragung von Geflüchteten liegen Befragungsdaten im Längsschnitt vor.
Die Ergebnisse dienen als Hintergrundinformation einer laufenden Studie zur „Politischen Partizipation von Geflüchteten“ mit einer Befragung in Gemeinschaftsunterkünften in Hemau, Ingolstadt, Landshut,
München, Nürnberg und Regensburg 2019/2020.
Eingegrenzt wird die Untersuchungsgruppe anhand der Zuzugsjahre (seit 2014) und des Hauptmotivs für den Zuzug nach Deutschland (Flucht, Asyl, internationaler Schutz).
Als Datenquelle wird auf den Mikrozensus 2017 zurückgegriffen, bei dem zuletzt das Hauptmotiv für den Zuzug abgefragt wurde. Ergänzend werden
Daten der IAB-BAMF-SOEP-Befragung von Geflüchteten, der Befragung „Asylsuchende in Bayern“ (Haug/Currle/Lochner/Huber/Altenbuchner 2017)
oder der Befragung „Einstellungen zur Demokratie und politischen Partizipation von Geflüchteten“ (Haug/Schmidbauer, Datenerhebung 2019/2020) genutzt. Es sollen folgende Fragestellungen untersucht werden: Wie groß sind Haushalte von Geflüchteten? Umfassen diese Haushalte mehr Personen als Haushalte von anderen Personen mit Migra-
tionshintergrund beziehungsweise Personen ohne Migrationshintergrund? Wie hoch ist der Anteil der Geflüchteten, die in einer Gemeinschaftsunterkunft beziehungsweise Flüchtlingsunterkunft leben? In einem Strategiepapier empfahl das empirica-Institut „Familien aufs Land!“ (empirica 2015). Es soll daher auch untersucht werden, ob Familien und Haushalte mit Fluchthintergrund eher in städtischen oder ländlichen Regionen leben.
Ziel
Die Studie untersucht die Impfbereitschaft mit einem COVID-19-Vakzin an einer Zufallsstichprobe der Gesamtbevölkerung und deren Determinanten (wahrgenommene Risiken einer Erkrankung, wahrgenommene Nebenwirkungen und allgemeine Einstellung zu Impfungen, Vertrauen in Institutionen, soziostrukturelle Faktoren, Einfluss sozialer Bezugsgruppen).
Methodik
Telefonische Ein-Themen-Bevölkerungsbefragung zur Impfbereitschaft (n=2014) vor der Zulassung eines COVID-19-Vakzins in Deutschland im November/Dezember 2020.
Ergebnisse
Die Impfbereitschaft liegt bei etwa 67% und steigt mit dem Anteil der impfbereiten Freunde und Bekannten und dem Vertrauen gegenüber dem Robert-Koch-Institut, bei Zugehörigkeit zu einer Risikogruppe und der Erwartung gefährlicher Konsequenzen bei einer Erkrankung. Erfahrungen mit einer Infektion bei den Befragten oder in ihrer sozialen Bezugsgruppe erhöhen die Impfbereitschaft. Männer haben eine erhöhte Impfbereitschaft. Bei höherem Schulbildungsniveau zeigt sich (mit Ausnahme der Personen mit Fachhochschulreife) durchgängig eine höhere Impfneigung. Eine Überschätzung der Wahrscheinlichkeit ernsthafter Nebenwirkungen bei Grippeimpfungen senkt die Impfbereitschaft gegen COVID-19. Auffällig ist der Befund einer erheblichen Überschätzung der Häufigkeit von ernsthaften Impfnebenwirkungen bei Influenza-Impfungen.
Schlussfolgerungen
Es werden Implikationen für eine zielgruppenadäquate Informationskampagne und Risikokommunikation abgeleitet. Bestrebungen zur Förderung der Impfbereitschaft der Bevölkerung sollten insbesondere benachteiligte Bevölkerungsgruppen in den Fokus nehmen.
Einstellungen der Bevölkerung im Kontext der Corona-Pandemie – Impfbereitschaft und Determinanten
(2021)
Hintergrund
In Deutschland liegen unterschiedliche Befunde zur Akzeptanz von Schutzimpfungen gegen COVID-19 vor. Die Impfbereitschaft schwankt je nach Stichprobe, Messung und Erhebungszeitraum.
Ziel der Arbeit (Fragestellung)
Ziel der Studie ist die Untersuchung der Impfbereitschaft mit einem COVID-19-Vakzin an einer Zufallsstichprobe der Gesamtbevölkerung. Der Schwerpunkt der Studie liegt in der Beschreibung des Zusammenhangs zwischen Impfbereitschaft, wahrgenommenen Risiken einer Erkrankung, den subjektiven Überzeugungen zu Nebenwirkungen und dem Vertrauen in Institutionen sowie dem Einfluss sozialer Bezugsgruppen.
Material und Methoden
Die Studie basiert auf einer telefonischen Ein-Themen-Bevölkerungsbefragung zur Impfbereitschaft (n=2.014) vor der Zulassung eines COVID-19-Vakzins in Deutschland im November/Dezember 2020.
Ergebnisse
Die Impfbereitschaft liegt bei etwa 67 % und steigt mit dem Anteil der impfbereiten Freunde und Bekannten und dem Vertrauen gegenüber dem Robert-Koch-Institut, bei Zugehörigkeit zu einer Risikogruppe und der Erwartung gefährlicher Konsequenzen bei einer Erkrankung oder Unklarheit darüber. Erfahrungen mit einer Infektion bei den Befragten oder in ihrer sozialen Bezugsgruppe erhöhen die Impfbereitschaft. Eine Überschätzung der Wahrscheinlichkeit ernsthafter Nebenwirkungen bei Grippeimpfungen senkt die Impfbereitschaft gegen COVID-19. Auffällig ist der Befund einer erheblichen Überschätzung der Häufigkeit von ernsthaften Impfnebenwirkungen.
Diskussion
Die Überschätzung der Häufigkeit ernsthafter Nebenwirkungen bei Impfungen weist erstens auf ein Informationsdefizit, zweitens auf weit verbreitete Fehlinformationen und drittens auf kognitive Probleme bei der Interpretation relativer Häufigkeiten hin. Es werden Implikationen für eine Informationskampagne abgeleitet.
Aim
The aim of the interdisciplinary S3-guideline Perimenopause and Postmenopause – Diagnosis and Interventions is to provide help to physicians as they inform women about the physiological changes which occur at this stage of life and the treatment options. The guideline should serve as a basis for decisions taken during routine medical care. This short version lists the statements and recommendations given in the long version of the guideline together with the evidence levels, the level of recommendation, and the strength of consensus.
Methods
The statements and recommendations are largely based on methodologically high-quality publications. The literature was evaluated by experts and mandate holders using evidence-based medicine (EbM) criteria. The search for evidence was carried out by the Essen Research Institute for Medical Management (EsFoMed). To some extent, this guideline also draws on an evaluation of the evidence used in the NICE guideline on Menopause and the S3-guidelines of the AWMF and has adapted parts of these guidelines.
Recommendations
Recommendations are given for the following subjects: diagnosis and therapeutic interventions for perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, urogynecology, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, dementia, depression, mood swings, hormone therapy and cancer risk, as well as primary ovarian insufficiency.
In recent years, our society faced a massive interconnection of computer-based everyday objects, which opens these items for cyber-attacks. Dependent on the physical capabilities, successful attacks can vary from data exposure or a loss of functionality to a threat to life and limb. Connected- and autonomous vehicles are extremely safety-critical systems with a huge damage potential. This global trend, together with existing and upcoming regulations (ISO 270xx, ISO 21434, UNECE WP.29, UNECE R155), and the lack of qualified professionals create a tension field for the entire automotive industry.
Hence, new education concepts for engineers of safety-critical and connected systems are necessary to secure our daily and future systems against cyber-attacks and raise awareness and knowledge of the topic of IT-Security. Existing automotive security education systems have one common problem: All systems are hardware-based and therefore have very steep learning curves for beginners. Hardware-based systems, in general, are expensive in their initial costs, require regular maintenance, and add diverse operational difficulties independent of the aspired education goal. Additionally, the global pandemic increased the necessity of virtual education concepts for security training in cyber-physical systems.
Therefore, we present a novel concept for the education of cyber-security professionals for automotive systems based on discovery and problem-based learning in a virtual learning environment (VLE). Our concept contains individual exercises focusing on the topics of vulnerabilities and attacks in automotive networks and systems. Each exercise relates those topics to the corresponding security goals and countermeasures for mitigation. The learners work collaboratively in a self-contained manner within the VLE to acquire the necessary information to answer questions or find a solution to the given problem. To consider the heterogeneous background (e.g. knowledge, experience, preconceptions) of the learners, the topics can be presented in different difficulties, enabling an adaptable learning environment and different learning trajectories within the exercises.
The concept is based on a VLE, consisting of automotive networks and components, which simulate the behavior of a vehicle. This environment provides a hands-on, "real-life" scenario, which allows discovery and problem-based learning in a realistic, but cheap and scalable education environment. Furthermore, virtualization removes common difficulties, always present in training on real hardware. This aims to decrease complexity, prevent learning obstacles related to hardware handling, and enables a location-independent learning environment.
The target group of our education concept is Bachelor and Master students of computer science, engineering (e.g. electrical engineering, mechatronics), or similar studies, and (experienced) engineers from the industry.
In summary, our publication contains two contributions. We present an adaptable virtual learning environment for automotive security education, combined with an educational concept based on discovery and problem-based learning techniques. The goals of our concept are the education of cyber-security professionals for safety-critical, connected automotive systems and the support of life-long learning reaching from academic education to training in the industry.
Academic entrepreneurship education aims to train and raise awareness amongst students about entrepreneurial activity, thereby increasing the number of academic start-ups and spin-offs. However, as yet, there are very few findings on the gender-specific differences amongst potential entrepreneurs. Building on the current state of research, gender-specific differences in the form of various different components of entrepreneurial competence are examined. This study focuses in particular on (1) entrepreneurial knowledge, (2) domain-specific interest in entrepreneurship, (3) interest in leadership roles, and (4) entrepreneurial and (5) intrapreneurial intention. Based on an online survey of 281 students of a German and Czech university, the mean differences show that there are statistically significant lower values for female students than for male students for all the variables investigated, that is with exception to intrapreneurial intention. These findings underline the need for targeted promotion of female entrepreneurship within the context of academic entrepreneurship education.
Results of WICOVIR Gargle Pool PCR Testing in German Schools Based on the First 100,000 Tests
(2021)
Background:
Opening schools and keeping children safe from SARS-CoV-2 infections at the same time is urgently needed to protect children from direct and indirect consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve this goal, a safe, efficient, and cost-effective SARS-CoV-2 testing system for schools in addition to standard hygiene measures is necessary.
Methods:
We implemented the screening WICOVIR concept for schools in the southeast of Germany, which is based on gargling at home, pooling of samples in schools, and assessment of SARS-CoV-2 by pool rRT-PCR, performed decentralized in numerous participating laboratories. Depooling was performed if pools were positive, and results were transmitted with software specifically developed for the project within a day. Here, we report the results after the first 13 weeks in the project.
Findings:
We developed and implemented the proof-of-concept test system within a pilot phase of 7 weeks based on almost 17,000 participants. After 6 weeks in the main phase of the project, we performed >100,000 tests in total, analyzed in 7,896 pools, identifying 19 cases in >100 participating schools. On average, positive children showed an individual CT value of 31 when identified in the pools. Up to 30 samples were pooled (mean 13) in general, based on school classes and attached school staff. All three participating laboratories detected positive samples reliably with their previously established rRT-PCR standard protocols. When self-administered antigen tests were performed concomitantly in positive cases, only one of these eight tests was positive, and when antigen tests performed after positive pool rRT-PCR results were already known were included, 3 out of 11 truly positive tests were also identified by antigen testing. After 3 weeks of repetitive WICOVIR testing twice weekly, the detection rate of positive children in that cohort decreased significantly from 0.042 to 0.012 (p = 0.008).
Interpretation:
Repeated gargle pool rRT-PCR testing can be implemented quickly in schools. It is an effective, valid, and well-received test system for schools, superior to antigen tests in sensitivity, acceptance, and costs.
Academic self-regulation is a key factor for motivation and learning achievement. Yet with the large range of individual factors, this is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. This study of L2 Technical English students at two German universities explored learners’ expectations and motivations, in particular regarding self-regulation and self-efficacy via the individual’s time investment in self-led study. In an initial survey, learners (N=1646) reported on their English skill levels and anticipated learning habits. Complementarily, the retrospective survey investigated learners’ (N=796) actual behavior during the course, their perceptions of language skill improvement, and their satisfaction. The initial survey indicates a clear understanding that time investment in self-regulated study will lead to greater improvement, an outcome confirmed in the retrospective survey. Additionally, students who invested more time in their coursework were more satisfied with their achievement, although most learners acknowledge they should have studied more. The results verify that learners recognize the nexus between self-regulation and language skill improvement, yet university students are not satisfied with their capacity to self-regulate their language learning strategies. While differences in students’ skill levels and academic self-efficacy result in divergent degrees of progress, students of all types report benefits to their language skills when motivated to self-regulated study.
Academic self-regulation is a key factor for motivation and learning achievement. Yet with the large range of individual factors, this is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. This study of L2 Technical English students at two German universities explored learners’ expectations and motivations, in particular regarding self-regulation and self-efficacy via the individual’s time investment in self-led study. In an initial survey, learners (N=1646) reported on their English skill levels and anticipated learning habits. Complementarily, the retrospective survey investigated learners’ (N=796) actual behavior during the course, their perceptions of language skill improvement, and their satisfaction. The initial survey indicates a clear understanding that time investment in self-regulated study will lead to greater improvement, an outcome confirmed in the retrospective survey. Additionally, students who invested more time in their coursework were more satisfied with their achievement, although most learners acknowledge they should have studied more. The results verify that learners recognize the nexus between self-regulation and language skill improvement, yet university students are not satisfied with their capacity to self-regulate their language learning strategies. While differences in students’ skill levels and academic self-efficacy result in divergent degrees of progress, students of all types report benefits to their language skills when motivated to self-regulated study.
Einleitung:
Blutdruck gilt als sogenannter Vitalparameter als einer der grundlegenden Indikatoren für den Gesundheitszustand einer Person. Sowohl zu niedriger als auch zu hoher Blutdruck kann lebensbedrohend sein, letzerer ist darüber hinaus ein Risikofaktor insbesondere für Herz-Kreislauferkrankungen, die trotz wichtiger Fortschritte in der Behandlung immer noch die häufigste Todesursache in Deutschland darstellen. Die Hämodynamik, also die raumzeitliche Dynamik des Blutflusses, und der Gefäßzustand sind eng verbunden mit dem Blutdruck und ebenfalls von hoher klinischer Relevanz, u.a. zur Identifikation von Durchblutungsstörungen und ungünstigen Druckverteilungen der Gefäßwand. Innovationen in der Messtechnik als auch in der Datenanalyse bieten heute neue Möglichkeiten der Erfassung und Bewertung von Blutdruck, Hämodynamik und Gefäßzustand [1], [2], [3], [4].
Methodik:
In einer gemeinsamen Workshopserie der AG Medizinische Bild- und Signalverarbeitung der GMDS und des Fachausschusses Biosignale der DGBMT werden wir neue Ansätze und Lösungen für Mess- und Analyseverfahren zu Blutdruck und -fluss sowie zum Gefäßzustand vorstellen und diskutieren. Dabei stehen im ersten Workshop auf der GMDS Jahrestagung Bildbasierte Verfahren im Zentrum, während der zweite Workshop auf der DGBMT Jahrestagung den Fokus auf Biosignalbasierten Verfahren legt. Es werden aktuelle Forschungsergebnisse vorgestellt und diskutiert. Es sind jeweils mehrere Vorträge geplant mit ausreichend Zeit zur Diskussion. Folgende Vorträge sind geplant (Arbeitstitel):
Sebastian Zaunseder: Videobasierte Erfassung des Blutdrucks
Anja Hennemuth: A Visualization Toolkit for the Analysis of Aortic Anatomy and Pressure Distribution
Lars Krenkel: Numerische Analyse der Rupturwahrscheinlichkeit zerebraler Aneurysmata
Susanne Schnell: Messung des Blutflusses und hämodynamischer Parameter mit 4D flow MRI: Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen
Ergebnisse:
Ziel des Workshops ist die Identifikation von innovativen Ansätzen und neuen Methoden zur qualitativen und quantitativen Bestimmung von hämodynamischen Parametern sowie deren kritische Bewertung durch die Community für die Eignung in der klinischen Entscheidungsunterstützung.
Diskussion:
Der Workshop leistet inhaltlich einen Beitrag zu zentralen Aspekten für die Herz-Kreislauf-Medizin. Er bringt dabei Expertise aus verschiedenen Bereichen zusammen und schlägt die Brücke zwischen Kardiologie, Medizininformatik und Medizintechnik.
Schlussfolgerung:
Innovative Technologien aus Medizintechnik und Informatik ermöglichen zunehmend einfache und raumzeitlich aufgelöste Erfassung und Bewertung wichtiger Informationen zur Unterstützung von Diagnose und Therapieverfolgung.
[1] Zaunseder S, Trumpp A, Wedekind D, Malberg H. Cardiovascular assessment by imaging photoplethysmography - a review. Biomed Tech (Berl). 2018 Oct 25;63(5):617–34.
[2] Huellebrand M, Messroghli D, Tautz L, Kuehne T, Hennemuth A. An extensible software platform for interdisciplinary cardiovascular imaging research. Comput Methods Programs Biomed. 2020 Feb;184:105277.
[3] Schmitter S, Adriany G, Waks M, Moeller S, Aristova M, Vali A, et al. Bilateral Multiband 4D Flow MRI of the Carotid Arteries at 7T. Magn Reson Med. 2020 Oct;84(4):1947–60.
[4] Birkenmaier C, and Krenkel, L. Flow in Artificial Lungs. In: New Results in Numerical and Experimental Fluid Mechanics XIII. Contributions to the 22nd STAB/DGLR Symposium. Springer; 2021.
Background:
People with aphasia (PWA) often have a reduced quality of life. Nevertheless, there are currently only a few specific services that respond to this problem. Hence, there is a pressing need for action to improve participation and well-being of people with aphasia. An adapted social network could be a solution. Well-being could be increased by exchanging experiences with peers in a similar situation. Moreover, comprehensive digital coverage would also be possible in rural and underserved areas. This digital social network should be adapted to the specific needs of PWA. Therefore, a participatory, agile process with the involvement of the target group should be adopted.
Aim:
The aim is to develop and evaluate a social media platform as a smartphone app to support the social integration of PWA and to improve their quality of life. In addition to the digital exchange, face-to-face meetings between PWA should be stimulated.
Design:
The study will be conducted in a randomised pretest-posttest control group design with follow-up testing. The participants will be randomly assigned to the experimental intervention (36 participants) or the control intervention (36 participants). The primary outcome is quality of life, measured with the SAQOL-39. At all measurement times, psychological well-being is recorded with the help of two measuring instruments (GHQ-12 & DISCs). The secondary outcome is the recording of social contacts and activities as well as associated emotions, registered in a structured diary. In addition, communication skills (measured with the CPIB) and social support (recorded with the F-SozU) will be examined.
Method:
During the first project phase, a user-centred, agile development process will be adopted to design the app. The target group will be involved in the app development in a participatory manner. A workshop is planned for the users of the app. In the second phase, the usability and user-friendliness of the app will first be evaluated in a feasibility study. Subsequently, in the main study, the app will then be tested by the target group for 4 months.
Discussion:
The app developed in the research project is the first social network that is tailored to the needs and capabilities of PWA. It aims to enable better exchange between PWA to improve social participation and quality of life.
Our workshop aims to discuss the terms transfer success and transfer effectiveness and to agree on a common definition with the participants on the one hand. On the other, the moderators and workshop participants together will develop a set of indicators to measure technology and knowledge transfer success by focussing on the interaction of university with industry and society. The initiators’ background is the joint research project "Transfer_i" which's name simply stands for Transfer Indicators. The research partners developed a holistic approach on the technology and knowledge transfer process to contribute to the rather fragmented state of research. In addition, the project points out its value of practice by attempting a measurement of transfer output and even its impact with quantitative and qualitative indicators.
Today, many higher education institutions seek to professionalise their third mission activities and are asked to track their transfer processes according to their performance. Thus, an already considerable number of studies have been developed in recent years presenting approaches to transfer models or proposing a range of indicators to measure transfer performance from a universities’ perspective. The research project Transfer_i (transfer indicators) aims to present a transfer model approach, which reflects the complexity of knowledge and technology transfer processes in order to overcome the limited perspectives of existing models. The empirical study in progress presented in this paper shows first findings, which validate the developed approach. In contrast to nearly all other studies presenting only a universities’ viewpoint, this study shows the perspective of the other actors within the transfer practice, thereby providing useful insights for universities and research institutions on how to value their third mission activities.
"Mach mal ’ne App"
(2021)
Die Entwicklung qualitativ hochwertiger Apps zur Gesundheitsversorgung erfordert einen aufwendigen Entwicklungsprozess, an den sich eine Evaluation der App-gestützten Maßnahme anschließen sollte, um Aussagen zur Wirksamkeit treffen und somit den App-Einsatz begründen zu können. In diesem Beitrag wird die nutzerzentrierte Entwicklung der App BaSeTaLK vorgestellt, mit der eine Tablet-gestützte Stimulation biographisch orientierter Gespräche bei älteren Menschen zur Verbesserung des psychischen Wohlbefindens ermöglicht werden soll. Nach erfolgreicher Evaluation könnten LogopädInnen als MultiplikatorInnen den Einsatz der App vermitteln.
Ein interdisziplinäres Forschungsprojekt der Ostbayerischen Hochschule Regensburg untersucht, inwiefern Telemedizin und digitale Anwendungen die Therapie und Pflege von Menschen mit Schlaganfall in ihrem häuslichen Umfeld unterstützen, ihre Lebensqualität beeinflussen und die intersektorale Versorgung verbessern kann.
"Topographic Shift": a new digital approach to evaluating topographic changes of the female breast
(2021)
Purpose
To assess precise topographic changes of the breast, objective documentation and evaluation of pre- and postoperative results are crucial. New technologies for mapping the body using digital, three-dimensional surface measurements have offered novel ways to numerically assess the female breast. Due to the lack of clear demarcation points of the breast contour, the selection of landmarks on the breast is highly dependent on the examiner, and, therefore, is prone to error when conducting before-after comparisons of the same breast. This study describes an alternative to volumetric measurements, focusing on topographic changes of the female breast, based on three-dimensional scans.
Method
The study was designed as an interventional prospective study of 10 female volunteers who had planned on having aesthetic breast augmentation with anatomical, textured implants. Three dimensional scans of the breasts were performed intraoperatively, first without and then with breast implants. The topographic change was determined as the mean distance between two three-dimensional layers before and after augmentation. This mean distance is defined as the Topographic Shift. Results The mean implant volume was 283 cc (SD = 68.6 cc, range = 210-395 cc). The mean Topographic Shift was 7.4 mm (SD = 1.9 mm, range = 4.8-10.7 mm). The mean Topographic Shifts per quadrant were: I: 8.0 mm (SD = 3.3 mm); II: 9.2 mm (SD = 3.1 mm); III: 6.9 mm (SD = 3.5 mm); IV: 1.9 mm (SD = 4.3 mm).
Conclusion
The Topographic Shift, describing the mean distance between two three-dimensional layers (for example before and after a volume changing therapy), is a new approach that can be used for assessing topographic changes of a body area. It was found that anatomical, textured breast implants cause a topographic change, particularly on the upper breast, in quadrant II, the decollete.
The German workshop on medical image computing (BVM) has been held in different locations in Germany for more than 20 years. In terms of content, BVM focused on the computer-aided analysis of medical image data with a wide range of applications, e.g. in the area of imaging, diagnostics, operation planning, computer-aided intervention and visualization.
During this time, there have been remarkable methodological developments and upheavals, on which the BVM community has worked intensively. The area of machine learning should be emphasized, which has led to significant improvements, especially for tasks of classification and segmentation, but increasingly also in image formation and registration. As a result, work in connection with deep learning now dominates the BVM. These developments have also contributed to the establishment of medical image processing at the interface between computer science and medicine as one of the key technologies for the digitization of the health system.
In addition to the presentation of current research results, a central aspect of the BVM is primarily the promotion of young scientists from the diverse BVM community, covering not only Germany but also Austria, Switzerland, The Netherland and other European neighbors. The conference serves primarily doctoral students and postdocs, but also students with excellent bachelor and master theses as a platform to present their work, to enter into professional discourse with the community, and to establish networks with specialist colleagues. Despite the many conferences and congresses that are also relevant for medical image processing, the BVM has therefore lost none of its importance and attractiveness and has retained its permanent place in the annual conference rhythm.
Building on this foundation, there are some innovations and changes this year. The BVM 2021 was organized for the first time at the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Regensburg (OTH Regensburg, a technical university of applied sciences). After Aachen, Berlin, Erlangen, Freiburg, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Leipzig, Lübeck, and Munich, Regensburg is not just a new venue. OTH Regensburg is the first representative of the universities of applied sciences (HAW) to organize the conference, which differs to universities, university hospitals, or research centers like Fraunhofer or Helmholtz. This also considers the further development of the research landscape in Germany, where HAWs increasingly contribute to applied research in addition to their focus on teaching. This development is also reflected in the contributions submitted to the BVM in recent years.
At BVM 2021, which was held in a virtual format for the first time due to the Corona pandemic, an attractive and high-quality program was offered. Fortunately, the number of submissions increased significantly. Out of 97 submissions, 26 presentations, 51 posters and 5 software demonstrations were accepted via an anonymized reviewing process with three reviews each. The three best works have been awarded BVM prizes, selected by a separate committee.
Based on these high-quality submissions, we are able to present another special issue in the International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery (IJCARS). Out of the 97 submissions, the ones with the highest scores have been invited to submit an extended version of their paper to be presented in IJCARS. As a result, we are now able to present this special issue with seven excellent articles. Many submissions focus on machine learning in a medical context.
Introduction: Consultant Effectiveness is one of the main pillars of successfully implementing Psychological Skills Training (PST) in both elite mainstream and disability sports (Martin, 2015;
Vealey, 2007). Yet, there is a dearth of research on the articularities of PST consultation in elite Deaf Sport (Schliermann, 2015). Since hearing impairments have multiple intrapsychic as
well as interpsychic implications (Leigh & Andrews, 2016), it might influence Consultant Effectiveness in Deaf Sport. Therefore, the main purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate
preconceptions and actual experience of sport psychologists in regard to the consultation of elite deaf and hard-of-hearing (HOH) athletes. Method: A self-constructed questionnaire was administrated to 93 accredited sport psychology consultants (Mconsultant-years = 10.78) in
German-speaking countries. They were asked about their awareness, opinions and experience with deaf and HOH athletes. Results: Seven consultants (8%) reported ever to have worked with a deaf or HOH athlete. Four had ever watched a competition of the Deaflympics
in comparison to 77 who had watched one of the Paralympic games. Yet most subjects (71%) declared their willingness to work with deaf or HOH athletes regardless of their years of experience as consultants or prior contact with deaf or HOH individuals. In addition, the vast majority of the sample evaluated the implementation of common PST techniques in Deaf Sport as potentially “very effective” or “extremely effective”. When asked about potential particularities in the work with this group of athletes, most consultants focused mainly on communication issues. Conclusion: The analyses revealed a lack of awareness of elite Deaf Sport within the professional sport psychology communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Furthermore, a low rate of professional PST implementation in elite Deaf Sport was found in these countries. Considering the lack of experience and knowledge about the particularities in Deaf Sport, further research is needed to provide hearing consultants with tools to understand the world of elite deaf and HOH athletes beyond the means of communication with them.
Regarding the prevention of injuries and rehabilitation of the human hand, musculoskeletal simulations using an inverse dynamics approach allow for insights of the muscle recruitment and thus acting forces on the hand. Currently, several hand models from various research groups are in use, which are mainly validated by the comparison of numerical and anatomical moment arms. In contrast to this validation and model-building technique by cadaver studies, the aim of this study is to further validate a recently published hand model [1] by analyzing numerically calculated muscle activities in comparison to experimentally measured electromyographical signals of the muscles. Therefore, the electromyographical signals of 10 hand muscles of five test subjects performing seven different hand movements were measured. The kinematics of these tasks were used as input for the hand model, and the numerical muscle activities were computed. To analyze the relationship between simulated and measured activities, the time difference of the muscle on- and off-set points was calculated, which resulted in a mean on- and off-set time difference of 0.58 s between the experimental data and the model. The largest differences were detected for movements that mainly addressed the wrist. One major issue comparing simulated and measured muscle activities of the hand is cross-talk. Nevertheless, the results show that the hand model fits the experiment quite accurately despite some limitations and is a further step toward patient-specific modeling of the upper extremity.
Musculoskeletal lower back load of accoucheurs during childbirth – A pilot and feasibility study
(2021)
Introduction: Back problems represent one of the leading causes of accouchers' work-related musculoskeletal morbidities. The correct execution of birth-related maneuvers including manual perineal protection is crucial not only for the mother and child but also for obstetricians and midwives to reduce any strain on their musculoskeletal system. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to test the feasibility of determining the effect of different accouchers' postures (standing and kneeling) on their musculoskeletal system.
Methods: The biomechanical analysis is based on musculoskeletal simulations that included motion recordings of real deliveries as well as deliveries conducted on a birthing simulator. These simulations were then used to determine individual joints' loads.
Results: In the kneeling posture, both a low intra-operator variability and a lower average maximum load of the lower back was observed. For the standing position the spine load was reduced by pivoting the elbow on the accouchers' thigh, which in turn was associated with a significantly greater load on the shoulder joint.
Conclusion: The study demonstrated the feasibility of our technique to assess joints loads. It also provided initial data indicating that a posture that reduces spinal flexion and tilt, achieved in this study by the kneeling, can significantly reduce the strain on the practitioner's musculoskeletal system.
With the progress in modern medicine, it was possible to significantly reduce the risks of birth for mother and child. One aspect that has received less attention so far is the risk of injury to the accoucheurs (obstetricians and midwives) during the birth process. Indeed, studies indicate that 92% of midwives suffer from musculoskeletal disorders, with the lower back being the main cause of complaints (72%). The aim of this study was to investigate two commonly used postural techniques used by accoucheurs during childbirth and to analyze the resulting load on the lower back using the AnyBodyTM musculoskeletal simulation software.
Outputs of musculoskeletal models should be considered probabilistic rather than deterministic as they are affected by inaccuracies and estimations associated with the development of the model. One of these uncertainties being critical for modeling arises from the determination of the muscles' line of action and the physiological cross-sectional area. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the outcome sensitivity of model predictions from a musculoskeletal hand model in comparison to the uncertainty of these input parameters. For this purpose, the kinematics and muscle activities of different hand movements (abduction of the fingers, abduction of the thumb, and flexion of the thumb) were recorded. One thousand simulations were calculated for each movement using the Latin hypercube sampling method with a corresponding variation of the muscle origin/insertion points and the cross-sectional area. Comparing the standard hand to simulations incorporating uncertainties of input parameters shows no major deviations in on- and off-set time point of muscle activities. About 60% of simulations are located within a ± 30% interval around the standard model concerning joint reaction forces. The comparison with the variation of the input data leads to the conclusion that the standard hand model is able to provide not over-scattered outcomes and, therefore, can be considered relatively stable. These results are of practical importance to the personalization of a musculoskeletal model with subject-specific bone geometries and hence changed muscle line of action.
Pixel-level classification is an essential part of computer vision. For learning from labeled data, many powerful deep learning models have been developed recently. In this work, we augment such supervised segmentation models by allowing them to learn from unlabeled data. Our semi-supervised approach, termed Error-Correcting Supervision, leverages a collaborative strategy. Apart from the supervised training on the labeled data, the segmentation network is judged by an additional network.
Akademisierung der Pflege
(2021)
Purpose
Congenital breast asymmetry is a serious gynecological malformation for affected patients. The condition hits young women in puberty and is associated with socio-esthetic handicap, depression, and psychosexual problems. Surgical treatment is usually early in the patient's lifetime, so a long-term sustainable solution is important. Although postoperative outcome has been evaluated in several studies before, this study is the first to analyze which objective parameters have the greatest influence on subjective satisfaction with long-term results.
Methods
Thirty-four patients diagnosed with congenital breast asymmetry that underwent either lipofilling or implant therapy between the years of 2008 to 2019 were examined. On average, our collective comprised patients seven years after surgery. Data were mainly gathered through manual measurements, patient-reported outcome measures (Breast Q™), and breast volumetry based on 3D scans (Vectra® H2, Canfield Scientific).
Results
Among all analyzed parameters, only areolar diameter correlated significantly negatively with the subjective outcome satisfaction of the patient. Regarding the subjective assessment of postoperative satisfaction with similarity of the breasts, again the mean areolar diameter, but also the difference in areolar diameter and breast volume between the right and left breasts correlated significantly negatively.
Conclusion
Areolar diameter was revealed as being a significant factor influencing subjective long-term satisfaction in breast asymmetry patients. Moreover, 3D volumetry proves to be an effective tool to substantiate subjective patient assessments. Our findings may lead to further improvements to surgical planning and will be expanded in further studies.
Brain lesions in language-related cortical areas remain a challenge in the clinical routine. In recent years, the resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) was shown to be a feasible method for preoperative language assessment. The aim of this study was to examine whether language-related resting-state components, which have been obtained using a data-driven independent-component-based identification algorithm, can be supportive in determining language dominance in the left or right hemisphere. Twenty patients suffering from brain lesions close to supposed language-relevant cortical areas were included. RS-fMRI and task-based (TB-fMRI) were performed for the purpose of preoperative language assessment. TB-fMRI included a verb generation task with an appropriate control condition (a syllable switching task) to decompose language-critical and language-supportive processes. Subsequently, the best fitting ICA component for the resting-state language network (RSLN) referential to general linear models (GLMs) of the TB-fMRI (including models with and without linguistic control conditions) was identified using an algorithm based on the Dice index. Thereby, the RSLNs associated with GLMs using a linguistic control condition led to significantly higher laterality indices than GLM baseline contrasts. LIs derived from GLM contrasts with and without control conditions alone did not differ significantly. In general, the results suggest that determining language dominance in the human brain is feasible both with TB-fMRI and RS-fMRI, and in particular, the combination of both approaches yields a higher specificity in preoperative language assessment. Moreover, we can conclude that the choice of the language mapping paradigm is crucial for the mentioned benefits.
Betreutes Wohnen in Gastfamilien für Menschen mit Behinderung (BWG) ist ein Angebot für psychisch kranke Langzeitpatient*innen, für Menschen mit geistiger Behinderung und für abhängigkeitskranke Menschen (Weiß 2019, S. 2). Es richtet sich an eine Klientel, die z.B. infolge eines längeren Klinik- oder Heimaufenthalts kein eigenständiges Leben führen kann. Die anspruchsberechtigte Person wird in eine Gastfamilie aufgenommen, die dafür eine Vergütung erhält.
Die Autoren reflektieren in diesem Beitrag den Status der offenen Angebote in der evangelischen Jugendarbeit. Sie teilen dazu Ergebnisse einer Umfrage zur evangelischen Jugendarbeit in Bayern mit und beziehen auch Befunde aus weiteren empirischen Studien ein. Die Autoren charakterisieren die offenen Angebote der evangelischen Jugendarbeit als Teil der Kirche, aber auch als ihr organisiertes und aussagekräftiges Gegenüber. Nachdem sie das Spannungsfeld dieses Praxisfeldes zwischen kirchen- und verbandspolitischen Ansprüchen skizziert haben, stellen die Autoren die Ergebnisse ihrer Umfrage vor: In der evangelischen Jugendarbeit sind auf den Organisations-, Planungs- und Entscheidungsebenen in der Regel Fachkräfte mit theologischem oder theologisch-pädagogischem Hintergrund tätig. Bei den Jugendlichen überwiegt die offene Arbeit inzwischen die regelmäßige Gruppenarbeit. Fazit der Autoren ist, dass die Offene Jugendarbeit in der evangelischen Jugendarbeit aktuell stark an Bedeutung gewinnt. (Orig.).
Im Mittelpunkt des Artikels steht ein Konzept zur Versorgung von Menschen mit Demenz und ihrer Angehörigen im ländlichen Raum, dessen Struktur, Prozesse und rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen. Gezeigt wird, dass auf dem Land bereits heute eine leitliniengerechte Versorgung und ein langfristiger Verbleib in der Häuslichkeit möglich sind, insbesondere auch für Risikogruppen wie alleinlebende ältere Menschen. Hierzu sind über die Fläche verteilte Tageskliniken als Nebenstandort von Krankenhausträgern mit psychiatrischen Abteilungen zu nutzen, spezialisierte Teams zu bilden und Kooperationsstrukturen in der Fläche zu etablieren.
Digitalisierung geschlechtergerecht gestalten - Dritter Gleichstellungsbericht der Bundesregierung
(2021)
Aims
Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is easily missed during endoscopy, either because physicians are not familiar with its endoscopic features or the morphologic changes are too subtle. In this preliminary paper, we present the first attempt to detect EoE in endoscopic white light (WL) images using a deep learning network (EoE-AI).
Methods
401 WL images of eosinophilic esophagitis and 871 WL images of normal esophageal mucosa were evaluated. All images were assessed for the Endoscopic Reference score (EREFS) (edema, rings, exudates, furrows, strictures). Images with strictures were excluded. EoE was defined as the presence of at least 15 eosinophils per high power field on biopsy. A convolutional neural network based on the ResNet architecture with several five-fold cross-validation runs was used. Adding auxiliary EREFS-classification branches to the neural network allowed the inclusion of the scores as optimization criteria during training. EoE-AI was evaluated for sensitivity, specificity, and F1-score. In addition, two human endoscopists evaluated the images.
Results
EoE-AI showed a mean sensitivity, specificity, and F1 of 0.759, 0.976, and 0.834 respectively, averaged over the five distinct cross-validation runs. With the EREFS-augmented architecture, a mean sensitivity, specificity, and F1-score of 0.848, 0.945, and 0.861 could be demonstrated respectively. In comparison, the two human endoscopists had an average sensitivity, specificity, and F1-score of 0.718, 0.958, and 0.793.
Conclusions
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of deep learning to endoscopic images of EoE which were also assessed after augmentation with the EREFS-score. The next step is the evaluation of EoE-AI using an external dataset. We then plan to assess the EoE-AI tool on endoscopic videos, and also in real-time. This preliminary work is encouraging regarding the ability for AI to enhance physician detection of EoE, and potentially to do a true “optical biopsy” but more work is needed.
Biomechanical Analysis of the Right Elevated Glenohumeral Joint in Violinists during Legato-Playing
(2021)
BACKGROUND:
Many statistics reveal that violin players suffer most often from musculoskeletal disorders compared to musicians of other instrument groups. A common phenomenon, especially observed in violin beginners, is the tendency to elevate the right shoulder during playing the violin. This can probably lead to serious disorders in long-term practice with repetitive movements.
OBJECTIVE:
For this reason, this study investigated the relationship between the right shoulder elevation and the force in the right glenohumeral joint during violin playing. It was hypothesized that the forces in the right glenohumeral joint are higher during playing with the right shoulder raised compared to playing in normal posture.
METHODS:
Motion capture data from four experienced violinists was recorded and processed by means of musculoskeletal simulation to get the force and elevation angle while playing with raised shoulder and in normal position.
RESULTS:
The results indicate that the absolute values of the resulting force, as well as the forces in the mediolateral, inferosuperior, and anteroposterior directions, are higher in playing the violin with the shoulder raised than in a normal posture.
CONCLUSIONS: Elevating the right shoulder while playing the violin may pose a potential problem.