AIM To examine which instruments used to assess participation of children with acquired brain injury (ABI) or cerebral palsy (CP) align with attendance and/or involvement constructs of participation; and to systematically review measurement properties of these instruments in children with ABI or CP, to guide instrument selection. METHOD Five databases were searched. Instruments that quantified ‘attendance’ and/or ‘involvement’ aspects of participation according to the family of participation-related constructs were selected. Data on measurement properties were extracted and methodological quality of the studies assessed. RESULTS Thirty-seven instruments were used to assess participation in children with ABI or CP. Of those, 12 measured attendance and/or involvement. The reliability, validity, and responsiveness of eight of these instruments were examined in 14 studies with children with ABI or CP. Sufficient measurement properties were reported for most of the measures, but no instrument had been assessed on all relevant properties. Moreover, most psychometric studies have marked methodological limitations. INTERPRETATION Instruments to assess participation of children with ABI or CP should be selected carefully, as many available measures do not align with attendance and/or involvement. Evidence for measurement properties is limited, mainly caused by low methodological study quality. Future studies should follow recommended methodological guidelines.
Background: There are indications that older adults who suffer from poor balance have an increased risk for adverse health outcomes, such as falls and disability. Monitoring the development of balance over time enables early detection of balance decline, which can identify older adults who could benefit from interventions aimed at prevention of these adverse outcomes. An innovative and easy-to-use device that can be used by older adults for home-based monitoring of balance is a modified bathroom scale. Objective: The objective of this paper is to study the relationship between balance scores obtained with a modified bathroom scale and falls and disability in a sample of older adults. Methods: For this 6-month follow-up study, participants were recruited via physiotherapists working in a nursing home, geriatricians, exercise classes, and at an event about health for older adults. Inclusion criteria were being aged 65 years or older, being able to stand on a bathroom scale independently, and able to provide informed consent. A total of 41 nursing home patients and 139 community-dwelling older adults stepped onto the modified bathroom scale three consecutive times at baseline to measure their balance. Their mean balance scores on a scale from 0 to 16 were calculated—higher scores indicated better balance. Questionnaires were used to study falls and disability at baseline and after 6 months of follow-up. The cross-sectional relationship between balance and falls and disability at baseline was studied using t tests and Spearman rank correlations. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to study the relationship between balance measured at baseline and falls and disability development after 6 months of follow-up.
Pain in critically ill adults with burns should be assessed using structured pain behavioural observation measures. This study tested the clinimetric qualities and usability of the behaviour pain scale (BPS) and the critical-care pain observation tool (CPOT) in this population. This prospective observational cohort study included 132 nurses who rated pain behaviour in 75 patients. The majority of nurses indicated that BPS and CPOT reflect background and procedural pain-specific features (63–72 and 87–80%, respectively). All BPS and CPOT items loaded on one latent variable (≥0.70), except for compliance ventilator and vocalisation for CPOT (0.69 and 0.64, respectively). Internal consistency also met the criterion of ≥0.70 in ventilated and non-ventilated patients for both scales, except for non-ventilated patients observed by BPS (0.67). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of total scores were sufficient (≥0.70), but decreased when patients had facial burns. In general, the scales were fast to administer and easy to understand. Cut-off scores for BPS and CPOT were 4 and 1, respectively. In conclusion, both scales seem valid, reliable, and useful for the measurement of acute pain in ICU patients with burns, including patients with facial burns. Cut-off scores associated with BPS and CPOT for the burn population allow professionals to connect total scores to person-centred treatment protocols.
The denim industry faces many complex sustainability challenges and has been especially criticized for its polluting and hazardous production practices. Reducing resource use of water, chemicals and energy and changing denim production practices calls for collaboration between various stakeholders, including competing denim brands. There is great benefit in combining denim brands’ resources and knowledge so that commonly defined standards and benchmarks are developed and realized on a scale that matters. Collaboration however, and especially between competitors, is highly complex and prone to fail. This project brings leading denim brands together to collectively take initial steps towards improving the ecological sustainability impact of denim production, particularly by establishing measurements, benchmarks and standards for resource use (e.g. chemicals, water, energy) and creating best practices for effective collaboration. The central research question of our project is: How do denim brands effectively collaborate together to create common, industry standards on resource use and benchmarks for improved ecological sustainability in denim production? To answer this question, we will use a mixed-method, action research approach. The project’s research setting is the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (MRA), which has a strong denim cluster and is home to many international denim brands and start-ups.
E-cycling intelligence is a research project directly connected to the PhD-research of Joost de Kruijf at the Utrecht University. Within the program the effects of the introduction of e-bikes in daily commuting are being investigated. Using a large-scale incentive program targeting on behavioral change among car-oriented commuters the next four specific components are being :- Modal shift to e-cycling- Well-being and travel satisfaction of e-bikes vs. car- Weather circumstances and e-cycling- Behavioral intention to e-bike vs. actual behavior Using a combination of three surveys (baseline, one month and half a year) and continuous GPS-measurement on the behavior of more than 800 participants makes this research unique. In collaboration with the TU/e the GPS-dataset is being translated into relevant information on modal shift on different trip purposes offering a new range of possibilities to analyses behavioral change. Knowledge on every of the four topics in the project is translated scientific paper. The expected end of the project is July 2021.With the research not new insights are being gained, the Breda University of Applied Sciences also develops a scientific network of cycling related researchers together with a network of cycling engaged road authorities.
Water treatment companies are more and more interested in chemical-free water treatment. This is a solution that might not only decrease costs of chemicals, but also decrease possible formation of by-products and contribute to decreasing the introduction of emerging contaminants in the environment. A possible route for this is the use of magnetic fields based treatment. Magnetic fields exist around us (our planet is surrounded by such fields) but are not broadly used in water treatment. A reason for this situation isthe fact that water treatment is a rather traditional market and magnetic treatment, conversely, a rather controversial and (still) not completely understood. Even with such resistance, recently it has been shown that magnetic fields applied to drinking water resulted in significant structural change of its microbiome [1]. This community structural change was clearly detected with a newly developed flow cytometry method, where the phenotypic characteristics of the entire microbial community could be analysed instantly [2-9]. Lab-scale batch experiments have shown that magnetic fields can selectively boost the growth of smaller bacteria [1][3] and indicated as a next step that the same principle could be addressed in pilot scale tests. ISusMag is structured to apply the robust and instant flow cytometry method to examine the effect of magnetic fields on drinking water at pilot scale under realistic field conditions. For this purpose, groundwater will be evenly distributed into two (pipe)lines of the same length: one will be magnetically treated, and one will be used as control. Samples will be taken at the end of the two pipes for flow cytometry examination. Measurement results can help drinking water companies to understand whether a magnetic treatment is an alternative to control the growth of pathogenic bacteria instead of classical chemical treatment (disinfection).
