Interventions Adopting Body-Mind-Spirit Model to Improve the Holistic Health of Older Adults: A Systematic Review

This systematic review aims to summarize 5 key information from non-pharmaceutical intervention studies which adopt Body-Mind-Spirit (BMS) model for older adults: (1) definition of BMS, (2) types and formats of the interventions, (3) background and BMS training of the interventionists, (4) activities included in the interventions, and (5) effect of these interventions on the holistic health of older adults. We conducted a systematic search of 9 databases (ProQuest, Web of Science, PsycINFO, PubMed, Cochrane, Wanfang, AIRITI, CADAL, CNKI) for studies published in English or Chinese through May 31, 2021. Inclusion criteria were: (1) Must be empirical studies; (2) Participants must be aged 55 and above; and (3) Must adopt the BMS model or contain BMS in full-text. We found 15 studies (7 RCTs, 1 cluster randomized trial, 3 mixed-method studies, and 4 qualitative studies). Ten studies (66.67%) adopted Chan’s BMS model. Thirteen studies (86.67%) adopted in-person group interventions. Only five studies (33.33%) provided BMS training to the interventionists. Six articles (40%) categorized the activities as body-, mind- or spirituality-related. Ten studies (66.67%) reported effectiveness in all 3 dimensions of BMS. Of the 7 RCTs, 5 were rated as medium-quality, and 2 were rated as low-quality according to the Cochrane’s Risk of Bias tool. Most interventions based on the BMS model claimed to be effective in improving the holistic health of older adults. In order to improve the internal validity, future RCT studies should be more prudent about the randomization process and adhere to the BMS model when designing the interventions.

Intralesional Zinc Sulfate 2% Vs Intralesional Vitamin D In The Treatment Of Planter Warts

Background verrucae are benign proliferations seen in skin and mucosae due to infection with papillomaviruses. Aim and Objectives the aim of this work is to compare the clinical efficacy of intra-lesional 2% zinc sulfate solution vs intralesional vitamin D in the treatment of planter warts, Subjects and Methods this is Three armed single blinded randomized clinical trial included 105 patients presented with planter warts, Patients were all recruited from the Dermatology outpatient clinic at Ain-Shams University Hospital and Almateria hospital during the period From July 2018 to July 2019, Patients included in the present study were divided into 3 groups, 35 patients per group by simple randomization process which could allocate patients to either of three arms randomly and each patient would have an equal chance to be allocated to either of the three arms, Results There was no statistically significant difference between the 3 studied groups as regard the response to treatment after 1st, 2nd and 4th session. While after the 3rd session, there was statistically significant increase in the numbers of partial responders in the 3 studied groups (P = 0.023), Conclusion the current study showed that intralesional injection of 2% zinc sulfate is a better therapeutic option in the treatment of planter warts in comparison with intralesional vit D,

Computer Based Test Using the Fisher-Yates Shuffle and Smith Waterman Algorithm

Tests are used to determine a person’s level of understanding of a subject. The inhibiting factors in tests are less varied questions, questions with insufficient difficulty, subjective assessments, and the length of time in their correction. This research aimed to develop a Computer Based Test (CBT) application. The type of questions in this CBT are multiple choice and essays. This CBT employs categorization of questions, randomization of the questions, and automatic assessment. Questions were categorized manually based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of a lecture. Then the randomization process was carried out using the Fisher-Yates Shuffle algorithm for each question category. The Smith Waterman algorithm was used to automatically assess the essay-type questions. The steps of the Smith Waterman algorithm were preprocessing, data comparison using Smith Waterman, and percentage similarities conversion to test scores. The results of the study showed that the CBT application was able to randomize questions using the Fisher-Yates Shuffle algorithm and automatically assess answers using the Smith Waterman algorithm. RMSE was used to measure of the accuracy of the Smith Waterman algorithm: a value of 1.86 was obtained. Keywords: Computer based test, assessment, Fisher-Yates Shuffle, Smith Waterman

Clinical Trials in COVID-19 Management & Prevention: A Meta-epidemiological Study examining methodological quality

ABSTRACTBackgroundThe coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic has produced a large number of clinical trial reports with unprecedented rapidity, raising concerns about methodological quality and potential for research waste.ObjectivesTo describe the characteristics of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) investigating prophylaxis or treatment of Covid-19 infection and examine the effect of trial characteristics on whether the study reported a statistically significant effect on the primary outcome(s).Study DesignMeta-epidemiological study of Covid-19 treatment and prophylaxis RCTs.Eligibility criteriaEnglish-language RCTs (peer-reviewed or preprint) that evaluated pharmacologic agents or blood products compared to standard care, placebo, or an active comparator among participants with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 or at risk for Covid-19. We excluded trials of vaccines or traditional herbal medicines.Information sourcesWe searched 25 databases in the US Centre for Disease Control Downloadable Database from January 1 to October 21, 2020.Trial appraisal and synthesis methodsWe extracted trial characteristics including number of centres, funding sources (industry versus non-industry), and sample size. We assessed risk of bias (RoB) using the modified Cochrane RoB 2.0 Tool. We used descriptive statistics to summarize trial characteristics and logistic regression to evaluate the association between RoB due to the randomization process, centre status (single vs. multicentre), funding source, and sample size, and statistically significant effect in the primary outcome.ResultsWe included 91 RCTs (46,802 participants) evaluating Covid-19 therapeutic drugs (n = 76), blood products (n = 9) or prophylactic drugs (n = 6). Of these, 40 (44%) were single-centre, 23 (25.3%) enrolled < 50 patients, and 28 (30.8%) received industry funding. RoB varied across trials, with high or probably high overall RoB in 75 (82.4%) trials, most frequently due to deviations from the intended protocol (including blinding) and randomization processes. Thirty-eight trials (41.8%) found a statistically significant effect in the primary outcome. RoB due randomization (odds ratio [OR] 3.77, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.47 to 9.72) and single centre trials (OR 3.15, 95% CI, 1.25 to 7.97) were associated with higher likelihood of finding a statistically significant effect.ConclusionsThere was high variability in RoB amongst Covid-19 trials. RoB attributed to the randomization process and single centre status were associated with a three-fold increase in the odds of finding a statistically significant effect. Researchers, funders, and knowledge users should remain cognizant of the impact of study characteristics, including RoB, on trial results when designing, conducting, and appraising Covid-19 trials.

A brief introduction to propensity score for anesthesiologists

Intergroup comparability is of paramount importance in clinical research since it is impossible to draw conclusions on a treatment if populations with different characteristics are compared. While an adequate randomization process in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) ensures a balanced distribution of subjects between groups, the distribution in observational prospective and retrospective studies may be influenced by many confounders.<br/>Propensity score (PS) is a statistical technique that was developed more than 30 years ago with the purpose of estimating the probability to be assigned to a group. Once evaluated, the PS could be used to adjust and balance the groups using different methods such as matching, stratification, covariate adjustment, and weighting. The validity of PS is strictly related to the confounders used in the model, and confounders that are either not identified or not available will produce biases in the results. RCTs will therefore continue to provide the highest quality of evidence, but PS allows fine adjustments on otherwise unbalanced groups, which will increase the strength and quality of observational studies.

A Method to Present and Analyze Ensembles of Information Sources

Information theory is a powerful tool for analyzing complex systems. In many areas of neuroscience, it is now possible to gather data from large ensembles of neural variables (e.g., data from many neurons, genes, or voxels). The individual variables can be analyzed with information theory to provide estimates of information shared between variables (forming a network between variables), or between neural variables and other variables (e.g., behavior or sensory stimuli). However, it can be difficult to (1) evaluate if the ensemble is significantly different from what would be expected in a purely noisy system and (2) determine if two ensembles are different. Herein, we introduce relatively simple methods to address these problems by analyzing ensembles of information sources. We demonstrate how an ensemble built of mutual information connections can be compared to null surrogate data to determine if the ensemble is significantly different from noise. Next, we show how two ensembles can be compared using a randomization process to determine if the sources in one contain more information than the other. All code necessary to carry out these analyses and demonstrations are provided.

Perancangan Aplikasi Pengacakan Pemenang Undian Berhadiah Menggunakan Metode Blum-Blum Shub Berbasis Android

Lottery or commonly known as a lottery is one way to raise funds used for humanitarian projects and social activities or a way to determine the winner randomly. So, the lottery does a random gift-giving process and the lottery is synonymous with the lottery. The design of a lottery winner randomization application is one of the more modern ways and can attract many lottery participants to enter the lottery by reducing the cost of printing and distributing lottery tickets. One of them is the blum blub shub method, which is a method that functions to generate random numbers mathematically with the resulting output is a series of binary numbers. the numbers that are made as winners. The designed application only simulates the process of inputting lottery numbers and the randomization process to get the winning numbers

Agency business cycles

We develop a theory of endogenous and stochastic fluctuations in economic activity. Individual firms choose to randomize over firing or keeping workers who performed poorly in the past to give them an ex ante incentive to exert effort. Different firms choose to correlate the outcome of their randomization to reduce the probability with which they fire nonperforming workers. Correlated randomization leads to aggregate fluctuations. Aggregate fluctuations are endogenous—they emerge because firms choose to randomize and they choose to randomize in a correlated fashion—and they are stochastic—they are the manifestation of a randomization process. The hallmark of a theory of endogenous and stochastic fluctuations is that the stochastic process for aggregate “shocks” is an equilibrium object.

Gaming as pedagogy in the linguistics classroom

We explore how content-driven games may be utilized to enhance linguistics pedagogy in the classroom. We explore three games created by the authors for in-class play. The games involve semantics: Eventuality (about aspect/Aktionsart), f(x) (lambda-calculus); and syntax: Parameters. We discuss the major skills developed by the games and the best practices for designing games for in-class use. We focus on four elements in the talk: player interaction, randomization, process training, and entertainment.

Scrambling and De-Scrambling Implementation Using Linear Feedback Shift Register Method on FPGA

communication system, a long sequence of bits ‘0’ or ‘1’ will inherits the loss of bit synchronization, and hence it can cause the false detection on the receiver. To avoid this, long sequence of bits will be randomized first so that long sequence of bits ‘0’ or ‘1’ can be removed. This randomization process is called scrambling and the circuit that works for the process is a scrambler. In the receiver there is a descrambler that serves to return the bits to their original information. This paper presents a design of scrambler and descrambler using a combination of Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) with 15 registers, XOR logic gates, and Pseudo Random Binary Sequence (PRBS) generator structure with polynomial 1 + x14 + x15. One of the two main parts of LFSR is the shift register while the other is the feedback. In LFSR, the bits contained within the selected position in the shift register will be combined in a function and the result will be put back into this register's input bit. Feedback also makes the system more stable and no error occurrence. Then special tap is taken from a certain point in XOR and returned as a feedback register. The system is implemented on FPGA board Altera De0-Nano EP4CE22F17C6 Cyclone IV E. Resource memory required <1% of available memory. Bit rate that can be achieved with clock speed 50MHz is 335570.47 bps.