Efeito imediato, agudo e crônico da Kinesio taping® associada à Terapia Neuromotora Intensiva na postura sentada de crianças com paralisia cerebral / Immediate, acute and chronic effects of Kinesio taping® associated with Intensive Neuromotor Therapy on the sitting position of children with cerebral paralysis

A fisioterapia utiliza vários recursos e métodos para intervenções no tratamento da Encefalopatia Crônica Não Progressiva da Infância (ECNPI) ou paralisia cerebral (PC), entre eles a Kinesio Taping® (KT) e a Terapia Neuromotora Intensiva (TNMI). Esses métodos podem ser considerados relativamente novos, o que leva à necessidade do desenvolvimento de pesquisas para verificar seus efeitos em crianças com PC. O presente estudo objetivou verificar os efeitos da KT® e da TNMI na postura sentada de crianças com PC do tipo quadriparesia/quadriplegia espástica. Para isso, foram avaliadas 6 crianças, com uma média de idade de 6,25±2,69 anos. As avaliações aconteceram por meio do software SAPO, no qual os dados são obtidos em centímetros e a análise consiste na avaliação da vertical (eixo Y), comparando os lados esquerdo e direito, sendo assim possível a análise das assimetrias de maneira precisa. Com relação aos resultados, não foi identificada diferença significativa (p > 0,05) da aplicação de KT® na comparação entre efeitos imediato, agudo e crônico para os momentos pré e pós aplicação imediata da KT®. No entanto, de forma descritiva, o uso de KT® associado à TNMI favoreceu o alinhamento na postura sentada, principalmente para acrômios e Espinha ilíaca ânterossuperior (EIAS). Nota-se, portanto, que as evidências do uso de KT®, como coadjuvante durante a TNMI, ainda são inconclusivas em crianças com PC do tipo quadriparesia/plegia.

Physical therapy uses various resources and methods for intervention in the Chronic Non-Progressive Childhood Encephalopathy (CNPCE) or cerebral palsy (CP) interventions, including Kinesio Taping® (KT) and Intensive Neuromotor Therapy (INMT). These methods are relatively new, which leads to the need for the development of research to verify effects in children with CP. The present study analyzed the effects of KT® and INMT on the sitting posture of children with spastic quadriplegia. In order to do this, six (6) children (mean age 6.25±2.69 years) were evaluated. The evaluations took place through SAPO software, where data are obtained in centimeters and the analysis consists of the evaluation of the vertical (Y) axis, comparing the left and right side, thus being possible to precisely analyze any asymmetries. Regarding the results, no significant difference (p > 0.05) was observed with the application of KT® in the comparison between immediate, acute and chronic effect for the moments before and immediately after KT® application. However, descriptively, the use of KT® associated with INMT favored alignment in sitting posture, mainly for acromial and anterior superior iliac spine (ASIS). The results show that evidence of the use of KT® as an adjuvant during INMT is still inconclusive in children with CP quadriparesis/plegia.

Effect of horse riding equipment in activity of trunk and lower limb muscles in equine-assisted therapy

Equine-assisted therapy uses the horse in rehabilitation and/or education of people, such as Down syndrome(SD), cerebral palsy(PC)and intellectual disability(DI). In context, the rehabilitation program and horse riding equipment should be usedaccording to the specific characteristics of each individual, becoming an ally in the quest for excellence in equine-assisted therapy programs. The aim was to evaluate the effect of riding equipment used in equine-assisted therapy on the muscular activityof trunk and lower limb of individuals with SD, PC and DI. The study included 15 individuals equally assigned to each group: SD, PC and DIwith a mean age of 16.2 (±1.10), 16 (±1.22)e 16 (±0) years,respectively. The analysis of muscle activity was performed through surface electromyography, using four variations of horse riding equipment: saddle with and without feet supported on the stirrups and blanket with and without feet supported on the stirrups. Sigma Stat 3.5®software was used for statistical analysis.The Shapiro Wilk's test was used for normality of the data, the Bartlett test for homogeneity of the variances and the Kruskal-Wallis test for repeated measures with no normal distribution.Statistically significant differences were observed forp<0.05.The SDgroup presented a greater muscular activity of trunk and lower limbs with blanket equipment without the feet supported in the stirrups (H = 15.078, p = 0.002), as in the DI group (H=8.302, p = 0.040), while inPCgroup was the saddle with feet supported in the stirrups (H=11.137,p = 0.011). The choice of riding equipment used in equine-assisted therapy interferes differently in the pattern of muscular activation of the trunk and the lower limbs, according to the pathological processes of the practitioners. It should be an important aspect to consider when planninga treatment.

RhythmicAlly: Your R and Shiny-Based Open-Source Ally for the Analysis of Biological Rhythms.

Research on circadian rhythms often requires researchers to estimate period, robustness/power, and phase of the rhythm. These are important to estimate, owing to the fact that they act as readouts of different features of the underlying clock. The commonly used tools, to this end, suffer from being very expensive, having very limited interactivity, being very cumbersome to use, or a combination of these. As a step toward remedying the inaccessibility to users who may not be able to afford them and to ease the analysis of biological time-series data, we have written RhythmicAlly, an open-source program using R and Shiny that has the following advantages: (1) it is free, (2) it allows subjective marking of phases on actograms, (3) it provides high interactivity with graphs, (4) it allows visualization and storing of data for a batch of individuals simultaneously, and (5) it does what other free programs do but with fewer mouse clicks, thereby being more efficient and user-friendly. Moreover, our program can be used for a wide range of ultradian, circadian, and infradian rhythms from a variety of organisms, some examples of which are described here. The first version of RhythmicAlly is available on Github, and we aim to maintain the program with subsequent versions having updated methods of visualizing and analyzing time-series data.

Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology.

One of the most universal trends in science and technology today is the growth of large teams in all areas, as solitary researchers and small teams diminish in prevalence1-3. Increases in team size have been attributed to the specialization of scientific activities3, improvements in communication technology4,5, or the complexity of modern problems that require interdisciplinary solutions6-8. This shift in team size raises the question of whether and how the character of the science and technology produced by large teams differs from that of small teams. Here we analyse more than 65 million papers, patents and software products that span the period 1954-2014, and demonstrate that across this period smaller teams have tended to disrupt science and technology with new ideas and opportunities, whereas larger teams have tended to develop existing ones. Work from larger teams builds on more-recent and popular developments, and attention to their work comes immediately. By contrast, contributions by smaller teams search more deeply into the past, are viewed as disruptive to science and technology and succeed further into the future-if at all. Observed differences between small and large teams are magnified for higher-impact work, with small teams known for disruptive work and large teams for developing work. Differences in topic and research design account for a small part of the relationship between team size and disruption; most of the effect occurs at the level of the individual, as people move between smaller and larger teams. These results demonstrate that both small and large teams are essential to a flourishing ecology of science and technology, and suggest that, to achieve this, science policies should aim to support a diversity of team sizes.

A large-scale analysis of bioinformatics code on GitHub.

In recent years, the explosion of genomic data and bioinformatic tools has been accompanied by a growing conversation around reproducibility of results and usability of software. However, the actual state of the body of bioinformatics software remains largely unknown. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the state of source code in the bioinformatics community, specifically looking at relationships between code properties, development activity, developer communities, and software impact. To investigate these issues, we curated a list of 1,720 bioinformatics repositories on GitHub through their mention in peer-reviewed bioinformatics articles. Additionally, we included 23 high-profile repositories identified by their popularity in an online bioinformatics forum. We analyzed repository metadata, source code, development activity, and team dynamics using data made available publicly through the GitHub API, as well as article metadata. We found key relationships within our dataset, including: certain scientific topics are associated with more active code development and higher community interest in the repository; most of the code in the main dataset is written in dynamically typed languages, while most of the code in the high-profile set is statically typed; developer team size is associated with community engagement and high-profile repositories have larger teams; the proportion of female contributors decreases for high-profile repositories and with seniority level in author lists; and, multiple measures of project impact are associated with the simple variable of whether the code was modified at all after paper publication. In addition to providing the first large-scale analysis of bioinformatics code to our knowledge, our work will enable future analysis through publicly available data, code, and methods. Code to generate the dataset and reproduce the analysis is provided under the MIT license at https://github.com/pamelarussell/github-bioinformatics. Data are available at https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/UWHX8.

Digital Diabetes Congress 2018.

Digital health is capturing the attention of the healthcare community. This paradigm whereby healthcare meets the internet uses sensors that communicate wirelessly along with software residing on smartphones to deliver data, information, treatment recommendations, and in some cases control over an effector device. As artificial intelligence becomes more widely used, this approach to creating individualized treatment plans will increase the opportunities for patients, even if they are in remote settings, to communicate with and learn from healthcare professionals. Simple design is needed to promote use of these tools, especially for the purpose of increased adherence to treatment. Widespread adoption by the healthcare industry will require better outcomes data, which will most likely be in the form of safety and effectiveness results from robust randomized controlled trials, as well as evidence of privacy and security. Such data will be needed to convince investors to direct resources into and regulators to clear new digital health tools. Diabetes Technology Society and William Sansum Diabetes Center launched the Digital Diabetes Congress in 2017 because of great interest in determining the potential benefits, metrics of success, and appropriate components of mobile applications for diabetes. The second annual meeting in this series took place on May 22-23, 2018 in San Francisco. This report contains summaries of the meeting's 4 plenary lectures and 10 sessions. This meeting report presents a summary of how 55 panelists, speakers, and moderators, who are leaders in healthcare technology, see the current and future landscape of digital health tools applied to diabetes.

Software: recurso terapêutico ocupacional para estimulação cognitiva do idoso / Software: occupational therapeutic resources to cognitive stimulation of elderly

Idosos com problemas cognitivos possuem declínio em sua capacidade funcional, tornando-se mais dependentes e com baixa qualidade de vida. O objetivo desse estudo é desenvolver um software baseado nos testes, nas atividades cotidianas descritas na literatura como as mais afetadas nesta população e da experiência do projeto de intervenção desenvolvido no Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Essa proposta se justifica por estudos comprovarem que, por meio da estimulação cognitiva, os idosos conseguem realizar melhor suas atividades rotineiras. Visa ao aprimoramento do funcionamento cognitivo, melhoria da qualidade de vida e da segurança nas realizações das atividades cotidianas buscando um desempenho mais competente, maior autonomia e independência. A metodologia utilizada foi de caráter exploratório, a partir do levantamento da literatura, que demonstrou que o questionário de Pfeffer, o Índice de Katz e a Medida Independência Funcional vinculada à funcionalidade das atividades da vida diária e as instrumentais que formam a base das áreas cognitivas mais afetadas. A partir desses dados, dividiu-se um software em dez exercícios, abrangendo as áreas específicas da cognição, pois o mesmo pode ser um recurso terapêutico ocupacional para idosos que necessitem de estímulo e intervenções em seu desempenho ocupacional. As informações foram dispostas em relação ao uso de cores e quantidade de elementos, pois estas facilitam ou dificultam o acesso e compreensão da interface. Concluiu-se que o software pode ser uma proposta positiva para diminuir gasto energético, porque as realizações dos exercícios favorecem a relação independência/dependência, aumentam a eficácia e as habilidades requeridas para praticá-los. (AU)

Elderly with cognitive problems have functional capacity decline, becoming more dependent and with low quality of life. The aim of this study is to develop software based on tests, in everyday activities described in the literature as the most affected in this population and the experience of the project developed at the Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro. This proposal is justified by studies demonstrate that, through cognitive stimulation, elderly can better carry out their routine activities. Aims at preventing cognitive functioning, improved quality of life and safety in the achievements of everyday activities seeking a more competent performance, greater autonomy and independence. The methodology used was in exploratory character, from the literature review, which showed that Pfeffer's questionnaire, Katz Index, Independence Function Measure linked to the functionality of the activities of daily living and instrumental that forms the basis of the most affected cognitive areas. From these data, the software was divided into ten exercises covering specific areas of cognition, as it may be an occupational therapeutic resource for seniors who need encouragement and assistance in their occupational performance. The information were arranged in relation to the use of color and quantity of elements that facilitate or difficult the access and understanding of the interface. It was concluded that the software is a positive proposal by decreasing energy expenditure, because the achievements of exercises favors independence/dependence, compared the effectiveness and increase the skills required to practice them. (AU)

How to Train an Injured Brain? A Pilot Feasibility Study of Home-Based Computerized Cognitive Training.

OBJECTIVE: Computerized cognitive training programs have previously shown to be effective in improving cognitive abilities in patients suffering from traumatic brain injury (TBI). These studies often focused on a single cognitive function or required expensive hardware, making it difficult to be used in a home-based environment. This pilot feasibility study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of a newly developed, home-based, computerized cognitive training program for adolescents who suffered from TBI. Additionally, feasibility of study design, procedures, and measurements were examined. DESIGN: Case series, longitudinal, pilot, feasibility intervention study with one baseline and two follow-up assessments. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nine feasibility outcome measures and criteria for success were defined, including accessibility, training motivation/user experience, technical smoothness, training compliance, participation willingness, participation rates, loss to follow-up, assessment timescale, and assessment procedures. Five adolescent patients (four boys, mean age = 16 years 7 months, standard deviation = 9 months) with moderate to severe TBI in the chronic stage were recruited and received 8 weeks of cognitive training with BrainGames. Effect sizes (Cohen's d) were calculated to determine possible training-related effects. RESULTS: The new cognitive training intervention, BrainGames, and study design and procedures proved to be feasible; all nine feasibility outcome criteria were met during this pilot feasibility study. Estimates of effect sizes showed small to very large effects on cognitive measures and questionnaires, which were retained after 6 months. CONCLUSION: Our pilot study shows that a longitudinal intervention study comprising our novel, computerized cognitive training program and two follow-up assessments is feasible in adolescents suffering from TBI in the chronic stage. Future studies with larger sample sizes will evaluate training-related effects on cognitive functions and underlying brain structures.

Proteogenomic Tools and Approaches to Explore Protein Coding Landscapes of Eukaryotic Genomes.

Proteogenomic strategies aim to refine genome-wide annotations of protein coding features by using actual protein level observations. Most of the currently applied proteogenomic approaches include integrative analysis of multiple types of high-throughput omics data, e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, etc. Recent efforts towards creating a human proteome map were primarily targeted to experimentally detect at least one protein product for each gene in the genome and extensively utilized proteogenomic approaches. The 14 year long wait to get a draft human proteome map, after completion of similar efforts to sequence the genome, explains the huge complexity and technical hurdles of such efforts. Further, the integrative analysis of large-scale multi-omics datasets inherent to these studies becomes a major bottleneck to their success. However, recent developments of various analysis tools and pipelines dedicated to proteogenomics reduce both the time and complexity of such analysis. Here, we summarize notable approaches, studies, software developments and their potential applications towards eukaryotic genome annotation and clinical proteogenomics.

Data collection: Treat every variable as a treasure.

UNLABELLED: Collection of data concerning case histories is not yet common in homeopathy despite its great importance for this method. Computer program development progresses slowly and discussion about requirements is scarce. Two Dutch projects assessed Materia Medica of some homeopathic medicines and six homeopathic symptoms. Especially the second project relied heavily on data collection. In both projects much effort was spent on consensus between participating doctors. There was much variance between doctors despite our consensus efforts. Assessing causality seems the most important source of bias, there is also much variance in assessing symptoms. CONCLUSION: Data collection software should be developed step-by-step, guided by close monitoring and feedback of participating practitioners.

Engineering bioinformatics: building reliability, performance and productivity into bioinformatics software.

There is a lack of software engineering skills in bioinformatic contexts. We discuss the consequences of this lack, examine existing explanations and remedies to the problem, point out their shortcomings, and propose alternatives. Previous analyses of the problem have tended to treat the use of software in scientific contexts as categorically different from the general application of software engineering in commercial settings. In contrast, we describe bioinformatic software engineering as a specialization of general software engineering, and examine how it should be practiced. Specifically, we highlight the difference between programming and software engineering, list elements of the latter and present the results of a survey of bioinformatic practitioners which quantifies the extent to which those elements are employed in bioinformatics. We propose that the ideal way to bring engineering values into research projects is to bring engineers themselves. We identify the role of Bioinformatic Engineer and describe how such a role would work within bioinformatic research teams. We conclude by recommending an educational emphasis on cross-training software engineers into life sciences, and propose research on Domain Specific Languages to facilitate collaboration between engineers and bioinformaticians.