Excess weight is a major risk factor for chronic diseases. In Australia, over 60% of adults are overweight or obese. The overconsumption of energy-dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods and low physical ...activity (PA) levels are key factors contributing to population obesity. New cost-effective approaches to improve population diet and PA behaviors are needed.
This 1-year randomized controlled trial (6-month intervention and 6-month follow-up) aims to investigate whether a tailored intervention using mobile technology can improve diet and PA behaviors leading to weight loss in adults (aged 18-65 years) who are overweight or obese and recruited through a social marketing campaign (LiveLighter).
All eligible participants will provide data on demographics and lifestyle behaviors online at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. Using two-stage randomization, participants will be allocated into one of three conditions (n=200 per group): tailored feedback delivered via email at seven time points, informed by objective dietary (mobile food record app) and activity (wearable activity monitor) assessment; active control receiving no tailored feedback, but undergoing the same objective assessments as tailored feedback; and online control receiving no tailored feedback or objective assessments. Primary outcome measures at 6 and 12 months are changes in body mass, EDNP food and beverage consumption, and daily moderate-to-vigorous PA (measured via accelerometry). Secondary outcomes include change in fruit and vegetable consumption, daily sedentary behaviors, and cost effectiveness.
Enrolment commenced in August 2017. Primary outcomes at 12 months will be available for analysis from September 2019.
Tailored email feedback provided to individuals may deliver a cost-effective strategy to overcome existing barriers to improving diet and PA. If found to be successful and cost effective, upscaling this intervention for inclusion in larger-scale interventions is highly feasible.
Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12617000554369; https://www.anzctr.org.au /Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=371325&isReview=true.
DERR1-10.2196/12782.
The paper reviews a decade of work in applying virtual reality to medicine. Beginning with a brief history of simulations and surgery, we present a background to surgery simulators and then discuss ...the problem of limited human body models in past systems. We present our work at developing human body models beginning with the first virtual reality leg simulator in 1989. This model allowed simple tendon transfers and osteotomies with the computer able to predict the resulting mechanics and ability to walk. We also discuss the leg model's evolution into a performance machine which will allow a surgeon to predict position and subsequent function of an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) repair. This is paralleled by Department of Defense work on a leg model that can have a simulated wound and predicts blood loss and its ability to function. We review computer aided surgery and virtual reality technologies. We then present our work in plastic surgery computer aided planning and predict the importance of this work for surgical training.
Muscle force-generating properties used in models are derived from measurements of muscle architecture, such as volume, cross-section, and fiber length. While the peak force a muscle can produce is ...related to its physiological cross-sectional area, several studies of muscle architecture have shown that muscle volume is an excellent predictor of joint moment-generating capacity, and is an important parameter for evaluating strength in the upper limb and for model development. Researchers have classically relied on dissection of cadavers to assess architectural properties of the muscles of the upper limb, including muscle volume, fiber length, sarcomere length, and pennation angle. Medical imaging approaches, including computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and ultrasound have also been used to assess muscle force-generating properties in living subjects. In this review, the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches for assessing muscle volume in the upper limb are discussed. The volumes of muscles in the upper limb as measured by a number of researchers are summarized and compared. A study in which a magnetic resonance imaging approach is used to assess the muscle volumes of all the muscles crossing the shoulder, elbow, and wrist in living subjects is highlighted. It has been shown that the distribution of muscle volume in the upper limb is highly conserved across these subjects with a threefold variation in total muscle volumes (1,427–4,426 cm3). The studies discussed in this review provide normative data that form the basis for investigating muscle volumes in other populations, and for scaling computer models to more accurately represent the muscle volume of a specific individual.
Progressive nineteenth-century Americans believed firmly that human perfection could be achieved with the aid of modern science. To many, the science of that turbulent age appeared to offer bright ...new answers to life's age-old questions. Such a climate, not surprisingly, fostered the growth of what we now view as "pseudo-sciences" -- disciplines delicately balancing a dubious inductive methodology with moral and spiritual concerns, disseminated with a combination of aggressive entrepreneurship and sheer entertainment.
Such "sciences" as mesmerism, spiritualism, homoeopathy, hydropathy, and phrenology were warmly received not only by the uninformed and credulous but also by the respectable and educated. Rationalistic, egalitarian, and utilitarian, they struck familiar and reassuring chords in American ears and gave credence to the message of reformers that health and happiness are accessible to all.
As the contributors to this volume show, the diffusion and practice of these pseudo-sciences intertwined with all the major medical, cultural, religious, and philosophical revolutions in nineteenth-century America. Hydropathy and particularly homoeopathy, for example, enjoyed sufficient respectability for a time to challenge orthodox medicine. The claims of mesmerists and spiritualists appeared to offer hope for a new moral social order. Daring flights of pseudo-scientific thought even ventured into such areas as art and human sexuality. And all the pseudo-sciences resonated with the communitarian and women's rights movements.
This important exploration of the major nineteenth-century pseudo-sciences provides fresh perspectives on the American society of that era and on the history of the orthodox sciences, a number of which grew out of the fertile soil plowed by the pseudo-scientists.
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