Design and development of a mobile app framework to facilitate breast cancer-preventive behaviors (m-BCPB) in the at-risk women: Qualitative Study

Background Smartphone apps are gradually becoming a universal template for offering preventive behavior interventions among women who are at risk for breast cancer, although limited methodological procedures on mixing models, documentation, and qualitative studies for their developments are presented. Thus, this study aimed to design and develop a model-based, document-driven, and user-centered mobile app framework to facilitate breast cancer-preventive behaviors targeting at-risk women.Methods This study explains how intervention progress may be enriched with a theoretical foundation, literature review, and qualitative research. A semi-structural individual interview and focus group dissection (FGD) were accomplished to combine the user’s participation in the development. Participants were employed using a purposing sampling method. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded. The thematic analysis method was employed for developing themes and subthemes.Results The ASSISTS model, self-regulation, and the self-control models were chosen to design the app framework. Data from the literature review presented the most influential document for the designing of the programs. Nineteen women were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview and FGDs. The following five main themes were revealed: content, interactive performance, template, extended action and output, and motivational nature. Mobile apps are a useful tool for learning self-care tips, suitable and healthy lifestyles, and stress management due to their user-friendly and easy features. The mobile app framework developed in the present study includes culture-appropriate, user-centered, and reliable content. The mobile app design should include beautiful, visualized features and interactive multimedia.Conclusions By applying a three-phase way of combining models, the literature review and qualitative study from the target group can be held as a pattern for the prospective app design.

Modern Approaches to the Management of Obesity in Children: Novelties

Objective of the Review: To analyse scientific publications in non-drug and drug therapy of paediatric obesity. Key Points. The paramount challenge in obesity management is timely diagnosis of overweight by paediatricians and prompt initiation of efficient non-drug therapy. A tremendous advantage of the life style, nutrition and physical activity correction is their safety. Psychologist engagement boosts non-drug therapy efficiency. Where non-drug therapy is inefficient, medications can be prescribed to children over 12 years old in addition to lifestyle correction. Orlistat possesses an acceptable efficiency profile and is safe, but it is associated with a number of adverse reactions and does not modify the eating habits of the patient. Liraglutide, a glucagon-like peptide product, has proven to be efficient in adolescents of 12 to 18 years old, including visceral adiposopathy management. An extended action with minor adverse enteric reactions makes Liraglutide a promising product for the management of adolescent obesity. Conclusion. Obesity management in children and adolescents is based on a set of non-drug measures possessing proven efficiency and safety. In Russia, Orlistat and Liraglutide are approved for the use in children. Metformin can be considered as an off-label medication. To prove the efficiency and safety of bariatric surgery, further studies are warranted. Keywords: obesity, children, non-drug therapy, drug therapy, Liraglutide.

Embedding Academic Literacies through Growing Student and Staff Communities

In the UK, HE practical writing support has not kept pace with advances in our understanding of how students learn to write in their disciplines or greater comprehension of the nature of these discourses they are acquiring. Current institutional provision can be still be characterized as fragmented offering generic, deficit focused, skills-based instruction, despite such approaches being theoretically discredited. One alternative means to develop academic literacies in more inclusive and nuanced ways is to embed this work at a disciplinary level; while long recommended this model is unusual in the UK. This paper reviews approaches to embedding academic literacies work and reports on our attempts to embed writing development work within a social science department through an extended action research project which aimed to increase student mastery of academic literacies within one department. We focused on building opportunities for engagement using Writing Exemplars, Retreats and Writing Circles. Key features of our work are identified that appear transferable and may further facilitate successful interdisciplinary collaborations.

Extended Action and Instrumental Rationality

Chapter 1 presents the general structure of a theory of instrumental rationality, as well as laying down some of the main ideas and motivations for the extended theory of instrumental rationality (ETR) developed in the book. It characterizes the content of a theory of instrumental rationality in terms of its given attitudes (the “inputs” for a theory of instrumental rationality), its principles of coherence, its principles of derivation, and what counts as the conclusion of practical reasoning or the exercise of our rational powers (the “outputs”) of instrumental rationality. On ETR, intentional actions are both the given attitudes and the exercises of our instrumental, rational powers.

Indeterminate Ends and the Puzzle of the Self-Torturer

Chapter 4 looks at Quinn’s puzzle of the rational self-torturer. The puzzle presents, in a clear way, a structure that pervades our pursuit of ends through time. The chapter argues that a proper solution for the puzzle, and thus a proper account of instrumental rationality that applies to extended action, must accept the non-supervenience thesis. We also need to understand how the agent’s extended perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of long-term ends) and the agent’s punctate perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of momentary actions) interact in realizing the agent’s indeterminate ends. This chapter presents ETR’s account of this interaction. Since extant theories of instrumental rationality cannot do justice to the non-supervenience thesis, and a fortiori, to the structure of agency illustrated in the puzzle of the rational self-torturer, this account represents an important argument in favour of ETR.

Design and Development of a Mobile App Framework to Facilitate Breast Cancer-Preventive Behaviors (m-BCPB) in the At-Risk Women: Qualitative Study

Background Smartphone apps are becoming a gradually universal template for an offering of preventive behavior interventions among women who are at risk of getting breast cancer. Although, only limited methodological procedures on mixing model, document, and qualitative study for their developments are presented. Thus, this study was aimed to design and develop a model-based, document-driven, and user-centered mobile app framework to facilitate breast cancer preventive behaviors targeting at-risk women. Methods The present study explains how intervention progress may be enriched with a theoretic foundation, literature review, and qualitative research. A semi-structural individual interview and focus group dissection (FGD) were accomplished to combine the user’s participation in the development. Participants were employed using a purposing sampling method. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded by applying the software MAXQDA. The thematic analysis method was employed for developing themes and sub-themes. Results The ASSISTS model, self-regulation model, and the self-control model were chosen to design the app framework. Data from the literature review presented the most influential document for the designing of the programs. Nineteen women were invited to participate in a semi-structured interview and FGDs. The following five main themes revealed: content, interactive performance, template, extended action and output, and motivational nature. Mobile apps are a useful tool for learning self-care tips, suitable and healthy lifestyles, and stress management, due to their user-friendly and easy feature. The mobile app framework that developed in the present study includes culture-appropriate, user-centered, and reliable content. The mobile app design should include beautiful, visualized features, and interactive multimedia. Conclusions By applying three phases way combining a model basis, the document from the literature review, and qualitative study from the target group can be held as a pattern for the prospective app design.

Pituitary gigantism. The possibility of medical treatment

Pituitary gigantism is a disease caused by an excess of growth hormone and characterized by tallness with a proportional increase in all parts of the body. Almost always in patients with pituitary gigantism found pituitary adenoma, producing growth hormone (somatotropin). In rare cases, there is excess production of somatoliberin by the hypothalamus or tumors outside the brain. Somatotropinoma can be sporadic or caused by a disease with genetic defects: multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1, McCuneAlbright syndrome, Carney complex, X-LAG syndrome, AIP-mutation. All associated with genetic defects somatotropinoma more invasive and less amenable to drug therapy than sporadic. Clinical recommendations (protocols) for the treatment of pituitary gigantism in children currently does not exist. The issue of preliminary medical treatment to improve the outcome of neurosurgical interventions has not been resolved, and further methodologically based studies are needed to clarify this point. The article presents a clinical case of pituitarygigantism caused by pituitary adenoma, which produces growth hormone in a 12-year-old boy. The diagnosis was established on the basis of clinical and anamnestic, laboratory data and magnetic resonance imaging. Clinical and laboratory manifestations of hypopituitarism and diabetes insipidus, visual field disorders, neurological symptoms, as well as signs of genetic diseases in the patient were not noted. Treatment with bromocriptin gave a partial positive effect: the size of the formation in the pituitary gland decreased, but the target hormonal parameters were not achieved. A trial administration of octreotide subcutaneously was carried out, as a result of which the level of growth hormone decreased to the target values, no side effects of the drug were noted, which led to the choice of a conservative method as the first line of therapy. Thedecision to treat with bromocryptine in combination with octreotide extended action. The dynamics of tumor sizeonthebackgroundofconservative therapy will answer the question of the need for subsequent neurosurgical treatment.

Combo-Action: Training Agent For FPS Game with Auxiliary Tasks

Deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has achieved surpassing human performance on Atari games, using raw pixels and rewards to learn everything. However, first-person-shooter (FPS) games in 3D environments contain higher levels of human concepts (enemy, weapon, spatial structure, etc.) and a large action space. In this paper, we explore a novel method which can plan on temporally-extended action sequences, which we refer as Combo-Action to compress the action space. We further train a deep recurrent Q-learning network model as a high-level controller, called supervisory network, to manage the Combo-Actions. Our method can be boosted with auxiliary tasks (enemy detection and depth prediction), which enable the agent to extract high-level concepts in the FPS games. Extensive experiments show that our method is efficient in training process and outperforms previous stateof-the-art approaches by a large margin. Ablation study experiments also indicate that our method can boost the performance of the FPS agent in a reasonable way.

I See Your Effort: Force-Related BOLD Effects in an Extended Action Execution–Observation Network Involving the Cerebellum

Action observation (AO) is crucial for motor planning, imitation learning, and social interaction, but it is not clear whether and how an action execution–observation network (AEON) processes the effort of others engaged in performing actions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we used a “squeeze ball” task involving different grip forces to investigate whether AEON activation showed similar patterns when executing the task or observing others performing it. Both in action execution, AE (subjects performed the visuomotor task) and action observation, AO (subjects watched a video of the task being performed by someone else), the fMRI signal was detected in cerebral and cerebellar regions. These responses showed various relationships with force mapping onto specific areas of the sensorimotor and cognitive systems. Conjunction analysis of AE and AO was repeated for the “0th” order and linear and nonlinear responses, and revealed multiple AEON nodes remapping the detection of actions, and also effort, of another person onto the observer’s own cerebrocerebellar system. This result implies that the AEON exploits the cerebellum, which is known to process sensorimotor predictions and simulations, performing an internal assessment of forces and integrating information into high-level schemes, providing a crucial substrate for action imitation.