Capturing Flow-weighted Water and Suspended Particulates from Agricultural Canals During Drainage Events

Suitability of accelerometry as an objective measure for upper extremity use in stroke patients

Background

Upper limb (UL) paresis is one of the most common stroke consequences and significantly restricts patients in everyday life. Instruments objectively measuring direct arm use in stroke patients are lacking, but might be helpful to understand patients’ impairment. Aiming to examine whether accelerometry is a suitable objective measure for everyday UL use in stroke patients, we conducted a systematic review on the association between accelerometer-derived measurements and clinical scales.

Methods

Articles were systematically searched in PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, PeDro and LIVIVO through December 12^th, 2021, screened for inclusion by AH, and subsequently independently screened by CK and MK. Disagreements were discussed until consensus. We included English and German peer-reviewed articles dealing with the validity of accelerometers as a measurement of UL use in stroke patients and eligible systematic reviews. Studies exclusively using accelerometry as an outcome parameter, book contributions, conference abstracts and case studies were excluded. Data extraction was conducted by AH and confirmed by CK focussing on study type, objective, accelerometer device, sample size, stroke status, assessments conducted, measurement method, wearing time and key results. We analysed all eligible articles regarding the correlation between accelerometry and other clinical assessments and the validity in accordance with the type of accelerometer.

Results

Excluding duplicates, the initial search yielded 477 records. In the 34 eligible studies accelerometers was used with a predominance of tri-axial accelerometery (n = 12) and only few with two-axial application (n = 4). Regarding measures to examine association to accelerometer data different clinical scales were applied depending on the setting, the degree of impairment and/or the status of stroke. Cut-off values to determine correlations varied largely; most significant correlations are reported for the MAL [Range 0.31- 0.84] and the ARAT [Range 0.15–0.79].

Conclusions

Accelerometers can provide reliable data about daily arm use frequency but do not supply information about the movements´ quality and restrictions on everyday activities of stroke patients. Depending on the context, it is advisable to use both, accelerometry and other clinical measures. According to the literature there is currently no accelerometer device most suitable to measure UL activity. High correlations indicate that multi-dimensional accelerometers should be preferred.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12883-022-02743-w.

A flow-weighted approach to generate daily total phosphorus loads in streams based on seasonal loads

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient for all forms of life but its over-enrichment can result in eutrophication of surface waters. For many watersheds around the world, some seasonal total P (TP) load datasets may exist but the continuous and multi-year daily TP concentrations and/or load datasets are not available due to the lacks of in situ P sensor measurement, time-consuming, and budget constraint. Traditionally, the seasonal TP loads are normally obtained with measuring daily TP concentrations for a couple of times within a season in a watershed, and then these daily TP concentrations along with their respective daily discharges are used to calculate the seasonal TP loads for the watershed. However, without the continuous and multi-year daily TP load dataset, development of total maximum daily load (TMDL) and calibration of watershed models for TP cannot be achieved. A flow-weighted method was developed (with detailed procedures) here to generate the daily TP loads based on the seasonal loads. The method was rigorously validated using the measured daily TP datasets from three different US Geological Survey gage stations. With very good statistical comparisons between the method predicted and field measured TP loads, we demonstrated that the flow-weighted method herein is a useful tool to disaggregate the seasonal TP loads into the daily TP loads when the measured daily TP data are not available while the TMDL development and model calibrations/validations are inevitable.