A Scale for Measuring Electronic Patient Engagement Behaviors: Development and Validation.

Purpose: Advancements in electronic health (eHealth) technology have profoundly impacted patient engagement. This study aimed to develop and validate the Electronic Patient Engagement Behavior (EPEB) scale to measure the conceptual and underlying framework of patient engagement behaviors in an eHealth context. Patients and Methods: Initial measurement items were generated based on a literature review and qualitative research. Two rounds of surveys, a pilot survey and validation survey, were conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale. Results: The EPEB scale consists of 15 items in four dimensions: disease information search, physician-patient interaction, social interaction between patients, and disease self-monitoring. In the pilot survey, the exploratory factor analysis revealed a four-factor model, explaining 69.411% of variance. In the validation survey, the Cronbach's α coefficient of each sub-scale was 0.865, 0.904, 0.904, and 0.900 respectively. The Spearman-Brown split coefficient of the scale was 0.963. The results of the cross-sex measurement equivalence test indicate that all fit indices met the measurement criteria. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated second-order 4-factor model fit the data well. The EPEB has a good reliability and validity. Conclusion: The EPEB scale provides a reliable tool for measuring patient engagement behaviors in the eHealth context. The utilization of this scale may yield valuable insights into strategies for enhancing patient engagement and optimizing health outcomes.

Comprehensive reconstructions and predictive control for quadrotor UAV information gathering tracking missions based on fully actuated system approaches.

This paper introduces a novel approach to the comprehensive reconstruction and predictive control (PC) of the quadrotor UAV for information-gathering missions, employing fully actuated system (FAS) approaches. Unlike conventional PC methods applied to a quadrotor UAV with hybrid constraints, our work integrates reconstructions of the system model, hybrid constraints, and the receding horizon performance index into to an integrated tracking control scheme within the FAS-PC framework. Specifically, the under-actuated quadrotor UAV model is reconstructed into a full-actuated model to inject full-actuation properties. And the implicit hybrid constraints that arise from the model reconstruction are explicitly transformed and decoupled. Simultaneously, the cascaded predictive algorithm is established that the new time-varying input constraints are solved in each predictive horizon, and then the nonlinear optimization problem is decoupled into four linear convex optimization problems subject to the corresponding decoupled linear constraints and the pre-addressed input constraints. Within this framework, the intrinsic complexities, nonlinearities, and interdependencies of the quadrotor UAV system model, along with hybrid constraints and the optimization dilemma, are considerably diminished. This reduction significantly eases computational demands, enabling satisfactory real-time performance. Furthermore, the selection of predictive parameters guarantees the stability of the resultant tracking error closed-loop system. Finally, the efficacy of the proposed method is validated through two sets of flight missions, conducted via simulation and practical experimentation, respectively.

Factors associated with the incidence and the expenditure of self-medication among middle-aged and older adults in China: A cross-sectional study.

Background: With the accelerated ageing of population and the growing prevalence of various chronic diseases in China, self-medication plays an increasingly important role in complementing the health care system due to its convenience and economy. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the incidence of self-medication and the amount of self-medication expenditure among middle-aged and older adults in China, and to explore factors associated with them. Methods: A total of 10,841 respondents aged 45 years and older from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) wave 4 which conducted in 2018 were included as the sample of this study. The two-part model was adopted to identify the association between the incidence of self-medication and the amount of self-medication expenditure and specific factors, respectively. Results: The incidence of self-medication among Chinese middle-aged and older adults was 62.30%, and the average total and out-of-pocket (OOP) pharmaceutical expenditure of self-medication of the self-medicated individuals were 290.50 and 264.38 Chinese yuan (CNY) respectively. Participants who took traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), self-reported fair, and poor health status, suffered from one and multiple chronic diseases had strongly higher incidence of self-medication. Older age and multiple chronic diseases were strongly associated with higher expenditure of self-medication. Those who took TCM had more self-medication expenditure, while those who drank alcohol had less. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated the great prevalence of self-medication among middle-aged and older adults in China and the large pharmaceutical expenditure that come with it, especially in the high-risk groups of self-medication identified in this paper. These findings enhanced our understanding of self-medication behaviors among Chinese middle-aged and older adults and may contribute to the formulation of targeted public health policy.

Leaf Gas Exchange and Fluorescence of Two Winter Wheat Varieties in Response to Drought Stress and Nitrogen Supply.

Water and nitrogen supply are the two primary factors limiting productivity of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). In our study, two winter wheat varieties, Xinong 979 and large-spike wheat, were evaluated for their physiological responses to different levels of nitrogen and water status during their seedling stage grown in a phytotron. Our results indicated that drought stress greatly reduced the net photosynthetic rate (Pn), transpiration rate (E), and stomatal conductance (Gs), but with a greater increase in instantaneous water use efficiency (WUE). At the meantime, the nitrogen (N) supply improved photosynthetic efficiency under water deficit. Parameters inferred from chlorophyll a measurements, i.e., photochemical quenching coefficient (qP), the maximum photochemical efficiency (Fv/Fm), the quantum yield of photosystemII(ΦPSII), and the apparent photosynthetic electron transport rate (ETR) decreased under water stress at all nitrogen levels and declined in N-deficient plants. The root-shoot ratio (R/S) increased slightly with water stress at a low N level; the smallest root-shoot ratio was found at a high N level and moderate drought stress treatment. These results suggest that an appropriate nitrogen supply may be necessary to enhance drought resistance in wheat by improving photosynthetic efficiency and relieving photoinhibition under drought stress. However, an excessive N supply had no effect on drought resistance, which even showed an adverse effect on plant growth. Comparing the two cultivars, Xinong 979 has a stronger drought resistance compared with large-spike wheat under N deficiency.