Publications by authors named "Hilbert V"

Short-pulse metrology and dynamic studies in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) spectral range greatly benefit from interferometric measurements. In this contribution a Michelson-type all-reflective split-and-delay autocorrelator operating in a quasi amplitude splitting mode is presented. The autocorrelator works under a grazing incidence angle in a broad spectral range (10 nm - 1 μm) providing collinear propagation of both pulse replicas and thus a constant phase difference across the beam profile.

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In this work, the experimental realization of a tunable high photon flux extreme ultraviolet light source is presented. This is enabled by high harmonic generation of two temporally delayed driving pulses with a wavelength of 1030 nm, resulting in a tuning range of 0.8 eV at the 19 harmonic at 22.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how gamification can promote physical activity and weight loss in adults with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, as current research on its effectiveness in chronic patients is limited.
  • Conducted as a randomized clinical trial over one year, the research involved 361 participants who received wearable devices and engaged in gamified interventions designed to provide support, collaboration, or competition.
  • Key outcomes measured included daily step count, weight, and hemoglobin A1c levels, with an analysis showing participant demographics and initial health metrics, revealing a diverse group with high average weight and blood sugar levels.
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Background: Social comparison feedback is often used in physical activity interventions but the optimal design of feedback is unknown.

Methods: This 4-arm, randomized trial consisted of a 13-week intervention period and 13-week follow-up period. During the intervention, 4-person teams were entered into a weekly lottery valued at about $1.

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Background: Type 2 diabetes is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Lifestyle modifications including increasing physical activity and losing weight have been demonstrated to improve glycemic control. However, most patients struggle to make these changes.

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Importance: Identifying effective strategies for treating obesity is a public health priority.

Objective: To test an escalating lottery-based incentive tied to daily self-weighing for weight loss maintenance.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This 2-phase, 2-arm randomized clinical trial enrolled participants aged 30 to 80 years with an initial body mass index (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) of 30.

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Importance: Gamification, the use of game design elements in nongame contexts, is increasingly being used in workplace wellness programs and digital health applications. However, the best way to design social incentives in gamification interventions has not been well examined.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of support, collaboration, and competition within a behaviorally designed gamification intervention to increase physical activity among overweight and obese adults.

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Background: Less than half of adults in the United States (US) obtain the recommended level of physical activity. Social incentives, the influences that impact individuals to adjust their behaviors based on social ties or connections, are ubiquitous and could be leveraged within gamification interventions to provide a scalable, low-cost approach to increase engagement. Gamification, or the use of game design in non-game situations, is commonly used in the real world, but in most cases has not appropriately leveraged principles from theories of health behavior.

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Background: Regular physical activity reduces the risk of cardiovascular events, but most ischemic heart disease (IHD) patients do not obtain enough.

Methods And Results: ACTIVE REWARD (A Clinical Trial Investigating Effects of a Randomized Evaluation of Wearable Activity Trackers with Financial Rewards) was a 24-week home-based, remotely monitored, randomized trial with a 16-week intervention (8-week ramp-up incentive phase and 8-week maintenance incentive phase) and an 8-week follow-up. Patients used wearable devices to track step counts and establish a baseline.

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Today, coherent imaging techniques provide the highest resolution in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and X-ray regions. Fourier transform holography (FTH) is particularly unique, providing robust and straightforward image reconstruction at the same time. Here, we combine two important advances: First, our experiment is based on a table-top light source which is compact, scalable and highly accessible.

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Background/objective: Financial incentives can improve initial weight loss; we examined whether financial incentives can improve weight loss maintenance.

Subjects/methods: Participants aged 30-80 years who lost at least 5 kg during the first 4-6 months in a nationally available commercial weight loss program were recruited via the internet into a three-arm randomized trial of two types of financial incentives versus active control during months 1-6 (Phase I) followed by passive monitoring during months 7-12 (Phase II). Interventions were daily self-weighing and text messaging feedback alone (control) or combined with a lottery-based incentive or a direct incentive.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study aimed to see if lottery-based financial incentives could boost physical activity among University of Pennsylvania employees with a higher body mass index.
  • 209 participants were monitored for 26 weeks, using smartphones to track their steps, with some receiving various types of incentives over half the study period.
  • Results showed the "combined lottery" group achieved their step goals more often than the control group, while the "jackpot" group saw a drop in performance, indicating that the combined lottery incentives were the most effective in promoting activity.
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  • The study introduces an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) microscope designed for high-resolution imaging of laser-plasma targets, utilizing a Schwarzschild objective for sub-micrometer detail.
  • The microscope successfully captured images of a cryogenic hydrogen target, using single EUV pulses from the FLASH laser at 13.5 nm, revealing a hydrogen jet containing ice fragments.
  • This in situ EUV imaging technique is anticipated to enhance experimental research on warm dense matter, specifically for micrometer-sized samples in laser-plasma experiments.
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Importance: Gamification, the application of game design elements such as points and levels in nongame contexts, is often used in digital health interventions, but evidence on its effectiveness is limited.

Objective: To test the effectiveness of a gamification intervention designed using insights from behavioral economics to enhance social incentives within families to increase physical activity.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The Behavioral Economics Framingham Incentive Trial (BE FIT) was a randomized clinical trial with a 12-week intervention period and a 12-week follow-up period.

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Purpose: To compare the effectiveness of different combinations of social comparison feedback and financial incentives to increase physical activity.

Design: Randomized trial (Clinicaltrials.gov number, NCT02030080).

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Background: More than half of adults in the United States do not attain the minimum recommended level of physical activity to achieve health benefits. The optimal design of financial incentives to promote physical activity is unknown.

Objective: To compare the effectiveness of individual versus team-based financial incentives to increase physical activity.

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Background: Financial incentive designs to increase physical activity have not been well-examined.

Objective: To test the effectiveness of 3 methods to frame financial incentives to increase physical activity among overweight and obese adults.

Design: Randomized, controlled trial.

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Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive technique for cross-sectional imaging. It is particularly advantageous for applications where conventional microscopy is not able to image deeper layers of samples in a reasonable time, e.g.

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Employers commonly use adjustments to health insurance premiums as incentives to encourage healthy behavior, but the effectiveness of those adjustments is controversial. We gave 197 obese participants in a workplace wellness program a weight loss goal equivalent to 5 percent of their baseline weight. They were randomly assigned to a control arm, with no financial incentive for achieving the goal, or to one of three intervention arms offering an incentive valued at $550.

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We investigate subpicosecond dynamics of warm dense hydrogen at the XUV free-electron laser facility (FLASH) at DESY (Hamburg). Ultrafast impulsive electron heating is initiated by a ≤ 300-fs short x-ray burst of 92-eV photon energy. A second pulse probes the sample via x-ray scattering at jitter-free variable time delay.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how ultrafast heating occurs in cryogenic hydrogen when exposed to a short (less than 300 fs) 92 eV x-ray pulse.
  • The results show that the transition from dense molecular hydrogen to a plasmalike state happens within approximately 0.9 picoseconds, suggesting how quickly the electrons and ions reach equilibrium.
  • These findings align with radiation hydrodynamics simulations that utilize a conductivity model for partially ionized plasma, further supported by density-functional theory.
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We present a Michelson interferometer for 13.5 nm soft x-ray radiation. It is characterized in a proof-of-principle experiment using synchrotron radiation, where the temporal coherence is measured to be 13 fs.

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We report on the absolute sensitivity calibration of an extreme ultraviolet (XUV) spectrometer system that is frequently employed to study emission from short-pulse laser experiments. The XUV spectrometer, consisting of a toroidal mirror and a transmission grating, was characterized at a synchrotron source in respect of the ratio of the detected to the incident photon flux at photon energies ranging from 15.5 eV to 99 eV.

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The current increase in aged individuals in number and proportion of the general population warrants dependable strategies to improve early detection of cognitive impairment. It was the goal of the present study to develop a triage for bedside testing and outpatient services. In a prospective clinical cohort study at the outpatient Memory Clinic, University of Ulm, Germany, 232 subjects were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease [AD; NINCDS-ADRDA criteria; n = 66; age 65.

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Few reports have evaluated factors associated with the stage at presentation of contralateral breast cancer and whether contralateral cancer presentation has changed in recent years, during which increased screening and enhanced adjuvant therapy of the initial tumor has been introduced. Patients with initial cancers staged 0-IIIB diagnosed between 1980 and 1999 who subsequently developed contralateral breast cancer were evaluated for stage, primary tumor size and histologic features, patient age and year of diagnosis, synchronous or metachronous presentation, and time from initial tumor to diagnosis of contralateral breast cancer. Tumor presentation was compared with contemporaneously diagnosed unilateral breast cancer patients.

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