Translation, reliability, and validity of the German version of the Activity Patterns Scale (APS) in musculoskeletal pain: a methodological study.

In musculoskeletal pain (MSP), pain duration, disability, and mental health relate to how a person engages in daily activities. The self-reporting questionnaire Activity Patterns Scale (APS) assesses these activity patterns and their subscales: Pacing (Pacing to increase activity levels,Pacing to conserve energy for valued activities,Pacing to reduce pain); Avoidance (Pain avoidance,Activity avoidance); Pacing (Excessive persistence, Task-contingent persistence, Pain-contingent persistence). This investigation translated the APS into German and estimated its internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity.

Persistence, not avoidance, is associated with low back pain-An observational cohort study.

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is increasingly understood as a long-lasting condition with a variable course. Avoidance and persistence behaviour have been described to mediate pain persistence by potentially linking psychosocial factors and biomechanics. The resulting maladaptive changes in musculoskeletal structures can result in movement control impairment (MCI).

Prediction and trend of tactile acuity, pain and disability in acute LBP: a six-month prospective cohort study.

Background: Chronic back pain is known to be associated with altered tactile acuity. Tactile acuity is measured using the Two-Point Discrimination (TPD) test in both clinical and research settings. In subjects with chronic low back pain, the TPD threshold (TPDT) is increased and is associated with persistent pain.

Thermopower in the quantum Hall regime.

We consider the effect of disorder on the themopower in quantum Hall systems. For a sample in the Corbino geometry, where dissipative currents are not carried by edge states, we find that thermopower behaves at high temperatures like a system with a gap and has a maximum which increases as the temperature is reduced. At lower temperatures this maximum reduces as a function of temperature as a result of tunneling across saddle points in the background potential.

Model for dissipative conductance in fractional quantum Hall states.

We present a model of dissipative transport in the fractional quantum Hall regime. Our model takes account of tunneling through saddle points in the effective potential for excitations created by impurities. We predict the temperature range over which activated behavior is observed and explain why this range nearly always corresponds to around a factor two in temperature in both integer quantum Hall and fractional quantum Hall systems.