The experiences of patients and carers in the daily management of care at the end of life

Background Home is the preferred location for most people with an advanced disease and at the end of life. A variety of care professionals work in community settings to provide support to this population. Patients and their spouses, who also care for them (spouse-carers), are rarely accompanied by these sources of support at all times, and have to manage independently between their contact with care professionals. Aim To explore how patients and spouse-carers manage their involvement with care professionals in the community setting. Method Interpretive phenomenology informs the design of the research, whereby 16 interviews were conducted with the patients and spouse-carers. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using phenomenological techniques including template analysis. Findings Patients and spouse-carers were interdependent and both parties played a role in co-ordinating care and managing relationships with professional care providers. The patients and spouse-carers actively made choices about how to manage their situation, and develop and modify managing strategies based on their experiences. Conclusions When daily management is effective and care professionals acknowledge the dyadic nature of the patient and spouse-carer relationship, people have confidence in living with advanced disease

A complete characterization of phase space measurements

We characterize all the phase space measurements for a non-relativistic particle.Comment: 11 pages, latex, no figures, iopart styl

On the spectrum of Farey and Gauss maps

In this paper we introduce Hilbert spaces of holomorphic functions given by generalized Borel and Laplace transforms which are left invariant by the transfer operators of the Farey map and its induced version, the Gauss map, respectively. By means of a suitable operator-valued power series we are able to study simultaneously the spectrum of both these operators along with the analytic properties of the associated dynamical zeta functions.Comment: 23 page

The Interpersonal Communication Course

The interpersonal communication course is one of the really great courses in the entire communication curriculum and, in fact, in the entire academic curriculum. It is relevant to just about everything you do — to your satisfaction with yourself, to your effectiveness on the job, to your success as a friend or lover. And students know this and quickly become involved and motivated. Even the research is exciting — it addresses significant issues in truly imaginative ways and is always advancing our knowledge and understanding of interpersonal communication and interpersonal relationships in important ways. It’s a great course to teach and a great course to write a textbook for. My task here is to look at the interpersonal communication course as a textbook writer as well as as a teacher of interpersonal communication and describe the course — its purposes, structure, teaching methods, and problems. My last task — the most difficult but also the most challenging — is to speculate on the future of the course

Special educators and job satisfaction

This study examined how specific variables affected job satisfaction among special educators at a special education school district. The variables examined were gender, student population, number of years teaching, number of years teaching a specific population, and age of students. It was hypothesized that female teachers and teachers who worked with emotionally disturbed students would express less job satisfaction than male teachers and teachers working with other special education populations. It was further hypothesized that the greater the number of years teaching and working with a specific population, the greater the expressed job satisfaction. In addition, it was thought that teachers working with elementary students would express greater job satisfaction than teachers working with middle school or high school age students. An independent groups t test was performed on each of the conditions and no significant differences were found between job satisfaction and any of the five variables studied. A closer examination of the responses from all special educators revealed high job satisfaction in areas related to teaching as a profession and lower satisfaction scores in the areas of administrative support and recognition, having a meaningful reward system for teachers, and receiving adequate parental support

Enhanced multiplex genome engineering through co-operative oligonucleotide co-selection

Genome-scale engineering of living organisms requires precise and economical methods to efficiently modify many loci within chromosomes. One such example is the directed integration of chemically synthesized single-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (oligonucleotides) into the chromosome of Escherichia coli during replication. Herein, we present a general co-selection strategy in multiplex genome engineering that yields highly modified cells. We demonstrate that disparate sites throughout the genome can be easily modified simultaneously by leveraging selectable markers within 500 kb of the target sites. We apply this technique to the modification of 80 sites in the E. coli genome.United States. Dept. of Energy. Genomes To Life (DE-FG02-03ER6344)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Genes and Genomes Systems Cluster (0719344)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Center for Bits and Atoms (0122419)National Science Foundation (U.S.). Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (0540879

Decreased olfactory discrimination is associated with impulsivity in healthy volunteers

In clinical populations, olfactory abilities parallel executive function, implicating shared neuroanatomical substrates within the ventral prefrontal cortex. In healthy individuals, the relationship between olfaction and personality traits or certain cognitive and behavioural characteristics remains unexplored. We therefore tested if olfactory function is associated with trait and behavioural impulsivity in nonclinical individuals. Eighty-three healthy volunteers (50 females) underwent quantitative assessment of olfactory function (odour detection threshold, discrimination, and identifcation). Each participant was rated for trait impulsivity index using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and performed a battery of tasks to assess behavioural impulsivity (Stop Signal Task, SST; Information Sampling Task, IST; Delay Discounting). Lower odour discrimination predicted high ratings in non-planning impulsivity (Barratt Non-Planning impulsivity subscale); both, lower odour discrimination and detection threshold predicted low inhibitory control (SST; increased motor impulsivity). These fndings extend clinical observations to support the hypothesis that defcits in olfactory ability are linked to impulsive tendencies within the healthy population. In particular, the relationship between olfactory abilities and behavioural inhibitory control (in the SST) reinforces evidence for functional overlap between neural networks involved in both processes. These fndings may usefully inform the stratifcation of people at risk of impulse-control-related problems and support planning early clinical interventions

Simplified Prescriptive Options in the Texas Residential Building Energy Code Make Compliance Easy

Texas recently adopted the 2000 International Residential Code (“IRC”) energy chapter and the 2000 International Energy Conservation Code (“IECC”) as its residential building energy code for new construction and existing homes. The range of code compliance options in the new Texas code spans from simplified prescriptive methods on one end to more complex performance (whole building) methods on the other. This paper addresses how energy code compliance is much simpler through the use of simplified, easy-to-follow prescriptive compliance options, particularly in a state like Texas, which historically has had no uniform building codes. This paper also provides samples of simplified prescriptive energy code compliance aids that could make it easier for energy code compliance in Texas

A Rubric to Assess the Virtual Library

The virtual library is a digital representation of an academic library and should provide a similar level of engagement, interactivity, and research support that users find in the physical library location. A virtual academic library should be user-centered, contain multi-media, being socially engaging, and foster community. Using these elements from Library 2.0 and the characteristics of Human-Centered Design, a rubric to assess virtual academic libraries was developed. The rubric measures where the library pages are meeting the standards and the areas that need to be further developed. The libraries evaluated ranked high in most areas. Areas for enhancement include malleability and ownership. The rubric serves as a starting point for assessment but requires additional delineation in each characteristic to allow for variations in how libraries meet the criteria.NASUNY Polytechnic InstituteCollege of Arts and SciencesN/