Communicative Coping Behavior Checklist: Observation of Persons With Dementia in the Home Environment

Purpose of the Study: Communication contributes to increased stress, mortality, and decreased quality of life (QOL) for persons with dementia (PWD) and caregivers. PWD use communicative coping behaviors (CCBs) to manage the demands of the disease. However, most assessments neither look for nor give credit to communication behaviors. This is the first study to examine CCBs in the home environment as measured by the Communicative Coping Behavior Checklist (CCBC). Design and Methods: This cross-sectional quantitative study included 26 dementia and 18 cognitively normal control dyads. Raters observed their partners\u27 CCBs at home, over several weeks and completed the CCBC. We analyzed the endorsement rates (how often behaviors were observed by a rater) of emotion and activity-focused CCBs in dementia and control dyads. Results: The primary outcome was rate of CCB endorsement. Secondary outcomes included dementia diagnosis, cognitive status, depressive mood, life satisfaction (SWL) and QOL. Dementia dyads endorsed 11 of 23 CCBs significantly more than control dyads. Action-focused CCBs (p \u3c .001) were more frequent than emotion-focused CCBs (p = .004) in dementia dyads. Specific CCBs such as humor correlated with higher caregiver QOL (p = .019) and PWD\u27s SWL (p = .003). Another CCB, general humor, correlated with lower PWD\u27s SWL (p = .024). Implications: This was the first study to examine CCBs in the home environment comparing dementia and control dyads. Higher endorsement rates of action-focused than emotion-focused CCBs were seen in dementia dyads. We conclude that attention to CCBs during treatment and care will improve QOL and SWL of PWD and caregivers

Synthesis And Properties Of Clay-ZrO2-Cellulose Fibre-Reinforced Polymeric Nano-Hybrids

Epoxy nano-hybrids reinforced with cellulose fibre (CF), nano-kaolinite (K), and micro-ZrO2 (Z) have been synthesized. The influence of CF/K/Z dispersions on the mechanical properties of these hybrids have been characterized in terms of elastic modulus, hardness, flexural strength, fracture toughness and indentation responses. This new but cost-effective approach has been developed to improve the physical and mechanical properties of polymeric materials without adversely affecting their processing characteristics. The mechanism of reinforcement in these organic/inorganic nanohybrid materials has been investigated. The micromechanisms of toughening and failure processes are identified and discussed in the light of observed nano- and micro-structures

Can Nrf2 modulate the development of intestinal fibrosis and cancer in inflammatory bowel disease?

One of the main mechanisms carried out by the cells to counteract several forms of stress is the activation of the nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor (Nrf2) signaling. Nrf2 signaling controls the expression of many genes through the binding of a specific cis-acting element known as the antioxidant response element (ARE). Activation of Nrf2/ARE signaling can mitigate several pathologic mechanisms associated with an autoimmune response, digestive and metabolic disorders, as well as respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases. Indeed, several studies have demonstrated that Nrf2 pathway plays a key role in inflammation and in cancer development in many organs, including the intestine. Nrf2 appears to be involved in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an immune-mediated chronic and disabling disease, with a high risk of developing intestinal fibrotic strictures and cancer. Currently, drugs able to increase cytoprotective Nrf2 function are in clinical trials or already being used in clinical practice to reduce the progression of some degenerative conditions. The role of Nrf2 in cancer development and progression is controversial, and drugs able to inhibit abnormal levels of Nrf2 are also under investigation. The goal of this review is to analyze and discuss Nrf2-dependent signals in the initiation and progression of intestinal fibrosis and cancers occurring in IBD

P105 SURGERY AT DIAGNOSIS OF CROHN'S DISEASE REDUCES THE NEED FOR STEROIDS AND IMMUNOMODULATORS

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Towards a logic for performance and mobility

Klaim is an experimental language designed for modeling and programming distributed systems composed of mobile components where distribution awareness and dynamic system architecture configuration are key issues. StocKlaim [R. De Nicola, D. Latella, and M. Massink. Formal modeling and quantitative analysis of KLAIM-based mobile systems. In ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC). ACM Press, 2005. Also available as Technical Report 2004-TR-25; CNR/ISTI, 2004] is a Markovian extension of the core subset of Klaim which includes process distribution, process mobility, asynchronous communication, and site creation. In this paper, MoSL, a temporal logic for StocKlaim is proposed which addresses and integrates the issues of distribution awareness and mobility and those concerning stochastic behaviour of systems. The satisfiability relation is formally defined over labelled Markov chains. A large fragment of the proposed logic can be translated to action-based CSL for which efficient model-checkers exist. This way, such model-checkers can be used for the verification of StocKlaim models against MoSL properties. An example application is provided in the present paper

The emotional and social burden of heart failure: integrating physicians’, patients’, and caregivers’ perspectives through narrative medicine

Background: The The Roadmap Using Story Telling project used a narrative medicine (NM) framework to assess the perspectives of people with heart failure (HF), their informal caregivers and HF specialists of the impact of HF on the daily life of patients and their carers. Methods: Italian HF specialists participated on a voluntary basis, completing their own narratives, and inviting patients and their caregivers to write anonymously about their experiences, all on a dedicated online platform. The narratives were analyzed according to standard NM methodology. Results: 82 narratives were collected from patients, 61 from caregivers, and 104 from HF specialists. Analysis of the three points of view revealed the extent of the burden of illness on the entire family, particularly that of the caregiver. The impact was mainly experienced as emotional and social limitations in patients’ and their caregivers’ daily lives. The analysis of all three points of view highlighted a strong difference between how HF is perceived by patients, caregivers, and HF specialists. Conclusions: This NM project illustrates the complex issues of living with HF and gave insights to integrate three different perspectives into the HF pathway of care

Investigation of genomic DNA methylation by ultraviolet resonant Raman spectroscopy

Cytosine plays a preeminent role in DNA methylation, an epigenetic mechanism that regulates gene expression, the misregulation of which can lead to severe diseases. Several methods are nowadays employed for assessing the global DNA methylation levels, but none of them combines simplicity, high sensitivity, and low operating costs to be translated into clinical applications. Ultraviolet (UV) resonant Raman measurements at excitation wavelengths of 272 nm, 260 nm, 250 nm, and 228 nm have been carried out on isolated deoxynucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs), on a dNTP mixture as well as on genomic DNA (gDNA) samples, commercial from salmon sperm and non-commercial from B16 murine melanoma cell line. The 228 nm excitation wavelength was identified as the most suitable energy for enhancing cytosine signals over the other DNA bases. The UV Raman measurements performed at this excitation wavelength on hyper-methylated and hypo-methylated DNA from Jurkat leukemic T-cell line have revealed significant spectral differences with respect to gDNA isolated from salmon sperm and mouse melanoma B16 cells. This demonstrates how the proper choice of the excitation wavelength, combined with optimized extraction protocols, makes UV Raman spectroscopy a suitable technique for highlighting the chemical modifications undergone by cytosine nucleotides in gDNA upon hyper- and hypo-methylation events

Inflammatory bowel disease: New insights into the interplay between environmental factors and pparγ

The pathophysiological processes of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), i.e., Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are still not completely understood. The exact etiology re-mains unknown, but it is well established that the pathogenesis of the inflammatory lesions is due to a dysregulation of the gut immune system resulting in over-production of pro-inflammatory cy-tokines. Increasing evidence underlines the involvement of both environmental and genetic factors. Regarding the environment, the microbiota seems to play a crucial role. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are nuclear receptors that exert pleiotropic effects on glucose homeo-stasis, lipid metabolism, inflammatory/immune processes, cell proliferation, and fibrosis. Further-more, PPARs modulate interactions with several environmental factors, including microbiota. A significantly impaired PPARγ expression was observed in UC patients’ colonic epithelial cells, suggesting that the disruption of PPARγ signaling may represent a critical step of the IBD pathogenesis. This paper will focus on the role of PPARγ in the interaction between environmental factors and IBD, and it will analyze the most suitable in vitro and in vivo models available to better study these relationships

A Process Algebraic Fluid Flow Model of Emergency Egress

Abstract-Pervasive environments offer an increasing number of services to a large number of people moving within these environments including timely information about where to go and when. People using these services interact with the system but they are also meeting other people and performing other activities as relevant opportunities arise. The design of such systems and the analysis of collective dynamic behaviour of people within them is a challenging problem. In previous work we have successfully explored a scalable analysis of stochastic process algebraic models of smart signage systems. In this paper we focus on the validation of a representative example of this class of models in the context of emergency egress. This context has the advantage that there is detailed data available from studies with alternative analysis methods. A second aim is to show how realistic human behaviour, often observed in emergency egress, can be embedded in the model and how the effect of this behaviour on building evacuation can be analysed in an efficient and scalable way