Common spaces in assisted living for older persons. Aspects of usability from the residential and workplace perspectives.

This thesis is about space. It assumes that space forms a necessary part of the structure of existence. The architectural space becomes an existential space in the encounter with the user. Common unit spaces in assisted living (AL) for older persons are the principal venue for social interaction and have no parallel in ordinary housing. The usability of these spaces is discussed here from the residential and workplace perspectives. These perspectives are explored in relation to the concept of AL and involve residents, staff and other stakeholders in buildings in use. Special housing for older people is currently in focus worldwide due to demographic develop-ments, entailing an increasing proportion of older people. Residents in AL are increasingly old and multi-diseased, which changes the conditions for residential care in its present form.Four methods were used, involving 14 AL facilities (ALFs) in Sweden: observations, group interviews, individual interviews and self-completion questionnaires. An explorative strategy was adopted, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to enhance the validity of the results. The results were analysed using statistical analyses, Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) and triangulation.The results show functional demarcations between apartments, dining rooms, sitting rooms and kitchens in a private-public continu\uacum, with varying adherence to the respective residential and workplace perspectives. It also shows that these perspectives entail diverging objectives for use of the common spaces. The dining rooms were utilized most by the residents, but the kitchens were not used at all. The daily activities promote a focus on collective aspects above individual needs. The increasing use of assistive technology causes space shortages and suggests a mismatch between the actual users and the users conceptualised at the planning stage, which entails a focus on care aspects at the expense of the residential perspective. It shows that the common spaces are not perceived as a part of the home environment; rather an addition. The dementia and somatic units presented diverging objectives for use, but the physical environ-ments did not differ significantly. The functions of the common spaces were perceived differently among users, planners and architects. This suggests that these spaces have ambiguous meanings in a social context and may lead to ineffective use of the spaces. Along with a complicated body of regulations, this calls for a redefinition of AL. Design strategies are suggested that are more up-to-date with the users’ needs in relation to the usability of the common spaces. The residential and workplace perspectives have to be considered concomitantly when planning ALFs, otherwise inherent conflicts will become manifest as a result of the physical design, which affects usability

Cosmological Time in (2+1) - Gravity

We consider maximal globally hyperbolic flat (2+1) spacetimes with compact space S of genus g>1. For any spacetime M of this type, the length of time that the events have been in existence is M defines a global time, called the cosmological time CT of M, which reveals deep intrinsic properties of spacetime. In particular, the past/future asymptotic states of the cosmological time recover and decouple the linear and the translational parts of the ISO(2,1)-valued holonomy of the flat spacetime. The initial singularity can be interpreted as an isometric action of the fundamental group of S on a suitable real tree. The initial singularity faithfully manifests itself as a lack of smoothness of the embedding of the CT level surfaces into the spacetime M. The cosmological time determines a real analytic curve in the Teichmuller space of Riemann surfaces of genus g, which connects an interior point (associated to the linear part of the holonomy) with a point on Thurston's natural boundary (associated to the initial singularity).Comment: Totally new version with strongly improved exposition. Clarifying examples and figures have been included. 21 pages, Latex, 9 figure

Approaches and Methods in Architectural Research

This anthology is the proceedings publication from the 2019 NAF Symposium “Approaches and Methods in Architectural Research”.Addressing what methods and approaches architects, landscape architects,and urban designers use in their work, why and how, this publication initiatescritical reflection on their relevance, qualities, pitfalls, representations, anddiscursive positionings. \ua0Editors: Anne Elisabeth Toft, Magnus R\uf6nn and Morgan AnderssonContributing authors:Abdulaziz Alshabib, Morgan Andersson, Isabelle Doucet, Susanne Fredholm, Freja Fr\uf6lander, Kiran Maini Gerhardsson, Ellen Kathrine Hansen, Mette Hvass, Thomas H. Kampmann, Karl Kropf, Ann Legeby, Nils Olsson, Jarre Parkatti, Sam Ridgway, Magnus R\uf6nn, Mari Oline Giske Stendebakken, Tony Svensson, Anne Elisabeth Tof

The impact of the physical environment for caregiving in ordinary housing: Experiences of staff in home- and health-care services

The strong driving forces for ageing in place demand sustainable solutions for the housing and care of older people and the health and safety of home- and health-care staff. The aim of the study was to elucidate staff experiences of providing home- and health-care to older people living in ordinary housing. This study was part of a larger project investigating the relation between home design and conditions for care in ordinary housing. The data were gathered through focus group interviews with staff in home- and health-care. Three main themes were found according to staff experiences of particular rooms’ sizes and proportions, spatial configurations, and aspects to consider when designing new housing. This study contributes important knowledge about essential features of the physical environment for staff providing home- and health-care for older people in their own homes and to aid the development of functionally sustainable housing to minimise injuries to staff

Loss of size-selectivity at histamine-induced exudation of plasma proteins in atopic nasal airways.

Plasma proteins occur in the airway lumen in inflammatory airway diseases. This study tests the hypothesis that airway microvascular-epithelial exudation of plasma proteins, as induced by a non-injurious inflammatory mediator, is characterized by loss of size-selectivity. Using a nasal pool-device, the nasal mucosa of 10 allergic individuals, without current disease, was sequentially exposed to saline and histamine (40 and 400 microg ml(-1)). Nasal lavage fluid and blood-levels of albumin (69 kD) and alpha2-macroglobulin (720 kD) were determined. Histamine produced concentration-dependent exudation of albumin and alpha2-macroglobulin. The albumin/alpha2-macroglobulin concentration ratio of the saline lavage fluid (baseline) was 40+/-19. However, at the histamine challenges the ratios were 25+/-3 and 22+/-2, respectively, which did not differ from that of circulating plasma (22+/-2). We conclude that there is minor and size-selective luminal entry of plasma proteins at baseline. However, at concentration-dependent exudative responses to histamine, plasma proteins enter the airway lumen without being sieved. These data indicate that inflammatory stimulus-induced extravasation, lamina propria distribution and paracellular epithelial passage of plasma occur with minimal size-selectivity. Inferentially, the full immunological capacity of plasma proteins may readily be made available at the surface of human intact airway mucosa

The electronic structure and band gap of LiFePO4 and LiMnPO4

Materials with the olivine LixMPO4 structure form an important new class of materials for rechargeable Li batteries. There is significant interest in their electronic properties because of the importance of electronic conductivity in batteries for high rate applications. The density of states of LixMPO4 (x = 0, 1 and M = Fe, Mn) has been determined with the ab initio GGA+U method, appropriate for these correlated electron systems. Computed results are compared with the optical gap of LiFePO4, as measured using UV-Vis-NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The results obtained from experiment (3.8-4.0 eV) and GGA+U computations (3.7 eV) are in very good agreement. However, standard GGA, without the same level of treatment of electron correlation, is shown to make large errors in predicting the electronic structure. It is argued that olivines are likely to be polaronic conductors with extrinsically determined carrier levels and that their electronic conductivity is therefore not simply related to the band gap.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

An integrated approach to correction for off-resonance effects and subject movement in diffusion MR imaging

In this paper we describe a method for retrospective estimation and correction of eddy current (EC)-induced distortions and subject movement in diffusion imaging. In addition a susceptibility-induced field can be supplied and will be incorporated into the calculations in a way that accurately reflects that the two fields (susceptibility- and EC-induced) behave differently in the presence of subject movement. The method is based on registering the individual volumes to a model free prediction of what each volume should look like, thereby enabling its use on high b-value data where the contrast is vastly different in different volumes. In addition we show that the linear EC-model commonly used is insufficient for the data used in the present paper (high spatial and angular resolution data acquired with Stejskal–Tanner gradients on a 3 T Siemens Verio, a 3 T Siemens Connectome Skyra or a 7 T Siemens Magnetome scanner) and that a higher order model performs significantly better. The method is already in extensive practical use and is used by four major projects (the WU-UMinn HCP, the MGH HCP, the UK Biobank and the Whitehall studies) to correct for distortions and subject movement

Phase Separation in Lix_xFePO4_4 Induced by Correlation Effects

We report on a significant failure of LDA and GGA to reproduce the phase stability and thermodynamics of mixed-valence Li$_x$FePO$_4$ compounds. Experimentally, Li$_x$FePO$_4$ compositions ($0 \leq x \leq 1$) are known to be unstable and phase separate into Li FePO$_4$ and FePO$_4$. However, first-principles calculations with LDA/GGA yield energetically favorable intermediate compounds an d hence no phase separation. This qualitative failure of LDA/GGA seems to have its origin in the LDA/GGA self-interaction which de localizes charge over the mixed-valence Fe ions, and is corrected by explicitly considering correlation effects in this material. This is demonstrated with LDA+U calculations which correctly predict phase separation in Li$_x$FePO$_4$ for $U-J \gtrsim 3.5$eV. T he origin of the destabilization of intermediate compounds is identified as electron localization and charge ordering at different iron sites. Introduction of correlation also yields more accurate electrochemical reaction energies between FePO$_4$/Li$_x$FePO$_ 4$ and Li/Li$^+$ electrodes.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, Phys. Rev. B 201101R, 200