Adaptation of a patient activatıon measure (PAM) into Turkish: reliability and validity test

Background: Patient activation is a central concept in chronic illness care model. Activated patients have ability and willingness to manage their health.Objective: Aim of this study was to test the reliability and validity of a Patient Activation Measure.Methods: Research sample consisted of 130 patients who had diabetes, hypertension or rheumatoid arthritis. Data was collected through socio-demographic information form and a Patient Activation Measure (PAM). Reliability and validity of PAM were analyzed.Results: Internal consistency reliability coefficient of the PAM was α: .81. Correlation coefficients between item and total scale scores varied from .38 to .66. Result of explanatory factor analysis Kaiser Meyer Olkin coefficient was .75 and Barlett test was x2: 646.870; p: 0. 000. Result of confirmatory factor analysis, model fit indexes were x2/df: 1.59, RMSEA: 0.071, CFI: 0.96, NNFI: 0.95. The result of Rasch analysis, reliability coefficient varied from 0.83 to 0.87 and in validity assesment, item fit statistics for INFIT varied from 0.68 to 1.53 and for OUTFIT varied from 0.65 to 1.54.Conclusion: PAM has enough validy and reliability for use in determining activation scores and level of the patients in Turkey. It could be used in planing appropriate interventions for the activation level and help to improve self management.Keywords: Patıent actıvatıon measure (pam), reliability, validity, test

Experimental investigation of the effects of simultaneous hydrogen and nitrogen addition on the emissions and combustion of a diesel engine

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Copyright @ 2013, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Overcoming diesel engine emissions trade-off effects, especially NO and Bosch smoke number (BSN), requires investigation of novel systems which can potentially serve the automobile industry towards further emissions reduction. Enrichment of the intake charge with H + N containing gas mixture, obtained from diesel fuel reforming system, can lead to new generation low polluting diesel engines. This paper investigates the effect of simultaneous H + N intake charge enrichment on the emissions and combustion of a compression ignition engine. Bottled H + N was simultaneously admitted into the intake pipe of the engine in 4% steps starting from 4% (2% H + 2% N) up to 16% (v/v). The results showed that under specific operating conditions H + N enrichment can offer simultaneous NO, BSN and CO emissions reduction. Apart from regulated emissions, nitrogen exhaust components were measured. Marginal NO and zero NH emissions were obtained. NO/NO ratio increases when speed or load increases. Under low speed low load operation the oxidation of NO is enhanced by the addition of H + N mixture. Finally, admission of H + N has a detrimental effect on fuel consumption.UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Counci

Adaptation of a patient activat\u131on measure (PAM) into Turkish: reliability and validity test

Background: Patient activation is a central concept in chronic illness care model. Activated patients have ability and willingness to manage their health. Objective: Aim of this study was to test the reliability and validity of a Patient Activation Measure. Methods: Research sample consisted of 130 patients who had diabetes, hypertension or rheumatoid arthritis. Data was collected through socio-demographic information form and a Patient Activation Measure (PAM). Reliability and validity of PAM were analyzed. Results: Internal consistency reliability coefficient of the PAM was \u3b1: .81. Correlation coefficients between item and total scale scores varied from .38 to .66. Result of explanatory factor analysis Kaiser Meyer Olkin coefficient was .75 and Barlett test was x2: 646.870; p: 0. 000. Result of confirmatory factor analysis, model fit indexes were x2/df: 1.59, RMSEA: 0.071, CFI: 0.96, NNFI: 0.95. The result of Rasch analysis, reliability coefficient varied from 0.83 to 0.87 and in validity assesment, item fit statistics for INFIT varied from 0.68 to 1.53 and for OUTFIT varied from 0.65 to 1.54. Conclusion: PAM has enough validy and reliability for use in determining activation scores and level of the patients in Turkey. It could be used in planing appropriate interventions for the activation level and help to improve self management. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ahs.v19i1.58 Cite as: Kosar C, Besen DB. Adaptation of a patient activat\u131on measure (PAM) into Turkish: reliability and validity test. Afri Health Sci. 2019;19(1). 1811-1820. https:// dx.doi. org/10.4314/ ahs. v19i1.5

Hybrid Si-GaAs photonic crystal cavity for lasing and bistability

The heterogeneous integration of silicon with III-V materials provides a way to overcome silicon's limited optical properties toward a broad range of photonic applications. Hybrid modes are a promising way to make heterogeneous Si/III-V devices, but it is still unclear how to engineer these modes to make photonic crystal cavities. Herein, using 3D finite-difference time-domain simulation, a hybrid Si-GaAs photonic crystal cavity design enables cavity mode confinement in GaAs without directly patterning that operates at telecom wavelengths. The hybrid cavity consists of a patterned silicon waveguide nanobeam that is evanescently coupled to a GaAs slab with quantum dots. We show that by engineering the hybrid modes, we can control the degree of coupling to the active material, which leads to a tradeoff between cavity quality factor and optical gain and nonlinearity. With this design, we demonstrate a cavity mode in the Si-GaAs heterogeneous region, which enables strong interaction with the quantum dots in the GaAs slab for applications such as low-power-threshold lasing and optical bistability (156 nW and 18.1 ${\mu}$W, respectively). This heterogeneous integration of an active III-V material with silicon via a hybrid cavity design suggests a promising approach for achieving on-chip light generation and low-power nonlinear platforms

A spatial publish subscribe overlay for massively multiuser virtual environments

Proceedings of the International Conference on Electronics and Information Engineering, 2010, v. 2, p. 314-318Peer-to-peer (P2P) architectures have become popular for designing scalable virtual environments (VEs) in recent years. However, one question that remains is whether a single overlay can be flexible enough to support different types of VEs. We present S-VON, a P2P overlay that attempts this goal by providing spatial publish / subscribe (SPS) services. Besides flexibility, S-VON also aims to be practical and efficient by utilizing super-peers and considering the physical topology (i.e., network distance) to reduce latencies. Our simulations show that super-peers provide a unique design space where both bandwidth usage and latencies can be effectively reduced, such that even a crowded Second Life region can be hosted with residential ADSL. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Optimization of the Injectors Position for an Electric Arc Furnace by using CFD Simulation

In this study, complex processes in a typical Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) such as combustion, radiation, heat, and mass transfer were solved and the optimum injector location was found using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The main aim of the injection optimization was to improve the thermal performance and the metallurgical process by changing the injection angle, the central angle of the injector (CAI), and injector length. Fifteen parametric cases were predicted and analyzed for optimization study. To decrease each simulation solution time of each cases, a polyhedral mesh structure was used instead of tetrahedral mesh for the EAF geometry. Thus, the total element number of the model was decreased by 1/5 while providing faster and unchanging results compared to the case with a tetrahedral mesh structure. The response surface optimization method was used for the optimization study. As a result, the optimum injector positioning was obtained as injection angle: -45°, injector length 614 mm, and CAI: 60°

Bacteriological Perspective of Water Quality

Water quality can be defined as a measurement of a water’s appropriateness for a specific purpose based on biological, chemical, and physical qualities. Water pollution caused by microorganisms is one of the most serious threats to the aquatic ecosystem around the world. The bacterial concentration in an aquatic environment is raised by anthropogenic activities and industrial-agricultural pollutants. Coliform bacteria have long been used as an indicator organism for microbial pollution of water, which has contributed to potential health risks. Escherichia coli is the coliform that indicates fecal contamination. Various methods such as culture-dependent methods, culture-independent gene sequence-based methods, and immunological methods are used to determine bacterial contamination in water sources. As a consequence, determining that the water is not suitable for use by bacteriological analysis indicates that the water is contaminated. This chapter highlights the sanitary quality of aquatic environments, indicator organisms for water quality assessment, detection of bacterial pollution in the water source, and bacterial waterborne diseases

Biofuels and thermal barrier:a review on compression ignition engine performance, combustion and exhaust gas emission

The performance of an internal combustion engine is affected when renewable biofuels are used instead of fossil fuels in an unmodified engine. Various engine modifications were experimented by the researchers to optimise the biofuels operated engine performance. Thermal barrier coating is one of the techniques used to improve the biofuels operated engine performance and combustion characteristics by reducing the heat loss from the combustion chamber. In this study, engine tests results on performance, combustion and exhaust emission characteristics of the biofuels operated thermal barrier coated engines were collated and reviewed. The results found in the literature were reviewed in three scenarios: (i) uncoated versus coated engine for fossil diesel fuel application, (ii) uncoated versus coated engine for biofuels (and blends) application, and (iii) fossil diesel use on uncoated engine versus biofuel (and blends) use on coated engine. Effects of injection timing, injection pressure and fuel properties on thermal barrier coatings were also discussed. The material type, thickness and properties of the coating materials used by the research community were presented. The effectiveness and durability of the coating layer depends on two key properties: low thermal conductivity and high thermal expansion coefficient. The current study showed that thermal barrier coatings could potentially offset the performance drop due to use of biofuels in the compression ignition engines. Improvements of up to 4.6% in torque, 7.8% in power output, 13.4% in brake specific fuel consumption, 15.4% in brake specific energy consumption and 10.7% in brake thermal efficiency were reported when biofuels or biofuel blends were used in the thermal barrier coated engines as compared to the uncoated engines. In coated engines, peak cylinder pressure and exhaust gas temperature were increased by up to 16.3 bar and 14% respectively as compared to uncoated condition. However, changes in the heat release rates were reported to be between −27% and +13.8% as compared to uncoated standard engine. Reductions of CO, CO2, HC and smoke emissions were reported by up to 3.8%, 11.1%, 90.9% and 63% respectively as compared to uncoated engines. Significant decreases in the PM emissions were also reported due to use of thermal barrier coatings in the combustion chamber. In contrast, at high speed and at high load operation, increase in the CO and CO2 emissions were also reported in coated engines. Coated engines gave higher NOx emissions by about 4–62.9% as compared to uncoated engines. Combined effects of thermal barrier coatings and optimisation of fuel properties and injection parameters produced further performance and emissions advantages compared to only thermal barrier coated engines. Overall, current review study showed that application of thermal barrier coatings in compression ignition engines could be beneficial when biofuels or biofuel blends are used instead of standard fossil diesel. However, more research is needed combining coatings, types of biofuels and other engine modifications to establish a concrete conclusion on the effectiveness of the thermal barrier when biofuels are used in the compression ignition engine. Reduction of NOx emissions is another important R & D area