Eligibility screening older research participants using remote cognitive assessment—experiences and reflections from a primary care randomised controlled trial

Background The COVID-19 pandemic forced many research teams to adjust the way they conduct studies, including moving to remote delivery of some or all of their recruitment and data collection processes. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is widely used in research and is available in multiple formats for different groups and assessment settings. Here, we reflect on our experiences of administering the MoCA Blind/Telephone as part of the initial telephone eligibility check for participation in a randomised controlled trial with community-dwelling older people with frailty. Main body In response to COVID-19, a number of changes were made to the trial’s screening and recruitment procedures, to minimise the amount of time the researchers would spend in the participants’ homes when recruitment began in May 2021. One of the changes was for the researchers to conduct a cognitive assessment for eligibility during an initial telephone call, rather than during the subsequent home visit for consent and baseline data collection. We found that in comparison with conducting the assessment in-person, telephone administration caused uncertainty for the researchers about whether participants were struggling to answer questions due to cognition or hearing impairment. Some participants experienced practical difficulties when combining holding a telephone and completing one of the assessment items. It was hard for the researchers to judge the emotional impact that undertaking the assessment was having on the older people on the telephone, without visual warning signs of fatigue or mood. We discuss the potential impact of these issues on trial recruitment and participant engagement, and the feasibility of videoconferencing as an alternative method of conducting the MoCA. Conclusion The MoCA is a useful tool when cognitive impairment is part of screening and data collection and it is helpful to have the option to use the test remotely. However, as we have found, telephone testing is not always straightforward. Researchers should weigh up the pros and cons for each individual study, especially those involving older adults. If choosing remote methods, consider the practicality of using videoconferencing and think about the possible impact of telephone assessment on the relationship with the (potential) research participants. Trial registration Personalised care planning for older people with frailty ISRCTN16123291 28/08/2020

The cost of community research—recruiting community-dwelling participants to a feasibility primary care cluster randomised controlled trial

Background To support a robust evidence base for the organisation and provision of community-delivered health services for older people, clinical trials need to be designed to account for community-based participant recruitment. There is currently little reported information available on the time and cost of recruiting community-dwelling older people, which makes the completion of cost attribution documentation problematic when applying for research funding. Main body We aimed to establish the amount of researcher time it takes to recruit community-dwelling older people to a feasibility primary care cluster randomised controlled trial, including collecting baseline data. The trial was part of a programme of work investigating an intervention to improve the quality of life for older people with frailty. Two researchers conducting home visits to recruit and collect baseline data from participants recorded the time spent on travelling to and from the visit, at the visit itself and any associated administration. The median total researcher activity time per visit was 148 min. We discuss the various elements of recruitment and data collection activity and the factors that impacted the length of time taken, including location, individuals’ capacity and cognition, hearing and visual impairment and the desire for social contact. Conclusion Studies cannot reach their recruitment targets if they are unrealistically planned and resourced. We recommend that trials recruiting older people in the community allocate two and a half hours of researcher time per person, on average, for consent, baseline data collection, travel and administration. We acknowledge that a variety of different factors will mean that researcher activity will vary between different community-based trials. Our findings give a good starting point for timing calculations, and evidence on which to base the justification of research activity costings. Trial registration Personalised care planning for older people with frailty ISRCTN12363970. 08/11/2018

Non-Arrhenius Behavior of Surface Diffusion Near a Phase Transition Boundary

We study the non-Arrhenius behavior of surface diffusion near the second-order phase transition boundary of an adsorbate layer. In contrast to expectations based on macroscopic thermodynamic effects, we show that this behavior can be related to the average microscopic jump rate which in turn is determined by the waiting-time distribution W(t) of single-particle jumps at short times. At long times, W(t) yields a barrier that corresponds to the rate-limiting step in diffusion. The microscopic information in W(t) should be accessible by STM measurements.Comment: 4 pages, Latex with RevTeX macro

Catalytic CO Oxidation on Nanoscale Pt Facets: Effect of Inter-Facet CO Diffusion on Bifurcation and Fluctuation Behavior

We present lattice-gas modeling of the steady-state behavior in CO oxidation on the facets of nanoscale metal clusters, with coupling via inter-facet CO diffusion. The model incorporates the key aspects of reaction process, such as rapid CO mobility within each facet, and strong nearest-neighbor repulsion between adsorbed O. The former justifies our use a "hybrid" simulation approach treating the CO coverage as a mean-field parameter. For an isolated facet, there is one bistable region where the system can exist in either a reactive state (with high oxygen coverage) or a (nearly CO-poisoned) inactive state. Diffusion between two facets is shown to induce complex multistability in the steady states of the system. The bifurcation diagram exhibits two regions with bistabilities due to the difference between adsorption properties of the facets. We explore the role of enhanced fluctuations in the proximity of a cusp bifurcation point associated with one facet in producing transitions between stable states on that facet, as well as their influence on fluctuations on the other facet. The results are expected to shed more light on the reaction kinetics for supported catalysts.Comment: 22 pages, RevTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. E, 6 figures (eps format) are available at http://www.physik.tu-muenchen.de/~natali

What are the priorities for research of older people living in their own home, including those living with frailty? A systematic review and content analysis of studies reporting older people’s priorities and unmet needs

Background There is limited evidence regarding the needs of older people, including those living with frailty, to inform research priority setting. Objectives This systematic review aimed to identify the range of research priorities of community-dwelling older people living in their own home, including those living with frailty. Methods Included studies were from economically developed countries and designed to identify the priorities for research or unmet needs of community-dwelling older people. Studies were excluded if they described priorities relating to specific health conditions. Medline, Embase, PsycInfo and CINAHL were searched (January 2010–June 2022), alongside grey literature. Study quality was assessed, but studies were not excluded on the basis of quality. A bespoke data extraction form was used and content analysis undertaken to synthesise findings. Results Seventy-five reports were included. Seven explicitly aimed to identify the priorities or unmet needs of frail older people; 68 did not specify frailty as a characteristic. Study designs varied, including priority setting exercises, surveys, interviews, focus groups and literature reviews. Identified priorities and unmet needs were organised into themes: prevention and management, improving health and care service provision, improving daily life, meeting carers’ needs and planning ahead. Discussion Many priority areas were raised by older people, carers and health/care professionals, but few were identified explicitly by/for frail older people. An overarching need was identified for tailored, collaborative provision of care and support. Conclusion Review findings provide a valuable resource for researchers and health/care staff wishing to focus their research or service provision on areas of importance for older people

Surface Structures Determined by Kinetic Processes: Adsorption and Diffusion of Oxygen on Pd(100)

Atomic oxygen forms a metastable c(2×2) phase on Pd(100) under conditions of rapid adsorption (high pressure) and slow diffusion (low sample temperature). One possible explanation is that oxygen molecules require an 8-fold ensemble of empty sites for dissociative chemisorption, and that subsequent adatom motion is limited and creates no neighboring pairs of filled sites. We describe the properties of the adlayer predicted by such a model

Photoemission study of the metal-insulator transition in VO_2/TiO_2(001) : Evidence for strong electron-electron and electron-phonon interaction

We have made a detailed temperature-dependent photoemission study of VO_2/TiO_2(001) thin films, which show a metal-insulator transition at \sim 300 K. Clean surfaces were obtained by annealing the films in an oxygen atmosphere. Spectral weight transfer between the coherent and incoherent parts accompanying the metal-insulator transition was clearly observed. We also observed a hysteretic behavior of the spectra for heating-cooling cycles. We have derived the ``bulk'' spectrum of the metallic phase and found that it has a strong incoherent part. The width of the coherent part is comparable to that given by band-structure calculation in spite of its reduced spectral weight, indicating that the momentum dependence of the self-energy is significant. This is attributed to by ferromagnetic fluctuation arising from Hund's rule coupling between different d orbitals as originally proposed by Zylbersztejn and Mott. In the insulating phase, the width of the V 3d band shows strong temperature dependence. We attribute this to electron-phonon interaction and have reproduced it using the independent boson model with a very large coupling constant.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Community-based complex interventions to sustain independence in older people systematic review and network meta-analysis: risk-of-bias dataset

This data contain risk-of-bias assessment process data and judgments for the results of trials of community-based complex interventions to sustain independence in older people. These datasets were produced in the course of conducting a systematic review and network meta-analyses registered with PROSPERO: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD4201916219

ARPES: A probe of electronic correlations

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is one of the most direct methods of studying the electronic structure of solids. By measuring the kinetic energy and angular distribution of the electrons photoemitted from a sample illuminated with sufficiently high-energy radiation, one can gain information on both the energy and momentum of the electrons propagating inside a material. This is of vital importance in elucidating the connection between electronic, magnetic, and chemical structure of solids, in particular for those complex systems which cannot be appropriately described within the independent-particle picture. Among the various classes of complex systems, of great interest are the transition metal oxides, which have been at the center stage in condensed matter physics for the last four decades. Following a general introduction to the topic, we will lay the theoretical basis needed to understand the pivotal role of ARPES in the study of such systems. After a brief overview on the state-of-the-art capabilities of the technique, we will review some of the most interesting and relevant case studies of the novel physics revealed by ARPES in 3d-, 4d- and 5d-based oxides.Comment: Chapter to appear in "Strongly Correlated Systems: Experimental Techniques", edited by A. Avella and F. Mancini, Springer Series in Solid-State Sciences (2013). A high-resolution version can be found at: http://www.phas.ubc.ca/~quantmat/ARPES/PUBLICATIONS/Reviews/ARPES_Springer.pdf. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:cond-mat/0307085, arXiv:cond-mat/020850