860 research outputs found
A systematic review evaluating the impact of paid home carer training, supervision, and other interventions on the health and well-being of older home care clients
BACKGROUND: Interventions to support and skill paid home carers and managers could potentially improve
health and well-being of older home care clients. This is the first systematic review of interventions to improve
how home carers and home care agencies deliver care to older people, with regard to clients’ health and wellbeing and paid carers’ well-being, job satisfaction, and retention.
METHODS: We reviewed 10/731 papers found in the electronic search (to January 2016) fitting predetermined
criteria, assessed quality using a checklist, and synthesized data using quantitative and qualitative techniques.
RESULTS: Ten papers described eight interventions. The six quantitative evaluations used diverse outcomes that
precluded meta-analysis. In the only quantitative study (a cluster Randomized Controlled Trial), rated higher
quality, setting meaningful goals, carer training, and supervision improved client health-related quality of life.
The interventions that improved client outcomes comprised training with additional implementation, such as
regular supervision and promoted care focused around clients’ needs and goals. In our qualitative synthesis of
four studies, intervention elements carers valued were greater flexibility to work to a needs-based rather than
a task-based model, learning more about clients, and improved communication with management and other
workers.
CONCLUSION: There is a dearth of evidence regarding effective strategies to improve how home care is delivered to older clients, particularly those with dementia. More research in this sector including feasibility testing of
the first home care intervention trials to include health and life quality outcomes for clients with more severe
dementia is now needed
Optical/UV-to-X-Ray Echoes from the Tidal Disruption Flare ASASSN-14li
We carried out the first multi-wavelength (optical/UV and X-ray) photometric
reverberation mapping of a tidal disruption flare (TDF) ASASSN-14li. We find
that its X-ray variations are correlated with and lag the optical/UV
fluctuations by 324 days. Based on the direction and the magnitude of the
X-ray time lag, we rule out X-ray reprocessing and direct emission from a
standard circular thin disk as the dominant source of its optical/UV emission.
The lag magnitude also rules out an AGN disk-driven instability as the origin
of ASASSN-14li and thus strongly supports the tidal disruption picture for this
event and similar objects. We suggest that the majority of the optical/UV
emission likely originates from debris stream self-interactions. Perturbations
at the self-interaction sites produce optical/UV variability and travel down to
the black hole where they modulate the X-rays. The time lag between the
optical/UV and the X-rays variations thus correspond to the time taken by these
fluctuations to travel from the self-interaction site to close to the black
hole. We further discuss these time lags within the context of the three
variants of the self-interaction model. High-cadence monitoring observations of
future TDFs will be sensitive enough to detect these echoes and would allow us
to establish the origin of optical/UV emission in TDFs in general.Comment: Publish in ApJ Letter
Swift J1112.2-8238: A Candidate Relativistic Tidal Disruption Flare
We present observations of Swift J1112.2-8238, and identify it as a candidate
relativistic tidal disruption flare (rTDF). The outburst was first detected by
Swift/BAT in June 2011 as an unknown, long-lived (order of days) -ray
transient source. We show that its position is consistent with the nucleus of a
faint galaxy for which we establish a likely redshift of based on a
single emission line that we interpret as the blended [OII]
doublet. At this redshift, the peak X/-ray luminosity exceeded
ergs s, while a spatially coincident optical transient source
had (M at ) during early
observations, days after the Swift trigger. These properties place
Swift J1112.2-8238 in a very similar region of parameter space to the two
previously identified members of this class, Swift J1644+57 and Swift
J2058+0516. As with those events the high-energy emission shows evidence for
variability over the first few days, while late time observations, almost 3
years post-outburst, demonstrate that it has now switched off. Swift
J1112.2-8238 brings the total number of such events observed by Swift to three,
interestingly all detected by Swift over a 3 month period ( of its
total lifetime as of March 2015). While this suggests the possibility that
further examples may be uncovered by detailed searches of the BAT archives, the
lack of any prime candidates in the years since 2011 means these events are
undoubtedly rare.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA
Preliminary Results from the Caltech Core-Collapse Project (CCCP)
We present preliminary results from the Caltech Core-Collapse Project (CCCP),
a large observational program focused on the study of core-collapse SNe.
Uniform, high-quality NIR and optical photometry and multi-epoch optical
spectroscopy have been obtained using the 200'' Hale and robotic 60''
telescopes at Palomar, for a sample of 50 nearby core-collapse SNe. The
combination of both well-sampled optical light curves and multi-epoch
spectroscopy will enable spectroscopically and photometrically based subtype
definitions to be disentangled from each other. Multi-epoch spectroscopy is
crucial to identify transition events that evolve among subtypes with time. The
CCCP SN sample includes every core-collapse SN discovered between July 2004 and
September 2005 that was visible from Palomar, found shortly (< 30 days) after
explosion (based on available pre-explosion photometry), and closer than ~120
Mpc. This complete sample allows, for the first time, a study of core-collapse
SNe as a population, rather than as individual events. Here, we present the
full CCCP SN sample and show exemplary data collected. We analyze available
data for the first ~1/3 of the sample and determine the subtypes of 13 SNe II
based on both light curve shapes and spectroscopy. We discuss the relative SN
II subtype fractions in the context of associating SN subtypes with specific
progenitor stars.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the meeting "The Multicoloured
Landscape of Compact Objects and their Explosive Origins", Cefalu, Italy,
June 2006, to be published by AIP, Eds. L. Burderi et a
The peculiar Type Ia supernova iPTF14atg: Chandrasekhar-mass explosion or violent merger?
iPTF14atg, a subluminous peculiar Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) similar to SN
2002es, is the first SN Ia for which a strong UV flash was observed in the
early-time light curves. This has been interpreted as evidence for a
single-degenerate (SD) progenitor system where such a signal is expected from
interactions between the SN ejecta and the non-degenerate companion star. Here,
we compare synthetic observables of multi-dimensional state-of-the-art
explosion models for different progenitor scenarios to the light curves and
spectra of iPTF14atg. From our models, we have difficulties explaining the
spectral evolution of iPTF14atg within the SD progenitor channel. In contrast,
we find that a violent merger of two carbon-oxygen white dwarfs with 0.9 and
0.76 solar masses, respectively, provides an excellent match to the spectral
evolution of iPTF14atg from 10d before to several weeks after maximum light.
Our merger model does not naturally explain the initial UV flash of iPTF14atg.
We discuss several possibilities like interactions of the SN ejecta with the
circum-stellar medium and surface radioactivity from a He ignited merger that
may be able to account for the early UV emission in violent merger models.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Multiwaveband analysis of brightest GRB070125
We present a comprehensive multiwavelength analysis of the bright, long duration gamma-ray burst GRB 070125, comprised of observations in gamma-ray, X-ray, optical, millimeter and centimeter wavebands. Radio light curves show rapid flux variations, which are interpreted as due to interstellar scintillation, and are used to derive an upper limit of 2.4×10^17 cm on the radius of the fireball. Radio light curves and spectra suggest that the afterglow shock wave is moving in a dense medium. Our broadband modeling favors a constant density profile for the circumburst medium over a wind-like profile (R^−2). GRB 070125 is a burst with high radiative efficiency (>60%)
Spectropolarimetry of SN 2011dh in M51: geometric insights on a Type IIb supernova progenitor and explosion
We present seven epochs of spectropolarimetry of the Type IIb supernova (SN)
2011dh in M51, spanning 86 days of its evolution. The first epoch was obtained
9 days after the explosion, when the photosphere was still in the depleted
hydrogen layer of the stripped-envelope progenitor. Continuum polarization is
securely detected at the level of P~0.5% through day 14 and appears to diminish
by day 30, which is different from the prevailing trends suggested by studies
of other core-collapse SNe. Time-variable modulations in P and position angle
are detected across P-Cygni line features. H-alpha and HeI polarization peak
after 30 days and exhibit position angles roughly aligned with the earlier
continuum, while OI and CaII appear to be geometrically distinct. We discuss
several possibilities to explain the evolution of the continuum and line
polarization, including the potential effects of a tidally deformed progenitor
star, aspherical radioactive heating by fast-rising plumes of Ni-56 from the
core, oblique shock breakout, or scattering by circumstellar material. While
these possibilities are plausible and guided by theoretical expectations, they
are not unique solutions to the data. The construction of more detailed
hydrodynamic and radiative-transfer models that incorporate complex aspherical
geometries will be required to further elucidate the nature of the polarized
radiation from SN 2011dh and other Type IIb supernovae.Comment: Post-proof edit. Accepted to MNRAS 2015 Aug 1
Seminal plasma and prostaglandin E2 up-regulate fibroblast growth factor 2 expression in endometrial adenocarcinoma cells via E-series prostanoid-2 receptor-mediated transactivation of the epidermal growth factor receptor and extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathway
We report a multiwavelength (X-ray, ultraviolet/optical/infrared, radio)
analysis of the relativistic tidal disruption event candidate Sw J2058+05 from
3 months to 3 yr post-discovery in order to study its properties and compare
its behavior with that of Sw J1644+57. Our main results are as follows. (1) The
long-term X-ray light curve of Sw J2058+05 shows a remarkably similar trend to
that of Sw J1644+57. After a prolonged power-law decay, the X-ray flux drops
off rapidly by a factor of within a span of /
0.95. Associating this sudden decline with the transition from super-Eddington
to sub-Eddington accretion, we estimate the black hole mass to be in the range
of M. (2) We detect rapid ( s) X-ray
variability before the dropoff, suggesting that, even at late times, the X-rays
originate from close to the black hole (ruling out a forward-shock origin). (3)
We confirm using HST and VLBA astrometry that the location of the source
coincides with the galaxy's center to within pc (in projection).
(4) We modeled Sw J2058+05's ultraviolet/optical/infrared spectral energy
distribution with a single-temperature blackbody and find that while the radius
remains more or less constant at a value of AU (
cm) at all times during the outburst, the blackbody temperature drops
significantly from 30,000 K at early times to a value of 15,000 K
at late times (before the X-ray dropoff). Our results strengthen Sw J2058+05's
interpretation as a tidal disruption event similar to Sw J1644+57.Comment: Replaced with the published version of the manuscrip
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