Cognitive effects of calligraphy therapy for older people: a randomized controlled trial in Hong Kong

BACKGROUND: This pilot study investigated the effects of calligraphy therapy on cognitive function in older Hong Kong Chinese people with mild cognitive impairment. METHODS: A single-blind, randomized controlled trial was carried out in a sample of 31 adults aged 65 years or older with mild cognitive impairment. They were randomly assigned to receive either intensive calligraphy training led by a trained research assistant for eight weeks (calligraphy group, n = 14) or no calligraphy treatment (control group, n = 17). Participants' cognitive function was assessed by the Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (CMMSE) before and after calligraphy treatment. Repeated measures analysis of variance and paired samples t-tests were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: A significant interaction effect of time and intervention was detected [F (1, 29) = 9.11, P = 0.005, eta(2) = 0.24]. The calligraphy group was found to have a prominent increase in CMMSE global score, and scores in the cognitive areas of orientation, attention, and calculation after two months (DeltaM = 2.36, P < 0.01), whereas their counterparts in the control group experienced a decline in CMMSE score (DeltaM = -0.41, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Calligraphy therapy was effective for enhancing cognitive function in older people with mild cognitive impairment and should be incorporated as part of routine programs in both community and residential care settings. © 2011 Kwok et al, publisher and licensee Dove Medical Press Ltd.published_or_final_versio

Surface treatments of indium-tin-oxide substrates: Comprehensive investigation of mechanical, chemical, thermal, and plasma treatments

Various surface treatments significantly affect the work function and surface roughness of indium tin oxide (ITO), and thusly influence charge injection and overall performance of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Large number of treatments, most commonly oxygen plasma treatment and UV-ozone treatment, have been proposed to improve characteristics of ITO. In this work, we have investigated a) mechanical treatments (mechanical rubbing, followed by ultrasonic bath), b) chemical treatments (dipping into aqueous solutions of various acids, including acids which have not been investigated previously) c) thermal treatments (thermal annealing in different atmospheres) d) plasma treatments e) UV ozone treatment f) different combinations of the above. We have measured surface sheet resistance of the samples and investigated surface morphology of the treated samples and compared them to "as-received" samples. We have selected several treatments giving best results. Then we have fabricated OLEDs using ITO substrates treated with treatments selected, as well as a control OLED fabricated on "as-received" ITO. The impact of ITO treatments on the performance of OLEDs have been investigated on two types of devices, OLEDs with and without transport layer, having the structures glass/ITO/Alq 3/Al and glass/ITOFrPD/Alq 3/Al, respectively, where Alq 3 (tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum) is emitting layer and TPD (N,N′-diphenyl-N,N′-bis(3-methyl-phenyl)-1, 1′ biphenil-4,4′diamine) is a hole transport layer.published_or_final_versio

Preparation and analysis of a new bioorganic metallic material

Biofouling on metal surfaces is one of the main reasons for increased ship drag. Many methods have already been used to reduce or remove it with moderate success. In this study, a synthetic peptide has been utilized to react with 304 stainless steel aiming to generate a bioorganic stainless steel using a facile technique. After the reaction, white matter was found on the surface of the treated stainless steel via SEM, whilst the nontreated stainless steel had none. Elemental analysis confirmed that excessive N existed on the surface of the treated samples using an integrated SEM-EDS instrument, implying the presence of peptides binding on the surface of the bioorganic stainless steel. The FTIR spectra showed amide A and II peaks on the surface of the bioorganic stainless steel suggesting that either the peptides grafted onto the steel surface or the polypeptide composition accumulated on the steel samples. XPS analysis of the treated steel demonstrated that there was nitrogen bonding on the surface and it was a chemical bond via a previously unreported chemical interaction. The treated steel has a markedly increased contact angle (water contact angle of 65.7 ± 4.7° for nontreated steel in comparison to treated, 96.4 ± 2.1°), which supported the observation of the wettability change of the surface, i.e. the decrease of the surface energy value after peptide treatment. The changes of the surface parameters (such as, Sa, Sq, Ssk and Sku) of the treated steel by surface analysis were observed

High Diversity of Genogroup I Picobirnaviruses in Mammals

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Large-Scale Fabrication of Boron Nitride Nanotubes via a Facile Chemical Vapor Reaction Route and Their Cathodoluminescence Properties

Cylinder- and bamboo-shaped boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) have been synthesized in large scale via a facile chemical vapor reaction route using ammonia borane as a precursor. The structure and chemical composition of the as-synthesized BNNTs are extensively characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and selected-area electron diffraction. The cylinder-shaped BNNTs have an average diameter of about 100 nm and length of hundreds of microns, while the bamboo-shaped BNNTs are 100–500 nm in diameter with length up to tens of microns. The formation mechanism of the BNNTs has been explored on the basis of our experimental observations and a growth model has been proposed accordingly. Ultraviolet–visible and cathodoluminescence spectroscopic analyses are performed on the BNNTs. Strong ultraviolet emissions are detected on both morphologies of BNNTs. The band gap of the BNNTs are around 5.82 eV and nearly unaffected by tube morphology. There exist two intermediate bands in the band gap of BNNTs, which could be distinguishably assigned to structural defects and chemical impurities

Production of π0 and η mesons in Cu+Au collisions at sNN =200 GeV

Production of π0 and η mesons has been measured at midrapidity in Cu+Au collisions at sNN=200GeV. Measurements were performed in π0(η)→γγ decay channel in the 1(2)-20GeV/c transverse momentum range. A strong suppression is observed for π0 and η meson production at high transverse momentum in central Cu+Au collisions relative to the p+p results scaled by the number of nucleon-nucleon collisions. In central collisions the suppression is similar to Au+Au with comparable nuclear overlap. The η/π0 ratio measured as a function of transverse momentum is consistent with mT-scaling parametrization down to pT=2GeV/c, its asymptotic value is constant and consistent with Au+Au and p+p and does not show any significant dependence on collision centrality. Similar results were obtained in hadron-hadron, hadron-nucleus, and nucleus-nucleus collisions as well as in e+e- collisions in a range of collision energies sNN=3-1800 GeV. This suggests that the quark-gluon-plasma medium produced in Cu+Cu collisions either does not affect the jet fragmentation into light mesons or it affects the π0 and η the same way

Multiparticle azimuthal correlations for extracting event-by-event elliptic and triangular flow in Au + Au collisions at sNN =200 GeV

We present measurements of elliptic and triangular azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles detected at forward rapidity 1&lt;|η|&lt;3 in Au + Au collisions at sNN=200 GeV, as a function of centrality. The multiparticle cumulant technique is used to obtain the elliptic flow coefficients v2{2},v2{4},v2{6}, and v2{8}, and triangular flow coefficients v3{2} and v3{4}. Using the small-variance limit, we estimate the mean and variance of the event-by-event v2 distribution from v2{2} and v2{4}. In a complementary analysis, we also use a folding procedure to study the distributions of v2 and v3 directly, extracting both the mean and variance. Implications for initial geometrical fluctuations and their translation into the final-state momentum distributions are discussed

Beam Energy and Centrality Dependence of Direct-Photon Emission from Ultrarelativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions.

The PHENIX collaboration presents first measurements of low-momentum (0.41  GeV/c) direct-photon yield dN_{γ}^{dir}/dη is a smooth function of dN_{ch}/dη and can be well described as proportional to (dN_{ch}/dη)^{α} with α≈1.25. This scaling behavior holds for a wide range of beam energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider, for centrality selected samples, as well as for different A+A collision systems. At a given beam energy, the scaling also holds for high p_{T} (&gt;5  GeV/c), but when results from different collision energies are compared, an additional sqrt[s_{NN}]-dependent multiplicative factor is needed to describe the integrated-direct-photon yield

Pseudorapidity Dependence of Particle Production and Elliptic Flow in Asymmetric Nuclear Collisions of p+Al, p+Au, d+Au, and ^{3}He+Au at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200 GeV.

Asymmetric nuclear collisions of p+Al, p+Au, d+Au, and ^{3}He+Au at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200  GeV provide an excellent laboratory for understanding particle production, as well as exploring interactions among these particles after their initial creation in the collision. We present measurements of charged hadron production dN_{ch}/dη in all such collision systems over a broad pseudorapidity range and as a function of collision multiplicity. A simple wounded quark model is remarkably successful at describing the full data set. We also measure the elliptic flow v_{2} over a similarly broad pseudorapidity range. These measurements provide key constraints on models of particle emission and their translation into flow

Room temperature plasmonic lasing in a continuous wave operation mode from an InGaN/GaN single nanorod with a low threshold

It is crucial to fabricate nano photonic devices such as nanolasers in order to meet the requirements for the integration of photonic and electronic circuits on the nanometre scale. The great difficulty is to break down a bottleneck as a result of the diffraction limit of light. Nanolasers on a subwavelength scale could potentially be fabricated based on the principle of surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SPASER). However, a number of technological challenges will have to be overcome in order to achieve a SPASER with a low threshold, allowing for a continuous wave (cw) operation at room temperature. We report a nano-SPASER with a record low threshold at room temperature, optically pumped by using a cw diode laser. Our nano-SPASER consists of a single InGaN/GaN nanorod on a thin SiO2 spacer layer on a silver film. The nanorod containing InGaN/GaN multi-quantum-wells is fabricated by means of a cost-effective post-growth fabrication approach. The geometry of the nanorod/dielectric spacer/plasmonic metal composite allows us to have accurate control of the surface plasmon coupling, offering an opportunity to determine the optimal thickness of the dielectric spacer. This approach will open up a route for further fabrication of electrically injected plasmonic lasers