Unmet care needs of patients with advanced cancer and their relatives:multicentre observational study

Objectives: The care needs of patients with advanced cancer and their relatives change throughout the disease trajectory. This study focused on the care-related problems and needs of patients with advanced cancer and their relatives. This was done from the perspective of centres for information and support. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the eQuiPe study: an observational cohort study in which 40 Dutch hospitals participated. All adult patients with a diagnosis of a metastasised tumour and their relatives were eligible. Measures included information on the patients' and relatives' care problems and needs, assessed by the short version of the Problems and Needs in Palliative Care questionnaire. Socioeconomic demographics were also collected. Results: 1103 patients with advanced cancer and 831 relatives were included. Both patients (M=60.3, SD=29.0) and relatives (M=59.2, SD=26.6) experienced most problems in the domain of â € psychological issues'. Both patients (M=14.0, SD=24.2) and relatives (M=17.7, SD=25.7) most frequently reported unmet needs within this domain. The most often reported unmet need by patients was â € worrying about the future of my loved ones' (22.0%); for relatives this was â € fear for physical suffering of the patient' (32.8%). There was no clear relationship between socioeconomic demographics and the experienced unmet needs. Conclusions: The most often mentioned unmet needs consisted of fears and worries, followed by a broad range of topics within multiple domains. Centres for information and support may play a role in reducing the unmet needs of (potential) visitors as these centres provide support on a broad range of topics.</p

Characterization of dielectric properties of polycrystalline aluminum nitride for high temperature wireless sensor nodes

An aluminium nitride (AlN) passive resonance circuit intended for thermallymatched high temperature wireless sensor nodes (WSN) was manufactured using thick-lmtechnology. Characterization was done for temperatures up to 900C in both a hot-chuck forfrequencies below 5 MHz, and using wireless readings of resonating circuits at 15 MHz, 59 MHz,and 116 MHz. The substrate for the circuits was sintered polycrystalline AlN. Using a simpliedmodel for the resonators where the main contribution of the frequency-shift was considered tocome from a shift of the dielectric constant for these frequencies, the temperature dependency ofthe dielectric constant for AlN was found to decrease with increasing frequency up to 15 MHz.With an observed frequency shift of 0.04% at 15 MHz, and up to 0.56% at 59 MHz over atemperature range of 900C, AlN looks as a promising material for integration of resonancecircuits directly on the substrate

UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Pre-and Postnatal Determinants of Deciduous Molar Hypomineralisation in 6-Year-Old Children. The Generation R Study

Pre-and postnatal determinants of deciduous molar hypomineralisation in 6-year-old children: the generation R study Elfrink, M.E.C.; Moll, H.A.; Kiefte-de Jong, J.C.; Jaddoe, V.W.V.; Hofman, A.; ten Cate, J.M.; Veerkamp, J.S.J. Published in: PLoS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0091057 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Elfrink, M. E. C., Moll, H. A., Kiefte-de Jong, J. C., Jaddoe, V. W. V., Hofman, A., ten Cate, J. M., &amp; Veerkamp, J. S. J. (2014). Pre-and postnatal determinants of deciduous molar hypomineralisation in 6-year-old children: the generation R study. PLoS ONE, 9(7), e91057. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091057 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible

Vacuum-packaged piezoelectric vibration energy harvesters: Damping contributions and autonomy for a wireless sensor system

This paper describes the characterization of thin-film MEMS vibration energy harvesters based on aluminum nitride as piezoelectric material. A record output power of 85 μW is measured. The parasitic-damping and the energy-harvesting performances of unpackaged and packaged devices are investigated. Vacuum and atmospheric pressure levels are considered for the packaged devices. When dealing with packaged devices, it is found that vacuum packaging is essential for maximizing the output power. Therefore, a wafer-scale vacuum package process is developed. The energy harvesters are used to power a small prototype (1 cm\3 volume) of a wireless autonomous sensor system. The average power consumption of the whole system is less than 10 μW, and it is continuously provided by the vibration energy harvester. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd