MELODIES, MEMORIES, AND MEANING: THE USE OF MUSIC THERAPY FOR PERSONS WITH DEMENTIA

Dementia is a growing public health issue, as there are 24.3 million people currently diagnosed worldwide. Being that there is no cure, non-pharmacological interventions are important to optimize quality of life for this population. Music therapy is a nonpharmacological intervention with fine usability for dementia patients. This thesis will examine the positive effects of music therapy on the behavioral symptoms, mood management, self-esteem, language skills, cognition, and reminiscence for the individual with dementia based on existing literature and will provide practice recommendations for the clinical use of music therapy and research. A short literature review will focus on the field of visual art therapy, for the purpose of examining the effect and usability of the fine arts as non-pharmacological interventions

The long‐term impact of vaginal surgical mesh devices on pain clinic and psychological service referrals, anti‐inflammatory testing and pelvic scans in UK primary care: A cohort study with the Clinical Practice Research Datalink

Objective: To examine long‐term complications in women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and pelvic organ prolapse (POP), with and without surgical mesh implants. Design: Longitudinal open cohort study from 1 April 2006 (or 1 April 2012) to 30 November 2018. Setting: The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) Gold database, which is linked to Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES) inpatient data, the HES Diagnostic Imaging Dataset (DID), Office for National Statistics mortality data and Index of Multiple Deprivation socio‐economic status data. Sample: Women aged ≥18 years with a diagnostic SUI/POP Read code. Methods: Rates are estimated using negative binomial regression. Main outcome measures: Rates of referrals for: psychological and pain services; urinalysis, C‐reactive protein (CRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) testing; and pelvic ultrasound, computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Results: A cohort of 220 544 women were eligible for inclusion; 74% (n = 162 687) had SUI, 37% (n = 82 123) had POP and 11% (n = 24 266) had both. Rates of psychological referrals and CT scans were lower in women with SUI mesh surgery, but this was offset by higher rates of CRP testing in women with SUI or POP mesh, MRI scans in women with SUI mesh, and urinalysis testing and referrals to pain clinics for women with POP mesh. Conclusions: Our results suggest a higher burden of morbidity in women with SUI/POP mesh surgery, and that these women may require ongoing follow‐up in the primary care setting

Spectral Signature Databases and their Application/Misapplication to Modeling and Exploitation of Multispectral/hyperspectral Data

Spectral signature databases abound in the field of remote sensing. Scientists use these databases to assist in their analysis everyday. Many decisions are made about hyperspectral data and the observations made with this data based on the assumption that these databases contain “ground truth” representations of the signatures for materials sensed. For the most part, this is true if the team collecting the signatures that populate these databases follow sound practices when collecting this data. The data does, however, represent a very specific picture of the “truth”. Signatures found in databases represent a specific collection configuration or geometry. The source of illumination, whether it is artificial or natural, is in a very specific location as is the sensor used to collect radiance for the derivation of the reflectance signatures. A signature found in the database is useful for only a very specific scenario, one that matches the geometry used during ground truth collection. There are other very significant factors regarding illumination field and scattering properties of the material and reference standards that influence the computed reflectance signature. This work will illustrate some of the dramatic variation that can exist in the reflectance signatures derived for the same material using different techniques. Difference upward of 30% may exist for the same material. These observations are presented so that scientists who look to these databases in the future will consider very carefully the metadata that is presented with the signatures that they use to make sure they are applicable to the phenomenology and collection scenario that they have under study. These observations should also point out that signatures presented without detailed metadata could be very hazardous to use if the outcome of the analysis being performed relies upon the absolute reflectance spectra being known

Concentric Contra-Rotating Dual Shaft Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

A typical vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) consists of two or more airfoils all attached to a single central axis. The wind turbine style most commonly found in renewable energy is the horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) that have a high energy production efficiency in exchange for requiring large amounts of land and air space. Alternatively, a VAWT can function in low speeds and in smaller less typical locations. As a result, novel VAWT designs are researched to improve their energy efficiency. An example of a novel VAWT is the concentric counter-rotating VAWT investigated theoretically using the 2D computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software Ansys Fluent. A mesh sensitivity analysis is conducted to optimize resource usage during the simulations. Three mesh sizes were chosen for both geometries and tested at three different rotational velocities. The power generation of the double rotor system was shown to be greater than the single in all cases except for at 600 rpms where the single set produced 2.43 kW and the double rotor produced only 2.12 kW. Further investigation is necessary to improve upon the functioning CFD model to further improve the simulation accuracy. However, the interactions between energized air and shed low pressure vortices show a positive aerodynamic interaction between the two rotors and demonstrate the potential for the concentric counter-rotating VAWT to produce energy more efficiently. Class: IRES Projecthttps://commons.und.edu/es-showcase/1011/thumbnail.jp

Working Out the Kinks: Creating Solutions to Assist Health Care Workers to Take Vital Signs Through Effective Cable Management

EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) is a service-learning design program run through Purdue University. It strives to teach students design skills through providing solutions for individuals, communities, and organizations in the surrounding area while mirroring engineering industry standards. BME (Bio-medical Engineering) is a team within EPICS that strives to serve community partners through biomedical applications. Members of a health care team often spend valuable time organizing cables associated with machines used to take patients’ vital signs. Due to time constraints and the fast-paced work environment, these cables may be mismanaged and damaged. The BME team is working on a solution to ensure that relevant cords will be easily managed, damage will be minimized, and most importantly, health care professionals’ time will be saved

Banner News

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/banner_news/1030/thumbnail.jp

The Other Epidemic: Fatal Police Shootings in the Time of COVID -19

This report examines whether circumstances surrounding the public health crisis — unprecedented societal isolation combined with relaxed police department routine enforcement — has led to a change in the frequency with which the police fatally shoot people in the U.S. Using data from The Washington Post's "Fatal Force" database, this report provides national and state-level data on fatal shootings by police since 2015, including during COVID-19. Our analysis reveals that the police have continued to fatally shoot people at the same rate during the first six months of 2020 as they did over the same period from 2015 to 2019. The report also demonstrates that Black, Native American/Indigenous, and Latinx people are still more likely than white people to be shot and killed by police. The report puts forth a set of recommendations designed to reduce police departments' role, presence, responsibilities, and funding, including dramatically transforming use-of-force laws, and instead reinvest into community-based services that are better suited to respond to actual community needs. These measures can lead to a reduction in police interactions, and in turn, help put an end to racist police violence

A locally time-invariant metric for climate model ensemble predictions of extreme risk

Adaptation-relevant predictions of climate change are often derived by combining climate model simulations in a multi-model ensemble. Model evaluation methods used in performance-based ensemble weighting schemes have limitations in the context of high-impact extreme events. We introduce a locally time-invariant method for evaluating climate model simulations with a focus on assessing the simulation of extremes. We explore the behaviour of the proposed method in predicting extreme heat days in Nairobi and provide comparative results for eight additional cities

Conditional versus non-conditional incentives to maximise return of participant completed questionnaires in clinical trials: a cluster randomised study within a trial

Background High participant retention enhances the validity of clinical trials. A monetary incentive can increase retention, but it is not known if when it is provided and if it is conditional matters. We aimed to determine whether there was a difference in the number of follow-up trial questionnaires returned when a monetary (gift voucher) incentive was given to participants at recruitment (non-conditional), compared to informing participants at recruitment that the incentive would be given only once their 14-day daily diary (questionnaire) had been returned (conditional). Method A cluster randomised study within a trial embedded within the Antivirals for influenza-Like Illness, An rCt of Clinical and Cost effectiveness in primary CarE (ALIC4E) Trial. Matched site pairs (GP practices) were randomised using computer-generated random numbers, to either a non-conditional or conditional monetary voucher incentive (only once their 14-day daily diary (questionnaire) had been returned. Sites were matched on previous recruitment levels and practice list size. Analyses were conducted according to randomised groups irrespective of compliance with a two-sided 5% level statistical significance level. The main analysis of the primary outcome (site proportion of diaries returned) was linear regression accounting for site pair (using cluster-robust variance). Additional weighted, paired and non-parametric sensitivity analyses were conducted. Secondary outcomes were the site average number of completed pages, time to return diary, and cost related to the incentive (administration and postage). Results Of the 42 randomised sites (21 for each intervention), only 28 recruited at least one participant with only 10 practice pairs recruiting participants at both constituent sites. Raw diaries return proportions were 0.58 (127/220) and 0.73 (91/125) for non-conditional and conditional incentive groups. Regression analysis adjusted for site pair showed no significant difference in returns, − 0.09, (95% CI, − 0.29, 0.10, p = 0.34); when weighted, there was still no clear difference: 0.15 (95% CI, − 0.02, 0.31, p = 0.07). There was no clear statistical evidence of a difference in time taken to return questionnaires, nor the proportion of pages completed, by the intervention group in the main analyses (all p > 0.05). The conditional incentive was approximately £23 cheaper per diary returned based upon observed data. Conclusion There was no clear evidence of a statistically significant difference in the proportion of participant-completed diaries returned between conditional or non-conditional incentive groups. The time to questionnaire return and completeness of the returned questionnaires were similar in both groups. There was substantial statistical uncertainty in the findings. Some of the sensitivity analyses suggested that a meaningful benefit of a conditional incentive of a magnitude that would be meaningful was plausible. The conditional approach costs less in cash terms