The design of caring environments and the quality of life of older people

There has been little systematic research into the design of care environments for older people. This article reviews empirical studies from both the architectural and the psychological literature. It outlines the instruments that are currently available for measuring both the environment and the quality of life of older people, and it summarises the evidence on the layout of buildings, the sensory environment and the privacy of residents. The conclusion is drawn that all evidence-based design must be a compromise or dynamic and, as demands on the caring environment change over time, this compromise must be re-visited in the form of post-occupancy evaluation

First experience in operating the population of the condition databases for the CMS experiment

Reliable population of the condition databases is critical for the correct operation of the online selection as well as of the offline reconstruction and analysis of data. We will describe here the system put in place in the CMS experiment to populate the database and make condition data promptly available both online for the high-level trigger and offline for reconstruction. The system, designed for high flexibility to cope with very different data sources, uses POOL-ORA technology in order to store data in an object format that best matches the object oriented paradigm for \texttt{C++} programming language used in the CMS offline software. In order to ensure consistency among the various subdetectors, a dedicated package, PopCon (Populator of Condition Objects), is used to store data online. The data are then automatically streamed to the offline database hence immediately accessible offline worldwide. This mechanism was intensively used during 2008 in the test-runs with cosmic rays. The experience of this first months of operation will be discussed in detail.Comment: 15 pages, submitter to JOP, CHEP0

A soft systems methodology approach to the improvement of a housing association’s defects management and learning systems

Rapid growth in the production of new homes in the United Kingdom (UK) is putting build quality under pressure as evidenced by rising numbers of defects. Housing Associations (HAs) contribute approximately 20% to the UK’s housing supply. HAs are experiencing challenges of central government funding cuts and rental revenue reductions. Maximising the benefit of learning from defects is recognised as being a key opportunity for HAs to help meet these challenges. This paper explores how a HA is introducing change to improve the way they learn from past defects in an effort to reduce the prevalence of defects in future new homes. Soft systems methodology was used to assist a HA who were intent on making such change, but were unable to identify a clear improvement opportunity. The findings identify a significant mismatch between what the HA’s system should be doing to enable the HA to manage and learn from defects and the current situation. The mismatch has revealed to the HA that a modification to their information system is necessary to improve performance and enhance learning via live data analysis and reporting. This research is ongoing and the HA is currently in the ‘taking action’ stage

Meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies of asthma in ethnically diverse North American populations.

Asthma is a common disease with a complex risk architecture including both genetic and environmental factors. We performed a meta-analysis of North American genome-wide association studies of asthma in 5,416 individuals with asthma (cases) including individuals of European American, African American or African Caribbean, and Latino ancestry, with replication in an additional 12,649 individuals from the same ethnic groups. We identified five susceptibility loci. Four were at previously reported loci on 17q21, near IL1RL1, TSLP and IL33, but we report for the first time, to our knowledge, that these loci are associated with asthma risk in three ethnic groups. In addition, we identified a new asthma susceptibility locus at PYHIN1, with the association being specific to individuals of African descent (P = 3.9 × 10(-9)). These results suggest that some asthma susceptibility loci are robust to differences in ancestry when sufficiently large samples sizes are investigated, and that ancestry-specific associations also contribute to the complex genetic architecture of asthma

VEMI Lab 2021

The Virtual Environments and Multimodal Interaction (VEMI) Lab embodies an inclusive, collaborative, and multi-disciplinary approach to hands-on research and education. By bringing together students and faculty from more than a dozen majors and disciplines, VEMI is uniquely positioned to advance computing and STEM initiatives both here at the university as well as in broader communities throughout Maine and nationwide

VEMI Newsletter, Winter 2025

The VEMI Lab focuses on research and development related to how humans interact with technology and how we can leverage technology to overcome pressing issues and convey information in new and inclusive ways. We employ a diverse and interdisciplinary group of students, both graduate and undergraduate, who are eager to collaborate on intellectually intriguing projects and conduct research with cutting-edge hardware and software

VEMI Newsletter, February 2025

VEMI kicked off 2025 with Rapid Research Week, our annual immersive research experience for students. This year, five interdisciplinary teams tackled questions including: How does a lack of vision impact the perceived direction of movement in an AV simulator?; How does anthropomorphism affect etiquette when interfacing with an AI?; and How does gamification of exercise affect cognition (e.g., attention, memory) and fatigue? Teams completed posters to showcase their results, which will be displayed at next month’s UMaine Student Symposium. Shoutout to all the researchers for their hard work and creative thinking