Monitoring falls in elderly people: Lessons from a community-based project

This article is published online with Open Access by IOS Press and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License.Objectives. This paper describes an evaluation of a community-based fall-detection project using smart phone based tri-axial accelerometry to identify factors that affect adoption and use of such technology by elderly people. Methods. A mixed methods study using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews was conducted to evaluate attitudes of the elderly people participating, as well as project stakeholders involved in the project. Information registered in a web-based fall management system was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively, using an adapted version of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Results. Adoption rate was 61.7% and attrition rate was 57%, the most common reasons for attrition being health deterioration (50%) and problems with the device and the network (26.2%). Conclusion. We identified a number of challenges that affected the success of this project, including problems with the software, usability issues with the device, coverage of the network, training of participants, an

Trialling a Personal Falls Monitoring System using Smart Phone

Copyright © 2015, Australian Computer Society, Inc. This paper appeared at the 8th Australasian Workshop on Health Informatics and Knowledge Management (HIKM 2015), Sydney, Australia, January 2015. Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology (CRPIT), Vol. 164, Anthony Maeder and Jim Warren, Ed. Reproduction for academic, not-for-profit purposes permitted provided this text is included.This paper describes a personal falls monitoring project using smart phone based tri-axial accelerometry, for surveillance of elderly people with falls risk living independently at home. The project relied on collaboration of three parties to achieve its clinical, research and technology aims. The results of data collection during the six month trial period are presented and analysed here. These results indicate a very high rate of false positives (94.7%) which would need to be addressed in future development of the system

Differentiating and Assessing Relationships in Service-Learning and Civic Engagement: Exploitative, Transactional, or Transformational

As a defining aspect of service-learning and civic engagement, relationships can exist among faculty members, students, community organizations, community members, and administrators on campus. This research developed procedures to measure several aspects of these relationships. Investigators collected information from 20 experienced service-learning faculty members about their relationships with repre- sentatives of community organizations using the newly-developed Transformational Relationship Evaluation Scale (TRES). Results indicate that transactional and transformational qualities can be dif- ferentiated using TRES and are related to other characteristics of relationships (e.g., closeness). Conceptual work underlying this study aims to advance practitioner-scholars’ understanding of partner- ships as one type of relationship, offering a refinement on and an expansion of the terminology associ- ated with service-learning and civic engagement

Kaluza-Klein electrically charged black branes in M-theory

We present a class of Kaluza-Klein electrically charged black p-brane solutions of ten-dimensional, type IIA superstring theory. Uplifting to eleven dimensions these solutions are studied in the context of M-theory. They can be interpreted either as a p+1 extended object trapped around the eleventh dimension along which momentum is flowing or as a boost of the following backgrounds: the Schwarzschild black (p+1)-brane or the product of the (10-p)-dimensional Euclidean Schwarzschild manifold with the (p+1)-dimensional Minkowski spacetime.Comment: 16 pages, uses latex and epsf macro, figures include

On the sigma-model structure of type IIA supergravity action in doubled field approach

In this letter we describe how to string together the doubled field approach by Cremmer, Julia, Lu and Pope with Pasti-Sorokin-Tonin technique to construct the sigma-model-like action for type IIA supergravity. The relation of the results with that of obtained in the context of searching for Superstring/M-theory hidden symmetry group is discussed.Comment: 9 pp, LATEX; published in JETP Let

Seasonal Cholera from Multiple Small Outbreaks, Rural Bangladesh

Clinical and environmental Vibrio cholerae organisms collected from February 2004 through April 2005 were systematically isolated from 2 rural Bangladeshi locales. Their genetic relatedness was evaluated at 5 loci that contained a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR). The observed minimal overlap in VNTR patterns between the 2 communities was consistent with sequential, small outbreaks from local sources

On the absence of BPS preonic solutions in IIA and IIB supergravities

We consider the present absence of 31 out of 32 supersymmetric solutions in supergravity i.e., of solutions describing BPS preons. A recent result indicates that (bosonic) BPS preonic solutions do not exist in type IIB supergravity. We reconsider this analysis by using the G-frame method, extend it to the IIA supergravity case, and show that there are no (bosonic) preonic solutions for type IIA either. For the classical D=11 supergravity no conclusion can be drawn yet, although the negative IIA results permit establishing the conditions that preonic solutions would have to satisfy. For supergravities with `stringy' corrections, the existence of BPS preonic solutions remains fully open.Comment: plain latex, 12 pages Minor misprints corrected. Published in JHEP 09 (2006) 00