5,677 research outputs found
EXAMINING QUALITY INDICATOR RATES FOR OLDER HOME CARE CLIENTS WITH DUAL SENSORY IMPAIRMENT (DSI) AND EXPLORING THE HETEROGENEITY WITHIN DSI.
Older adults with impairments in both hearing and vision, called dual sensory impairment (DSI), are at an increased risk of negative health outcomes such as impaired communication and difficulties with mobility. It is unknown whether DSI is associated with potential quality of care issues. This study used a set of home care quality indicators (HCQIs) to examine potential quality issues in older clients (65+) with DSI. Further, it looked to explore how HCQI rates differed based on the geographic region of care and whether the clientâs level of hearing and vision impairment was related to certain HCQIs. The HCQIs were generated from data collected using the Resident Assessment Instrument for Home Care and capture undesirable outcomes (e.g., falls, cognitive decline). Higher rates indicate a greater frequency of experiencing the issue. In this sample (n=352,656), the average age was 82.8 years (sd=7.9), the majority were female (63.2%), and 20.5% experienced DSI. Compared to those without DSI, clients with DSI had higher rates across 20 of the 22 HCQIs. The HCQI rates differed by geographic region, with specific regions consistently performing worse than others. Finally, the level of hearing and vision impairment was related to certain HCQIs more than others, for example hearing impairment appeared to be more related to the quality indicator measuring communication difficulty. Overall, the hope is that this information can help to identify some of the potential issues around quality and in turn, assist in continually improving the services being provided to these clients
Preferred Workflows for Syndromic Surveillance Systems
Workflows are a sequence of information processing operations that people carry out to meet certain in-formational goals [1]. Using various user-centered design (UCD) techniques we uncovered the workflows that epidemiologists wished to follow when using syndromic surveillance (SS) systems
Schizophrenia is associated with excess multiple physical-health comorbidities but low levels of recorded cardiovascular disease in primary care: cross-sectional study
<b>Objective</b> To assess the nature and extent of physical-health comorbidities in people with schizophrenia and related psychoses compared with controls. <p></p>
<b>Design </b>Cross-sectional study. <p></p>
<b>Setting </b>314 primary care practices in Scotland. <p></p>
<b>Participants </b>9677 people with a primary care record of schizophrenia or a related psychosis and 1â
414â
701 controls. Main outcome measures Primary care records of 32 common chronic physical-health conditions and combinations of one, two and three or more physical-health comorbidities adjusted for age, gender and deprivation status. <p></p>
<b>Results</b> Compared with controls, people with schizophrenia were significantly more likely to have one physical-health comorbidity (OR 1.21, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.27), two physical-health comorbidities (OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.29 to 1.44) and three or more physical-health comorbidities (OR 1.19, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.27). Rates were highest for viral hepatitis (OR 3.98, 95% CI 2.81 to 5.64), constipation (OR 3.24, 95% CI 3.00 to 4.49) and Parkinson's disease (OR 3.07, 95% CI 2.42 to 3.88) but people with schizophrenia had lower recorded rates of cardiovascular disease, including atrial fibrillation (OR 0.62, 95% CI 0.51 to 0.73), hypertension (OR 0.71, 95% CI 0.67 to 0.76), coronary heart disease (OR 0.75, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.71) and peripheral vascular disease (OR 0.83, 95% CI 0.71 to 0.97).<p></p>
<b>Conclusions </b>People with schizophrenia have a wide range of comorbid and multiple physical-health conditions but are less likely than people without schizophrenia to have a primary care record of cardiovascular disease. This suggests a systematic under-recognition and undertreatment of cardiovascular disease in people with schizophrenia, which might contribute to substantial premature mortality observed within this patient group. <p></p>
Hedging the Value of Waiting
We analyze the optimal hedging policy of a firm that has flexibility in the timing of investment.
Conventional wisdom suggests that hedging adds value by alleviating the underinvestment
problem associated with capital market frictions. However, our model shows that
hedging also adds value by allowing investment to be delayed in circumstances where the
same frictions would cause it to commence prematurely. Thus, hedging can have the paradoxical
effect of reducing investment. We also show that greater timing flexibility increases
the optimal quantity of hedging, but has a non-monotonic effect on the additional value
created by hedging. These results may help explain the empirical findings that investment
rates do not differ between hedgers and non-hedgers, and that hedging propensities do not
depend on standard measures of growth opportunities
Modification of the Foundational Requirement for Impeaching Witnesses: California Evidence Code Section 770
A study of B-type stars
The effect of rotation on quantities used in classifying B -type
stars is discussed. The tendency for stars with high rotational velocities
to have weaker Balmer lines for the same (U - B)â
has been investigated
using published data. Abt's explanation of the affect in terms of the
change in effective surface gravity due to rotation is confirmed. A
correction term in Crawford's method of determining ages of clusters and
field stars from Balmer line intensities and UBV photometry is derived.
It is shown that errors in age determinations due to rotation are much
smaller when the wavelength λâ of the Balmer discontinuity is used
instead of Balmer line intensities. A colour index sensitive to λâ is
discussed. Methods of determining the inclinations of the axes of rotation
are suggested. It is shown that the "cosmic dispersion" in the relation
between Balmer line intensities and absolute magnitudes is largely caused , by rotation. A scheme of two -dimensional spectral classification using
measurements of the position and size of the Balmer discontinuity on low
dispersion objective prism plates is outlined. Rotational velocities for
18 stars have been derived from slit spectrograms; several lines including five Balmer lines were measured for each star
Rotation and chemical composition of early-type stars
Some early-type stars with abnormal line strengths for their
intrinsic colours are investigated in order to determine their
structure and the chemical composition of their atmospheres. The
abnormal line strengths in several B-type stars (αScl, 36 Lyn,
20 Tau and HD 175156) are shown to be probably due to large ranges
of surface temperature such as would be observed in rapidly rotating
stars of normal chemical composition, if viewed pole-on. These
stars differ from the peculiar A stars, which rotate slowly and have
abnormal chemical composition. Members of the Mn group of peculiar A
stars rotate more slowly than those of the Si-4200 group, although the
mean intrinsic colours of the two groups are similar.Previous work on abundance determination in peculiar A stars
is reviewed. The chemical composition of the manganese star 53 Tau
is studied by a refined differential curve-of-growth method with
αLyr as the comparison star. Groups of lines of similar mean
excitation and ionisation potentials and wavelengths are used so
that the results are independent of the structure of 53 Tau, which
is shown to be abnormal. A new double-line peculiar A spectroscopic
binary HR 4072 was discovered, and it was found that excesses of Sr
and Y are common to both components. Spectral variations in some
peculiar A stars are described.Well established abundance abnormalities in peculiar A stars may
be explained on a modified form of van den Heuvel's theory that peculiar A
stars have been secondaries of binary systems with initial separations in
the range 10 a.u. to 100 a.u. approximately. The primaries, initially
earlier than spectral type B8, have evolved and exploded as type II
supernovae. During the explosions material enriched in heavy elements
by interior nuclear reactions was transferred to the surfaces of the
secondaries, which are now observed as peculiar A stars and are still
on the main sequence. Excesses of Be and Si and deficiencies of 0 are
caused by surface nuclear reactions on the secondaries after the
explosions of the primaries. Ln stars differ from other peculiar A
stars in many respects; the differences may be due to the primaries
expanding beyond the Roche limits before they explode. On the oblique
rotator theory, spectrum variables result from irregular distributions
of surface nuclear reactions and ion migration on the secondaries.
Some other theories of peculiar A stars are reviewed and shown to be
in conflict with observation
Response to Comment on "Pairing and Phase Separation in a Polarized Fermi Gas"
Zwierlein and Ketterle rely on subjective arguments and fail to recognize
important differences in physical parameters between our experiment and theirs.
We stand by the conclusions of our original report
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