Self Reported Pain Diary for Assessment of Chronic Pain in the Communicative, Cognitively Intact Nursing Home Resident

This paper describes a clinical project using a self-reported pain diary for the assessment of chronic pain in the communicative, cognitively-intact nursing home resident. There are estimates of chronic pain among nursing home residents that range from 4 – 83%. The goal of this clinical project was to evaluate a chronic pain diary in relation to its effectiveness and efficiency in accurately assessing pain among nursing home residents. Assessment has been identified as a major barrier in the control of chronic pain, and the self-report is accepted as the most reliable measure of a person’s pain. The self-reported pain diary’s validity and reliability have been demonstrated in acute and chronic pain assessment in the community, and in acute and chronic care. If improved assessment can also be demonstrated in this selected nursing home population, the assumption is that improved pain control will follow. Data gathered for the study included baseline data of the participating residents’ records, using the facility’s usual protocol for the assessment of chronic pain for 14 days prior to the implementation of the pain diary. That data was then compared to the data collected for 14 to 28 days after completion of the pain diary. Data related to changes in pain levels, nurses’ documentation, and medication usage are reported. A paired t test was used for the data analysis. Twenty-one residents participated in the project. In reviewing pain levels, only seven of those twenty-one residents had pain levels recorded prior to the diary, and following the use of the diary. Findings related to those pain levels did indicate an increase in the pain levels following the diary’s use, as the literature had predicted they would, when emphasis is placed on pain assessment. The difference in the number of pain-related nursing documentation entries measured before and after the diary approached significance at a p value of 0.067. The increased number of scheduled pain medications used before the diary and after the diary did show significance with p=0.015. The pain levels, reported before and after the diary, increased, and the use of “as needed” medications also increased. Ultimately, the sample size was too small to provide any statistical significance in three of the four areas studied. The findings, however, do support a multi-site feasibility study using the chronic pain diary

Hybrid-parallel sparse matrix-vector multiplication with explicit communication overlap on current multicore-based systems

We evaluate optimized parallel sparse matrix-vector operations for several representative application areas on widespread multicore-based cluster configurations. First the single-socket baseline performance is analyzed and modeled with respect to basic architectural properties of standard multicore chips. Beyond the single node, the performance of parallel sparse matrix-vector operations is often limited by communication overhead. Starting from the observation that nonblocking MPI is not able to hide communication cost using standard MPI implementations, we demonstrate that explicit overlap of communication and computation can be achieved by using a dedicated communication thread, which may run on a virtual core. Moreover we identify performance benefits of hybrid MPI/OpenMP programming due to improved load balancing even without explicit communication overlap. We compare performance results for pure MPI, the widely used "vector-like" hybrid programming strategies, and explicit overlap on a modern multicore-based cluster and a Cray XE6 system.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Radial propagation of geodesic acoustic modes

The GAM group velocity is estimated from the ratio of the radial free energy flux to the total free energy applying gyrokinetic and two-fluid theory. This method is much more robust than approaches that calculate the group velocity directly and can be generalized to include additional physics, e.g. magnetic geometry. The results are verified with the gyrokinetic code GYRO [J. Candy and R. E. Waltz, J. Comp. Phys. 186, pp. 545-581 (2003)], the two-fluid code NLET [K. Hallatschek and A. Zeiler, Physics of Plasmas 7, pp. 2554-2564 (2000)], and analytical calculations. GAM propagation must be kept in mind when discussing the windows of GAM activity observed experimentally and the match between linear theory and experimental GAM frequencies.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. This article has been published in Physics of Plasmas 5, 072503 (2009). It can be found at http://link.aip.org/link/?PHPAEN/16/072503/

Development and Characterization of Lightweight Geopolymer Composite Reinforced with Hybrid Carbon and Steel Fibers.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the influence of hybrid fiber reinforcement on the properties of a lightweight fly ash-based geopolymer. The matrix includes the ratio of fly ash and microspheres at 1:1. Carbon and steel fibers have been chosen due to their high mechanical properties as reinforcement. Short steel fibers (SFs) and/or carbon fibers (CFs) were used as reinforcement in the following proportions: 2.0% wt. CFs, 1.5% wt. CFs and 0.5% wt. SFs, 1.0% wt. CFs and 1.0% wt. SFs, 0.5% wt. CFs and 1.5% wt. SFs and 2.0% wt. SFs. Hybrid reinforcement of geopolymer composites was used to obtain optimal strength properties, i.e., compressive strength due to steel fiber and bending strength due to carbon fibers. Additionally, reference samples consisting of the geopolymer matrix material itself. After the production of geopolymer composites, their density was examined, and the structure (using scanning electron microscopy) and mechanical properties (i.e., bending and compressive strength) in relation to the type and amount of reinforcement. In addition, to determine the thermal insulation properties of the geopolymer matrix, its thermal conductivity coefficient was determined. The results show that the addition of fiber improved compressive and bending strength. The best compressive strength is obtained for a steel fiber-reinforced composite (2.0% wt.). The best bending strength is obtained for the hybrid reinforced composite: 1.5% wt. CFs and 0.5% wt. SFs. The geopolymer composite is characterized by low thermal conductivity (0.18-0.22 W/m ∙ K) at low density (0.89-0.93 g/cm3)

Ground Reaction Forces Generated by Twenty-eight Hatha Yoga Postures

Int J Exerc Sci 5(2) : 114-126, 2012. Adherents claim many benefits from the practice of yoga, including promotion of bone health and prevention of osteoporosis. However, no known studies have investigated whether yoga enhances bone mineral density. Furthermore, none have estimated reaction forces applied by yoga practitioners. The purpose of this study was to collect ground reaction force (GRF) data on a variety of hatha yoga postures that would commonly be practiced in fitness centers or private studios. Twelve female and eight male volunteers performed a sequence of 28 hatha yoga postures while GRF data were collected with an AMTI strain-gauge force platform. The sequence was repeated six times by each study subject. Four dependent variables were studied: peak vertical GRF, mean vertical GRF, peak resultant GRF, and mean resultant GRF. Univariate analysis was used to identify mean values and standard deviations for the dependent variables. Peak vertical and resultant values of each posture were similar for all subjects, and standard deviations were small. Similarly, mean vertical and resultant values were similar for all subjects. This 28 posture yoga sequence produced low impact GRF applied to upper and lower extremities. Further research is warranted to determine whether these forces are sufficient to promote osteogenesis or maintain current bone health in yoga practitioners

Graduate dress code: How undergraduates are planning to use hair, clothes and make-up to smooth their transition to the workplace

This article explores the relationship between students’ identities, their ideas about professional appearance and their anticipated transition to the world of work. It is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with 13 students from a vocationally-focused university in England. It was found that participants viewed clothing and appearance as an important aspect of their transition to the workplace. They believed that, if carefully handled, their appearance could help them to fit in and satisfy the expectations of employers, although some participants anticipated that this process of fitting in might compromise their identity and values. The article addresses students’ anticipated means of handling the tension between adapting to a new environment and ‘being themselves’. It is argued that the way this process is handled is intertwined with wider facets of identity – most notably those associated with gender.The article is based on research funded by the University of Derby. © 2015 IP Publishing Ltd. ((http://www.ippublishing.com). Reproduced by permission

Beobachtungsstudien im Rahmen eines naturheilkundlichen Klinikverbunds :Teil II: Detaillierte Ergebnisse der Klinik für Traditionelle ChinesischeMedizin Kötzting

Objective: To collect information on patients, interventions and outcomes in a hospital for traditional Chinese medicine in Germany. Design: Prospective observational study with 12 months followup. Patients: All 667 consecutive patients admitted for in-patient treatment in the hospital between December 1994 and July 1995 were documented. The follow-up rate after 12 months was 65.8%. Outcome Measures: Sociodemographic data, diagnoses, duration of complaints, type and frequency of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, intensity of complaints, assessment of the therapeutic success and quality of life. Results: About two thirds of the patients suffered from chronic pain syndromes (the most frequent single diagnoses were migraine, lumbago, and neck pain/headaches). 72.3% of the patients were female; the median duration since the onset of the disease was 7 years. Almost all patients received acupuncture and treatment with traditional Chinese drugs. 50.3% assessed the therapeutic success as good or very good at discharge; after 12 months this rate was 55.6%. Both intensity of main complaints and psychic and physical aspects of quality of life improved after treatment. After 12 months the improvement was less distinct but still significant. Conclusions: The in-patient treatment provided a clear benefit to the patients. Without a valid comparison with an alternative treatment little can be concluded about comparative effectiveness and efficiency of a treatment in the hospital for traditional Chinese medicine

Polyunsaturated fatty acids in fishes increase with total lipids irrespective of feeding sources and trophic position

Trophic transfer and retention of dietary compounds are vital for somatic development, reproduction, and survival of aquatic consumers. In this field study, stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes, and fatty acids (FA) contents in invertebrates and fishes of pre-alpine Lake Lunz, Austria, were used to (1) identify the resource use and trophic level of Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus), pike (Esox lucius), perch (Perca fluviatilis), brown trout (Salmo trutta), roach (Rutilus rutilus), and minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus) and (2) examine how polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA; i.e., omega-3 and -6 PUFA) are related to total lipid status, littoral-pelagic reliance, and trophic position. Stable isotope data suggest that pike, perch, and minnow derived most of their energy from littoral resources, but minnows differed from pike and perch in their trophic position and PUFA composition. The co-occurrence of cyprinids, percids, and pike segregated these fishes into more lipid-rich (roach, minnow) and lipid-poor (pike, percids) species. Although the relatively lipid-poor pike and percids occupied a higher trophic position than cyprinids, there was a concurrent, total lipid-dependent decline in omega-3 and -6 PUFA in these predatory fishes. Results of this lake food-web study demonstrated that total lipids in fish community, littoral-pelagic reliance, and trophic position explained omega-3 and -6 PUFA in dorsal muscle tissues. Omega-3 and -6 PUFA in these fishes decreased with increasing trophic position, demonstrating that these essential FAs did not biomagnify with increasing trophic level. Finally, this lake food-web study provides evidence of fish community-level relationship between total lipid status and PUFA or stable isotope ratios, whereas the strength of such relationships was less strong at the species level.Peer reviewe

Flow properties of driven-diffusive lattice gases: theory and computer simulation

We develop n-cluster mean-field theories (0 < n < 5) for calculating the flow properties of the non-equilibrium steady-states of the Katz-Lebowitz-Spohn model of the driven diffusive lattice gas, with attractive and repulsive inter-particle interactions, in both one and two dimensions for arbitrary particle densities, temperature as well as the driving field. We compare our theoretical results with the corresponding numerical data we have obtained from the computer simulations to demonstrate the level of accuracy of our theoretical predictions. We also compare our results with those for some other prototype models, notably particle-hopping models of vehicular traffic, to demonstrate the novel qualitative features we have observed in the Katz-Lebowitz-Spohn model, emphasizing, in particular, the consequences of repulsive inter-particle interactions.Comment: 12 RevTex page