Key Finding of the 2022 Nebraska End-of-Life Survey: A Report for Nebraska Hospice and Palliative Care Association

The 2022 End-of-Life survey is a continuation by the Nebraska Hospice and Palliative Care Association (NHPCA) to understand the knowledge, beliefs, and actions of Nebraskans and their end-of-life (EOL) wishes. Previous surveys conducted in 2003, 2006, 2010, and 2017 helped to inform the 2022 survey. Results of previous surveys can be found on the NHPCA website. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bureau of Sociological Research contracted with NHPCA to prepare, distribute, and enter survey data for a random sample of Nebraskans 19 years of age and older. Survey invitations were sent to 3,000 Nebraskans 19 years of age and older in one of six regions to ensure adequate representation across the state. Weighting was used to make certain of adequate representation by age and sex. Weighting was not used for oversampling for race or ethnicity. Behavioral health regions are shown on page five highlighting the statewide nature of this survey. Surveys were evenly distributed and completed throughout these regions. Respondents were provided with two options for completing the survey: online using a Qualtrics survey or on paper. 635 adults completed the survey. 490 were completed on paper and 145 surveys were completed online. The response rate for the 2022 survey was 21%. Secondary analysis of the data was completed by University of Nebraska at Omaha, Creighton University, and University of Nebraska Medical Center faculty, staff, and doctoral students. Findings from this analysis are on the pages that follow. Included in this report are key findings from the 2022 survey. Respondent demographics, knowledge of hospice care and knowledge of palliative care are presented separately. Also presented are respondents’ desired preference for where to receive hospice care, knowledge of payment sources for hospice care and palliative care, and their interest in learning more about hospice care and palliative care. We also include highlights of respondents’ attitudes about death and illness along with the completion of EOL planning documents. Information about income is presented based on a combination of Internal Revenue Service Tax Brackets from 2022, the 2022 Federal Poverty level, and average Social Security payments for 2022. Because the 2022 survey took place at the end of a global pandemic, we have included select items from the 2017 survey to compare with the 2022 results. The purpose for including this additional information is to see if any changes in awareness of services and/or usage occurred between the two time periods. This issue, raised by a member of this team and the nursing community, emphasizes the importance of EOL care in relation to the pandemic. What do people know and how does this influence their attitudes about EOL care? While no definitive conclusions can be drawn from these results, they do offer insight into the attitudes of responding Nebraskans to the state of hospice care and palliative care and provide a roadmap for future survey questions

The concept of implementing a customer interaction system based on CRM Bitrix24

In modern conditions of digitalization, each company seeks to optimize the management of activities based on modern IT. With an increase in the number of trading companies, the more becomes acute problem of attracting and retaining customers. In order to improve the efficiency activity of the company, the leadership needs to optimize the business processes of interaction with customers. The purpose of this work is to study the company's activities for the development and implementation of software, analyze the business process of interaction with clients for its automation based on CRMBitrix24. The description of the investigated business process in the notations «as is» and «to be» showed that the automation of interaction with the company's customers has a number of advantages. In this regard, in the future, it is necessary to develop a Bitrix24 implementation project, a risk management plan and assessment of the economic efficiency of the project

RFL Online Course in Moodle LMS: Development and Application

The relevance of creating electronic textbooks on RFL is due to the search for new forms of education and interaction between teachers and students in a distance learning format. The article discusses a model of an electronic course on RFL, which is implemented at the stage of pre-university training at the South-West State University. The textbook is integrated in “Electronic information and educational environment of SWSU. SWSU’s Courses” on Moodle platform, which allows, thanks to its functionality, to present educational material in various forms, vary the methods of managing students’ independent educational activities, and organize the necessary audiovisual support in language learning. The basis for the creation of this electronic resource is a communicative-activity approach aimed at the formation and development of all types of speech activity. The authors state the results of a survey of foreign students on the implementation of the model of learning via the electronic resource. The survey made it possible to adjust the materials of the electronic resource, as well as the forms and methods of work in remote mode, taking into account the needs of foreign students. The proposed model of the electronic course is aimed at the realization of teaching foreign students in accordance with the requirements necessary for mastering the Russian language within the framework of Elementary, Basic and First certification levels (A1, A2, B1)

Personality Development Potential of a Literary Text in Digitalized Teaching of RFL

The relevance of using personality development potential of literary texts in order to form the necessary complex of knowledge about the most significant spiritual and moral values of the Russian people is due to the situation of a complete transition with no alternatives to teaching in a distance format at the preparatory faculty. The article examines the experience of using the potential of the texts from Russian classical literature for personal self-development and self-realization of foreign students at Russian as a foreign language lessons (pre-university stage) in conditions where direct immersion in the language is impossible. Such literary works allow foreign students to begin their acquaintance with Russian history and culture, to form basic ideas about the values of Russian society and the mentality of Russian people, to understand the degree of similarity and difference between Russian and native cultures, which generally contribute to their adaptation to Russian reality and integration into the educational multicultural space of the university. The approaches, the universal and specific requirements for the formation of an electronic educational course in RFL are presented. The course can be accessed in “Electronic information and educational environment of SWSU. SWSU’s Courses” on Moodle platform. The platform thanks to its functional capabilities, allows to present educational material in various forms, to vary the methods of students’ independent educational activities, to organize the necessary audiovisual support in mastering the Russian language within the elementary, basic and first certification levels (A1, A2, B1)

Older Adults’ Pain Outcomes After mHealth Interventions: Scoping Review

BackgroundPain is prevalent and poorly managed in older adults. Although pain self-management strategies are helpful, adoption and access are limited; thus, technology provides an opportunity for intervention delivery. Mobile health (mHealth) is feasible to use in older adults; however, we have yet to understand the effect of mHealth pain self-management interventions on pain outcomes in older adults. ObjectiveThe purpose of this scoping review is to examine the characteristics of mHealth interventions and their efficacy on pain outcomes in older adults with musculoskeletal pain. MethodsWith the assistance of a medical librarian, keywords and subject headings were generated, including but not limited to mobile health application, mHealth, digital, pain, pain management, and older. A search was conducted for papers in journal databases, including PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, and IEEE Xplore, between 2000 and 2022. Papers were screened according to predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, and reference lists were reviewed for additional paper inclusion. Three authors appraised the methodology of papers independently, then collaboratively to synthesize the evidence. ResultsSix publications were included in the scoping review. The design and methodology ranged widely from pilot studies to a comparative effectiveness trial. Older participants in the studies reported a variety of musculoskeletal conditions. Delivery of the mHealth pain self-management interventions incorporated mobile devices, such as a smartphone or tablet. Most mHealth-delivered interventions were multicomponent and incorporated elements of in-person and telephone access to an interventionist. The findings suggested mHealth interventions may reduce pain intensity; however, pain interference and other pain-related conditions did not have a statistically significant reduction. ConclusionsResearch that has explored mHealth for pain self-management is beginning to move beyond feasibility. The few experimental studies conducted in older adults are heterogeneous, and the interventions are mostly multicomponent. It is premature to conclude the interventions’ significant effect on pain or pain-related symptoms. As technology continues to integrate into health care, more experimental research is warranted to examine the efficacy of mHealth interventions on a variety of pain outcomes in older adults

A Comparative Performance Evaluation of Some Novel “Green” and Traditional Antiscalants in Calcium Sulfate Scaling

A relative ability of industrial samples of four phosphorus-free polymers (polyaspartate (PASP); polyepoxysuccinate (PESA); polyacrylic acid sodium salt (PAAS); copolymer of maleic and acrylic acid (MA-AA)) and of three phosphonates (aminotris(methylenephosphonic acid), ATMP; 1-hydroxyethane-1,1-bis(phosphonic acid), HEDP; phosphonobutane-1,2,4-tricarboxylic acid, PBTC) to inhibit calcium sulfate precipitation is studied following the NACE Standard along with dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. For the 0.5 mg·dm−3 dosage, the following efficiency ranking was found: MA-AA~ATMP>PESA (400–1500 Da)>PASP (1000–5000 Da) ≫ PAAS (3000–5000 Da)~PBTC~HEDP. The isolated crystals are identified as gypsum. SEM images for PESA, PASP, PAAS, and HEDP and for a blank sample indicated the needle-like crystal morphology. Surprisingly, the least effective reagent PBTC revealed quite a different behavior, changing the morphology of gypsum crystals to an irregular shape. The DLS experiments exhibited a formation of 300 to 700 nm diameter particles with negative ζ-potential around −2 mV for all reagents. Although such ζ-potential values are not capable of providing colloidal stability, all three phosphonates demonstrate significant gypsum particles stabilization relative to a blank experiment

Zhurkov’s Stress-Driven Fracture as a Driving Force of the Microcrystalline Cellulose Formation

Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) is a chemically pure product of cellulose mechano-chemical conversion. It is a white powder composed of the short fragments of the plant cells widely used in the modern food industry and pharmaceutics. The acid hydrolysis of the bleached lignin-free cellulose raw is the main and necessary stage of MCC production. For this reason, the acid hydrolysis is generally accepted to be the driving force of the fragmentation of the initial cellulose fibers into MCC particles. However, the low sensibility of the MCC properties to repeating the hydrolysis forces doubting this point of view. The sharp, cleave-looking edges of the MCC particles suggesting the initial cellulose fibers were fractured; hence the hydrolysis made them brittle. Zhurkov showed that mechanical stress decreases the activation energy of the polymer fracture, which correlates with the elevated enthalpy of the MCC thermal destruction compared to the initial cellulose

Conjugates of Tacrine and Salicylic Acid Derivatives as New Promising Multitarget Agents for Alzheimer’s Disease

A series of previously synthesized conjugates of tacrine and salicylamide was extended by varying the structure of the salicylamide fragment and using salicylic aldehyde to synthesize salicylimine derivatives. The hybrids exhibited broad-spectrum biological activity. All new conjugates were potent inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) with selectivity toward BChE. The structure of the salicylamide moiety exerted little effect on anticholinesterase activity, but AChE inhibition increased with spacer elongation. The most active conjugates were salicylimine derivatives: IC50 values of the lead compound 10c were 0.0826 µM (AChE) and 0.0156 µM (BChE), with weak inhibition of the off-target carboxylesterase. The hybrids were mixed-type reversible inhibitors of both cholinesterases and displayed dual binding to the catalytic and peripheral anionic sites of AChE in molecular docking, which, along with experimental results on propidium iodide displacement, suggested their potential to block AChE-induced β-amyloid aggregation. All conjugates inhibited Aβ42 self-aggregation in the thioflavin test, and inhibition increased with spacer elongation. Salicylimine 10c and salicylamide 5c with (CH2)8 spacers were the lead compounds for inhibiting Aβ42 self-aggregation, which was corroborated by molecular docking to Aβ42. ABTS•+-scavenging activity was highest for salicylamides 5a–c, intermediate for salicylimines 10a–c, low for F-containing salicylamides 7, and non-existent for methoxybenzoylamides 6 and difluoromethoxybenzoylamides 8. In the FRAP antioxidant (AO) assay, the test compounds displayed little or no activity. Quantum chemical analysis and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with QM/MM potentials explained the AO structure–activity relationships. All conjugates were effective chelators of Cu2+, Fe2+, and Zn2+, with molar compound/metal (Cu2+) ratios of 2:1 (5b) and ~1:1 (10b). Conjugates exerted comparable or lower cytotoxicity than tacrine on mouse hepatocytes and had favorable predicted intestinal absorption and blood-brain barrier permeability. The overall results indicate that the synthesized conjugates are promising new multifunctional agents for the potential treatment of AD