Prevalence of swallowing difficulties and medication modification in customers of community pharmacists

BACKGROUND: People may alter their solid oral medication dosage forms to make it easier to swallow. However, modification of solid medication dosage forms can lead to undesirable effects, and people may alter the dosage forms without informing the health professionals involved in their care. AIM: To estimate the prevalence of swallowing difficulties and medication modification amongst community pharmacy consumers, and to investigate consumer views, attitudes, and interactions with health professionals regarding such issues. METHODS: Consumers were recruited from five community pharmacies in Brisbane, Queensland and invited to participate in a structured interview. RESULTS: A total of 369 consumers participated in the study. Overall, 16.5% of people reported experiencing swallowing difficulties, and 10.6% of all respondents reported modifying medication dosage forms. Almost half (44.2%) of those surveyed did not think there would be issues with modifying medication dosage forms. Some consumers would not seek advice from health professionals if they experienced swallowing problems and/or would not seek advice from health professionals before modifying their medication dosage forms, regardless of their thoughts about any problems associated with this practice. CONCLUSION: Some consumers appeared to be accustomed to modifying medication dosage forms, even when there was no apparent or obvious need. People were also reluctant to seek advice from health professionals regarding swallowing difficulties, or modifying medication dosage forms. Health professionals must be assertive in educating consumers about swallowing problems, and medication dosage form modification

Interactions Mediated by Surface States: From Pairs and Trios to Adchains and Ordered Overlayers

Since metallic surface states on (111) noble metals are free-electron like, their propagators can be evaluated analytically. Since they are well-screened, one can use simple tight-binding formalism to study their effects. The needed phase shifts can be extracted from experiment. Hence, one can now make quantitative predictions of these slowly-decaying, oscillatory indirect interactions. For the (isotropic!) pair interactions (which decay as the inverse square of adatom-adatom separation), remarkable agreement has been obtained with experiments by two groups. We have extended the formalism to consider the full indirect ("triple") interaction of 3 adsorbates, which is the sum of the 3 constituent pair interactions plus the non-pairwise "trio" contribution, which tends to decay with the 5/2 power of perimeter. Here, we concentrate on interactions due to ordered overlayers and to linear defects, relating the latter to the interactions of (nx1) ordered overlayers and to the constituent pair interactions. We compare with experimental studies of interactions of adatoms with adchains and of consequent 1D motion of adatoms trapped between two such parallel chains. We discuss implications for step-step interactions (on vicinal surfaces), with attention to the modification of the surface state itself for small terrace widths.Comment: 4 pages, Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Crystal Growth, Grenoble, France, 9-13 August 2004; to be published in J. Crystal Growth (2005

Design and optimization of cold-formed steel sections in bolted moment connections considering bimoment

The load transfer mechanism in cold-formed steel (CFS) bolted moment connections is mainly through the bolt group in the web of beam elements, which may lead to relatively large bimoment and warping deformations. While the bimoment effects can be considered in the Direct Strength Method (DSM), ignoring the fact that the bolt-group length in the conventional design process can lead to nonconservative solutions. This paper presents an alternative analytical design approach using Eurocode 3 (EC3) effective width method to determine the ultimate flexural strength of CFS bolted moment connections by considering bimoment effects. The results compare very well with previously published experimental test data as well as detailed finite-element models developed in this study. It is shown that a short bolt-group length may lead to up to 25% reduction in the flexural strength of the CFS bolted connections. However, a longer bolt-group length generally results in a moment capacity almost equal to the flexural strength of the CFS channel section. Shape optimization is then conducted using a genetic algorithm (GA) to improve the flexural capacity of the connections by taking into account the bimoment effects. The main design variables are considered to be the relative CFS beam cross-sectional dimensions, while the plate slenderness and dimension limits suggested by EC3 as well as a number of manufacturing and practical end-use constraints are incorporated as design constraints. It is found that, compared with standard cross-sectional dimensions, the optimized sections can improve the flexural strength by as much as 36% for a bolt-group length equal to the depth of beam element

Strain-facilitated process for the lift-off of a Si layer of less than 20 nm thickness

We report a process for the lift-off of an ultrathin Si layer. By plasma hydrogenation of a molecular-beam-epitaxy-grown heterostructure of SiSb-doped-SiSi, ultrashallow cracking is controlled to occur at the depth of the Sb-doped layer. Prior to hydrogenation, an oxygen plasma treatment is used to induce the formation of a thin oxide layer on the surface of the heterostructure. Chemical etching of the surface oxide layer after hydrogenation further thins the thickness of the separated Si layer to be only 15 nm. Mechanisms of hydrogen trapping and strain-facilitated cracking are discussed

Wettability Switching Techniques on Superhydrophobic Surfaces

The wetting properties of superhydrophobic surfaces have generated worldwide research interest. A water drop on these surfaces forms a nearly perfect spherical pearl. Superhydrophobic materials hold considerable promise for potential applications ranging from self cleaning surfaces, completely water impermeable textiles to low cost energy displacement of liquids in lab-on-chip devices. However, the dynamic modification of the liquid droplets behavior and in particular of their wetting properties on these surfaces is still a challenging issue. In this review, after a brief overview on superhydrophobic states definition, the techniques leading to the modification of wettability behavior on superhydrophobic surfaces under specific conditions: optical, magnetic, mechanical, chemical, thermal are discussed. Finally, a focus on electrowetting is made from historical phenomenon pointed out some decades ago on classical planar hydrophobic surfaces to recent breakthrough obtained on superhydrophobic surfaces

Manufacturing flow line systems: a review of models and analytical results

The most important models and results of the manufacturing flow line literature are described. These include the major classes of models (asynchronous, synchronous, and continuous); the major features (blocking, processing times, failures and repairs); the major properties (conservation of flow, flow rate-idle time, reversibility, and others); and the relationships among different models. Exact and approximate methods for obtaining quantitative measures of performance are also reviewed. The exact methods are appropriate for small systems. The approximate methods, which are the only means available for large systems, are generally based on decomposition, and make use of the exact methods for small systems. Extensions are briefly discussed. Directions for future research are suggested.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant DDM-8914277