Trends in the Health of Older Californians: Data From the 2001, 2003 and 2005 California Health Interview Surveys

Analyzes trends in the health status and use of preventive services among Californians age 65 and over by race/ethnicity, insurance type, and region. Reports rises in doctor visits and in cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and other illnesses

Copyright Protection In The Digital Era: A Malaysian Perspective

This paper seeks to explore the significance of copyright protection in Malaysia’s business environment of the digital era. Copyright law is increasingly being challenged with the intensification of internet use now. Issues of piracy and infringement of rights raise concerns surrounding the enforcement of legal measures for protection of copyrights. Hence the paper aim to understand the role and function of copyright in the digital era, and assessing the Malaysian society’s awareness of cyberspace copyright protection. This is an interpretive research carried out by conducting interviews, on 3 different groups of respondents, which are the dot.com companies, the IP professionals and government officials. The findings indicate there is a difference amongst the three groups in the understanding and awareness of Intellectual Property Rights and copyright protection; and that Malaysian government is not actively and effectively promoting awareness of the copyright issues to the public. Also it is imperative for Malaysian authorities to enhance protection of copyright in cyberspace.

Covid-19: Protecting lives and livelihoods

After more than one month of Movement Control Order (MCO), Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced a partial lifting to Conditional MCO (CMCO) to allow some economic sectors to operate. Companies, however, must adhere to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) outlined by the Ministry of Health, leading to mixed reactions. On one hand, business owners were happy with the decision allowing them to resume operations while another segment of society feels that the decision may cause another wave of infections

Time-Limited Trials Among Critically Ill Patients With Advanced Medical Illnesses to Reduce Nonbeneficial Intensive Care Unit Treatments: Protocol for a Multicenter Quality Improvement Study.

BackgroundInvasive intensive care unit (ICU) treatments for patients with advanced medical illnesses and poor prognoses may prolong suffering with minimal benefit. Unfortunately, the quality of care planning and communication between clinicians and critically ill patients and their families in these situations are highly variable, frequently leading to overutilization of invasive ICU treatments. Time-limited trials (TLTs) are agreements between the clinicians and the patients and decision makers to use certain medical therapies over defined periods of time and to evaluate whether patients improve or worsen according to predetermined clinical parameters. For patients with advanced medical illnesses receiving aggressive ICU treatments, TLTs can promote effective dialogue, develop consensus in decision making, and set rational boundaries to treatments based on patients' goals of care.ObjectiveThe aim of this study will be to examine whether a multicomponent quality-improvement strategy that uses protocoled TLTs as the default ICU care-planning approach for critically ill patients with advanced medical illnesses will decrease duration and intensity of nonbeneficial ICU care without changing hospital mortality.MethodsThis study will be conducted in medical ICUs of three public teaching hospitals in Los Angeles County. In Aim 1, we will conduct focus groups and semistructured interviews with key stakeholders to identify facilitators and barriers to implementing TLTs among ICU patients with advanced medical illnesses. In Aim 2, we will train clinicians to use protocol-enhanced TLTs as the default communication and care-planning approach in patients with advanced medical illnesses who receive invasive ICU treatments. Eligible patients will be those who the treating ICU physicians consider to be at high risk for nonbeneficial treatments according to guidelines from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. ICU physicians will be trained to use the TLT protocol through a curriculum of didactic lectures, case discussions, and simulations utilizing actors as family members in role-playing scenarios. Family meetings will be scheduled by trained care managers. The improvement strategy will be implemented sequentially in the three participating hospitals, and outcomes will be evaluated using a before-and-after study design. Key process outcomes will include frequency, timing, and content of family meetings. The primary clinical outcome will be ICU length of stay. Secondary outcomes will include hospital length of stay, days receiving life-sustaining treatments (eg, mechanical ventilation, vasopressors, and renal replacement therapy), number of attempts at cardiopulmonary resuscitation, frequency of invasive ICU procedures, and disposition from hospitalization.ResultsThe study began in August 2017. The implementation of interventions and data collection were completed at two of the three hospitals. As of September 2019, the study was at the postintervention stage at the third hospital. We have completed focus groups with physicians at each medical center (N=29) and interviews of family members and surrogate decision makers (N=18). The study is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2020, and results are expected to be available in mid-2020.ConclusionsThe successful completion of the aims in this proposal may identify a systematic approach to improve communication and shared decision making and to reduce nonbeneficial invasive treatments for ICU patients with advanced medical illnesses.International registered report identifier (irrid)DERR1-10.2196/16301

Modelling soil erosion and transport in the Burrishoole catchment, Newport, Co. Mayo, Ireland

The Burrishoole catchment is situated in County Mayo, on the northwest coast of the Republic of Ireland. Much of the catchment is covered by blanket peat that, in many areas, has become heavily eroded in recent years. This is thought to be due, primarily, to the adverse effects of forestry and agricultural activities in the area. Such activities include ploughing, drainage, the planting and harvesting of trees, and sheep farming, all of which are potentially damaging to such a sensitive landscape if not managed carefully. This article examines the sediment yield and hydrology of the Burrishoole catchment. Flow and sediment concentrations were measured at 8-hourly intervals from 5 February 2001 to 8 November 2001 with an automatic sampler and separate flow gauge, and hourly averages were recorded between 4 July 2002 and 6 September 2002 using an automatic river monitoring system [ARMS]. The authors describe the GIS-based model of soil erosion and transport that was applied to the Burrishoole catchment during this study. The results of these analyses were compared, in a qualitative manner, with the aerial photography available for the Burrishoole catchment to see whether areas that were predicted to contribute large proportions of eroded material to the drainage network corresponded with areas where peat erosion could be identified through photo-interpretation

"You can't leave your life to chance" : transitioning from offending in emerging adults : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

There is currently limited very research about how emerging adult’s transition out of crime. This study interviewed nine emerging adults who successfully transitioned out of crime by the age of 25. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and transcribed verbatim. The data was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Participants described their experience of transition as a build-up of distress combined with reasons to stop, shifts in perceptions around offending and their identity, a challenging process that they felt fortunate to have accomplished, a noticeable improvement in their lives and ongoing temptation or thoughts about offending. The results suggested three main findings; that the process of desistance is similar in emerging adults and adult populations, that there could be a universal mechanism of change underlying all behaviour, and that control theories may better explain desistance behaviour than dominant models of behaviour change such as the transtheoretical model of change

Multidimensional adaptive order GP-WENO via kernel-based reconstruction

This paper presents a fully multidimensional kernel-based reconstruction scheme for finite volume methods applied to systems of hyperbolic conservation laws, with a particular emphasis on the compressible Euler equations. Non-oscillatory reconstruction is achieved through an adaptive order weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO-AO) method cast into a form suited to multidimensional stencils and reconstruction. A kernel-based approach inspired by Gaussian process (GP) modeling is presented here. This approach allows the creation of a scheme of arbitrary order with simply defined multidimensional stencils and substencils. Furthermore, the fully multidimensional nature of the reconstruction allows a more straightforward extension to higher spatial dimensions and removes the need for complicated boundary conditions on intermediate quantities in modified dimension-by-dimension methods. In addition, a new simple-yet-effective set of reconstruction variables is introduced, as well as an easy-to-implement effective limiter for positivity preservation, both of which could be useful in existing schemes with little modification. The proposed scheme is applied to a suite of stringent and informative benchmark problems to demonstrate its efficacy and utility.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Computational Physics April 202

Logistic Map Potentials

We develop and illustrate methods to compute all single particle potentials that underlie the logistic map, x --> sx(1-x) for 0<s<=4. We show that the switchback potentials can be obtained from the primary potential through functional transformations. We are thereby able to produce the various branches of the corresponding analytic potential functions, which have an infinite number of branch points for generic s>2. We illustrate the methods numerically for the cases s=5/2 and s=10/3