222 research outputs found
Measures to enhance mobility among older people in Scandinavia. A literature review of best practice.
Mobiliteten eller rörligheten för Ă€ldre mĂ€nniskor Ă€r fortfarande ett omrĂ„de under utveckling. Det visar en VTI-studie gĂ€llande Norge, Danmark och Sverige dĂ€r man har studerat Ă€ldre personers resande med personbil, kollektivtrafik, cykel, gĂ„ng och i viss mĂ„n Ă€ven övriga transportmedel som definieras av motoriserade rullstolar, skotrar, mopedbilar, etc. Ă
tgÀrder för att öka resandet med kollektivtrafik Àr pÄ dagordningen i alla tre lÀnderna. Det ÄterstÄr dock mycket som kan förbÀttras enligt de forskningsrapporter och utvÀrderingar som ingÄtt i studien. Exempelvis Àr mer Àn 200-300 meter en för lÄng promenadstrÀcka till eller frÄn busshÄllplatsen för mÄnga Àldre mÀnniskor och miljön pÄ stationer och hÄllplatser upplevs av mÄnga Àldre som obehaglig och stressig. Dessutom bör information före och under resan vara bÄde visuell och hörbar, informationstavlor bör placeras i ögonhöjd, tidtabeller ska vara lÀtta att lÀsa och förstÄ, det ska vara lÀtt att köpa en biljett och hantera biljettautomater, lÄggolvsfordon Àr att föredra, lediga platser ska finnas ombord och föraren ska inte börja köra innan passagerarna har satt sig. Det kan ofta vara smÄ förbÀttringar som utgör skillnader för dem som reser, till exempel att trottoarer Àr utan trappor och att det finns bÀnkar pÄ gÄngvÀgen till busshÄllplatsen. Dessutom handlar strategier och ÄtgÀrder för att förbÀttra kollektivtrafiken inte bara om frÄgor som tillgÀngliga fordon, vindskydd och enkla trottoarer vid busshÄllplatser, utan ocksÄ om frekvens och rutter i förhÄllande till resmönstren hos den nya rörliga generationen Àldre. Dock Àr bristen pÄ information och kunskap om kollektivtrafiken ofta utbredd bland Àldre mÀnniskor, vilket resulterar i att de reser mindre Àn de skulle ha gjort eller avstÄr helt frÄn att anvÀnda kollektivtrafiken. Informationskampanjer skulle kunna samordnas bÀttre för att möta Àldre mÀnniskors resmönster. Nya sÀtt att sprida information med den senaste tekniken skulle ocksÄ kunna organiseras i större utstrÀckning för att möta behoven hos Àldre mÀnniskor. Egentligen Àr problemet ibland inte brist pÄ information, utan för mycket information eller fel slags information.The present report is part of a larger project about mobility and its impact on older people\u92s well-being and welfare: Mobile age: The impact of everyday mobility for elderly people\u92s welfare and well-being. The heterogenity of older people is emphasised, not only with respect to physical age but also with respect to the specific resource situation and social context of everyday life. The geographical context of the project is Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The report is a literature review examining and evaluating measures designed to improve the independency of mobility among older people. While a few good examples of \u93best practice\u94 in the Scandinavian area (Denmark, Norway and Sweden) have been highlighted, gaps and weaknesses remain. The areas which are examined in the present report are private car, public transport, cycling, walking and to some extent other transport modes defined by motorized wheelchairs, scooters, four-wheeled mopeds/motorcycles, etc. Measures to increase travel with public transport are on the agenda in all three countries, i.e. accessible vehicles and increased accessibility to the interchanges. Also, often small amendments through the travel route could make difference, such as pavements without stairs and benches on the way to the bus stop. Furthermore, strategies and measures for improving public transport concern not only issues such as accessible vehicles, wind shelters and plain pavements at bus stops, but also frequency and routes in relation to the mobility needs of a new generation of older people. However, lack of information and knowledge about public transport services is often rife among older people, which results in them travelling less than they might have done or shying away completely from using public transport. Information campaigns could be synchronised consciously to meet older people\u92s travel trajectories. New ways of providing information using the latest technology could be found to meet the needs of older people. Actually, sometimes the problem is not lack of information but too much of it or the wrong kind
Gender-related contemporary challenges in the transport ecosystem and womenâs mobility needs: TInnGO (special session on "Women in Transport - EU Projects for Change")
TInnGO addresses contemporary challenges in employment, education and male-domination, through an intersectional analysis applied to examine inequality and privilege in transport and mobility. The European transport sector is marred by strong, persistent biases, which produce gender and other inequalities, permeating the sector whilst having wider repercussions in relation to quality of life, accessibility and inclusivity.The TInnGO project will create a framework and promote mechanisms for sustainable change in gender and diversity sensitive smart mobility through the development of a Pan European TInnGO observatory. This will lead, coordinate, and be fed by hubs across EU (UK, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Baltic states, Denmark/Sweden, Italy) providing leadership, innovation and critique of smart mobility innovations. The ambition is to become a template for further observatories monitoring and addressing barriers to womenâs mobility through gendered, culturally sensitive smart mobility innovations. This paper provides an overview of the concepts and initial results
Gender-related contemporary challenges in the transport ecosystem and womenâs mobility needs: TInnGO (special session on "Women in Transport - EU Projects for Change")
TInnGO addresses contemporary challenges in employment, education and male-domination, through an intersectional analysis applied to examine inequality and privilege in transport and mobility. The European transport sector is marred by strong, persistent biases, which produce gender and other inequalities, permeating the sector whilst having wider repercussions in relation to quality of life, accessibility and inclusivity.The TInnGO project will create a framework and promote mechanisms for sustainable change in gender and diversity sensitive smart mobility through the development of a Pan European TInnGO observatory. This will lead, coordinate, and be fed by hubs across EU (UK, France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Baltic states, Denmark/Sweden, Italy) providing leadership, innovation and critique of smart mobility innovations. The ambition is to become a template for further observatories monitoring and addressing barriers to womenâs mobility through gendered, culturally sensitive smart mobility innovations. This paper provides an overview of the concepts and initial results
Resilience, Climate Change and Adaptation
In Germany and other European countries, the sustainable development of cities and regions is steadily discussed in relation to the concept of resilience (BIRKMANN et al. 2013), especially with regard to the ongoing global climate change. Impacts on human and natural systems resulting from the worldwide climate change are less and less neglectable (IPCC 2014, 2-4). To reduce the vulnerability of biological systems, to protect communities and to strengthen the resilience of the economy, adaptation strategies were developed and set in place on several spatial levels (e.g. from a European perspective to regional approaches to urban adaptation strategies). The focus of adaptation strategies is on more planned and proactive means of adaptation, dealing with a reduction of vulnerability of ecological-social-economic systems to the impact of climate change (S MIT et al. 1999, 200-202). Of course, this adaptive perspective on cities and regions is also crucial for other policy fields, as the germinal question for cities is to what extent and by which strategies they can increase their resistance successfully - with regard to the ecological capacities of cities, to the backdrop of the financial scarcity of public budgets, to high refugee numbers searching for shelter in cities and so on
Coping with heat islands in the dense urban area of Athens, Greece â Five concepts and integrated needs of action
Global climate change creates new challenges for urban and regional development all over the world. Adapting to a changing climate requires dealing with multiple uncertainties and complexity in order to allow proactive action. Therefore, cities and regions around the globe face the challenge of exploring flexible and innovative forms of governance which have to address specific local vulnerabilities and build capacity to accommodate future change â the resilient city as planning goal
Characterization of Sulfur and Nanostructured Sulfur Battery Cathodes in Electron Microscopy Without Sublimation Artifacts
Lithium sulfur (Li-S) batteries have the potential to provide higher energy storage density at lower cost than conventional lithium ion batteries. A key challenge for Li-S batteries is the loss of sulfur to the electrolyte during cycling. This loss can be mitigated by sequestering the sulfur in nanostructured carbon-sulfur composites. The nanoscale characterization of the sulfur distribution within these complex nanostructured electrodes is normally performed by electron microscopy, but sulfur sublimates and redistributes in the high vacuum conditions of conventional electron microscopes. The resulting sublimation artifacts render characterization of sulfur in conventional electron microscopes problematic and unreliable. Here, we demonstrate two techniques, cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) and scanning electron microscopy in air (airSEM), that enable the reliable characterization of sulfur across multiple length scales by suppressing sulfur sublimation. We use cryo-TEM and airSEM to examine carbon-sulfur composites synthesized for use as Li-S battery cathodes, noting several cases where the commonly-employed sulfur melt infusion method is highly inefficient at infiltrating sulfur into porous carbon hosts
Late-stage Anle138b treatment ameliorates tau pathology and metabolic decline in a mouse model of human Alzheimer's disease tau
BackgroundAugmenting the brain clearance of toxic oligomers with small molecule modulators constitutes a promising therapeutic concept against tau deposition. However, there has been no test of this concept in animal models of Alzheimer's disease (AD) with initiation at a late disease stage. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of interventional late-stage Anle138b treatment, which previously indicated great potential to inhibit oligomer accumulation by binding of pathological aggregates, on the metabolic decline in transgenic mice with established tauopathy in a longitudinal F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) study.MethodsTwelve transgenic mice expressing all six human tau isoforms (hTau) and ten controls were imaged by FDG-PET at baseline (14.5months), followed by randomization into Anle138b treatment and vehicle groups for 3months. FDG-PET was repeated after treatment for 3months, and brains were analyzed by tau immunohistochemistry. Longitudinal changes of glucose metabolism were compared between study groups, and the end point tau load was correlated with individual FDG-PET findings.ResultsTau pathology was significantly ameliorated by late-stage Anle138b treatment when compared to vehicle (frontal cortex -53%, p<0.001;hippocampus -59%, p<0.005). FDG-PET revealed a reversal of metabolic decline during Anle138b treatment, whereas the vehicle group showed ongoing deterioration. End point glucose metabolism in the brain of hTau mice had a strong correlation with tau deposition measured by immunohistochemistry (R=0.92, p<0.001).ConclusionLate-stage oligomer modulation effectively ameliorated tau pathology in hTau mice and rescued metabolic function. Molecular imaging by FDG-PET can serve for monitoring effects of Anle138b treatment
Associations between sex, body mass index and the individual microglial response in Alzheimer's disease
Background and objectives18-kDa translocator protein position-emission-tomography (TSPO-PET) imaging emerged for in vivo assessment of neuroinflammation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) research. Sex and obesity effects on TSPO-PET binding have been reported for cognitively normal humans (CN), but such effects have not yet been systematically evaluated in patients with AD. Thus, we aimed to investigate the impact of sex and obesity on the relationship between beta-amyloid-accumulation and microglial activation in AD.Methods49 patients with AD (29 females, all A beta-positive) and 15 A beta-negative CN (8 female) underwent TSPO-PET ([18F]GE-180) and beta-amyloid-PET ([18F]flutemetamol) imaging. In 24 patients with AD (14 females), tau-PET ([18F]PI-2620) was additionally available. The brain was parcellated into 218 cortical regions and standardized-uptake-value-ratios (SUVr, cerebellar reference) were calculated. Per region and tracer, the regional increase of PET SUVr (z-score) was calculated for AD against CN. The regression derived linear effect of regional A beta-PET on TSPO-PET was used to determine the A beta-plaque-dependent microglial response (slope) and the A beta-plaque-independent microglial response (intercept) at the individual patient level. All read-outs were compared between sexes and tested for a moderation effect of sex on associations with body mass index (BMI).ResultsIn AD, females showed higher mean cortical TSPO-PET z-scores (0.91 +/- 0.49;males 0.30 +/- 0.75;p = 0.002), while A beta-PET z-scores were similar. The A beta-plaque-independent microglial response was stronger in females with AD (+ 0.37 +/- 0.38;males with AD - 0.33 +/- 0.87;p = 0.006), pronounced at the prodromal stage. On the contrary, the A beta-plaque-dependent microglial response was not different between sexes. The A beta-plaque-independent microglial response was significantly associated with tau-PET in females (Braak-II regions: r = 0.757, p = 0.003), but not in males. BMI and the A beta-plaque-independent microglial response were significantly associated in females (r = 0.44, p = 0.018) but not in males (BMI*sex interaction: F(3,52) = 3.077, p = 0.005).ConclusionWhile microglia response to fibrillar A beta is similar between sexes, women with AD show a stronger A beta-plaque-independent microglia response. This sex difference in A beta-independent microglial activation may be associated with tau accumulation. BMI is positively associated with the A beta-plaque-independent microglia response in females with AD but not in males, indicating that sex and obesity need to be considered when studying neuroinflammation in AD
Principles for transformative ocean governance
With a focus on oceans, we collaborated across ecological, social and legal disciplines to respond to the United Nations call for transformation in the â2030 Agenda for Sustainable Developmentâ. We developed a set of 13 principles that strategically and critically connect transformative ocean research to transformative ocean governance (complementing the UN Decade for Ocean Science). We used a rigorous, iterative and transparent consensus-building approach to define the principles, which can interact in supporting, neutral or sometimes conflicting ways. We recommend that the principles could be applied as a comprehensive set and discuss how to learn from their interactions, particularly those that reveal hidden tensions. The principles can bring and keep together partnerships for innovative ocean action. This action must respond to the many calls to reform current ocean-use practices which are based on economic growth models that have perpetuated inequities and fuelled conflict and environmental decline
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