Painting the ideal home: using art to express visions of technologically supported independent living for older people in North East England

This paper describes the investigation of the development of future technological products to support older people in everyday living through the agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design approaches to gather technology requirements data from older people. Here, a project is described that sought to get a group of older people to think creatively about their needs and desires for technological support through the medium of paint. The artistic expression technique described in this article allowed the identification of issues that had also been found by previous research that used a range of different techniques. This indicates that the approach shows promise, as it allows information to be gathered in an environment that is comfortable and familiar using methods already known by the participants and which they find enjoyable. It provides a complement (or possible alternative) to standard protocols and has the potential benefit of extracting even richer information as the primary task for participants is enjoyable in its own right and is not associated with an interrogative process. Furthermore, it is argued that some of the key risks of traditional approaches are lessened or removed by the naturalistic setting of this approach

Workplace bullying and violence as risk factors for type 2 diabetes : a multicohort study and meta-analysis

The aim of this multicohort study was to examine whether employees exposed to social stressors at work, such as workplace bullying and violence, have an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. The study included 45,905 men and women (40-65 years of age and free of diabetes at baseline) from four studies in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Workplace bullying and violence were self-reported at baseline. Incident diabetes was ascertained through national health and medication records and death registers. Marginal structural Cox models adjusted for age, sex, country of birth, marital status and educational level were used for the analyses. Nine per cent of the population reported being bullied at work and 12% were exposed to workplace violence or threats of violence. Bullied participants had a 1.46 (95% CI 1.23, 1.74) times higher risk of developing diabetes compared with non-bullied participants. Exposure to violence or threats of violence was also associated with a higher risk of diabetes (HR 1.26 [95% CI 1.02, 1.56]). The risk estimates attenuated slightly when taking BMI into account, especially for bullying. The results were similar for men and women, and were consistent across cohorts. We found a higher risk of incident type 2 diabetes among employees exposed to bullying or violence in the workplace. Further research is needed to determine whether policies to reduce bullying and violence at work may reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes in working populations. Research on the mechanisms is also highly warranted.Peer reviewe

Chemoenzymatic Probes for Detecting and Imaging Fucose-α(1-2)-galactose Glycan Biomarkers

The disaccharide motif fucose-α(1-2)-galactose (Fucα(1-2)Gal) is involved in many important physiological processes, such as learning and memory, inflammation, asthma, and tumorigenesis. However, the size and structural complexity of Fucα(1-2)Gal-containing glycans have posed a significant challenge to their detection. We report a new chemoenzymatic strategy for the rapid, sensitive detection of Fucα(1-2)Gal glycans. We demonstrate that the approach is highly selective for the Fucα(1-2)Gal motif, detects a variety of complex glycans and glycoproteins, and can be used to profile the relative abundance of the motif on live cells, discriminating malignant from normal cells. This approach represents a new potential strategy for biomarker detection and expands the technologies available for understanding the roles of this important class of carbohydrates in physiology and disease

Work stress and loss of years lived without chronic disease : an 18-year follow-up of 1.5 million employees in Denmark

We aimed to examine the association between exposure to work stress and chronic disease incidence and loss of chronic disease-free life years in the Danish workforce. The study population included 1,592,491 employees, aged 30-59 in 2000 and without prevalent chronic diseases. We assessed work stress as the combination of job strain and effort-reward imbalance using job exposure matrices. We used Cox regressions to estimate risk of incident hospital-diagnoses or death of chronic diseases (i.e., type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart failure, and dementia) during 18 years of follow-up and calculated corresponding chronic disease-free life expectancy from age 30 to age 75. Individuals working in occupations with high prevalence of work stress had a higher risk of incident chronic disease compared to those in occupations with low prevalence of work stress (women: HR 1.04 (95% CI 1.02-1.05), men: HR 1.12 (95% CI 1.11-1.14)). The corresponding loss in chronic disease-free life expectancy was 0.25 (95% CI - 0.10 to 0.60) and 0.84 (95% CI 0.56-1.11) years in women and men, respectively. Additional adjustment for health behaviours attenuated these associations among men. We conclude that men working in high-stress occupations have a small loss of years lived without chronic disease compared to men working in low-stress occupations. This finding appeared to be partially attributable to harmful health behaviours. In women, high work stress indicated a very small and statistically non-significant loss of years lived without chronic disease.Peer reviewe

Escherichia coli O157 Infection and Secondary Spread, Scotland, 1999–2008

To determine the proportion of Escherichia coli O157 cases in Scotland attributable to secondary spread, we analyzed data obtained through entire-population enhanced surveillance. We identified 11% of cases as secondary. Secondary cases in single households were younger than secondary cases in outbreaks affecting >1 household and had similar risk for hemolytic uremic syndrome

Block of death-receptor apoptosis protects mouse cytomegalovirus from macrophages and is a determinant of virulence in immunodeficient hosts.

The inhibition of death-receptor apoptosis is a conserved viral function. The murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) gene M36 is a sequence and functional homologue of the human cytomegalovirus gene UL36, and it encodes an inhibitor of apoptosis that binds to caspase-8, blocks downstream signaling and thus contributes to viral fitness in macrophages and in vivo. Here we show a direct link between the inability of mutants lacking the M36 gene (ΔM36) to inhibit apoptosis, poor viral growth in macrophage cell cultures and viral in vivo fitness and virulence. ΔM36 grew poorly in RAG1 knockout mice and in RAG/IL-2-receptor common gamma chain double knockout mice (RAGγC(-/-)), but the depletion of macrophages in either mouse strain rescued the growth of ΔM36 to almost wild-type levels. This was consistent with the observation that activated macrophages were sufficient to impair ΔM36 growth in vitro. Namely, spiking fibroblast cell cultures with activated macrophages had a suppressive effect on ΔM36 growth, which could be reverted by z-VAD-fmk, a chemical apoptosis inhibitor. TNFα from activated macrophages synergized with IFNγ in target cells to inhibit ΔM36 growth. Hence, our data show that poor ΔM36 growth in macrophages does not reflect a defect in tropism, but rather a defect in the suppression of antiviral mediators secreted by macrophages. To the best of our knowledge, this shows for the first time an immune evasion mechanism that protects MCMV selectively from the antiviral activity of macrophages, and thus critically contributes to viral pathogenicity in the immunocompromised host devoid of the adaptive immune system

Workplace bullying and workplace violence as risk factors for cardiovascular disease : a multi-cohort study

Aims To assess the associations between bullying and violence at work and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Methods and results Participants were 79201 working men and women, aged 18-65years and free of CVD and were sourced from three cohort studies from Sweden and Denmark. Exposure to workplace bullying and violence was measured at baseline using self-reports. Participants were linked to nationwide health and death registers to ascertain incident CVD, including coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease. Study-specific results were estimated by marginal structural Cox regression and were combined using fixed-effect meta-analysis. Nine percent reported being bullied at work and 13% recorded exposure to workplace violence during the past year. We recorded 3229 incident CVD cases with a mean follow-up of 12.4years (765 in the first 4years). After adjustment for age, sex, country of birth, marital status, and educational level, being bullied at work vs. not was associated with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.59 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.28-1.98] for CVD. Experiencing workplace violence vs. not was associated with a HR of 1.25 (95% CI 1.12-1.40) for CVD. The population attributable risk was 5.0% for workplace bullying and 3.1% for workplace violence. The excess risk remained similar in analyses with different follow-up lengths, cardiovascular risk stratifications, and after additional adjustments. Dose-response relations were observed for both workplace bullying and violence (P-trend <0.001). There was only negligible heterogeneity in study-specific estimates. Conclusion Bullying and violence are common at workplaces and those exposed to these stressors are at higher risk of CVD.Peer reviewe

Effort-reward imbalance at work and risk of type 2 diabetes in a national sample of 50,552 workers in Denmark : A prospective study linking survey and register data

Objective: To examine the prospective relation between effort-reward imbalance at work and risk of type 2 diabetes. Methods: We included 50,552 individuals from a national survey of the working population in Denmark, aged 30-64 years and diabetes-free at baseline. Effort-reward imbalance was defined, in accordance with the literature, as a mismatch between high efforts at work (e.g. high work pace, time pressure), and low rewards received in return (e.g. low recognition, job insecurity) and assessed as a continuous and a categorical variable. Incident type 2 diabetes was identified in national health registers. Using Cox regression we calculated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for estimating the association between effort-reward imbalance at baseline and risk of onset of type 2 diabetes during follow-up, adjusted for sex, age, socioeconomic status, cohabitation, children at home, migration background, survey year and sample method. Results: During 136,239 person-years of follow-up (mean = 2.7 years) we identified 347 type 2 diabetes cases (25.5 cases per 10,000 person-years). For each one standard deviation increase of the effort-reward imbalance score at baseline, the fully adjusted risk of type 2 diabetes during follow-up increased by 9% (HR: 1.09, 95% CI: 0.98-1.21). When we used effort-reward imbalance as a dichotomous variable, exposure to effort-reward imbalance was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes with a HR of 1.27 (95% CI: 1.02-1.58). Conclusion The results of this nationwide study of the Danish workforce suggest that effort-reward imbalance at work may be a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.Peer reviewe

Agreeing Language in Veterinary Endocrinology (ALIVE): Diabetes mellitus - a modified Delphi-method-based system to create consensus disease definitions

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