Bifactor model of the CASP-12’s general factor for measuring quality of life in older patients

ISSN:2509-802

Evolutionary growth for Space Station Freedom electrical power system

Over an operational lifetime of at least 30 yr, Space Station Freedom will encounter increased space station user requirements and advancing technologies. The space station electrical power system is designed with the flexibility to accommodate these emerging technologies and expert systems and is being designed with the necessary software hooks and hardware scars to accommodate increased growth demand. The electrical power system is planned to grow from the initial 75 kW up to 300 kW. The Phase 1 station will utilize photovoltaic arrays to produce the electrical power; however, for growth to 300 kW, solar dynamic power modules will be utilized. Pairs of 25 kW solar dynamic power modules will be added to the station to reach the power growth level. The addition of solar dynamic power in the growth phase places constraints in the initial space station systems such as guidance navigation and control, external thermal, truss structural stiffness, computational capabilities and storage which must be planned-in in order to facilitate the addition of the solar dynamic modules

Electronic health literacy in Swiss-German parents : cross-sectional study of eHealth literacy scale unidimensionality

Parents often use digital media to search for information related to their children's health. As the quantity and quality of digital sources meant specifically for parents expand, parents' digital health literacy is increasingly important to process the information they retrieve. One of the earliest developed and widely used instruments to assess digital health literacy is the self-reported eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS). However, the eHEALS has not been psychometrically validated in a sample of parents. Given the inconsistency of the eHEALS underlying factor structure across previous reports, it is particularly important for validation to occur

Learning organizational ambidexterity : a joint-variance synthesis of exploration-exploitation modes on performance

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reexamine exploration-exploitation’s reciprocality in organizational ambidexterity (OA) research. OA figures prominently in a variety of organization science phenomena. Introduced as a two-stage model for innovation, theory specifies reciprocal reinforcement between the OA processes of exploration (eR) and exploitation (eT). In this study, the authors argue that previous analyses of OA necessarily neglect this reciprocality in favor of conceptualizations that conform to common statistical techniques. Design/Methodology/approach: The authors propose joint-variance (JV) as a soluble estimator of exploration–exploitation (eR-eT) reciprocality. An updated systematic literature synthesis yielded K = 50 studies (53 independent samples, N = 11,743) for further testing. Findings: Three primary findings are as follows: JV reduced negative confounding, explaining 45 per cent of between-study variance. JV quantified the positive confounding in separate meta-analytic estimates of eR and eT on performance because of double-counting (37.6 per cent), and substantive application of JV to hypothesis testing supported OA theoretical predictions. Research limitations/implications: The authors discuss practical consideration for eR-eT reciprocality, as well as theoretical contributions for cohering the OA empirical literature. Practical implications: The authors discuss design limitations and JV measurement extensions for the future. Social implications: Learning in OA literature has been neglected or underestimated. Originality/value: Because reciprocality is theorized, yet absent in current models, existing results represent confounded or biased evidence of the OA’s effect on firm performance. Subsequently, the authors propose JV as a soluble estimator of eR-eT learning modes

Crop Insurance Purchase Decisions: A Study of Northern Illinois Farmers

When selecting crop insurance coverage, farmers must consider multiple factors. The importance associated with factors that are considered when making crop insurance decisions varies among individual farmers. As available crop insurance options increase, selecting the appropriate coverage becomes a more complicated process. The prevalence of crop insurance participation and the existence of multiple selection criteria also makes understanding participant decisions more difficult. This paper provides findings of a mail survey conducted among farmers in northern Illinois. Mainly, this paper examines factors influencing farmers’ crop insurance purchase decisions, types of coverage purchased, and farmers’ risk attitudes.Crop Production/Industries,

The relationship of circulating fibroblast growth factor 21 levels with pericardial fat: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

Previous small studies have reported an association between circulating fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) levels and pericardial fat volume in post-menopausal women and high cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk patients. In this study, we investigated the relationship of FGF21 levels with pericardial fat volume in participants free of clinical CVD at baseline. We analysed data from 5765 men and women from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) with both pericardial fat volume and plasma FGF21 levels measured at baseline. 4746 participants had pericardial fat volume measured in at least one follow-up exam. After adjusting for confounding factors, ln-transformed FGF21 levels were positively associated with pericardial fat volume at baseline (β = 0.055, p < 0.001). When assessing change in pericardial fat volume over a mean duration of 3.0 years using a linear mixed-effects model, higher baseline FGF21 levels were associated with higher pericardial fat volume at baseline (2.381 cm3 larger in pericardial fat volume per one SD increase in ln-transformed FGF21 levels), but less pericardial fat accumulation over time (0.191 cm3/year lower per one SD increase in ln-transformed FGF21 levels). Cross-sectionally, higher plasma FGF21 levels were significantly associated with higher pericardial fat volume, independent of traditional CVD risk factors and inflammatory markers. However, higher FGF21 levels tended to be associated with less pericardial fat accumulation over time. Nevertheless, such change in pericardial fat volume is very modest and could be due to measurement error. Further studies are needed to elucidate the longitudinal relationship of baseline FGF21 levels with pericardial fat accumulation

Clinical Perspectives in Integrating Whole Genome Sequencing into the Investigation of Healthcare and Public Health Outbreaks - Hype or Help?

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology analyses were supported by the University of St Andrews Bioinformatics Unit which is funded by a Wellcome Trust ISSF award [grant 097831/Z/11/Z]. The SHAIPI consortium is funded by the Chief Scientist Office through the Scottish Infection Research Network (SIRN10).Outbreaks pose a significant patient safety risk as well as being costly and time consuming to investigate. The implementation of targeted infection prevention and control (IPC) measures relies on infection prevention and control teams (IPCTs) having access to rapid results that accurately detect resistance, and typing results that give clinically useful information on the relatedness of isolates. At present, determining whether transmission has occurred can be a major challenge. Conventional typing results do not always have sufficient granularity or robustness to unequivocally define strains, and sufficient epidemiological data to establish links between patients and the environment is not always available. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) has emerged as the ultimate genotyping tool, but has not yet fully crossed the divide between research method and routine clinical diagnostic microbiology technique. A clinical WGS service was officially established in 2014 as part of the Scottish Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention Institute (SHAIPI) to confirm or refute outbreaks in hospital settings from across Scotland. In this personal view we describe our experiences that we believe provide new insights into the practical application of the use of WGS to investigate healthcare and public health outbreaks. We also propose solutions to overcome barriers to implementation of this technology in a clinical environment.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe