Night-time activity forecast by season and weather in a longitudinal design:natural light effects on three years' rest-activity cycles in nursing home residents with dementia

Backround: Night-time agitation is a frequent symptom of dementia. It often causes nursing home admission and has been linked to circadian rhythm disturbances. A positive influence of light interventions on night-time agitation was shown in several studies. The aim of our study was to investigate whether there is a long-term association between regional weather data (as indicator for daylight availability) and 24-hour variations of motor activity. Methods: Motor activity of 20 elderly nursing home residents living with dementia was analyzed using recordings of continuously worn wrist activity monitors over a three-year period. The average recording duration was 479 206 days per participant (mean SD). Regional cloud amount and day length data from the local weather station (latitude: 52 degrees 56N) were included in the analysis to investigate their effects on several activity variables. Results: Nocturnal rest, here defined as the five consecutive hours with the least motor activity during 24 hours (L5), was the most predictable activity variable per participant. There was a significant interaction of night-time activity with day length and cloud amount (F-1,F-1174 = 4.39; p = 0.036). Night-time activity was higher on cloudy short days than on clear short days (p = 0.007), and it was also higher on cloudy short days than on cloudy long days (p = 0.032). Conclusions: The need for sufficient zeitgeber (time cue) strength during winter time, especially when days are short and skies are cloudy, is crucial for elderly people living with dementia. Activity forecast by season and weather might be a valuable approach to anticipate adequately complementary use of electrical light and thereby foster lower night-time activity

A new device for dynamic luminance mapping and glare risk assessment in buildings

High dynamic range imaging has been shown to be a reliable tool to assess luminance maps and glare risk probability in buildings. However, there are some limitations of image capturing time, especially when dealing with highly dynamic and contrasted daylight situations. We used a newly developed prototype of a digital camera which contains a high dynamic range pixel array chip, with a logarithmic scale for encoding. This type of camera allows to effectively assessing luminance, contrast and contrast directions, by taking only a single image or by performing real time recordings. The device was equipped with a fisheye lens and V-lambda filters to adapt the camera's spectral sensitivity to the human eye. After spectral as well as photometric calibration and vignetting correction, the device was tested to perform luminance mapping of real scenes. The results showed that luminance maps of a room can be efficiently assessed under dynamic daylight and mixed day- and electric lighting conditions in a very short time (i.e. 100 ms), when compared to classical HDR imaging techniques. This allows us to calculate glare indexes of a scene simultaneously. The camera opens a variety of new applications as a useful tool for architects, building designers and lighting experts. The device can be used to easily monitor daylight availability and glare indexes in existing buildings and further developments for advanced (day-) lighting control can be envisaged

Pollinator-induced twisting of flowers sidesteps floral architecture constraints Reply

SummaryIn their paper on the influence of the moon on sleep, Cordi et al. [1] have analyzed a large number of subjects and found no significant effects, as opposed to our positive study findings with a smaller cohort [2]. More is not necessarily better. There are two main reasons why we think the comparison of these two data sets is not just comparing a small with a big sample size, since increasing the number of study volunteers in a sleep study does not automatically increase data quality