El entorno para el cuidado de personas con demencia

Populations in many countries are ageing at a rapid pace which is expected to rise over the coming years. Health and social care provision and infrastructure need to respond to the ageing population and its related conditions such as dementia. The healthcare built environment can impact on people with dementia and the care pathway is highly relevant to quality of life, patients, residents, family, staff and carers. Evidence-based design solutions and best practice can help to improve the quality of life and deliver value for money during a period of rapid change where long term solutions relating to the healthcare environment are requrired. Research and pilot studies can help to demonstrate the benefits of evidence-based design and best practice for integrated care delivery. This paper explores the current trend and future oportunities to deliver dementia-friendly environments and integrated care through gathering of evidence, development of best practice guidance and integration of care delivery

Integration of resilience and sustainability: from theory to application

Purpose – This study aims to explore the challenges associated with the integration of resilience and sustainability, and propose a workable solution that ensures resilient and sustainable buildings. Recent research outcomes suggest that the number of natural hazards, both environmental and geophysical, will increase due to the effect of global warming. Various approaches have been investigated to reduce environmental degradation and to improve the physical resilience to natural hazards. However, most of these approaches are fragmented and when combined with cultural barriers, they often result into less-efficient assessment tools. Design/methodology/approach – The primary source of information used to develop this paper has been research publications, policy papers, reports and tool guidelines. A set of questions were developed to guide the review which was complemented with information distilled from the HFA 2005-2015 to develop an integration process to evaluate 10 international sustainability appraisal tools. Findings – The major finding of this research is that, from a technical point of view, resilience and sustainability could be integrated. However, it requires a long and thorough process with a multidisciplinary stakeholder team including technical, strategic, social and political parties. A combination of incentives and policies would support this process and help people work towards the integration. The Japanese model demonstrates a successful case in engaging stakeholders in the process which led to the development of a comprehensive appraisal tool, CASBEE®, where resilience and sustainability are integrated. Practical implications – Although data have been sought through literature review (i.e. secondary data), the research is expected to have significant impact, as it provides a clear theoretical foundation and methods for those wishing to integrate resilience within current sustainability appraisal tools or develop new tools. Social implications – This paper provides original concepts that are required to reduce fragmentation in the way resilience and sustainability are addressed. It sets up a new research agenda which has the potential to have a strong impact due the fact that sustainability and resilience are getting higher on the political priority scale. Originality/value – This paper provides findings of an original idea to reduce fragmentation in the way resilience and sustainability are addressed. It sets up a new research agenda which has the potential to have a strong impact due the fact that sustainability and resilience are getting higher on the political priority scale

Application of high-resolution beamforming to multibeam swath bathymetry

n the context of swath bathymetry with multibeam echo-sounders, seafloor echoes received at regularly spaced elements of a hydrophone array are summed coherently to form a number of directional beams from which athwartships depth measurements are derived. This process can be implemented as a conventional beamformer leading to estimates of the direction of arrival of the echoes for each time sample. The process is inadequate in resolving closely spaced synchronous returns and the accuracy of these estimates is proportional to the number of acoustic data samples used in the process. To improve the angular resolution we have considered a number of high-resolution algorithms well known in power spectral estimation applications: autoregressive techniques (i.e. Yule-Walker , and unconstrained least squares), minimum variance methods (i.e. Capon\u27s method), and eigenanalysis algorithms (i.e. MUSIC). Comparisous of results obtained with realistic multibeam sonar siinulations show that these algorithms have higher accuracy and better potential for high-resolution bathymetry thau the conventional beamformer under nominal SNR levels

Design for people living with dementia

This research paper targets one of the most prominent design challenges in our society today: how the built environment can respond to the increasing numbers of people living with dementia, which is a progressive condition for which there is currently no cure. People live with dementia in their own home, care homes and other residential settings; they also frequently need access to community settings and services including health care infrastructures, day centres and local communities, many of which are not dementia-friendly. However, available evidence and appropriate stakeholder consultation can improve understanding of the needs of people living with dementia and how to better design the built environment to make them more dementia-friendly

Rationales and practices for dynamic stakeholder engagement and disengagement. Evidence from dementia-friendly health and social care environments

Latest developments in stakeholder management literature focus on dynamic stakeholder engagement and disengagement practices, and how these are facilitated towards reaching systemic outcomes. However, limited evidence support that this network-level approach can positively influence project success. The paper analyses this issue by considering the practices (how and when), rationales (why) and outcomes (so what) that evolve in the dynamic management of external stakeholders in dementia-friendly environments. This is a crucial area to explore as the ageing population and rising dementia prevalence has increased the need to engage external stakeholders, such as people living with dementia, to develop dementia-friendly health and social environments. The empirical study of the 2013/14 Department of Health National Dementia Capital Investment Programme involved a statistical and qualitative analysis of 98 pilot projects’ final lessons learnt reports. The analysis advances the dynamic process of timely engaging and disengaging external stakeholders in a context not previously explored in the literature related to dementia-friendly environments. Eight recurring practices and six rationales, the latter characterised by their temporal dimension, are presented in a processual model of stakeholder management

First Results From a Deep Tow Multibeam Echo-Sounder*

A new digital tow fish capable of operations to 6 km depth has been outfitted with a 100 kHz mutlibeam echo-sounder designed to map a. 60’ swath of seafloor at altitudes ranging from 20 to 700 m above the bottom. The system has been successfully tested in 1500 m of water offshore San Diego. Preliminary results of data analyses indicate that the system has a horizontal spatial resolution of about 1% of the tow fish altitude in the cross-track dimension and a depth resolution of better than 0.3% of altitude with the current implementation of the bottom detect ion algorithm