1,135 research outputs found
Psychosocial Characteristics and Obstetric Health of Women Attending a Specialist Substance Use Antenatal Clinic in a Large Metropolitan Hospital
Objective. This paper reports the findings comparing the obstetrical health, antenatal care, and psychosocial characteristics of pregnant women with a known history of substance dependence (n = 41) and a comparison group of pregnant women attending a general antenatal clinic (n = 47). Method. Face-to-face interviews were used to assess obstetrical health, antenatal care, physical and mental functioning, substance use, and exposure to violence. Results. The substance-dependent group had more difficulty accessing antenatal care and reported more obstetrical health complications during pregnancy. Women in the substance-dependent group were more likely to report not wanting to become pregnant and were less likely to report using birth control at the time of conception. Conclusions. The profile of pregnant women (in specialised antenatal care for substance dependence) is one of severe disadvantage and poor health. The challenge is to develop and resource innovative and effective multisectoral systems to educate women and provide effective care for both women and infants
Remaining useful life estimation using Long Short-term Memory (LSTM) neural networks and deep fusion
Exponential Divergence and Long Time Relaxation in Chaotic Quantum Dynamics
Phase space representations of the dynamics of the quantal and classical cat
map are used to explore quantum--classical correspondence in a K-system: as
, the classical chaotic behavior is shown to emerge smoothly and
exactly. The quantum dynamics near the classical limit displays both
exponential separation of adjacent distributions and long time relaxation, two
characteristic features of classical chaotic motion.Comment: 10 pages, ReVTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett. 13 figures NOT
included. Available either as LARGE (uuencoded gzipped) postscript files or
hard-copies from [email protected]
Regulation of human renal adenocarcinoma cell growth by retinoic acid and its interactions with epidermal growth factor
Regulation of human renal adenocarcinoma cell growth by retinoic acid and its interactions with epidermal growth factor. Retinoic acid (RA) is a natural derivative of vitamin A which regulates the growth and differentiation of epithelia. We have previously proposed that RA participates in compensatory kidney growth and reported that RA inhibits rat mesangial cell growth. This paper describes the effects of RA on a human renal adenocarcinoma cell line (PAD) under different growth conditions, and its interactions with epidermal growth factor (EGF). PAD cells were shown to express RA receptors α and β by Northern blot analysis. In serum free cultures, addition of RA (10-7 M) markedly increased thymidine incorporation by PAD cells (155 ± 7% mean ± se vs. control in 6 separate experiments; P < 0.0001). RA also caused a significant increase in thymidine incorporation by PAD cells under conditions of rapid growth in serum supplemented medium (115 ± 2% vs. control; P < 0.001). RA by itself was unable to reverse contact inhibition of PAD cell growth (NS vs. control), but it synergistically enhanced the mitogenic effect of EGF on confluent monolayers (110 ± 0.6% vs. EGF alone; P < 0.05). Northern blot analysis demonstrated that PAD cells express EGF receptor mRNA, and this was not significantly modified by the addition of RA. Growth arrested (serum starved) PAD cells expressed RAR-α mRNA which was up-regulated eightfold at three hours following the addition of 10% FCS. Thus, our data show that RA is directly mitogenic for serum starved human renal adenocarcinoma cells and that it exerts complex modulation of cell growth in the presence of EGF and serum components
PEER Testbed Study on a Laboratory Building: Exercising Seismic Performance Assessment
From 2002 to 2004 (years five and six of a ten-year funding cycle), the PEER Center organized
the majority of its research around six testbeds. Two buildings and two bridges, a campus, and a
transportation network were selected as case studies to “exercise” the PEER performance-based
earthquake engineering methodology. All projects involved interdisciplinary teams of
researchers, each producing data to be used by other colleagues in their research. The testbeds
demonstrated that it is possible to create the data necessary to populate the PEER performancebased framing equation, linking the hazard analysis, the structural analysis, the development of
damage measures, loss analysis, and decision variables.
This report describes one of the building testbeds—the UC Science Building. The project
was chosen to focus attention on the consequences of losses of laboratory contents, particularly
downtime. The UC Science testbed evaluated the earthquake hazard and the structural
performance of a well-designed recently built reinforced concrete laboratory building using the
OpenSees platform. Researchers conducted shake table tests on samples of critical laboratory
contents in order to develop fragility curves used to analyze the probability of losses based on
equipment failure. The UC Science testbed undertook an extreme case in performance
assessment—linking performance of contents to operational failure. The research shows the
interdependence of building structure, systems, and contents in performance assessment, and
highlights where further research is needed.
The Executive Summary provides a short description of the overall testbed research
program, while the main body of the report includes summary chapters from individual
researchers. More extensive research reports are cited in the reference section of each chapter
Choosing Healthcare Options by Involving Canada's Elderly: a protocol for the CHOICE realist synthesis project on engaging older persons in healthcare decision-making
Introduction: While patient and citizen engagement has been recognised as a crucial element in healthcare reform, limited attention has been paid to how best to engage seniors-the fastest growing segment of the population and the largest users of the healthcare system. To improve the healthcare services for this population, seniors and their families need to be engaged as active partners in healthcare decision-making, research and planning. This synthesis aims to understand the underlying context and mechanisms needed to achieve meaningful engagement of older adults in healthcare decision-making, research and planning. Methods and analysis: The CHOICE Knowledge Synthesis Project: Choosing Healthcare Options by Involving Canada's Elderly aims to address this issue by synthesising current knowledge on patient, family, and caregiver engagement. A realist synthesis will support us to learn from other patient and citizen engagement initiatives, from previous research, and from seniors, families and caregivers themselves. The synthesis will guide development or adaptation of a framework, leading to the development of best practice guidelines and recommendations for engagement of older people and their families and caregivers in clinical decision-making, healthcare delivery, planning and research. Ethics and dissemination: The components of this protocol involving consultation with patients or caregivers have received ethics clearance from the University of Waterloo, Office of Research Ethics (ORE# 19094). After completion of the project, we will amalgamate the information collected into a knowledge synthesis report which will include best practice guidelines and recommendations for patient, family and caregiver engagement in clinical and health system planning and research contexts. Results: Will be further disseminated to citizens, clinicians, researchers and policymakers with the help of our partners.Technology Evaluation in the Elderly Network (TVN, grant # KS2013-08), which is funded by the Government of Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) Progra
Designing assisted living technologies 'in the wild' : preliminary experiences with cultural probe methodology
Background
There is growing interest in assisted living technologies to support independence at home. Such technologies should ideally be designed ‘in the wild’ i.e. taking account of how real people live in real homes and communities. The ATHENE (Assistive Technologies for Healthy Living in Elders: Needs Assessment by Ethnography) project seeks to illuminate the living needs of older people and facilitate the co-production with older people of technologies and services. This paper describes the development of a cultural probe tool produced as part of the ATHENE project and how it was used to support home visit interviews with elders with a range of ethnic and social backgrounds, family circumstances, health conditions and assisted living needs.
Method
Thirty one people aged 60 to 98 were visited in their homes on three occasions. Following an initial interview, participants were given a set of cultural probe materials, including a digital camera and the ‘Home and Life Scrapbook’ to complete in their own time for one week. Activities within the Home and Life Scrapbook included maps (indicating their relationships to people, places and objects), lists (e.g. likes, dislikes, things they were concerned about, things they were comfortable with), wishes (things they wanted to change or improve), body outline (indicating symptoms or impairments), home plan (room layouts of their homes to indicate spaces and objects used) and a diary. After one week, the researcher and participant reviewed any digital photos taken and the content of the Home and Life Scrapbook as part of the home visit interview.
Findings
The cultural probe facilitated collection of visual, narrative and material data by older people, and appeared to generate high levels of engagement from some participants. However, others used the probe minimally or not at all for various reasons including limited literacy, physical problems (e.g. holding a pen), lack of time or energy, limited emotional or psychological resources, life events, and acute illness. Discussions between researchers and participants about the materials collected (and sometimes about what had prevented them completing the tasks) helped elicit further information relevant to assisted living technology design. The probe materials were particularly helpful when having conversations with non-English speaking participants through an interpreter.
Conclusions
Cultural probe methods can help build a rich picture of the lives and experiences of older people to facilitate the co-production of assisted living technologies. But their application may be constrained by the participant’s physical, mental and emotional capacity. They are most effective when used as a tool to facilitate communication and development of a deeper understanding of older people’s needs
Efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination in individuals designated as clinically extremely vulnerable in Scotland [version 1; peer review: 1 approved with reservations, 1 not approved]
Water at an electrochemical interface - a simulation study
The results of molecular dynamics simulations of the properties of water in
an aqueous ionic solution close to an interface with a model metallic electrode
are described. In the simulations the electrode behaves as an ideally
polarizable hydrophilic metal, supporting image charge interactions with
charged species, and it is maintained at a constant electrical potential with
respect to the solution so that the model is a textbook representation of an
electrochemical interface through which no current is passing. We show how
water is strongly attracted to and ordered at the electrode surface. This
ordering is different to the structure that might be imagined from continuum
models of electrode interfaces. Further, this ordering significantly affects
the probability of ions reaching the surface. We describe the concomitant
motion and configurations of the water and ions as functions of the electrode
potential, and we analyze the length scales over which ionic atmospheres
fluctuate. The statistics of these fluctuations depend upon surface structure
and ionic strength. The fluctuations are large, sufficiently so that the mean
ionic atmosphere is a poor descriptor of the aqueous environment near a metal
surface. The importance of this finding for a description of electrochemical
reactions is examined by calculating, directly from the simulation, Marcus free
energy profiles for transfer of charge between the electrode and a redox
species in the solution and comparing the results with the predictions of
continuum theories. Significant departures from the electrochemical textbook
descriptions of the phenomenon are found and their physical origins are
characterized from the atomistic perspective of the simulations.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figure
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