Energy and protein intake, anthropometrics, disease burden and 1-year mortality in elderly home-care receivers living in Germany

The demographic structure in Germany has changed remarkably within the last decades. The number of old and very old people rises steadily and subsequently the number of elderly home-care receivers. Quality of life of this population group is decisively dependent upon their health status and, thus, also upon their nutritional status. Current data from studies with nursing home residents and geriatric patients revealed a high risk of underweight that correlates with a high risk of morbidity and mortality. However, to date corresponding data about the situation of elderly home-care receivers living in Germany is lacking. Therefore, the first aim of this thesis was to capture the nutritional and health status of elderly home-care receivers living in Germany and to identify negative associations between nutritional status and individual disease burden. The cross-sectional study (funded by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, BMELV) investigated the nutritional and health status of 353 elderly home-care receivers in the age of 65 years and above in three urban areas of Germany (Bonn, Nuremberg, Paderborn). Energy and protein intake were monitored by a three-day prospective nutrition diary, the nutritional status was assessed by BMI, mid upper arm and calf circumference measured by researchers. Medical conditions were assessed in personal interviews. Participants reported an average of 5 chronic diseases, while one third was suffering from dementia. Further, over one third complained about a moderate (30%) or a poor (7%) appetite. More than half (52%) suffered from chewing problems and almost one third (28%) from swallowing problems. Daily mean energy intake was 2017 kcal in men and 1731 kcal in women and mean protein intake amounted to 1.0 g/kg body weight for both male and female participants. Mean BMI was 28.2±6.2kg/m2, 4% of seniors had a BMI of 2. Critical mid upper arm circumference ( To date, the relation between BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults has been inconclusive and no study has investigated this interrelation for a German population of elderly home-care receivers. Second aim of the present thesis was to investigate the relationship between BMI and 1-year mortality in the aforementioned study population. Mean BMI of elderly people that deceased within one year was 25.4±4.4 kg/m2 which was significantly lower than that of survivors (28.7±6.4 kg/m2). BMI values 2 at study entry were associated with highest mortality risk (one year mortality rates for BMI 30 were 39%, 17% and 9%, respectively)

Long-term Conversation Analysis: Exploring Utility and Privacy

The analysis of conversations recorded in everyday life requires privacy protection. In this contribution, we explore a privacy-preserving feature extraction method based on input feature dimension reduction, spectral smoothing and the low-cost speaker anonymization technique based on McAdams coefficient. We assess the utility of the feature extraction methods with a voice activity detection and a speaker diarization system, while privacy protection is determined with a speech recognition and a speaker verification model. We show that the combination of McAdams coefficient and spectral smoothing maintains the utility while improving privacy.Comment: Submitted to ITG Conference on Speech Communication, 202

Thermal receptivity of free convective flow from a heated vertical surface: linear waves

Numerical techniques are used to study the receptivity to small-amplitude thermal disturbances of the boundary layer flow of air which is induced by a heated vertical flat plate. The fully elliptic nonlinear, time-dependent Navier–Stokes and energy equations are first solved to determine the steady state boundary-layer flow, while a linearised version of the same code is used to determine the stability characteristics. In particular we investigate (i) the ultimate fate of a localised thermal disturbance placed in the region near the leading edge and (ii) the effect of small-scale surface temperature oscillations as means of understanding the stability characteristics of the boundary layer. We show that there is a favoured frequency of excitation for the time-periodic disturbance which maximises the local response in terms of the local rate of heat transfer. However the magnitude of the favoured frequency depends on precisely how far from the leading edge the local response is measured. We also find that the instability is advective in nature and that the response of the boundary layer consists of a starting transient which eventually leaves the computational domain, leaving behind the large-time time-periodic asymptotic state. Our detailed numerical results are compared with those obtained using parallel flow theory

Boundary layer structure in turbulent thermal convection and its consequences for the required numerical resolution

Results on the Prandtl-Blasius type kinetic and thermal boundary layer thicknesses in turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection in a broad range of Prandtl numbers are presented. By solving the laminar Prandtl-Blasius boundary layer equations, we calculate the ratio of the thermal and kinetic boundary layer thicknesses, which depends on the Prandtl number Pr only. It is approximated as $0.588Pr^{-1/2}$ for $Pr\ll Pr^*$ and as $0.982 Pr^{-1/3}$ for $Pr^*\ll\Pr$, with $Pr^*= 0.046$. Comparison of the Prandtl--Blasius velocity boundary layer thickness with that evaluated in the direct numerical simulations by Stevens, Verzicco, and Lohse (J. Fluid Mech. 643, 495 (2010)) gives very good agreement. Based on the Prandtl--Blasius type considerations, we derive a lower-bound estimate for the minimum number of the computational mesh nodes, required to conduct accurate numerical simulations of moderately high (boundary layer dominated) turbulent Rayleigh-B\'enard convection, in the thermal and kinetic boundary layers close to bottom and top plates. It is shown that the number of required nodes within each boundary layer depends on Nu and Pr and grows with the Rayleigh number Ra not slower than \sim\Ra^{0.15}. This estimate agrees excellently with empirical results, which were based on the convergence of the Nusselt number in numerical simulations

Simulation of natural convective boundary layer flow of a nanofluid past a convectively heated inclined plate in the presence of magnetic field

AbstractThis paper deals with the numerical simulation of transient magnetohydrodynamics natural convective boundary layer flow of a nanofluid over an inclined plate. In the modeling of nanofluids, dynamic effects including the Brownian motion and thermophoresis are taken into account. Numerical solutions have been computed via the Galerkin-finite element method. The effects of angle of inclination, buoyancy-ratio parameter, Brownian motion, thermophoresis and magnetic field are taken into account and controlled by non-dimensional parameters. To compute the rate of convergence and error of the computed numerical solution, the double mesh principle is used. Similarity solutions are calculated and presented graphically for non-dimensional velocity, temperature, local rate of heat and mass transfer with pertinent parameters. The modified Nusselt number decreases with increasing inclination angle, buoyancy-ratio parameter, Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameter, whereas it increases with increasing Prandtl number. Validation of the results is achieved with earlier results for forced convective flow and non-magnetic studies. Such problems have several applications in engineering and petroleum industries such as electroplating, chemical processing of heavy metals and solar water heaters. External magnetic fields play an important role in electrical power generation, inclination/acceleration sensors, fine-tuning of the final materials to industrial specification because of their controlling behaviour on the flow characteristics of nanofluids

Flow of foam through a convergent channel

International audienceWe study experimentally the flow of a foam confined as a bubble monolayer between two plates through a convergent channel. We quantify the velocity, the distribution and orientation of plastic events, and the elastic stress, using image analysis. We use two different soap solutions: a sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) solution, with a negligible wall friction between the bubbles and the confining plates, and a mixture containing a fatty acid, giving a large wall friction. We show that for SDS solutions, the velocity profile obeys a self-similar form which results from the superposition of plastic events, and the elastic deformation is uniform. For the other solution, the velocity field differs and the elastic deformation increases towards the exit of the channel. We discuss and quantify the role of wall friction on the velocity profile, the elastic deformation, and the rate of plastic events