A Systematic Review of Behavioural Interventions Promoting Healthy Eating among Older People.

Because eating habits are inseparably linked with people's physical health, effective behaviour interventions are highly demanded to promote healthy eating among older people. The aim of this systematic review was to identify effective diet interventions for older people and provide useful evidence and direction for further research. Three electronic bibliographic databases-PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection were used to conduct a systematic literature search based on fixed inclusion and exclusion criteria. English language peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2011 and 2016 were selected for data extraction and quality assessment. Finally, a total of 16 studies were identified. The studies' duration ranged from three weeks to seven years. The majority of studies were carried out in European countries. Seven studies had a moderate quality while the remaining studies were at a less than moderate level. Three dietary educational interventions and all meal service related interventions reported improvements in older people's dietary variety, nutrition status, or other health-related eating behaviours. Multicomponent dietary interventions mainly contributed to the reduction of risk of chronic disease. The results supported that older people could achieve a better dietary quality if they make diet-related changes by receiving either dietary education or healthier meal service. Further high-quality studies are required to promote healthy eating among older people by taking regional diet patterns, advanced information technology, and nudging strategies into account

Search for patterns by combining cosmic-ray energy and arrival directions at the Pierre Auger Observatory

Energy-dependent patterns in the arrival directions of cosmic rays are searched for using data of the Pierre Auger Observatory. We investigate local regions around the highest-energy cosmic rays with E > = 6×1019 eV by analyzing cosmic rays with energies above E > = 5×1018 eV arriving within an angular separation of approximately 15°. We characterize the energy distributions inside these regions by two independent methods, one searching for angular dependence of energy-energy correlations and one searching for collimation of energy along the local system of principal axes of the energy distribution. No significant patterns are found with this analysis. The comparison of these measurements with astrophysical scenarios can therefore be used to obtain constraints on related model parameters such as strength of cosmic-ray deflection and density of point sources

High-fidelity simulations of multiple fracture processes in a laminated composite in tension

The augmented finite element method (A-FEM) is used to study the fundamental composite failure problem of delamination and associated damage events spreading from a stress concentrator during tensile loading. The solution exploits the ability of A-FEM to account for coupled multiple crack types that are not predetermined in shape or number. The nonlinear processes of each fracture mode are represented by a cohesive model, which provides a unified description of crack initiation and propagation and can also describe crack coalescence and bifurcation. The study problem is an orthogonal double-notched tension specimen, in which delaminations interact with transverse ply cracks, intra-ply splitting cracks, non-localized fine-scale matrix shear deformation, and fiber breaks. Cohesive laws and constitutive laws for matrix shear deformation are calibrated using literature data from independent tests. The calibrated simulations are mesh independent and correctly reproduce all qualitative aspects of the coupled damage evolution processes. They also correctly predict delamination sizes and shapes, the density of transverse ply cracks, the growth rate of splitting cracks, softening of the global stress–strain curve, and the ultimate strength. A sensitivity analysis relates variability in cohesive law parameters to predicted deviance in engineering properties. Given the known variability in cohesive law parameters, the predicted deviance in ultimate strength agrees with that in experimental data. The importance of including the interactions between different crack systems and non-localized shear deformation is demonstrated by suppressing the presence of separate mechanisms; the predicted delamination shapes, splitting crack growth rate, and the stress–displacement relationship fall into significant error

Energy-band engineering for tunable memory characteristics through controlled doping of reduced graphene oxide

Tunable memory characteristics are used in multioperational mode circuits where memory cells with various functionalities are needed in one combined device. It is always a challenge to obtain control over threshold voltage for multimode operation. On this regard, we use a strategy of shifting the work function of reduced graphene oxide (rGO) in a controlled manner through doping gold chloride (AuCl3) and obtained a gradient increase of rGO work function. By inserting doped rGO as floating gate, a controlled threshold voltage (Vth) shift has been achieved in both p- and n-type low voltage flexible memory devices with large memory window (up to 4 times for p-type and 8 times for n-type memory devices) in comparison with pristine rGO floating gate memory devices. By proper energy band engineering, we demonstrated a flexible floating gate memory device with larger memory window and controlled threshold voltage shifts