A Phenomenology of Fall Prevention: Lived-Identity and Careful Practice in Community Outreach Care

The increasing number of injurious falls amongst older people living in the community is continuously portrayed as a major public health problem facing the Canadian health care system. As additional resources are allocated for community-based fall prevention programs, health service providers are increasingly expected to understand and enact fall prevention in effective and meaningful ways. The aim of this two-phase interpretive phenomenological study was to enhance understandings of the taken-for-granted meanings that characterize everyday practices of community-based fall prevention in order to foster more sensitive, tactful, and meaningful approaches to fall prevention with older people. In the first phase of this study, I engaged nine older people living independently in the community in individual phenomenological interviews to explore the meaning of the experience of anticipating falling. In the second phase of this study I engaged six health professionals working on a community outreach team in phenomenological interviews exploring the meaning of the experience of enacting fall prevention with older people in the community. The findings of this two-phase study overall give rise to four key insights that may inform the refinement of fall risk assessment and fall prevention practice for physiotherapists and other service providers. First, a phenomenological ethics of caring was central to enacting fall prevention for service providers in the community. Second, lived-identity was central to the experience of anticipating falling for older people. Third, meaningful risk-taking was essential to older peoples’ quality of life and enactment of their lived-identity. Finally, the meaning of anticipating falling was learned experientially through older peoples’ experience of falling or witnessing others experience falls. Understanding these key insights, service providers might seek to adopt a transformative learning approach to fall prevention that focuses on affirming an appreciative understanding of lived-identity, meaningful risk, and meaningful caution in older peoples’ lives. Erich Fromm’s distinction between having and being orientations to lived-identity may be used to provide insight into the enactment of such a transformative approach to fall prevention

Plans for the development of cryogenic engines for space exploration

The NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) is conducting a broad range of basic research and focused technology development activities in both aeronautical and space propulsion. By virtue of the successful conduct of these programs, LeRC is strongly qualified to lead Advanced Development and subsequent development programs on cryogenic space propulsion systems on support of the Space Exploration Initiative. A review is provided of technology status, including recent progress in the ongoing activities, and a top level description of the proposed program

The presence of valine at residue 129 in human prion protein accelerates amyloid formation

The polymorphism at residue 129 of the human PRNP gene modulates disease susceptibility and the clinicopathological phenotypes in human transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. The molecular mechanisms by which the effect of this polymorphism are mediated remain unclear. It has been shown that the folding, dynamics and stability of the physiological, alpha-helix-rich form of recombinant PrP are not affected by codon 129 polymorphism. Consistent with this, we have recently shown that the kinetics of amyloid formation do not differ between protein containing methionine at codon 129 and valine at codon 129 when the reaction is initiated from the a-monomeric PrPC-like state. In contrast, we have shown that the misfolding pathway leading to the formation of beta-sheet-rich, soluble oligomer waS favoured by the presence of methionine, compared with valine, at position 129. In the present work, we examine the effect of this polymorphism on the kinetics of an alternative misfolding pathway, that of amyloid formation using partially folded PrP allelomorphs. We show that the valine 129 allelomorph forms amyloids with a considerably shorter lag phase than the methionine 129 allelomorph both under spontaneous conditions and when seeded with pre-formed amyloid fibres. Taken together, our studies demonstrate that the effect of the codon 129 polymorphism depends on the specific misfolding pathway and on the initial conformation of the protein. The inverse propensities of the two allelomorphs to misfold in vitro through the alternative oligomeric and amyloidogenic pathways could explain some aspects of prion diseases linked to this polymorphism such as age at onset and disease incubation time. (c) 2005 Federation of European Biochemical Societies. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Accelerated Calvarial Healing in Mice Lacking Toll-Like Receptor 4

The bone and immune systems are closely interconnected. The immediate inflammatory response after fracture is known to trigger a healing cascade which plays an important role in bone repair. Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) is a member of a highly conserved receptor family and is a critical activator of the innate immune response after tissue injury. TLR4 signaling has been shown to regulate the systemic inflammatory response induced by exposed bone components during long-bone fracture. Here we tested the hypothesis that TLR4 activation affects the healing of calvarial defects. A 1.8 mm diameter calvarial defect was created in wild-type (WT) and TLR4 knockout (TLR4-/-) mice. Bone healing was tested using radiographic, histologic and gene expression analyses. Radiographic and histomorphometric analyses revealed that calvarial healing was accelerated in TLR4-/- mice. More bone was observed in TLR4-/- mice compared to WT mice at postoperative days 7 and 14, although comparable healing was achieved in both groups by day 21. Bone remodeling was detected in both groups on postoperative day 28. In TLR4-/- mice compared to WT mice, gene expression analysis revealed that higher expression levels of IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α,TGF-β1, TGF-β3, PDGF and RANKL and lower expression level of RANK were detected at earlier time points (≤ postoperative 4 days); while higher expression levels of IL-1β and lower expression levels of VEGF, RANK, RANKL and OPG were detected at late time points (> postoperative 4 days). This study provides evidence of accelerated bone healing in TLR4-/- mice with earlier and higher expression of inflammatory cytokines and with increased osteoclastic activity. Further work is required to determine if this is due to inflammation driven by TLR4 activation. © 2012 Wang et al

Materials for engine applications above 3000 deg F: An overview

Materials for future generations of aeropropulsion systems will be required to perform at ever-increasing temperatures and have properties superior to the current state of the art. Improved engine efficiency can reduce specific fuel consumption and thus increase range and reduce operating costs. The ultimate payoff gain is expected to come when materials are developed which can perform without cooling at gas temperatures to 2200 C (4000 F). An overview is presented of materials for applications above 1650 C (3000 F), some pertinent physical property data, and the rationale used: (1) to arrive at recommendations of material systems that qualify for further investigation, and (2) to develop a proposed plan of research. From an analysis of available thermochemical data it was included that such materials systems must be composed of oxide ceramics. The required structural integrity will be achieved by developing these materials into fiber-reinforced ceramic composites

He 2-104: A link between symbiotic stars and planetary nebulae

Ultraviolet, optical and infrared observations of He 2-104 are presented, and estimates for some of the physical properties of the nebular shell are made. It is argued that He 2-104 is in transition between the D-type symbiotic star and bipolar planetary nebula phases and, as such, represents a link between subclasses of these two types of objects. The model includes a binary system with a Mira variable and a hot, evolved star. Previous mass loss has resulted in the formation of a disk of gas and dust around the whole system, while the hot star has an accretion disk which produces the observed highly ionized emission line spectrum. Emission lines from cooler, lower density gas is also observed to come from the nebula. In addition, matter is flowing out of the system in a direction perpendicular to the disk with a high velocity and is impacting upon the previously-ejected red giant wind and/or the ambient interstellar medium

Water Uptake Threshold of Rabbiteye (\u3ci\u3eVaccinium ashei\u3c/i\u3e) Blueberries and Its Influence on Fruit Splitting

Split-resistant and split-susceptible rabbiteye blueberry fruit were evaluated at all stages of development to determine \u27\u27water uptake thresholds\u27\u27 by soaking in distilled water. Weight increase after soaking was measured, and percent weight gain was calculated to take into consideration the weight increase of the fruit from development. The ratio of percent increase in volume to weight increase resulting from water uptake was calculated. Ratios of percent water uptake to weight increase between splitsusceptible \u27Tifblue\u27 and split-resistant \u27Premier\u27 blueberries were found to be similar. The split-susceptible \u27Tifblue\u27 had a 1.6 g/50 fruit increase with a 1.7% water uptake and a ratio of 1.08. \u27Premier\u27 had a higher weight increase with 3.3 g/50 fruit and also a higher percentage of water uptake at 3.6% providing a ratio of 1.09. Although both absorbed water at a constant rate shown by a linear increase of weight increase over time, \u27Premier\u27 absorbed a significantly greater amount of water than did \u27Tifblue\u27 yet remained intact and did not split

Parent of Origin, Mosaicism, and Recurrence Risk: Probabilistic Modeling Explains the Broken Symmetry of Transmission Genetics

Most new mutations are observed to arise in fathers, and increasing paternal age positively correlates with the risk of new variants. Interestingly, new mutations in X-linked recessive disease show elevated familial recurrence rates. In male offspring, these mutations must be inherited from mothers. We previously developed a simulation model to consider parental mosaicism as a source of transmitted mutations. In this paper, we extend and formalize the model to provide analytical results and flexible formulas. The results implicate parent of origin and parental mosaicism as central variables in recurrence risk. Consistent with empirical data, our model predicts that more transmitted mutations arise in fathers and that this tendency increases as fathers age. Notably, the lack of expansion later in the male germline determines relatively lower variance in the proportion of mutants, which decreases with paternal age. Subsequently, observation of a transmitted mutation has less impact on the expected risk for future offspring. Conversely, for the female germline, which arrests after clonal expansion in early development, variance in the mutant proportion is higher, and observation of a transmitted mutation dramatically increases the expected risk of recurrence in another pregnancy. Parental somatic mosaicism considerably elevates risk for both parents. These findings have important implications for genetic counseling and for understanding patterns of recurrence in transmission genetics. We provide a convenient online tool and source code implementing our analytical results. These tools permit varying the underlying parameters that influence recurrence risk and could be useful for analyzing risk in diverse family structures