Alzheimer\u27s Toolbox: A Caregiver\u27s Guide

“Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in North America and Europe” and “accounts for sixty percent of all irreversible dementia cases” (Moore, 2003, p. 50,126). Along with the 4.5 million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s, there are also the caregivers who are suffering alongside their loved one. The stress of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s can be overwhelming. This affects the quality of life for those with Alzheimer’s and the health of the caregiver. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to explore and identify effective techniques and interventions, pertinent to both the caregiver and patient\u27s quality of life. The literature review was conducted using several sources: Harley French Library, Alzheimer’s Association National website, Alzheimer’s Association of the Great Plains website, Casper College Library, and brochures from local long-term care facilities. The literature determined that although there is a considerable amount of information available regarding Alzheimer’s disease, the information is not easily accessible, nor organized in an easy to use, consumer friendly format. The findings from the literature resulted in the development of the Alzheimer’s Toolbox: A Caregiver’s Guide. Alzheimer’s Toolbox: A Caregiver’s Guide is an easy to use and understand booklet of information. Toolbox is included in the title so the readers understand that it contains the tools needed to help improve the quality of life for all involved. Alzheimer’s Toolbox: A Caregiver’s Guide utilizes occupational therapy techniques designed to help reduce stress and improve the quality of life for both caregivers and the persons with this disease. It includes resources for when the caregiver needs additional support or wants to enhance their own performance. The Toolbox addresses the changes in the duties the caregiver assumes due to decreased functioning of the person with AD. Activities of daily living, financial responsibilities, home management and legal decisions are some of the areas where changes are addressed. It is the authors hope to improve the quality of life for those who are living with AD and their caregivers by providing a toolbox of interventions, environment alterations and coping strategies. The proper use of the Toolbox will allow the users to modify the specific areas or tasks most appropriate for the individual’s particular situation and provide the caregiver guidance as to when additional services might be needed

Exploring the contributions of bed nets, cattle, insecticides and excitorepellency to malaria control: a deterministic model of mosquito host-seeking behaviour and mortality

Domestic and personal protection measures against malaria exposure either divert host-seeking vectors to other hosts or kill those attempting to feed. Here, we explicitly model mosquito host-seeking processes in the context of local host availability and elucidate the impacts and mechanisms of pyrethroid-treated bed nets in Africa. It has been suggested that excitorepellent insecticides could increase exposure of unprotected humans by concentrating mosquito biting activity on this vulnerable group. This worst-case scenario is confirmed as a possibility where vector populations lack alternative hosts, but an approximate ‘break-even' scenario, with users experiencing little overall change in exposure, is more likely because of increased mosquito mortality while foraging for resources. Insecticidal nets are predicted to have epidemiologically significant impacts on transmission experienced by users and non-users at levels of coverage that can be achieved by sustainable net distribution systems, regardless of excitorepellency or the ecological setting. The results are consistent with the outcome of several randomised controlled trials, predicting enormous reductions in transmission at individual and community levels. As financial support, technology and distribution systems for insecticide-treated nets improve, massive reductions in malaria transmission could be realise

Supporting Sustainable Development With Open Data

Open data can make an impact across the globe. Its role in combating development challenges of the next 15 years, both as a tool for measuring progress and in finding solutions, is becoming more clear. As this paper will show, open data has been used to help plan smarter cities in Rio de Janeiro, streamline emergency response in the Philippines, map the Ebola outbreak to save lives in West Africa and help parents to assess school performance in Tanzania. Open data can also bring significant economic benefits: it could be used worldwide to generate between US$720-920bn in digital transport applications, and US$150 -- 270bn in geospatial technology. While open data can be used to benefit many sectors, this report identifies three where it could have a significant impact in the next development agenda and beyond. Open data can: i) more effectively target aid money and improve development programmes, ii) track development progress and prevent corruption, and iii) contribute to innovation, job creation and economic growth

Relationship between the entomologic inoculation rate and the force of infection for Plasmodium falciparum malaria.

We propose a stochastic model for the relationship between the entomologic inoculation rate (EIR) for Plasmodium falciparum malaria and the force of infection in endemic areas. The model incorporates effects of increased exposure to mosquito bites as a result of the growth in body surface area with the age of the host, naturally acquired pre-erythrocytic immunity, and the reduction in the proportion of entomologically assessed inoculations leading to infection, as the EIR increases. It is fitted to multiple datasets from field studies of the relationship between malaria infection and the EIR. We propose that this model can account for non-monotonic relationships between the age of the host and the parasite prevalence and incidence of disease. It provides a parsimonious explanation for the faster acquisition of natural immunity in adults than in children exposed to high EIRs. This forms one component of a new stochastic model for the entire transmission cycle of P. falciparum that we have derived to estimate the potential epidemiologic impact of malaria vaccines and other malaria control interventions

A stereodivergent asymmetric approach to difluorinated aldonic acids

A (bromodifluoromethyl)alkyne has been deployed in a stereoselective route to difluorinated aldonic acid analogues, in which a Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation reaction and diastereoisomer separation set the stage for phenyl group oxidation

Towards conformationally-locked difluorosugar analogues : an unexpected sense of dihydroxylation

Difluorinated cyclooctenones, synthesised using RCM, can be used as templates for stereoselective oxidative transformations to products that undergo transannular reactions to afford conformationally-locked analogues of 2-deoxy-2,2-difluorosugars with different stereochemical relationships between the C-2 and C-3 hydroxyl groups

Relationship between childhood socioeconomic position and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): a systematic review

BACKGROUND: 'Adverse childhood experiences' (ACEs) are associated with increased risk of negative outcomes in later life: ACEs have consequently become a policy priority in many countries. Despite ACEs being highly socially patterned, there has been very little discussion in the political discourse regarding the role of childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) in understanding and addressing them. The aim here was to undertake a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between childhood SEP and ACEs. METHODS: MEDLINE, PsycINFO, ProQuest and Cochrane Library databases were searched. Inclusion criteria were: (1) measurement of SEP in childhood; (2) measurement of multiple ACEs; (3) ACEs were the outcome; and (4) statistical quantification of the relationship between childhood SEP and ACEs. Search terms included ACEs, SEP and synonyms; a second search additionally included 'maltreatment'. Overall study quality/risk of bias was calculated using a modified version of the Hamilton Tool. RESULTS: In the ACEs-based search, only 6 out of 2825 screened papers were eligible for qualitative synthesis. The second search (including maltreatment) increased numbers to: 4562 papers screened and 35 included for synthesis. Eighteen papers were deemed 'high' quality, five 'medium' and the rest 'low'. Meaningful statistical associations were observed between childhood SEP and ACEs/maltreatment in the vast majority of studies, including all except one of those deemed to be high quality. CONCLUSION: Lower childhood SEP is associated with a greater risk of ACEs/maltreatment. With UK child poverty levels predicted to increase markedly, any policy approach that ignores the socioeconomic context to ACEs is therefore flawed

Preventing childhood malaria in Africa by protecting adults from mosquitoes with insecticide-treated nets

Malaria prevention in Africa merits particular attention as the world strives toward a better life for the poorest. Insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) represent a practical means to prevent malaria in Africa, so scaling up coverage to at least 80% of young children and pregnant women by 2010 is integral to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Targeting individual protection to vulnerable groups is an accepted priority, but community-level impacts of broader population coverage are largely ignored even though they may be just as important. We therefore estimated coverage thresholds for entire populations at which individual- and community-level protection are equivalent, representing rational targets for ITN coverage beyond vulnerable groups

Consistently high estimates for the proportion of human exposure to malaria vector populations occurring indoors in rural Africa.

BACKGROUND: Insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and indoor residual spraying (IRS) are highly effective tools for controlling malaria transmission in Africa because the most important vectors, from the Anopheles gambiae complex and the A. funestus group, usually prefer biting humans indoors at night. METHODS: Matched surveys of mosquito and human behaviour from six rural sites in Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Zambia, and Kenya, with ITN use ranging from 0.2% to 82.5%, were used to calculate the proportion of human exposure to An. gambiae sensu lato and An. funestus s.l. that occurs indoors (πi), as an indicator of the upper limit of personal protection that indoor vector control measures can provide. This quantity was also estimated through use of a simplified binary analysis (π(i)(B)) so that the proportions of mosquitoes caught indoors (Pi), and between the first and last hours at which most people are indoors (Pfl) could also be calculated as underlying indicators of feeding by mosquitoes indoors or at night, respectively. RESULTS: The vast majority of human exposure to Anopheles bites occurred indoors (π(i)(B)= 0.79-1.00). Neither An. gambiae s.l. nor An. funestus s.l. strongly preferred feeding indoors (P(i) = 0.40-0.63 and 0.22-0.69, respectively), but they overwhelmingly preferred feeding at times when most humans were indoors (P(fl) = 0.78-1.00 and 0.86-1.00, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: These quantitative summaries of behavioural interactions between humans and mosquitoes constitute a remarkably consistent benchmark with which future observations of vector behaviour can be compared. Longitudinal monitoring of these quantities is vital to evaluate the effectiveness of ITNs and IRS and the need for complementary measures that target vectors outdoors

High Reynolds Number Effects on Multi-Hole Probes and Hot Wire Anemometers

The paper reports on the results from an experimental investigation of the response of multi-hole and hot wire probes at high flow Reynolds numbers (Re approx. 10(exp 6)). The limited results available in literature for 5-hole probes are restricted to Re approx. 10(exp 4). The experiment aims to investigate the probe response (in terms of dimensionless pressure ratios, characterizing pitch, and yaw angles and the total and static pressures) at high Re values and to gauge their effect on the calculated velocity vector. Hot wire calibrations were also undertaken with a parametric variation of the flow pressure, velocity and temperature. Different correction and calibration schemes are sought to be tested against the acquired data set. The data is in the analysis stage at the present time. The test provided good benchmark quality data that can be used to test future calibration and testing methods