3,322 research outputs found
Ageing at home? Meeting housing, health and social needs
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consolidate the range of issues relevant to owner occupiers who age in place and to offer an initial overview of how effective partnerships can respond to and meet the changing needs of housing, health and social care of our ageing population.
Design/methodology/approach – Issues affecting older people’s changing needs are considered holistically and considered in terms of how partnerships can be enhanced to develop improved services in the future.
Findings – Most owners wish to stay in their own homes for as long as possible and it can be cost-effective to do so; however, we need to look at new and innovative ways of developing and providing front-line services to enhance health and safety in the home, but also quality of life and wellbeing such as combating loneliness and isolation. However, although there are examples of evidence-based good practice, service provision is variable and there is a risk that many older home owners may miss out on services for which they may are eligible. With this in mind, it may be helpful to develop a new framework where one key practitioner holds responsibility to consolidate and coordinate the range of local services available as a package that offers a range of housing, health and social care services.
Originality/value – There are currently many policy and practice gaps in older owner occupier's housing conditions and suitability to meet their changing needs. This paper has a particular starting point in housing, and how other personal or technological services can help support independence for as long as possible and adapt to the owner-occupier's changing health and social care needs as they age in place. The authors emphasise the importance of sharing evidence-based good practice partnerships
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A comparison between ion characteristics observed by the POLAR and DMSP spacecraft in the high-latitude magnetosphere
We study here the injection and transport of ions in the convection-dominated region of the Earth’s magnetosphere. The total ion counts from the CAMMICE MICS instrument aboard the POLAR spacecraft are used to generate occurrence probability distributions of magnetospheric ion populations. MICS ion spectra are characterised by both the peak in the differential energy flux, and the average energy of ions striking the detector. The former permits a comparison with the Stubbs et al. (2001) survey of He2+ ions of solar wind origin within the magnetosphere. The latter can address the occurrences of various classifications of precipitating particle fluxes observed in the topside ionosphere by DMSP satellites (Newell and Meng, 1992). The peak energy occurrences are consistent with our earlier work, including the dawn-dusk asymmetry with enhanced occurrences on the dawn flank at low energies, switching to the dusk flank at higher energies. The differences in the ion energies observed in these two studies can be explained by drift orbit effects and acceleration processes at the magnetopause, and in the tail current sheet. Near noon at average ion energies of _1 keV, the cusp and open LLBL occur further poleward here than in the Newell and Meng survey, probably due to convectionrelated time-of-flight effects. An important new result is that the pre-noon bias previously observed in the LLBL is most likely due to the component of this population on closed field lines, formed largely by low energy ions drifting earthward from the tail. There is no evidence here of mass and momentum transfer from the solar wind to the LLBL by nonreconnection coupling. At higher energies (_2–20 keV), we observe ions mapping to the auroral oval and can distinguish between the boundary and central plasma sheets. We show that ions at these energies relate to a transition from dawnward to duskward dominated flow, this is evidence of how ion drift orbits in the tail influence the location and behaviour of the plasma populations in the magnetosphere
Solar system constraints on the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati braneworld theory of gravity
A number of proposals have been put forward to account for the observed
accelerating expansion of the Universe through modifications of gravity. One
specific scenario, Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) gravity, gives rise to a
potentially observable anomaly in the solar system: all planets would exhibit a
common anomalous precession, dw/dt, in excess of the prediction of General
Relativity. We have used the Planetary Ephemeris Program (PEP) along with
planetary radar and radio tracking data to set a constraint of |dw/dt| < 0.02
arcseconds per century on the presence of any such common precession. This
sensitivity falls short of that needed to detect the estimated universal
precession of |dw/dt| = 5e-4 arcseconds per century expected in the DGP
scenario. We discuss the fact that ranging data between objects that orbit in a
common plane cannot constrain the DGP scenario. It is only through the relative
inclinations of the planetary orbital planes that solar system ranging data
have sensitivity to the DGP-like effect of universal precession. In addition,
we illustrate the importance of performing a numerical evaluation of the
sensitivity of the data set and model to any perturbative precession.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
funcX: A Federated Function Serving Fabric for Science
Exploding data volumes and velocities, new computational methods and
platforms, and ubiquitous connectivity demand new approaches to computation in
the sciences. These new approaches must enable computation to be mobile, so
that, for example, it can occur near data, be triggered by events (e.g.,
arrival of new data), be offloaded to specialized accelerators, or run remotely
where resources are available. They also require new design approaches in which
monolithic applications can be decomposed into smaller components, that may in
turn be executed separately and on the most suitable resources. To address
these needs we present funcX---a distributed function as a service (FaaS)
platform that enables flexible, scalable, and high performance remote function
execution. funcX's endpoint software can transform existing clouds, clusters,
and supercomputers into function serving systems, while funcX's cloud-hosted
service provides transparent, secure, and reliable function execution across a
federated ecosystem of endpoints. We motivate the need for funcX with several
scientific case studies, present our prototype design and implementation, show
optimizations that deliver throughput in excess of 1 million functions per
second, and demonstrate, via experiments on two supercomputers, that funcX can
scale to more than more than 130000 concurrent workers.Comment: Accepted to ACM Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and
Distributed Computing (HPDC 2020). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap
with arXiv:1908.0490
Epidemiology of depression with psychotic experiences and its association with chronic physical conditions in 47 low- and middle-income countries
BackgroundThe co-existence of depression and psychotic experiences (PEs) is associated with more pronounced adverse health outcomes compared to depression alone. However, data on its prevalence and correlates are lacking in the general adult population, and there is no published data on its association with chronic physical conditions.MethodCross-sectional, community-based data from 201 337 adults aged ⩾18 years from 47 low- and middle-income countries from the World Health Survey were analyzed. The presence of past 12-month PE and DSM-IV depression was assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Information on six chronic medical conditions (chronic back pain, edentulism, arthritis, angina, asthma, diabetes) were obtained by self-report. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed.ResultsThe crude overall prevalence of co-morbid depression/PEs was 2.5% [95% confidence interval (CI) 2.3–2.7%], with the age- and sex-adjusted prevalence ranging from 0.1% (Sri Lanka, Vietnam) to 9.03% (Brazil). Younger age, urban setting, current smoking, alcohol consumption, and anxiety were significant correlates of co-existing depression/PEs. Co-occurring depression/PEs was associated with significantly higher odds for arthritis, angina, and diabetes beyond that of depression alone after adjusting for sociodemographics, anxiety, and country, with odds ratios (depression/PEs v. depression only) being: arthritis 1.30 (95% CI 1.07–1.59, p = 0.0086); angina 1.40 (95% CI 1.18–1.67, p = 0.0002); diabetes 1.65 (95% CI 1.21–2.26, p = 0.0017).ConclusionsThe prevalence of co-existing depression/PEs was non-negligible in most countries. Our study suggests that when depression/PE or a chronic condition (e.g. arthritis, angina, diabetes) is detected, screening for the other may be important to improve clinical outcomes.</jats:sec
Toward 1% Photometry: End-to-end Calibration of Astronomical Telescopes and Detectors
We review the systematic uncertainties that have plagued attempts to obtain
high precision and high accuracy from ground-based photometric measurements
using CCDs. We identify two main challenges in breaking through the 1%
precision barrier: 1) fully characterizing atmospheric transmission, along the
instrument's line of sight, and 2) properly identifying, measuring and removing
instrumental artifacts. We discuss approximations and limitations inherent in
the present methodology, and we estimate their contributions to systematic
photometric uncertainties. We propose an alternative conceptual scheme for the
relative calibration of astronomical apparatus: the availability of calibrated
detectors whose relative spectral sensitivity is known to better than one part
in opens up the possibility of in situ relative throughput measurements,
normalized to a precision calibrated detector, using a stable but uncalibrated
narrowband light source. An implementation scheme is outlined, which exploits
the availability of tunable lasers to map out the relative wavelength response
of an imaging system, using a flatfield screen and a calibrated reference
photodiode. The merits and limitations of this scheme are discussed. In tandem
with careful measurements of atmospheric transmission, this approach could
potentially lead to reliable ground-based photometry with fractional
uncertainties below the percent level.Comment: 25 pages, no figures. To be published in Ap
Tackling mental health: the role of professional football clubs
In the UK, professional football clubs are being used as settings for the delivery of interventions that promote mental health in a number of ways including (i) the delivery of physical activity interventions to improve the mental health of the general population, (ii) the delivery of physical activity interventions for people experiencing mental illness, and (iii) the delivery of community mental health services within the confines of the football club. This research note offers insights into mental health interventions delivered within, and by, professional football clubs and the available evidence concerning their reach, effectiveness and impact. The findings suggest that professional football clubs can help to facilitate access to mental health services, particularly among young people, for whom accessing such services may be highly stigmatized. Furthermore, the findings highlight that such interventions have a positive impact on health. However, in order to capitalize on this opportunity funding agencies and commissioners must provide appropriate resources (human and financial) for effective delivery and evaluation. Furthermore, a more strategic approach to working towards the mental health agenda must be adopted. It is argued that this change in practice would allow professional football clubs to offer those in need access to high-quality interventions
Arthroscopic hip labral repair: the iberian suture technique
Arthroscopic hip labral repair has beneficial short-term outcomes; however, debate exists regarding ideal surgical labral repair technique. This technical note presents an arthroscopic repair technique that uses intrasubstance labral suture passage to restore the chondrolabral interface. This Iberian suture technique allows for an anatomic repair while posing minimal risk of damage to the labral and chondral tissues
Discovery and Characterization of a Caustic Crossing Microlensing Event in the SMC
We present photometric observations and analysis of the second microlensing
event detected towards the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), MACHO Alert 98-SMC-1.
This event was detected early enough to allow intensive observation of the
lightcurve. These observations revealed 98-SMC-1 to be the first caustic
crossing, binary microlensing event towards the Magellanic Clouds to be
discovered in progress.
Frequent coverage of the evolving lightcurve allowed an accurate prediction
for the date of the source crossing out of the lens caustic structure. The
caustic crossing temporal width, along with the angular size of the source
star, measures the proper motion of the lens with respect to the source, and
thus allows an estimate of the location of the lens. Lenses located in the
Galactic halo would have a velocity projected to the SMC of v^hat ~1500 km/s,
while an SMC lens would typically have v^hat ~60 km/s.
We have performed a joint fit to the MACHO/GMAN data presented here,
including recent EROS data of this event. These joint data are sufficient to
constrain the time for the lens to move an angle equal to the source angular
radius; 0.116 +/- 0.010 days. We estimate a radius for the lensed source of 1.4
+/- 0.1 R_sun. This yields a projected velocity of v^hat = 84 +/- 9 km/s. Only
0.15% of halo lenses would be expected to have a v^hat value at least as small
as this, while 31% of SMC lenses would be expected to have v^hat as large as
this. This implies that the lensing system is more likely to reside in the SMC
than in the Galactic halo.Comment: 16 pages, including 3 tables and 3 figures; submitted to The
Astrophysical Journa
SN1997cy/GRB970514 - A New Piece in the GRB Puzzle?
We present observations of SN1997cy, a supernova discovered as part of the
Mount Stromlo Abell Cluster SN Search, which does not easily fit into the
traditional classification scheme for supernovae. This object's extraordinary
optical properties and coincidence with GRB970514, a short duration gamma ray
burst, suggest a second case, after SN1998bw/GRB980425, for a SN-GRB
association. SN1997cy is among the most luminous SNe yet discovered and has a
peculiar spectrum. We present evidence that SN1997cy ejected approximately 2
solar masses of 56Ni, supported by its late-time light curve, and FeII/[FeIII]
lines in its spectrum, although it is possible that both these observations can
be explained via circumstellar interaction. While SN1998bw and SN1997cy appear
to be very different objects with respect to both their gamma ray and optical
properties, SN1997cy and the optical transient associated with GRB970508 have
roughly similar late-time optical behavior. This similarity may indicate that
the late-time optical output of these two intrinsically bright transient events
have a common physical process. Although the connection between GRB970514 and
SN1997cy is suggestive, it is not conclusive. However, if this association is
real, followup of short duration GRBs detected with BATSE or HETE2 should
reveal objects similar to SN1997cy.Comment: 26 pages including 6 postscript figures and 3 tables. Submitted to
ApJ. Re-calibrated photometry - objects are about 0.3mags brighter than in
original versio
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