3,698 research outputs found
Improved Healing of Pressure Ulcers Using Dermapulse, A New Electrical Stimulation Device
A double-blind, clinical study of pulsed electrical stimulation using the Dermapulse® device was carried out on 40 pressure ulcers, randomized to receive either active (stim) or sham treatment.
Electrodes were placed over saline-moistened gauze on the ulcers. An electrical current of 35mA was delivered to the wound tissues at a frequency of 128 pulses per second. Polarity was negative until the wound debrided, then alternated from .positive to negative every three days. Ulcers were treated for 30 minutes twice daily for four weeks, after which sham patients could cross over to active treatment, and stim patients could continue active treatment. Ulcer healing was determined by measuring the length and width of the ulcer and calculating the L x W product. The same clinicians measured the ulcers each week, were kept blinded to treatment group, and were not the same persons who applied the treatment.
Nine centers treated 40 ulcers (19 sham and 21 stim). Analysis of the characteristics of the patients, the ulcers, and concomitant wound care by both univariate and multivariate analyses showed comparability of the groups. After four weeks, the stim ulcers healed more than twice as much as the sham ulcers (49.8% vs. 23.4%; (p = 0.042). The stim ulcers healed 12.5% per week compared to 5.8% for the sham group. In the 15 crossover patients, four weeks of active stimulation caused nearly four times as much healing as their four weeks of sham treatment (47.9% vs. 13.4%; p = 0.012). By the last week of-active stimulation they had healed an average of 64%, and complete healing occurred in 40% of these ulcers after an average of nine weeks. Seventeen of the active treatment ulcers had extended therapy, and by their last week of treatment had healed an average of 75%. Forty-one percent of these ulcers healed completely after an average of 11.8 weeks. There were no significant safety problems identified
Earthshine as an Illumination Source at the Moon
Earthshine is the dominant source of natural illumination on the surface of
the Moon during lunar night, and at locations within permanently shadowed
regions that never receive direct sunlight. As such, earthshine may enable the
exploration of areas of the Moon that are hidden from solar illumination. The
heat flux from earthshine may also influence the transport and cold trapping of
volatiles present in the very coldest areas. In this study, Earth's spectral
radiance at the Moon is examined using a suite of Earth spectral models created
using the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (VPL) three dimensional modeling
capability. At the Moon, the broadband, hemispherical irradiance from Earth
near 0 phase is approximately 0.15 watts per square meter, with comparable
contributions from solar reflectance and thermal emission. Over the simulation
timeframe, spanning two lunations, Earth's thermal irradiance changes less than
a few mW per square meter as a result of cloud variability and the
south-to-north motion of sub-observer position. In solar band, Earth's
diurnally averaged light curve at phase angles < 60 degrees is well fit using a
Henyey Greenstein integral phase function. At wavelengths > 0.7 microns, near
the well known vegetation "red edge", Earth's reflected solar radiance shows
significant diurnal modulation as a result of the longitudinal asymmetry in
projected landmass, as well as from the distribution of clouds. A simple
formulation with adjustable coefficients is presented for estimating Earth's
hemispherical irradiance at the Moon as a function of wavelength, phase angle
and sub-observer coordinates. It is demonstrated that earthshine is
sufficiently bright to serve as a natural illumination source for optical
measurements from the lunar surface.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures, 1 tabl
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
Hole doping dependences of the magnetic penetration depth and vortex core size in YBa2Cu3Oy: Evidence for stripe correlations near 1/8 hole doping
We report on muon spin rotation measurements of the internal magnetic field
distribution n(B) in the vortex solid phase of YBa2Cu3Oy (YBCO) single
crystals, from which we have simultaneously determined the hole doping
dependences of the in-plane Ginzburg-Landau (GL) length scales in the
underdoped regime. We find that Tc has a sublinear dependence on
1/lambda_{ab}^2, where lambda_{ab} is the in-plane magnetic penetration depth
in the extrapolated limits T -> 0 and H -> 0. The power coefficient of the
sublinear dependence is close to that determined in severely underdoped YBCO
thin films, indicating that the same relationship between Tc and the superfluid
density is maintained throughout the underdoped regime. The in-plane GL
coherence length (vortex core size) is found to increase with decreasing hole
doping concentration, and exhibit a field dependence that is explained by
proximity-induced superconductivity on the CuO chains. Both the magnetic
penetration depth and the vortex core size are enhanced near 1/8 hole doping,
supporting the belief by some that stripe correlations are a universal property
of high-Tc cuprates.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure
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
The Psychosocial Consequences of Sports Participation for Individuals with Severe Mental Illness: A Metasynthesis Review
The purpose of the current metasynthesis review was to explore the psychosocial benefits of sport and psychosocial factors which impact on sports participation for individuals with severe mental illness. AMED, CINAHL Plus, Medline, EMBASE, ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source, and Science Citation Index were searched from inception until January 2014. Articles included use qualitative methods to examine the psychosocial effects of sports participation in people with severe mental illness. Methodological quality was assessed using the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies and a case study tool. Included studies were analysed within a metasynthesis approach. Eight articles involving 56 patients met the inclusion criteria. The results identified the broader and direct psychosocial benefits of sport. Sport provided a ?normal? environment and interactions that were not associated with an individual?s mental illness. Sport provided individuals with a sense of meaning, purpose, belonging, identity, and achievement. Other findings are discussed. Direct psychosocial benefits are a consequence of sports participation for the vast majority of individuals with severe mental illness. Further to this, sports participation was associated with a reduction in social isolation and an increase in social confidence, autonomy, and independence
Uniformity of V minus Near Infrared Color Evolution of Type Ia Supernovae, and Implications for Host Galaxy Extinction Determination
From an analysis of SNe 1972E, 1980N, 1981B, 1981D, 1983R, 1998bu, 1999cl,
and 1999cp we find that the intrinsic V-K colors of Type Ia SNe with
multi-color light curve shape (MLCS) parameter -0.4 < Delta < +0.2 suggest a
uniform color curve. V-K colors become bluer linearly with time from roughly
one week before B-band maximum until one week after maximum, after which they
redden linearly until four weeks after maximum. V-H colors exhibit very similar
color evolution. V-J colors exhibit slightly more complex evolution, with
greater scatter. The existence of V minus near infrared color relations allows
the construction of near infrared light curve templates that are an improvement
on those of Elias et al. (1985).
We provide optical BVRI and infrared JHK photometry of the Type Ia supernovae
1999aa, 1999cl, and 1999cp. SN 1999aa is an overluminous "slow decliner" (with
Delta = -0.47 mag). SN 1999cp is a moderately bright SN unreddened in its host.
SN 1999cl is extremely reddened in its host. The V minus near infrared colors
of SN 1999cl yield A_V = 2.01 +/- 0.11 mag. This leads to a distance for its
host galaxy (M 88) in agreement with other distance measurements for members of
the Virgo cluster.Comment: 57 pages, 13 postscript figures, to appear in the August 20, 2000,
issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Contains updated references and a number
of minor corrections dealt with when page proofs were correcte
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