303 research outputs found
Evaluation of a disease specific rheumatoid arthritis self-management education program, a single group repeated measures study
Background: Rheumatoid Arthritis is a progressive and disabling disease, predicted to increase in prevalence over the next 50 years. Self-management is acknowledged as an integral part in the management of chronic disease. The rheumatoid arthritis specific self-management program delivered by health professionals was developed by Arthritis Western Australia in 2006. The purpose of this study was to determine whether this program would achieve early benefits in health related outcomes, and whether these improvements would be maintained for 12 months. Methods: Individuals with rheumatoid arthritis were referred from rheumatologists. Participants with co-existing inflammatory musculoskeletal conditions were excluded. All participants completed a 6-week program. Assessments occurred at baseline (8 weeks prior to intervention), pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 6 and 12 month follow ups. Outcomes measured included pain and fatigue (numerical rating scale, 0-10), depression and anxiety (hospital anxiety and depression questionnaire), health distress, and quality of life (SF-36 version 2). Results: There were significant improvements in mean [SD] fatigue (5.7 [2.4] to 5.1 [2.6]), depression (6.3 [4.3] to 5.6 [3.9]) and SF-36 mental health (44.5 [11.1] to 46.5 [9.5]) immediately following intervention, with long term benefits for depression (6.3 [4.3] to 4.9 [3.9]), and SF-36 subscales mental health (44.5 [11.1] to 47.8 [10.9]), role emotional (41.5 [13.2] to 46.5 [11.8]), role physical (35.0 [11.0] to 40.2 [12.1]) and physical function (34.8 [11.5] to 38.6 [10.7]). Conclusion: Participants in the program recorded significant improvements in depression and mental health post-intervention, which were maintained to 12 months follow up
Do Micro-Credits Work As An Effective Anti-Poverty Pro-gram For Poverty Eradication? Evidence From Ethiopia
This review outlines the debates and questions within the quasi-experimental analysis on whether micro-credits have created the impact since they have been designed aiming at the poor to climb out of poverty and become non-poor after having access to micro-credits. The primary purpose of the research deals with the pillar questions do micro-credits play an efficient anti-poverty strategy to eradicate poverty? Do micro-credits generate the proposed products and results by raising the living standards of micro-finance clients and do beneficiaries become less poor after they get the micro-finance service as compared with those under comparable conditions but who do not have access
The quantification of di-octyl terephthalate and calcium carbonate in polyvinyl chloride using Fourier transform-infrared and Raman spectroscopy
The polyvinyl chloride (PVC) industry relies heavily on material property testing during the development of a product. Many of these testing procedures are outdated and time-consuming, resulting in high financial input. Non-destructive, fast, easy-to-use testing methods can significantly reduce the time required to quantify raw materials. We explored alternative analysis techniques, Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR) and micro-Raman spectroscopy to quantify the main components within a plasticised PVC (pPVC) compound with dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP) plasticizer and calcium carbonate filler. This can reduce costs in the testing and development of new products up to 50%. We prepared 36 samples with varying proportions of DOTP and calcium carbonate and analyzed them using a Raman Microscope and FT-IR Spectrometer. We found a strong correlation (R2 = 0.923) between DOTP and FT-IR spectroscopy data, as well as a strong correlation (FT-IR R2 = 0.910; Raman R2 = 0.813) between the calcium carbonate and data obtained with both spectroscopies. We reported for the first-time correlations that could be used to determine the raw material levels within pPVC provided by both techniques. Five samples were then made and tested, showing some success in the quantification. This study provided a solid baseline for reducing the time taken to make a recommendation from >168 h to <1 h and therefore reducing the costs of product development by up to 50%
Limits on Stellar and Planetary Companions in Microlensing Event OGLE-1998-BUL-14
We present the PLANET photometric data set for \ob14, a high magnification
() event alerted by the OGLE collaboration toward the
Galactic bulge in 1998. The PLANET data set consists a total of 461 I-band and
139 band points, the majority of which was taken over a three month period.
The median sampling interval during this period is about 1 hour, and the
scatter over the peak of the event is 1.5%. The excellent data
quality and high maximum magnification of this event make it a prime candidate
to search for the short duration, low amplitude perturbations that are
signatures of a planetary companion orbiting the primary lens. The observed
light curve for \ob14 is consistent with a single lens (no companion) within
photometric uncertainties. We calculate the detection efficiency of the light
curve to lensing companions as a function of the mass ratio and angular
separation of the two components. We find that companions of mass ratio are ruled out at the 95% confidence level for projected separations
between 0.4-2.4 \re, where \re is the Einstein ring radius of the primary
lens. Assuming that the primary is a G-dwarf with \re\sim3 {\rm AU} our
detection efficiency for this event is for a companion with the mass
and separation of Jupiter and for a companion with the mass and
separation of Saturn. Our efficiencies for planets like those around Upsilon
And and 14 Her are > 75%.Comment: Data available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~planet/planetpapers.html
20 pages, 10 figures. Minor changes. ApJ, accepte
A Complete Set of Solutions For Caustic-Crossing Binary Microlensing Events
We present a method to analyze binary-lens microlensing light curves with one
well-sampled fold caustic crossing. In general, the surface of chi^2 shows
extremely complicated behavior over the 9-parameter space that characterizes
binary lenses. This makes it difficult to systematically search the space and
verify that a given local minimum is a global minimum. We show that for events
with well-monitored caustics, the caustic-crossing region can be isolated from
the rest of the light curve and easily fit to a 5-parameter function. Four of
these caustic-crossing parameters can then be used to constrain the search in
the larger 9-parameter space. This allows a systematic search for all solutions
and thus identification of all local minima. We illustrate this technique using
the PLANET data for MACHO 98-SMC-1, an excellent and publicly available
caustic-crossing data set. We show that a very broad range of parameter
combinations are compatible with the PLANET data set, demonstrating that
observations of binary-lens lightcurves with sampling of only one caustic
crossing do not yield unique solutions. The corollary to this is that the time
of the second caustic crossing cannot be reliably predicted on the basis of
early data including the first caustic crossing alone. We investigate the
requirements for determination of a unique solution and find that occasional
observations of the first caustic crossing may be sufficient to derive a
complete solution.Comment: 31 pages + 8 figures + 2 table
Limb-Darkening of a K Giant in the Galactic Bulge: PLANET Photometry of MACHO 97-BLG-28
We present the PLANET photometric dataset for the binary-lens microlensing
event MACHO 97-BLG-28 consisting of 696 I and V-band measurements, and analyze
it to determine the radial surface brightness profile of the Galactic bulge
source star. The microlensed source, demonstrated to be a K giant by our
independent spectroscopy, crossed the central isolated cusp of the lensing
binary, generating a sharp peak in the light curve that was well-resolved by
dense (3 - 30 minute) and continuous monitoring from PLANET sites in Chile,
South Africa, and Australia. Our modeling of these data has produced stellar
profiles for the source star in the I and V bands that are in excellent
agreement with those predicted by stellar atmospheric models for K giants. The
limb-darkening coefficients presented here are the first derived from
microlensing, among the first for normal giants by any technique, and the first
for any star as distant as the Galactic bulge. Modeling indicates that the
lensing binary has a mass ratio q = 0.23 and an (instantaneous) separation in
units of the angular Einstein ring radius of d = 0.69 . For a lens in the
Galactic bulge, this corresponds to a typical stellar binary with a projected
separation between 1 and 2 AU. If the lens lies closer, the separation is
smaller, and one or both of the lens objects is in the brown dwarf regime.
Assuming that the source is a bulge K2 giant at 8 kpc, the relative lens-source
proper motion is mu = 19.4 +/- 2.6 km/s /kpc, consistent with a disk or bulge
lens. If the non-lensed blended light is due to a single star, it is likely to
be a young white dwarf in the bulge, consistent with the blended light coming
from the lens itself.Comment: 32 Pages, including 1 table and 9 postscript figures. (Revised
version has slightly modified text, corrected typo, and 1 new figure.)
Accepted for publication in 1999 Astrophysical Journal; data are now
available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~plane
Combined Analysis of the Binary-Lens Caustic-Crossing Event MACHO 98-SMC-1
We fit the data for the binary-lens microlensing event MACHO 98-SMC-1 from 5
different microlensing collaborations and find two distinct solutions
characterized by binary separation d and mass ratio q: (d,q)=(0.54,0.50) and
(d,q)=(3.65,0.36), where d is in units of the Einstein radius. However, the
relative proper motion of the lens is very similar in the two solutions, 1.30
km/s/kpc and 1.48 km/s/kpc, thus confirming that the lens is in the Small
Magellanic Cloud. The close binary can be either rotating or approximately
static but the wide binary must be rotating at close its maximum allowed rate
to be consistent with all the data. We measure limb-darkening coefficients for
five bands ranging from I to V. As expected, these progressively decrease with
rising wavelength. This is the first measurement of limb darkening for a
metal-poor A star.Comment: 29 pages + 9 figures + 2 tables, submitted to Ap
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