Quality of Life in Community-Dwelling Older People with Functional and Nutritional Impairment and Depressive Symptoms: A Comparative Cross-Sectional Study in Brazil and Portugal.

Abstract: Background: The interaction of quality of life (QoL) with functionality, nutrition and depression has been studied, but few studies have compared different realities. Our objective was to compare the associations of QoL with impaired functionality, nutritional status and depressive symptoms among older people patients treated in primary health care (PHC) in Brazil and Portugal. Methods: Cross-sectional, comparative study was conducted with primary data from PHC services in Brazil and Portugal with users over 65 years old. Participants’ scores were classified as “impaired” and “preserved” for QoL, functional decline, nutrition and depression. We used Pearson’s chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test and the Mann–Whitney U test. Results: Our sample had a total of 150 PHC users. We found lower QoL scores in Brazil, which were associated with the risk of functional decline for the domains Physical Functioning, General Health Perceptions, Mental Health dimensions and Physical Health. Nutritional impairment in the group from Portugal included the domains of Vitality and Social Role Functioning. For depressive impairment, Portugal showed an association with the domains Mental Health, Vitality and Social Role Functioning. Conclusions: QoL was associated with functional and nutritional impairment and depressive symptoms, highlighting physical, mental and social characteristics related to the perception of well-being

Piezoelectric Coefficients D14, D16, D34 And D36 Of An L-arginine Hydrochloride Monohydrate Crystal By X-ray Three-beam Diffraction

Previous work employed X-ray three-beam diffraction techniques to obtain part of the L-arginine hydrochloride monohydrate (L-AHCL.H2O) piezoelectric coefficients, namely d21, d22, d 23 and d25. Those coefficients were obtained by measuring the shift in the angular position of a number of secondary reflections as a function of the electric field applied in the [010] piezoelectric direction. In this paper a similar procedure has been used to measure the remaining four piezoelectric coefficients in L-AHCL.H2O: with the electric field applied in the [100] direction, d14 and d36 were measured; with the electric field applied in the [001] direction, d34 and d36 were obtained. Therefore the entire piezoelectric matrix of the L-AHCL.H2O crystal has been successfully measured. © 2006 International Union of Crystallography Printed in Great Britain - all rights reserved.136435439Almeida, J.M.A., Miranda, M.A.R., Remédios, C.M.R., Melo, F.E.A., Freire, P.T.C., Sasaki, J.M., Cardoso, L.P., Kycia, S., (2003) J. Appl. Cryst., 36, pp. 1348-1351Avanci, L.H., Cardoso, L.P., Girdwood, S.E., Pugh, D., Sherwood, J.N., Roberts, K.J., (1998) Phys. Rev. Lett., 81, pp. 5426-5429Avanci, L.H., Cardoso, L.P., Sasaki, J.M., Girdwood, S.E., Roberts, K.J., Pugh, D., Sherwood, J.N., (2000) Phys. Rev. B, 61, pp. 6507-6514Chang, S.L., (1984) Multiple Diffraction of X-rays in Crystals, , Berlin: SpringerCole, H., Chamber, F.W., Dunn, H.M., (1962) Acta Cryst., 15, pp. 138-144Deloach, L.D., (1994) J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, 11, pp. 1186-1196Dow, J., Jensen, L.H., (1970) Acta Cryst. B, 26, pp. 1662-1671Evlanova, N.F., Moldazhanova, G.T., Pashina, Z.S., Rashkovich, L.N., Shekunov, B.Y., (1990) Kristallografiya, 35, p. 899Haussuehl, S., Chrosch, J., Gnanam, F., Fiorentini, E., Recker, K., Wall-Rafen, F., (1990) Cryst. Res. Technol., 25, pp. 617-623Monaco, S.B., Davis, L.E., Velsko, S.P., Wang, F.T., Eimerl, D., Zalkin, A., (1987) J. Cryst. Growth, 85, pp. 252-255Morelhão, S.L., (2003) J. Synchrotron Rad., 10, pp. 236-241Mukerji, S., Kar, T., (1998) Mater. Chem. Phys., 57, pp. 72-76Mukerjia, S., Kar, T., (2000) Mater. Res. Bull., 35, pp. 711-717Nye, J.F., (1957) Physical Properties of Crystals, , Oxford: ClarendonPetrosyan, A.M., Sukiasyam, R.P., Karapetyan, H.A., Terzyan, S.S., Feigelson, R.S., (2000) J. Cryst. Growth, 213, pp. 103-111Rashkovich, L.N., Shekunov, B.Y., (1991) J. Cryst. Growth, 112, pp. 183-191Renninger, M., (1937) Z. Phys., 106, p. 141Dos Santos, A.O., Cardoso, L.P., Sasaki, J.M., Miranda, M.A.R., Melo, F.E.A., (2003) J. Phys. Condens. Matter, 15, pp. 7835-7842Xu, D., Jiang, M.H., Tan, Z.K., (1983) Acta Chim. Sin., 41, pp. 570-57

EMSO: A Distributed Infrastructure for Addressing Geohazards and Global Ocean Change

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO; http://www.emso-eu.org) is addressing the next challenge in Earth-ocean science: how to coordinate data acquisition, analysis, archiving, access, and response to geohazards across provincial, national, regional, and international boundaries. Such coordination is needed to optimize the use of current and planned ocean observatory systems to (1) address national and regional public safety concerns about geohazards (e.g., earthquakes, submarine landslides, tsunamis) and (2) permit broadening of their scope toward monitoring environmental change on global ocean scales

The EMSO-ERIC Pan-European Consortium: data benefits and lessons learned as the legal entity forms

The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory (EMSO) European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) provides power, communications, sensors, and data infrastructure for continuous, high-resolution, (near-)real-time, interactive ocean observations across a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary range of research areas including biology, geology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and computer science, from polar to subtropical environments, through the water column down to the abyss. Eleven deep-sea and four shallow nodes span from the Arctic through the Atlantic and Mediterranean, to the Black Sea. Coordination among the consortium nodes is being strengthened through the EMSOdev project (H2020), which will produce the EMSO Generic Instrument Module (EGIM). Early installations are now being upgraded, for example, at the Ligurian, Ionian, Azores, and Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP) nodes. Significant findings have been flowing in over the years; for example, high-frequency surface and subsurface water-column measurements of the PAP node show an increase in seawater pCO2 (from 339 μatm in 2003 to 353 μatm in 2011) with little variability in the mean air-sea CO2 flux. In the Central Eastern Atlantic, the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands open-ocean canary node (aka ESTOC station) has a long-standing time series on water column physical, biogeochemical, and acidification processes that have contributed to the assessment efforts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). EMSO not only brings together countries and disciplines but also allows the pooling of resources and coordination to assemble harmonized data into a comprehensive regional ocean picture, which will then be made available to researchers and stakeholders worldwide on an open and interoperable access basis