The impact of the physical environment for caregiving in ordinary housing: Experiences of staff in home- and health-care services

The strong driving forces for ageing in place demand sustainable solutions for the housing and care of older people and the health and safety of home- and health-care staff. The aim of the study was to elucidate staff experiences of providing home- and health-care to older people living in ordinary housing. This study was part of a larger project investigating the relation between home design and conditions for care in ordinary housing. The data were gathered through focus group interviews with staff in home- and health-care. Three main themes were found according to staff experiences of particular rooms’ sizes and proportions, spatial configurations, and aspects to consider when designing new housing. This study contributes important knowledge about essential features of the physical environment for staff providing home- and health-care for older people in their own homes and to aid the development of functionally sustainable housing to minimise injuries to staff

X-ray Diffraction and Molecular Dynamics Study of Medium-range Order in Ambient and Hot Water

We have developed x-ray diffraction measurements with high energy-resolution and accuracy to study water structure at three different temperatures (7, 25 and 66 C) under normal pressure. Using a spherically curved Ge crystal an energy resolution better than 15 eV has been achieved which eliminates influence from Compton scattering. The high quality of the data allows a precise oxygen-oxygen pair correlation function (PCF) to be directly derived from the Fourier transform of the experimental data resolving shell structure out to ~12 {\AA}, i.e. 5 hydration shells. Large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using the TIP4P/2005 force-field reproduce excellently the experimental shell-structure in the range 4-12 {\AA} although less agreement is seen for the first peak in the PCF. The Local Structure Index [J. Chem. Phys. 104, 7671 (1996)] identifies a tetrahedral minority giving the intermediate-range oscillations in the PCF and a disordered majority providing a more featureless background in this range. The current study supports the proposal that the structure of liquid water, even at high temperatures, can be described in terms of a two-state fluctuation model involving local structures related to the high-density and low-density forms of liquid water postulated in the liquid-liquid phase transition hypothesis.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Chem. Chem. Phy

Urban Food Strategies. The rough guide to sustainable food systems

This guide provides motivation and support for those actors interested in building more sustainable food systems in urban contexts

Enzymatic signal amplification of molecular beacons for sensitive DNA detection

Molecular beacons represent a new family of fluorescent probes for nucleic acids, and have found broad applications in recent years due to their unique advantages over traditional probes. Detection of nucleic acids using molecular beacons has been based on hybridization between target molecules and molecular beacons in a 1:1 stoichiometric ratio. The stoichiometric hybridization, however, puts an intrinsic limitation on detection sensitivity, because one target molecule converts only one beacon molecule to its fluorescent form. To increase the detection sensitivity, a conventional strategy has been target amplification through polymerase chain reaction. Instead of target amplification, here we introduce a scheme of signal amplification, nicking enzyme signal amplification, to increase the detection sensitivity of molecular beacons. The mechanism of the signal amplification lies in target-dependent cleavage of molecular beacons by a DNA nicking enzyme, through which one target DNA can open many beacon molecules, giving rise to amplification of fluorescent signal. Our results indicate that one target DNA leads to cleavage of hundreds of beacon molecules, increasing detection sensitivity by nearly three orders of magnitude. We designed two versions of signal amplification. The basic version, though simple, requires that nicking enzyme recognition sequence be present in the target DNA. The extended version allows detection of target of any sequence by incorporating rolling circle amplification. Moreover, the extended version provides one additional level of signal amplification, bringing the detection limit down to tens of femtomolar, nearly five orders of magnitude lower than that of conventional hybridization assay

Reporting on 16 years of laboratory capacity building while exploring the future of WOAH's Laboratory Twinning Programme

Animal health laboratories are an increasingly important part of safeguarding animal and public health due to their role in surveillance and diagnostics of animal diseases, food safety, and in the development and production of medicinal products, vaccines, and diagnostic tools. Despite their importance, the global distribution of veterinary laboratory expertise is uneven, with greater concentration of reference laboratories in wealthier countries. To address this issue, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE) created a Laboratory Twinning Programme in 2006. The paper will briefly review this Programme in the context of an increasingly populated global health security field, based on a literature review and on a combination of public and internal WOAH data and describe the implementation of the Programme in the past 16 years, noting the drivers for project implementation, its links with the global livestock biomass distribution and with the current distribution of veterinary laboratory expertise. There has been broad uptake and diversity in the focus of the twinning projects implemented in WOAH Member Countries. The Laboratory Twinning Programme would benefit from an evaluation that looks at its outcomes and quantifiable impact in beneficiary countries. A case is made for the development of a monitoring and evaluation system tailored to the Programme's specificities

Search for multiple myeloma risk factors using Mendelian randomization.

The etiology of multiple myeloma (MM) is poorly understood. Summary data from genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of multiple phenotypes can be exploited in a Mendelian randomization (MR) phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) to search for factors influencing MM risk. We performed an MR-PheWAS analyzing 249 phenotypes, proxied by 10 225 genetic variants, and summary genetic data from a GWAS of 7717 MM cases and 29 304 controls. Odds ratios (ORs) per 1 standard deviation increase in each phenotype were estimated under an inverse variance weighted random effects model. A Bonferroni-corrected threshold of P = 2 × 10-4 was considered significant, whereas P < .05 was considered suggestive of an association. Although no significant associations with MM risk were observed among the 249 phenotypes, 28 phenotypes showed evidence suggestive of association, including increased levels of serum vitamin B6 and blood carnitine (P = 1.1 × 10-3) with greater MM risk and ω-3 fatty acids (P = 5.4 × 10-4) with reduced MM risk. A suggestive association between increased telomere length and reduced MM risk was also noted; however, this association was primarily driven by the previously identified risk variant rs10936599 at 3q26 (TERC). Although not statistically significant, increased body mass index was associated with increased risk (OR, 1.10; 95% confidence interval, 0.99-1.22), supporting findings from a previous meta-analysis of prospective observational studies. Our study did not provide evidence supporting any modifiable factors examined as having a major influence on MM risk; however, it provides insight into factors for which the evidence has previously been mixed

Self reported sleep quality and cognitive performance in ecstasy users

Objectives Research suggests that ecstasy users exhibit psychobiological changes relative to nonusers such as altered sleep patterns and cognitive deficits. In turn, it has been suggested that sleep quality may be a mediator of such cognitive deficits in ecstasy users. The present study sought to investigate this proposed relationship. Methods Aspects of cognitive functioning in 104 ecstasy users and 103 nonusers obtained from our previous studies were reanalysed to explore the extent to which ecstasy-related group differences were attributable to differences in sleep quality. Cognitive function was assessed via the computation span test, consonant updating, paired associate learning, syllogistic reasoning and word fluency. Sleep quality was measured via the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), and the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS). Results Ecstasy users performed worse than nonusers on all cognitive measures. While no differences were observed on the ESS, ecstasy users reported greater tiredness at the beginning of testing than nonusers. When the sleep variables were included as covariates, the effects of ecstasy on all cognitive measures remained significant. Conclusions The results of the present study suggest little evidence for the mediating effects of sleep on cognitive function in ecstasy users. Keywords: ecstasy; MDMA; sleep; memor

A multiplexed bead assay for profiling glycosylation patterns on serum protein biomarkers of pancreatic cancer

A multiplexed bead‐based immunoassay was developed to simultaneously profile glycosylation patterns of serum proteins to investigate their usefulness as biomarkers for pancreatic cancer. The multiplex assay utilized protein‐specific capture antibodies chemically coupled individually to beads labeled with specific amounts of fluorescent dye. Captured proteins were detected based on the extent and specific type of glycosylation as determined by successive binding of fluorescent lectin probes. Advantages to this technique include the fact that antibodies coupled to the beads had minimal nonspecific binding to the lectins ConA/SNA, avoiding the step of chemically blocking the antibody glycans and the bead assays were performed in a 96‐well filter plate enabling high‐throughput screening applications with improved reproducibility. The assay was tested with ConA and SNA lectins to examine the glycosylation patterns of α‐1‐β glycoprotein (A1BG) and serum amyloid p (SAP) component for use as potential biomarkers for the detection of pancreatic cancer based on the results from prior biomarker studies. The results showed that the SNA response on the captured A1BG protein could distinguish chronic pancreatitis samples from pancreatic cancer with a p ‐value of 0.035 and for the SAP protein with SNA, a p ‐value of 0.026 was found between the signal of normal controls and the pancreatic cancer samples. For the ConA response, a decline in the signal for both proteins in the serum samples was found to distinguish pancreatic cancer from normal controls and renal cell carnoma samples (A1BG, p <0.05; and SAP, p <0.0001).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87003/1/2028_ftp.pd