Food activities and identity maintenance in old age: a systematic review and meta-synthesis

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Objectives: Services provided to older people should be developed based on active ageing policies. Nutrition is one aspect of active ageing, but little is known about how food activities contribute to psychological well-being in later life. This is a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative research that answers the question ‘What is known about the relationship between food activities and the maintenance of identities in old age?’

Form factors of heavy-to-light B decays at large recoil

General relations between the form factors of B decays to light mesons are derived using the heavy quark and large recoil expansion. On their basis the complete account of contributions of second order in the ratio of the light meson mass to the large recoil energy is performed. Both ground and excited final meson states are considered. It is shown that most of the known form factor relations remain valid after the inclusion of quadratic mass corrections. The validity of some of such relations requires additional equalities for the helicity amplitudes. It is found that all these relations and equalities are fulfilled in the relativistic quark model based on the quasipotential approach in quantum field theory. The contribution of 1/m_b corrections to the branching fraction of the rare radiative B decay is discussed.Comment: 23 pages, revte

Trade uncertainty and the two-step procedure: The choice of numeraire and exact indexation

In a small open economy it is optimal to first maximize national income and second choose the best consumption point. The same two-step procedure under (quantitative) uncertainty is suboptimal if one of the goods is used as numéraire. Optimality is restored however, if nominal prices are deflated by the exact price index. Hence there is equivalence between the appropriate two-step procedure and the introduction of a stock market under uncertainty (Diamond 1967) under ideal circumstances

Darwin -— an experimental astronomy mission to search for extrasolar planets

As a response to ESA call for mission concepts for its Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 plan, we propose a mission called Darwin. Its primary goal is the study of terrestrial extrasolar planets and the search for life on them. In this paper, we describe different characteristics of the instrument

Nurturing lifelong learning in communities through the National University of Lesotho: prospects and challenges

This paper analyses one aspect of a pan-African action research project called ITMUA (Implementing the Third Mission of Universities in Africa). This particular paper draws on the data from that project to explore the National University of Lesotho’s contribution to lifelong learning in its communities. It provides background information on the ITMUA initiative and analyses interview and focus group responses to two case studies in terms of their contribution to lifelong learning. It uses, as its analytical framework, a modified version of Mbigi’s African perspective on the four De Lors’ ‘pillars’, by adding a fifth pillar, courtesy of Torres. The paper argues that community engagement is a two-way process between universities and their wider constituencies with opportunities for mutual lifelong learning. But there are also challenges of understanding and process which must be addressed if the full range of these lifelong learning pillars is to be accommodated within African contexts. The paper provides an introduction to the history of community engagement in Africa as a university mission, followed by a brief discussion of lifelong learning within African perspectives. After describing the particular context of Lesotho, the concept of community service and community engagement in contemporary African contexts introduces the action research project and the case studies. The final part of the paper presents and discusses the research findings

Ward Identities, B-> \rho Form Factors and |V_ub|

The exclusive FCNC beauty semileptonic decay B-> \rho is studied using Ward identities in a general vector meson dominance framework, predicting vector meson couplings involved. The long distance contributions are discussed which results to obtain form factors and |V_ub|. A detailed comparison is given with other approaches.Comment: 30 pages+four postscript figures, an Appendix adde

Flavour and Collider Interplay for SUSY at LHC7

The current 7 TeV run of the LHC experiment shall be able to probe gluino and squark masses up to values larger than 1 TeV. Assuming that hints for SUSY are found in the jets plus missing energy channel by the end of a 5 fb$^{-1}$ run, we explore the flavour constraints on three models with a CMSSM-like spectrum: the CMSSM itself, a Seesaw extension of the CMSSM, and Flavoured CMSSM. In particular, we focus on decays that might have been measured by the time the run is concluded, such as $B_s\to\mu\mu$ and $\mu\to e\gamma$. We also analyse constraints imposed by neutral meson bounds and electric dipole moments. The interplay between collider and flavour experiments is explored through the use of three benchmark scenarios, finding the flavour feedback useful in order to determine the model parameters and to test the consistency of the different models.Comment: 44 pages, 15 figures; v3: minor corrections, added references, updated figures. Version accepted for publicatio

A comparison of nefazodone, the cognitive behavioral-analysis system of psychotherapy, and their combination for the treatment of chronic depression

Background Patients with chronic forms of major depression are difficult to treat, and the relative efficacy of medications and psychotherapy is uncertain. Methods We randomly assigned 681 adults with a chronic nonpsychotic major depressive disorder to 12 weeks of outpatient treatment with nefazodone (maximal dose, 600 mg per day), the cognitive behavioral-analysis system of psychotherapy (16 to 20 sessions), or both. At base line, all patients had scores of at least 20 on the 24-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (indicating clinically significant depression). Remission was defined as a score of 8 or less at weeks 10 and 12. For patients who did not have remission, a satisfactory response was defined as a reduction in the score by at least 50 percent from base line and a score of 15 or less. Raters were unaware of the patients’ treatment assignments. Results Of the 681 patients, 662 attended at least one treatment session and were included in the analysis of response. The overall rate of response (both remission and satisfactory response) was 48 percent in both the nefazodone group and the psychotherapy group, as compared with 73 percent in the combined-treatment group (P Conclusions Although about half of patients with chronic forms of major depression have a response to short-term treatment with either nefazodone or a cognitive behavioral-analysis system of psychotherapy, the combination of the two is significantly more efficacious than either treatment alone

Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events

The $B^0$-$\bar B^0$ oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of 23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives $\Delta m_d = 0.493 \pm 0.012{(stat)}\pm 0.009{(syst)}$ ps$^{-1}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 from a Seronegative Organ and Tissue Donor

Abstract BACKGROUND Since 1985, donors of organs or tissues for transplantation in the United States have been screened for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), and more than 60,000 organs and 1 million tissues have been transplanted. We describe a case of transmission of HIV-1 by transplantation of organs and tissues procured between the time the donor became infected and the appearance of antibodies. The donor was a 22-year-old man who died 32 hours after a gunshot wound; he had no known risk factors for HIV-1 infection and was seronegative. METHODS We reviewed the processing and distribution of all the transplanted organs and tissues, reviewed the medical histories of the donor and HIV-1—infected recipients, tested stored donor lymphocytes for HIV-1 by viral culture and the polymerase chain reaction, and tested stored serum samples from four organ recipients for HIV-1 antigen and antibody. RESULTS HIV-1 was detected in cultured lymphocytes from the donor. Of 58 tissues and organs obtained from the donor, 52 could be accounted for by the hospitals that received them. Of the 48 identified recipients, 41 were tested for HIV-1 antibody. All four recipients of organs and all three recipients of unprocessed fresh-frozen bone were infected with HIV-1. However, 34 recipients of other tissues — 2 receiving corneas, 3 receiving lyophilized soft tissue, 25 receiving ethanol-treated bone, 3 receiving dura mater treated with gamma radiation, and 1 receiving marrow-evacuated, fresh-frozen bone — tested negative for HIV-1 antibody. Despite immunosuppressive chemotherapy, HIV-1 antibody appeared between 26 and 54 days after transplantation in the three organ recipients who survived more than 4 weeks. CONCLUSIONS Although rare, transmission of HIV-1 by seronegative organ and tissue donors can occur. Improvements in the methods used to screen donors for HIV-1, advances in techniques of virus inactivation, prompt reporting of HIV infection in recipients, and accurate accounting of distributed allografts would help to reduce further this already exceedingly low risk. (N Engl J Med 1992;326:726–32.