An exploratory study investigating factors associated with adherence to chest physiotherapy and exercise in adults with cystic fibrosis

Copyright @ 2009 European Cystic Fibrosis Society. This article is available through Elsevier's Open Access Archives and covered by Elsevier's user license: http://www.elsevier.com/about/open-access/open-access-policies/oa-license-policy/elsevier-user-license.This study explored the relationship between psychological and demographic variables relating to chest physiotherapy (CP) and exercise in adults with cystic fibrosis. The main results were that adherence to both treatments was low and analysis of variance indicated that severity and gender were associated with exercise adherence, importance and burden. These results suggest potential areas for interventions to improve exercise adherence

Wetlands and coastal water quality: Should wetland size matter?

Generally, wetlands are thought to perform water purification functions, removing contaminants as water flows through sediment and vegetation. This paradigm was challenged when Grant et al. (2001) reported that Talbert Salt Marsh (Figure 1.) increased fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) output to coastal waters, contributing to poor coastal water quality. Like most southern California wetlands, Talbert Salt Marsh has been severely degraded. It is a small (10 ha), restored wetland, only 1/100th its original size, and located at the base of a highly urbanized watershed. Is it reasonable to expect that this or any severely altered wetland will perform the same water purification benefits as a natural wetland? To determine how a more pristine southern California coastal wetland attenuated bacterial contaminants, we investigated FIB concentrations entering and exiting Carpinteria Salt Marsh (Figure 2.), a 93 ha, moderate-sized, relatively natural wetland.(PDF contains 4 pages

A multidisciplinary coastal vulnerability assessment for local government focused on ecosystems, Santa Barbara area, California

Incorporating coastal ecosystems in climate adaptation planning is needed to maintain the well-being of both natural and human systems. Our vulnerability study uses a multidisciplinary approach to evaluate climate change vulnerability of an urbanized coastal community that could serve as a model approach for communities worldwide, particularly in similar Mediterranean climates. We synthesize projected changes in climate, coastal erosion and flooding, watershed runoff and impacts to two important coastal ecosystems, sandy beaches and coastal salt marshes. Using downscaled climate models along with other regional models, we find that temperature, extreme heat events, and sea level are expected to increase in the future, along with more intense rainfall events, despite a negligible change in annual rainfall. Consequently, more droughts are expected but the magnitude of larger flood events will increase. Associated with the continuing rise of mean sea level, extreme coastal water levels will occur with increasingly greater magnitudes and frequency. Severe flooding will occur for both natural (wetlands, beaches) and built environments (airport, harbor, freeway, and residential areas). Adaptation actions can reduce the impact of rising sea level, which will cause losses of sandy beach zones and salt marsh habitats that support the highest biodiversity in these ecosystems, including regionally rare and endangered species, with substantial impacts occurring by 2050. Providing for inland transgression of coastal habitats, effective sediment management, reduced beach grooming and removal of shoreline armoring are adaptations that would help maintain coastal ecosystems and the beneficial services they provide

End sums of irreducible open 3-manifolds

An end sum is a non-compact analogue of a connected sum. Suppose we are given two connected, oriented $n$-manifolds $M_1$ and $M_2$. Recall that to form their connected sum one chooses an $n$-ball in each $M_i$, removes its interior, and then glues together the two $S^{n-1}$ boundary components thus created by an orientation reversing homeomorphism. Now suppose that $M_1$ and $M_2$ are also open, i.e. non-compact with empty boundary. To form an end sum of $M_1$ and $M_2$ one chooses a halfspace $H_i$ (a manifold \homeo\ to ${\bold R}^{n-1} \times [0, \infty)$) embedded in $M_i$, removes its interior, and then glues together the two resulting ${\bold R}^{n-1}$ boundary components by an orientation reversing homeomorphism. In order for this space $M$ to be an $n$-manifold one requires that each $H_i$ be {\bf end-proper} in $M_i$ in the sense that its intersection with each compact subset of $M_i$ is compact. Note that one can regard $H_i$ as a regular neighborhood of an end-proper ray (a 1-manifold \homeo\ to $[0,\infty)$) \ga_i in $M_i$

Tying Arrangements and the Computer Industry: Digidyne Corp. v. Data General Corp.

V diskurzu umění nových médií se setkáváme s nadprodukcí pojmenování této umělecké praxe. Produkce neologismů je pro tuto disciplínu natolik specifická, že můžeme mluvit o tekuté identitě diskurzu nových médií. Příspěvek je věnován specifikaci pojmu softwarové umění ve vztahu k jiným označením umění využívajícího digitální média, konkrétně počítačové umění a počítačem generované umění. Softwarové umění představíme jako disciplínu propojující matematické, poetické a metafyzické chápání komputace (A. Lovelace), jako diskurz osvobozující software z logiky čisté funkcionality ve prospěch jeho metaforické funkce (A. Turing), a jako uměleckou tvorbu zkoumající limity lidské i strojové racionality a imaginace, kterou můžeme nazvat extrémní programování nebo programování excesu.In the discourse of new media art, we meet with overproduction of terms for the artistic practice. Production of neologisms is so characteristic for this discipline that we can talk about fluid identity of new media discourse. The paper is devoted to the specification of the concept of software art in relation to other terms referring to the digital media arts, specifically computer art and computer generated art. The software art will be presented as a discipline that links mathematical, poetic and metaphysical understanding of computation (A. Lovelace), as discourse, whose ambition is to free software from logic of pure functionality in favor of its metaphorical function (A. Turing), and as a creative activity exploring the limits of human and mechanic rationality and imagination in the forms of activities that can be called extreme programming, or programming of excess

Does Phenomenal Consciousness Overflow Attention? An Argument from Feature-Integration

In the past two decades a number of arguments have been given in favor of the possibility of phenomenal consciousness without attentional access, otherwise known as phenomenal overflow. This paper will show that the empirical data commonly cited in support of this thesis is, at best, ambiguous between two equally plausible interpretations, one of which does not posit phenomenology beyond attention. Next, after citing evidence for the feature-integration theory of attention, this paper will give an account of the relationship between consciousness and attention that accounts for both the empirical data and our phenomenological intuitions without positing phenomenal consciousness beyond attention. Having undercut the motivations for accepting phenomenal overflow along with having given reasons to think that phenomenal overflow does not occur, I end with the tentative conclusion that attention is a necessary condition for phenomenal consciousness