bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Physical activity preferences of older home care clients
Authors: Burton Elissa , Lewin Gill , Boldy Duncan 
Published: November 2014

BackgroundPhysical activity contributes to an older person's health and well‐being by maintaining strength, balance and mobility, all of which are important for older people who wish to remain living in their home for as long as possible. It is therefore essential that community nurses and those working with home care clients promote being physically active. To do this effectively requires an understanding of the type of physical activity older home care clients prefer to engage in.AimThe aims of this study were to identify the physical activity preferences of older people who received a home care service and to determine whether being physically active is important to this population.MethodsTwenty older home care clients were interviewed using a semi‐structured interview schedule. Data were analysed using a descriptive qualitative methodology.ResultsWalking, housework and gardening were identified as the activities of choice. The majority of interviewees suggested that it was important to be physically active.ConclusionStructured exercise programmes are not the activity of choice for older home care clients. Therefore, when community nurses and allied health workers promote physical activity to their clients, they should suggest activities such as walking, housework and gardening and also endorse the benefits of physical activity for well‐being and staying independent.Implication for practiceHealth and community nurses and organisations should routinely encourage home care clients to increase their activity levels, especially utilising those activities they most enjoy.
Home healthcare teams’ assessments of pain in care recipients living with dementia: a Swedish exploratory study
Authors: Karlsson Christina Elisabeth , Ernsth Bravell Marie , Ek Kristina , Bergh Ingrid 
Published: November 2014

BackgroundPain assessment in people living with dementia is a challenge due to the complexity of pain and dementia and the difficulties in self‐reporting. In home healthcare, nurses are frequently involved in pain assessment situations and there is a need to explore how home healthcare teams’ manage pain assessment in this setting.AimThe study aimed to explore home healthcare teams’ experiences of pain assessment among care recipients with dementia.DesignAn exploratory qualitative design was used.MethodsOpen‐ended individual interviews were conducted with thirteen registered nurses and ten nursing assistants, working in three different home healthcare teams in one municipality in western Sweden. Philosophical hermeneutics was utilised to interpret the home healthcare teams’ experiences.ResultsFour interpretations emerged: the need for trusting collaboration, the use of multiple assessment strategies, maintenance of staff continuity in care and assessment situations, and the need for extended time to assess pain.ConclusionsThe home healthcare teams recognise pain assessment in people with dementia as involving a complex interaction of sensory, cognitive, emotional and behavioural components in which efforts to acquire understanding of behavioural changes mainly guides their assessments. The solid team coherence between registered nurses and nursing assistants aided the assessment procedure. To assess pain, the teams used multiple methods that complemented one another. However, no systematic routines or appropriate evidence‐based pain tools were used.Implications for PracticeThe team members'concern for care recipients when assessing pain is evident and needs to be acknowledged by the organisation which is responsible for the quality of care. Future studies should focus on further exploration of nurses’ experiences with pain and dementia in home healthcare settings and address what nurses identify and how they deal with their findings. It is imperative to investigate how organisations and nurses can ensure best practices and how the implementation of evidence‐based routines for assessing pain may aid in pain assessment situations.
HPTLC screening of taro hybrids (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) with high flavonoids and antioxidants contents
Authors: Lebot Vincent , Legendre Laurent 
Published: November 2014

AbstractTaro (Colocasia esculenta) is the tropical root crop species featuring the greatest flavonoids diversity. Their quantification is important for breeding programmes focusing on biofortification. This study aims at developing an HPTLC protocol to compare the flavonoids fingerprints of more than 1800 hybrids belonging to 24 full‐sib families and to select genotypes with high levels of antioxidants. Twenty different chemical markers were identified based on bands Rf and colour. Flavonoids differ among individuals both quantitatively and qualitatively. Marker ‘A’ yielded the strongest antioxidant response to DPPH, equivalent to the one with quercetin pure standard. Overall, 377 high flavonoids content (HFC) hybrids were selected from 14 different families. The mean corm weight of HFC hybrids always appeared higher than the mean corm weight of the family they belong to. This method allows unambiguous selection of HFC hybrids. It also contributes to taro genetic improvement for nutritional value and access to new markets and to strengthen corm tolerance to pests and diseases. It could be applied to other tropical root crop species.
Ultraviolet Index and Location are Important Determinants of Vitamin D Status in People with Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Authors: Klassen Karen M. , Fairley Christopher K. , Kimlin Michael G. , Kelly Mark , Read Tim R.H. , Broom Jennifer , Russell Darren B. , Ebeling Peter R. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThis study aimed to document the vitamin D status of HIV‐infected individuals across a wide latitude range in one country and to examine associated risk factors for low vitamin D. Using data from patients attending four HIV specialist clinics across a wide latitude range in Australia, we constructed logistic regression models to investigate risk factors associated with 25(OH)D < 75 nmol L−1. 1788 patients were included; 87% were male, 76% Caucasian and 72% on antiretroviral therapy. The proportion with 25(OH)D < 50 nmol L−1 was 27%, and <75 nmol L−1 was 54%. Living in Melbourne compared with Cairns (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 3.30; 95% CI 2.18, 4.99, P < 0.001) and non‐Caucasian origin (aOR 2.82, 95% CI 2.12, 3.75, P < 0.001) was associated with an increased risk, while extreme UV index compared with low UV index was associated with a reduced risk (aOR 0.33; 95% CI 0.20, 0.55, P < 0.001) of 25(OH)D < 75 nmol L−1. In those with biochemistry available (n = 1117), antiretroviral therapy was associated with 25(OH)D < 75 nmol L−1; however, this association was modified by serum cholesterol status. Location and UV index were the strongest factors associated with 25(OH)D < 75 nmol L−1. Cholesterol, the product of an alternative steroid pathway with a common precursor steroid, modified the effect of antiretroviral therapy on serum 25(OH)D.
The Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Methyl Tert‐butyl Ether Under Pd/ZnO and Visible Light Irradiation
Authors: Seddigi Zaki S. , Ahmed Saleh A. , Bumajdad Ali , Danish Ekram Y. , Shawky Ahmed M. , Gondal Mohammed A. , Soylak Mustafa 
Published: November 2014

AbstractMethyl tert‐butyl ether is a commonly used fuel oxygenate that is present in gasoline. It was introduced to eliminate the use of leaded gasoline and to improve the octane quality because it aids in the complete combustion of fuel by supplying oxygen during the combustion process. Over the past decade, the use of MTBE has increased tremendously worldwide. For obvious reasons relating to accidental spillage, MTBE started to appear as an environmental and human health threat because of its nonbiodegradable nature and carcinogenic potential, respectively. In this work, MTBE was degraded with the help of an advanced oxidation process through the use of zinc oxide as a photocatalyst in the presence of visible light. A mixture of 200 mg of zinc oxide in 350 mL of 50 ppm MTBE aqueous solution was irradiated with visible light for a given time. The complete degradation of MTBE was recorded, and approximately 99% photocatalytic degradation of 100 ppm MTBE solution was observed. Additionally, the photoactivity of 1% Pd‐doped ZnO was tested under similar conditions to understand the effect of Pd doping on ZnO. Our results obtained under visible light irradiation are very promising, and they could be further explored for the degradation of several nondegradable environmental pollutants.
Spatial analysis of the risk of major forest diseases in Monterey pine plantations
Authors: Iturritxa E. , Mesanza N. , Brenning A. 
Published: November 2014

Diplodia pinea (causing diplodia blight), Fusarium circinatum (causing pitch canker), and Mycosphaerella spp. (causing needle blight) are examples of major fungal agents that damage Pinus spp. These diseases have a major negative impact on commercial plantation production, in addition to the risk of being introduced to native forest ecosystems. This study aimed to model the spatial risk of major forest diseases to Monterey pine plantations in northern Spain, to provide a basis for more focused management strategies. Generalized linear mixed‐effects models were used to identify empirical relationships between environmental variables and disease occurrence. Field surveys and laboratory tests confirmed that D. pinea caused shoot blight in 24% of sampled plantations. Fusarium circinatum and Mycosphaerella spp. were detected in 15 and 71% of analysed plantations, respectively. The results confirmed that disease risk was strongly related to summer precipitation, moderately related to solar radiation, followed by summer temperature and tree age. The predicted probability of disease incidence was >20, 98 and 85% for Mycosphaerella spp., F. circinatum and D. pinea, respectively. The resultant maps from this study may be used to identify high‐risk areas for increased monitoring and awareness of fungal diseases.
Guerrilla Statesmanship: Constitutionalizing an Ethic of Dissent
Authors: Newswander Chad B. 
Published: November 2014

AbstractAccording to judicial precedents, administrators informed by their expertise can speak on issues of public concern under First Amendment protections. In one sense, they could dissent by working against their employers in an attempt to direct issues of public concern through an educational function. The power to act like a statesman in raising such issues allows administrators to lead from behind and in front, as long as certain judicial thresholds are met. However, the U.S. Supreme Court recently moved to tighten the scope of such activity. This article assesses how an ethic of dissent has been translated into a constitutional perspective that at first was moderately constrained and later became very restricted. While the move to limit an ethic of dissent provides necessary constraints, it also may have weakened administrators’ ability to perform necessary statesmanship acts rooted in guerrilla government to achieve the common good.
The Service Outsourcing Sector As Driver of Development: The Expectations of Ghana's Ict for Accelerated Development Programme
Authors: Beerepoot Niels , Keijser Charlotte 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThe service outsourcing sector is often regarded as a driver for economic growth of developing countries. The success story of India in acquiring foreign investments and building local firm capacity has led that many developing countries seek to develop an ICT‐driven development agenda. Ghana actively pursues such an agenda with its ICT4AD programme that aims at developing a knowledge economy. This paper concentrates on the Ghanaian efforts to attract foreign outsourcing firms and develop local firm capacity. While the ambitions are pointed towards servicing Western markets, it is rather the domestic and regional market that attracts foreign investors to invest in the Ghanaian outsourcing sector. Second, the paper identifies the symbolic significance of the sector. The service outsourcing sector is often used as a representation of a modernising Ghana and, despite its small size, provides a good illustration of the current optimism on Africa's development potential.
An Event‐driven Spatiotemporal Data Model (E‐ST) Supporting Dynamic Expression and Simulation of Geographic Processes
Authors: Li Xiaolong , Yang Jiansi , Guan Xuefeng , Wu Huayi 
Published: November 2014

AbstractThe wide use of various sensors makes real‐time data acquisition possible. A new spatiotemporal data model, the Event‐driven Spatiotemporal Data Model (E‐ST), is proposed to dynamically express and simulate the spatiotemporal processes of geographic phenomena. In E‐ST, a sensor object is introduced into the model as a flexible real‐time data source. An event type that is generating and driving conditions is registered into a geographic object, so an event can not only express spatiotemporal change in a geographic object, but also drive spatiotemporal change in some geographic objects. As a dynamic GIS data model, the E‐ST has five characteristics – Temporality and Spatiality, Real‐time, Extendability, Causality, and Realizability. Described and realized in UML, a test‐case deployment demonstrating the impact of urban waterlogging on traffic confirms that a spatiotemporal change process in a geographic phenomena is expressed and simulated by this model. Summarizing this work, four directions for future research are outlined.
Mechanisms of carotid body chemoreflex dysfunction during heart failure
Authors: Schultz Harold D. , Marcus Noah J. , Del Rio Rodrigo 
Published: November 2014

New Findings

What is the topic of this review?
Carotid body chemoreceptor activity is tonically elevated in heart failure and contributes to morbidity due to the reflex activation of sympathetic nerve activity and destabilization of breathing. The potential causes for the enhanced chemoreceptor activation in heart failure are discussed.

What advances does it highlight?
The role of a chronic reduction in blood flow to the carotid body due to cardiac failure and its impact on signalling pathways in the carotid body is discussed.

Recent advances have attracted interest in the potential for carotid body (CB) ablation or desensitization as an effective strategy for clinical treatment and management of cardiorespiratory diseases, including hypertension, heart failure, diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome and renal failure. These disease states have in common sympathetic overactivity, which plays an important role in the development and progression of the disease and is often associated with breathing dysregulation, which in turn is likely to mediate or aggravate the autonomic imbalance. Evidence from both chronic heart failure (CHF) patients and animal models indicates that the CB chemoreflex is enhanced in CHF and contributes to the tonic elevation in sympathetic activity and the development of periodic breathing associated with the disease. Although this maladaptive change is likely to derive from altered function at all levels of the reflex arc, a tonic increase in afferent activity from CB glomus cells is likely to be a main driving force. This report focuses on our understanding of mechanisms that alter CB function in CHF and their potential translational impact on treatment of CHF.
Force steadiness during a co‐contraction task can be improved with practice, but only by young adults and not by middle‐aged or old adults
Authors: Holmes Matthew R. , Gould Jeffrey R. , Peña‐González Ilana , Enoka Roger M. 
Published: November 2014

New Findings

What is the central question of this study?
Does the capacity to modulate afferent input to spinal motor neurons during steady submaximal contractions change with advancing age?

What is the main finding and its importance?
After practising a co‐contraction task involving lower leg muscles, young subjects improved force steadiness by reducing the amount of Ia presynaptic inhibition as indexed by D1 inhibition. Middle‐aged and old adults both found the task challenging, and force steadiness even worsened for old adults after practising the co‐contraction task. Despite similar muscle strength for young and middle‐aged adults, the capacity to modulate a spinal reflex pathway was reduced in middle‐aged adults.

This study compared the changes in steadiness and the modulation of presynaptic inhibition of soleus Ia afferents in young, middle‐aged and old adults before and after a single session of practising a task that involved concurrent contraction of dorsiflexor and plantarflexor muscles. The hypothesis was that young subjects would be able to improve steadiness with practice by modulating Ia afferent feedback as indicated by changes in a measure of presynaptic inhibition (D1 inhibition), but that middle‐aged and older subjects would exhibit a lesser ability to augment steadiness. There were no differences in steadiness between groups during an initial co‐contraction trial (P = 0.713). Maximal voluntary contraction force for the plantarflexors was not significantly different between young and middle‐aged subjects (P > 0.05), but it was significantly less in old subjects (P < 0.05). The main finding of the study was that young adults were able to improve steadiness by ∼19% (P < 0.001) during a co‐contraction task after 50 min of practice, whereas there was no change for the middle‐aged adults, and old adults became less steady by ∼15% (P < 0.05). The improvement in steadiness by young adults was accompanied by a significant reduction in the amount of Ia presynaptic inhibition as indexed by D1 inhibition (P < 0.01). Conversely, neither of the other two groups exhibited any change in D1 inhibition after practising the co‐contraction task. In contrast to young subjects, middle‐aged and old adults found the co‐contraction task challenging and were not able to improve steadiness after practising the low‐force isometric contraction.
Progress of the HTR-10 Measured Data Utilization
Authors: Chen Fubing , Dong Yujie , Zheng Yanhua , Shi Lei , Li Fu , Zhang Zuoyi 
Published: November 2014

The 10 MW High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor-Test Module (HTR-10), which was designed, constructed and operated by the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University, is the first High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) in China. Stepping into the commissioning phase in April, 2000, the HTR-10 attained the first criticality in December, 2000 and achieved its full power operation in January, 2003. Up to now, the HTR-10 has been successfully operated for more than ten years with different power levels. During the relatively long period of commissioning and operation, various kinds of tests were carried out on this reactor. Within the scope of this paper, the commissioning stage, the operation history and the test implementation of the HTR-10 are briefly summarized.
At this stage, the HTR-10 is the only pebble bed HTGR under operation in the world, so the measured data from this reactor are extremely valuable for verifying the inherent safety features incorporated in small modular HTGRs as well as for testing the computer programs employed in the HTGR design process. With the purpose of ensuring the code credibility, validation work using the HTR-10 operation and test data has been performed for several years in INET. What is more, these data were partly shared with different countries through some collaborative research projects related to code development and assessment. In this paper, progress of the HTR-10 measured data utilization is reviewed. Meanwhile, existing problems observed from the code-to-test as well as code-to-code comparisons are pointed out. In addition, possible reasons of such problems are discussed in detail.
Feasibility of Enhanced Estimation of PWR Primary Parameters: Twin Experiments for Assessing Data Assimilation Benefits (0D-Model With a Monte-Carlo Approach on Pseudo-Real Data)
Authors: Mercier Thibaud , Favennec Jean-Melaine , Girard Alexandre 
Published: November 2014

A PWR reactor coolant system is a highly complex physical process: heterogeneous power, flow and temperature distributions are difficult to be accurately measured, because instrumentations are limited in number, thus leading to the relevant safety and protection margins. This situation is in many ways similar to climate and weather models: a complex process that is not possible to sample and measure as finely as wanted. Meteorology and climate sciences have adapted and improved the Data Assimilation techniques in order to improve the accuracy of description and prediction in their fields.
EDF R&D is seeking to assess the potential benefits of applying Data Assimilation to a PWR’s RCS (Reactor Coolant System) measurements: is it possible to improve the estimates for parameters of a reactor’s operating set-point, i.e. improving accuracy and reducing uncertainties of measured RCS parameters?
In this paper we study the feasibility of enhanced estimation of PWR primary parameters, by using twin experiments for assessing Data Assimilation benefits. We simulated test samples with a 0D-Model, and used these samples in a Monte-Carlo approach to get background terms for Data Assimilation.
This successful preliminary study will lead to further assessments with real plant data.
Neutronics Studies on a Generic Pressure-Channel Reactor With Nuclear Steam Superheat
Authors: Baldock Matthew , Peiman Wargha , Vincze Andrei , Abdullah Rand , Sidawi Khalil , Pioro Igor 
Published: November 2014

In order to increase the thermal efficiency of steam-cycle power plants it is necessary to achieve steam temperatures as high as possible. Current limiting factor for Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) in achieving higher operating temperatures and, therefore, thermal efficiencies is pressures at which they can operate. From basic thermodynamics it is known that to increase further an outlet temperature in water-cooled reactors a pressure must also be increased. Current level of pressures in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs) is about 15–16 MPa. Therefore, next stage should be supercritical pressures, at least 23.5–25 MPa. However, such supercritical-water reactors with pressure vessels of 45–50 cm thickness don’t exist yet.
One way around larger pressure vessels as well as the limit of temperature of the coolant on the saturation pressure is to employ a Pressure Channel (PCh) design with Superheated Steam channels (SHS). PCh reactors allow for different coolants and bundle configurations in one reactor core, in this case, steam would be a secondary coolant. In the 1960s and 1970s the USA and Soviet Union tested reactors using pressure channels to super-heat steam in-core to achieve outlet temperatures greater than what is currently possible with convention reactors.
Nuclear materials are carefully chosen based on their neutron interaction properties in addition to their strength and resistance to corrosion. Introducing steam channels will not only change the neutronics behavior of the coolant, but require different fuel cladding and pressure-channel materials, specifically, stainless steels or Inconels, to withstand high-temperature steam. This paper will investigate the affect that steam, SS-304 and Inconel will have on neutron economy when introduced into a reactor design as well as required changes to fuel enrichment. It will also be necessary to investigate the effects of these material changes on power distribution inside a reactor. Pressure-channel design requires methods of fine control to maintain a balanced core-power distribution, the introduction of non-uniform coolant and reactor materials will further complicate maintaining uniform reactor power. The degree to which SHS channels will affect the power distribution is investigated in this paper.