17179 research outputs found
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Digital and Technology-Based Nutrition Interventions, Including Medically Tailored Meals (MTMs) for Older Adults in the U.S.—A Scoping Review
No full textBackground/Objectives: Older adults often face nutrition challenges due to mobility issues, chronic conditions, and limited access to adequate nutrition. Digital and technology-based interventions, including those with nutrition education, nutrition counseling and Medically Tailored Meals [MTMs], can help address these barriers. However, the extent and characteristics of such programs in the United States remain unclear. This scoping review aimed to map the existing evidence on digital and technology-based (“digi-tech”) nutrition interventions for older adults in the United States, with particular attention to the presence, characteristics, and gaps related to MTMs. Methods: This scoping review followed the PRISMA-ScR framework to map existing evidence on technology-enabled nutrition care interventions for older adults aged ≥ 60 years in the United States. Systematic searches were conducted across multiple databases, yielding 18,177 records. Following title and abstract screening, full-text review, and eligibility assessment, 16 intervention studies were included. Study designs comprised randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental and non-randomized studies, mixed-methods feasibility studies, pilot studies, and one retrospective longitudinal cohort study. Data were extracted on study design, population characteristics, intervention components, technology modalities, outcomes, feasibility, acceptability, and reported barriers. Results: Interventions varied in duration [8 weeks to ≥12 months] and content. Foci ranged from remote nutrition education and mobile app-based tracking to multicomponent interventions integrating exercise, nutrition counseling, health literacy, and meal delivery. Telehealth was the most commonly used technology modality, followed by mobile health applications, wearable devices, and online educational platforms. Most interventions reported high feasibility and acceptability, with improvements in diet quality, adherence to healthy eating patterns, clinical measures such as HbA1c and blood pressure, and functional performance. Common implementation barriers included declining technology use over time, digi-tech literacy, and access to devices or the internet. Notably, no studies evaluated a digi-tech-based MTMs intervention exclusively for older adults in the U.S. Conclusions: Digital and technology-based nutrition interventions show promise for improving dietary and health outcomes in older adults, but there is insufficient empirical evidence. Future research might develop and evaluate hybrid digi-tech intervention models that leverage the potential of digi-tech tools while addressing barriers to technology adoption among older adults.Family and Consumer Science
Deadly connections: Exploring body disposal patterns in homicides through victim-offender relationships
No full textDelayed recovery of homicide victims’ bodies poses a risk of losing crucial evidence. Body disposal sites are critical for investigations, yet existing research has mainly focused on them as a sub-category. Through an environmental criminology approach, the purpose of this research is to conduct an exploratory spatial data analysis to examine the spatial patterns of known body disposal sites as they relate to victim-offender relationships. A sample of 743 homicide cases sourced from the Homicide Investigation Tracking System (HITS) database was used in this study. Spatial patterns of known body disposal sites in Washington state were examined utilizing ArcGIS mapping and spatial statistics. Results showed significant clustering of body disposal sites within five counties in Washington State. Victims with an intimate relationship to the offender were disposed of closest to where they were last seen, often with signs of attempts to destroy evidence. In stranger-related cases, bodies were typically found farthest from major cities in remote wooded areas but were discovered sooner. Sex worker victims were disposed of farthest from their last known location and took the longest to be discovered. The implications of spatial factors and victim-offender relationships, and understanding how offenders select disposal sites—whether in residential, remote, or accessible locations—are discussed in relation to investigative efforts
Conceptualizing a Business Model Typology of Phygital Customer Experience to Build and Manage Phygital Ecosystems
No full textThis study develops a typology of Phygital Customer Experience (PH-CX) business models that integrate digital and physical interactions to enhance value creation and stakeholder engagement. Drawing on the experience economy, experiential value frameworks, and business model configuration theory, the proposed typology delineates four experiential domains—escapist, esthetic, educational, and entertainment—mapped along the dimensions of digitalization and physicalization. By examining 33 global cases (2020–2025) in various sectors, the study extends business model innovation literature by conceptualizing experiential modules as dynamic, recombinatory elements. Central mechanisms include interaction and touchpoint design, iterative testing, and scalable monetization, which drive sustained engagement and multi-stakeholder value. The research links firm-level strategy with customer and societal experience through a human-centric, participatory lens, contributing to responsible innovation and digital transformation for inclusive and sustainable outcomes.Author Accepted Manuscript.Marketin
Adapting Instead of Reacting: A Qualitative Study Exploring Parenting Strategies for Childhood Emotional Disturbance
No full textBackground: Children with emotional disturbance (ED) frequently display highly unpredictable behaviors compared to other children. The magnitude and unpredictability of childhood ED make finding effective management strategies difficult for parents. Prior research has examined parents’ stress and the children’s behaviors in schools, but we know very little about how parents manage at home. Methods: This qualitative study used Naturalistic Inquiry to explore how parents respond to the challenges which arise at home due to childhood ED. Eight mothers raising 10 children with ED were recruited nationally. Data were gathered through semi-structured, individual interviews. Results: Consequences-based parenting strategies were unsuccessful, but mothers achieved greater success with pre-planned, intentional responses and adapting the child’s environment. Mothers learned their child’s world view was very different than their own. This realization caused mothers’ perspective toward their child to change. Mothers saw their child as struggling with a problem, instead of simply being defiant. The perception shift allowed mothers to approach situations with greater compassion and inner peace. Conclusions: The findings provide suggestions for pediatric healthcare providers who work with such parents seeking assistance and advice.Nursin
Bridging the Capability Gap: A Multidimensional Maturity Model for Smart City Development in German Municipalities
No full textMunicipal smart city programs remain hampered by conceptual fragmentation and the absence of validated, context-specific maturity assessments. We develop the Smart Municipality Maturity Model (SMMM) via a design-science process, synthesizing 183 publications and adapting a practitioner-oriented self-assessment with 99 binary items across ten dimensions. Validation proceeded in four stages: expert review, industry validation, a pilot with 24 municipalities, and a large-scale rollout to 1136 municipalities. The five-level model yields comparable maturity scores and reveals a structural capability gap—governance and strategy outpace foundational technical capacities, especially digital infrastructure and data management. Maturity rises with municipality size, yet leadership, partnerships, and innovation culture act as moderators. The SMMM represents one of the first empirically validated, large-scale maturity assessments tailored to municipal administrations, providing a robust analytical basis for diagnosing capability gaps at scale. Its architecture directly supports municipal policy by translating conceptual smart city ambitions into measurable, comparable operational capacities and by enabling more targeted, evidence-driven interventions. The SMMM provides a low-burden instrument for self-assessment, peer benchmarking, and evidence-based policy design. Closing the identified capability gap requires capability-first investment and more explicit integration of cybersecurity and data privacy in future models and municipal practice.Busines
Thoughts on Judy Whipps's Feminist Pragmatism and Social Rights: From Jane Addams to Frances Perkins
No full textThis conference presentation is part of a panel devoted to Judy Whipps book, Feminist Pragmatism and Social Rights: From Jane Addams to Francis Perkins. In 1949 the United Nations passed a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Whipps’s book explores the role women of the settlement movement and black women’s clubs in making human rights and social rights in particular part of the international governance structure of the late 20th and 21st centuries. These pioneering settlement women, (Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Julia Lathrop, Grace Abbot, and Francis Perkins, Emily Green Balch, Mary Church Terrell and Mary McLeod Bethune) initially engaged in community activism and later transitioned to community organizing, lobbying, drafting legislation, judicial activism, and ultimately building and leading social rights institutions in the US and internationally.Political Scienc
The Seven Methods for the Evaluation of Nutritional Status—ABCDEFG: Narrative Review
No full textBackground: Nutritional status assessment is the cornerstone of the Nutrition Care Process, guiding diagnosis, intervention, and monitoring. The classical ABCD model (Anthropometry, Biochemical, Clinical, Dietary) has been widely applied; however, it presents limitations in addressing current nutritional and epidemiological challenges. Objective: This narrative review aims to synthesize and update the scientific evidence on the expanded nutritional assessment model, known as ABCDEFG, which incorporates the Ecological–microbiota (E), Functional (F), and Genomic–nutrigenomic (G) approaches. Methods: A narrative review of the literature was conducted through PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, covering publications from 2013 to 2025. Articles were selected based on relevance to at least one of the seven assessment domains. Findings were synthesized descriptively and critically, highlighting applications, strengths, and limitations. Results: The ABCDEFG framework offers a multidimensional perspective of nutritional assessment. While anthropometric, biochemical, clinical, and dietary methods remain essential, the inclusion of ecological dimensions (gut microbiota, environmental influences), functional measures (e.g., muscle strength, physical performance), and genomics enables a more sensitive and personalized evaluation. This integrative approach supports better clinical decision-making and research innovation in nutrition and health sciences. Conclusions: The seven-method model broadens the scope of nutritional assessment, bridging traditional and emerging tools. Its application enhances the capacity to identify nutritional risks, design targeted interventions, and advance precision nutrition.Division of Researc
Gamification as Value Combination in Business Model Innovation: Hedonic Depth and Practitioner Utility in Phygital Contexts
No full textAuthor Accepted Manuscript.Marketin
Enhancing Concrete Strength Prediction from Non-Destructive Testing Under Variable Curing Temperatures Using Artificial Neural Networks
No full textNon-destructive testing (NDT) methods are widely used to evaluate the performance of concrete, but their accuracy can be influenced by external factors such as curing temperature. Temperature not only modifies hydration kinetics and strength development but may also change the correlation between NDT measurements and compressive strength. However, no prior research has systematically examined how different curing temperatures influence the reliability of various NDT techniques. This study evaluates three curing temperatures and their effect on the correlation between NDTs and compressive strength at various ages (1, 3, 7, 28, and 90 days). Both simple regression analysis and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were employed to predict strength from NDT measurements. Results show that NDT sensitivity to curing temperature is most pronounced at early ages, and that linear regression models cannot adequately capture the complexity of these relationships. In contrast, ANNs demonstrated superior predictive capability, though initial training with limited data led to overfitting and instability. By applying Gaussian Noise Augmentation (GNA), model accuracy and generalization improved substantially, achieving R2 values above 0.95 across training, validation, and test sets. These findings highlight the potential of non-linear models, supported by data augmentation, to improve prediction reliability, lower experimental costs, and more accurately capture the role of curing temperature in NDT–strength correlations for concrete.Engineering Technolog
Gasdermin D Cleavage and Cytokine Release, Indicative of Pyroptotic Cell Death, Induced by Ophiobolin A in Breast Cancer Cell Lines
No full textAn unmet challenge in managing breast cancer is treatment failure due to resistance to apoptosis-inducing chemotherapies. Thus, it is important to identify novel non-apoptotic therapeutic agents. Several non-apoptotic programmed cell death pathways utilize specific cellular signaling events to trigger lytic and pro-inflammatory cell death, examples of which are pyroptosis and necroptosis. Our study illustrates that ophiobolin A (OpA) is an anti-cancer agent that triggers lytic cell death in breast cancer cells, including triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). This study reveals that OpA induces typical pyroptosis-like characteristics, including cellular swelling, plasma membrane rupture, GSDMD cleavage, and release of cytokines in breast cancer cells. However, the additional involvement of RIPK1 and induction of RIPK3 clustering in select cell lines suggest that multiple pathways may be triggered upon OpA treatment. The induction of pro-inflammatory cell death suggests potential applications for OpA in cancer treatment.Chemistry and Biochemistr