2,287 research outputs found
Ambulatory assisted living fallers at greatest risk for head injury
No full textOBJECTIVES: To determine the relationship between head injuries sustained during each fall with various known high risk health and demographic factors predictive of falls.
DESIGN: Prospective cohort study conducted over 1 year
SETTING: Assisted living and skilled nursing units of a Continuing Care Retirement Community located in the northeastern United States.
PARTICIPANTS: Sixty nine OAs who fell.
MEASUREMENTS: Age, gender, diagnosis, high risk medication, functional, cognitive, ambulation/elimination status, mode of locomotion, fall related symptoms and the position of the fall, were analyzed using General Estimating Equations among elderly fallers with and without head injury.
RESULTS: A total of 173 falls (average of 2.9 times) were observed for 62 patients who had complete injury data. Injuries were recorded in 40.5% of falls, with 41.4% being head injuries. Head injuries were more likely to be hematomas than lacerations (66.7% vs. 14.7%) and among assisted living residents (p=0.04). Head injured patients were more likely to be walking at the time of the fall (69% vs. 36.1%) and less likely to have bowel incontinence (3.5% vs. 28.5%; p=0.04). None of the high risk diagnosis or medications associated with falls risk increased risk for head injury.
CONCLUSION: Those at greatest risk for head injury were ambulatory assisted living residents. None of the known clinical conditions predictive of risk to fall were predictive of head injury. For head injury prevention to be successful we need a closer examination of resident’s mobility, shoe-wear, health behavior with respect to ability to use assistive devices, and floor surface landing area. Future health policy implications include measures to ensure standard of care practices for head injured patients are in place.This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Gray-Miceli, D. L., Ratcliffe, S. J. and Thomasson, A. (2013), Ambulatory Assisted Living Fallers at Greatest Risk for Head Injury. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 61: 1817–1819, which has been published in final form at https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jgs.12467. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.Peer reviewe
The Moral Self in Eighteenth-Century Poetry: A Study in the Poetics of Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper and Yearsley
No full textThis thesis explores one aspect of the ‘inward turn’ that is a significant feature of English poetry in the later eighteenth century. It claims that a representative group of poets construct an authorial ‘self’ in which the personal pronoun ‘I’ becomes an authoritative guarantor of social and moral judgements. It suggests that this move was a response to Lockeian ideas of personal identity and economic individualism which were subsequently refined and developed by theoreticians such as David Hume and Adam Smith such that the ‘self’ was conceived not merely as the site of the sensorium but also the site of moral judgement.
It identifies Thomas Gray as the initiator of this development, arguing that his earlier poems, and particularly his Elegy, were revolutionary in their attempts to accommodate Locke’s ideas as a means of combating both the fissiparous nature of the literary market place and the hegemonic practices of the aristocratic class. The reception of the Elegy led Gray to believe he had failed, but his construction of the ‘swain’s’ dual identity who both judges and is judged was to resonate in the persona of Goldsmith’s narrator of The Deserted Village. Goldsmith’s essentially conservative outlook meant that this poem was fractured and it was not until Cowper’s The Task that a fully coherent realisation of Gray’s poetics was achieved.
The thesis finally considers Ann Yearsley’s work, arguing that her construction of a ‘self’ as narrator and social judge was fraught with difficulty both because of her position as a female labouring-class poet, and because of the repressive response to the French Revolution. The concluding chapter draws together the implications of the preceding chapters
1ST MEASUREMENT OF GAMMA(D(S)(+)-]MU+NU)/GAMMA(D(S)(+)-]PHI-PI+)
No full textComplete Author List:
ACOSTA D, ATHANAS M, MASEK G, PAAR H, BEAN A, GRONBERG J, KUTSCHKE R, MENARY S, MORRISON RJ, NAKANISHI S, NELSON HN, NELSON TK, RICHMAN JD, RYD A, TAJIMA H, SCHMIDT D, SPERKA D, WITHERELL MS, PROCARIO M, YANG S, BALEST R, CHO K, DAOUDI M, FORD WT, JOHNSON DR, LINGEL K, LOHNER M, RANKIN P, SMITH JG, ALEXANDER JP, BEBEK C, BERKELMAN K, BESSON D, BROWDER TE, CASSEL DG, CHO HA, COFFMAN DM, DRELL PS, EHRLICH R, GALIK RS, GARCIASCIVERES M, GEISER B, GITTELMAN B, GRAY SW, HARTILL DL, HELTSLEY BK, JONES CD, JONES SL, KANDASWAMY J, KATAYAMA N, KIM PC, KREINICK DL, LUDWIG GS, MASUI J, MEVISSEN J, MISTRY NB, NG CR, NORDBERG E, OGG M, PATTERSON JR, PETERSON D, RILEY D, SALMAN S, SAPPER M, WORDEN H, WURTHWEIN F, AVERY P, FREYBERGER A, RODRIGUEZ J, STEPHENS R, YELTON J, CINABRO D, HENDERSON S, KINOSHITA K, LIU T, SAULNIER M, SHEN F, WILSON R, YAMAMOTO H, ONG B, SELEN M, SADOFF AJ, AMMAR R, BALL S, BARINGER P, COPPAGE D, COPTY N, DAVIS R, HANCOCK N, KELLY M, KWAK N, LAM H, KUBOTA Y, LATTERY M, NELSON JK, PATTON S, PERTICONE D, POLING R, SAVINOV V, SCHRENK S, WANG R, ALAM MS, KIM IJ, NEMATI B, ONEILL JJ, SEVERINI H, SUN CR, ZOELLER MM, CRAWFORD G, DAUBENMIER CM, FULTON R, FUJINO D, GAN KK, HONSCHEID K, KAGAN H, KASS R, LEE J, MALCHOW R, MORROW F, SKOVPEN Y, SUNG M, WHITE C, WHITMORE J, WILSON P, BUTLER F, FU X, KALBFLEISCH G, LAMBRECHT M, ROSS WR, SKUBIC P, SNOW J, WANG PL, WOOD M, BORTOLETTO D, BROWN DN, FAST J, MCILWAIN RL, MIAO T, MILLER DH, MODESITT M, SCHAFFNER SF, SHIBATA EI, SHIPSEY IPJ, WANG PN, BATTLE M, ERNST J, KROHA H, ROBERTS S, SPARKS K, THORNDIKE EH, WANG CH, DOMINICK J, SANGHERA S, SHELKOV V, SKWARNICKI T, STROYNOWSKI R, VOLOBOUEV I, ZADOROZHNY P, ARTUSO M, HE D, GOLDBERG M, HORWITZ N, KENNETT R, MONETI GC, MUHEIM F, MUKHIN Y, PLAYFER S, ROZEN Y, STONE S, THULASIDAS M, VASSEUR G, ZHU G, BARTELT J, CSORNA SE, EGYED Z, JAIN V, SHELDON P, AKERIB DS, BARISH B, CHADHA M, CHAN S, COWEN DF, EIGEN G, MILLER JS, OGRADY C, URHEIM J, WEINSTEIN A
Surface Formation Study Using a 3-D Explicit Finite Element Model of Machining of Gray Cast Iron
No full textAbstractGray cast iron is the material of choice for machine tool structural components. However, since cast iron is a multiphase, anisotropic material it is difficult to machine to a high quality surface finish. To gain insight into the surface formation mechanisms during the machining of gray cast iron an explicit 3-D finite element cutting simulation was developed. To capture the anisotropic nature of gray cast iron flakes were modelled using zero thickness cohesive elements embedded in a pearlite matrix modelled using solid elements. The simulated cutting forces, surface formation, and finished surfaces were examined
Depression and Gender: The Expression and Experience of Melancholy in the Eighteenth Century
No full textThis thesis investigates the life and work of six eighteenth-century writers, two male and four female. It explores their experience of depression through their letters and other autobiographical material, and examines the ways in which they represent melancholy in their poetry and prose. The subject of Chapter Two is Thomas Gray, whose real life persona as the lonely intellectual is also identifiable in his poetry. The Scottish poet Robert Fergusson is studied in Chapter Three. Fergusson’s lively and vigorous mind was shattered in the months leading up to his death, during which time some of his writing became darkly nihilistic. Chapter Four looks at Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, a lifelong depressive who often wrote about her feelings of despair in her poetry. Chapter Five explores Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She was a courageous and controversial figure, but despite her resilience, on occasion in her letters she reveals her vulnerability and susceptibility to low spirits, a mood which is sometimes expressed in her creative writing. Sarah Scott, whose life and work have not yet been considered in relation to the subject of melancholy, is examined in Chapter Six. Her novel includes several low-spirited and depressed female characters who are continually seeking asylum from a hostile world. Chapter Seven analyses Charlotte Smith, a mother of twelve children whose unhappy marriage ended in separation. Smith wrote extensively about her depression in her letters, prefaces, poetry and novels.
This study shows that the women in particular use their writing on melancholy and depression to express their discontent with the confined way in which they are often expected to live out their lives
Discovery of retinal biomarkers for vascular conditions through advancement of artery-vein detection and fractal analysis
No full textResearch into automatic retina image analysis has become increasingly important,
not just in ophthalmology but also in other clinical specialities such as cardiology
and neurology. In the retina, blood vessels can be directly visualised non-invasively
in-vivo, and hence it serves as a "window" to cardiovascular and neurovascular
complications. Biomarker research, i.e. investigating associations between the
morphology of the retinal vasculature (as a means of revealing microvascular health
or disease) and particular conditions affecting the body or brain could play an
important role in detecting disease early enough to impact on patient treatment and
care. A fundamental requirement of biomarker research is access to large datasets
to achieve sufficient power and significance when ascertaining associations between
retinal measures and clinical characterisation of disease.
Crucially, the vascular changes that appear can affect arteries and veins
differently. An essential part of automatic systems for retinal morphology
quantification and biomarker extraction is, therefore, a computational method for
classifying vessels into arteries and veins. Artery-vein classification enables the
efficient extraction of biomarkers such as the Arteriolar to Venular Ratio, which is
a well-established predictor of stroke and other cardiovascular events. While structural
parameters of the retinal vasculature such as vessels calibre, branching angle, and
tortuosity may individually convey some information regarding specific aspects of
the health of the retinal vascular network, they do not convey a global summary of
the branching pattern and its state or condition. The retinal vascular tree can be
considered a fractal structure as it has a branching pattern that exhibits the property
of self-similarity. Fractal analysis, therefore, provides an additional means for the
quantitative study of changes to the retinal vascular network and may be of use in
detecting abnormalities related to retinopathy and systemic diseases.
In this thesis, new developments to fully automated retinal vessel classification
and fractal analysis were explored in order to extract potential biomarkers. These novel
processes were tested and validated on several datasets of retinal images acquired with
fundus cameras.
The major contributions of this thesis include: 1) developing a fully automated
retinal blood vessel classification technique, 2) developing a fractal analysis technique
that quantifies regional as well as global branching complexity, 3) validating the
methods using multiple datasets, and 4) applying the proposed methods in multiple
retinal vasculature analysis studies
Forecasting banknotes
No full textA central bank’s liquidity forecast is important in ensuring that it supplies the banking system’s need for central bank money. Banknote (or currency in circulation) demand is the largest and for some central banks the most variable component of the liquidity forecast. Accurate forecasting of banknotes is essential in ensuring an accurate liquidity forecast and in turn effective monetary policy implementation. This Handbook discusses these issues and outlines a structural time series state space (STSSS) model which is now used by central banks including the Bank of England and ECB to forecast banknotes (currency in circulation).Forecasting banknotes
A Multivariate Surface-Based Analysis of the Putamen in Premature Newborns: Regional Differences within the Ventral Striatum
No full textMany children born preterm exhibit frontal executive dysfunction, behavioral problems including attentional deficit/hyperactivity disorder and attention related learning disabilities. Anomalies in regional specificity of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits may underlie deficits in these disorders. Nonspecific volumetric deficits of striatal structures have been documented in these subjects, but little is known about surface deformation in these structures. For the first time, here we found regional surface morphological differences in the preterm neonatal ventral striatum. We performed regional group comparisons of the surface anatomy of the striatum (putamen and globus pallidus) between 17 preterm and 19 term-born neonates at term-equivalent age. We reconstructed striatal surfaces from manually segmented brain magnetic resonance images and analyzed them using our in-house conformal mapping program. All surfaces were registered to a template with a new surface fluid registration method. Vertex-based statistical comparisons between the two groups were performed via four methods: univariate and multivariate tensor-based morphometry, the commonly used medial axis distance, and a combination of the last two statistics. We found statistically significant differences in regional morphology between the two groups that are consistent across statistics, but more extensive for multivariate measures. Differences were localized to the ventral aspect of the striatum. In particular, we found abnormalities in the preterm anterior/inferior putamen, which is interconnected with the medial orbital/prefrontal cortex and the midline thalamic nuclei including the medial dorsal nucleus and pulvinar. These findings support the hypothesis that the ventral striatum is vulnerable, within the cortico-stiato-thalamo-cortical neural circuitry, which may underlie the risk for long-term development of frontal executive dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and attention-related learning disabilities in preterm neonates. © 2013 Shi et al
New Caledonian Crows Learn the Functional Properties of Novel Tool Types
No full textPubMed ID: 22194779This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Sharing privacy-sensitive access to neuroimaging and genetics data: a review and preliminary validation
No full textThe growth of data sharing initiatives for neuroimaging and genomics represents an exciting opportunity to confront the “small N” problem that plagues contemporary neuroimaging studies while further understanding the role genetic markers play in the function of the brain. When it is possible, open data sharing provides the most benefits. However, some data cannot be shared at all due to privacy concerns and/or risk of re-identification. Sharing other data sets is hampered by the proliferation of complex data use agreements (DUAs) which preclude truly automated data mining. These DUAs arise because of concerns about the privacy and confidentiality for subjects; though many do permit direct access to data, they often require a cumbersome approval process that can take months. An alternative approach is to only share data derivatives such as statistical summaries—the challenges here are to reformulate computational methods to quantify the privacy risks associated with sharing the results of those computations. For example, a derived map of gray matter is often as identifiable as a fingerprint. Thus alternative approaches to accessing data are needed. This paper reviews the relevant literature on differential privacy, a framework for measuring and tracking privacy loss in these settings, and demonstrates the feasibility of using this framework to calculate statistics on data distributed at many sites while still providing privacy.This document is protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. It is reproduced with permission.Peer reviewe
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