Comparison of a traditional and non-traditional residential care facility for persons living with dementia and the impact of the environment on occupational engagement

BACKGROUND: Dementia residential facilities can be described as traditional or non-traditional facilities. Non-traditional facilities aim to utilise principles of environmental design to create a milieu that supports persons experiencing cognitive decline. This study aimed to compare these two environments in rural Australia, and their influence on residents' occupational engagement. METHODS: The Residential Environment Impact Survey (REIS) was used and consists of: a walk-through of the facility; activity observation; interviews with residents and employees. Thirteen residents were observed and four employees interviewed. Resident interviews did not occur given the population diagnosis of moderate to severe dementia. Descriptive data from the walk-through and activity observation were analysed for potential opportunities of occupational engagement. Interviews were thematically analysed to discern perception of occupational engagement of residents within their facility. RESULTS: Both facilities provided opportunities for occupational engagement. However, the non-traditional facility provided additional opportunities through employee interactions and features of the physical environment. Interviews revealed six themes: Comfortable environment; roles and responsibilities; getting to know the resident; more stimulation can elicit increased engagement; the home-like experience and environmental layout. These themes coupled with the features of the environment provided insight into the complexity of occupational engagement within this population. CONCLUSION: This study emphasises the influence of the physical and social environment on occupational engagement opportunities. A non-traditional dementia facility maximises these opportunities and can support development of best-practice guidelines within this population.

Investigating the development of traditional and modern housing design in Libyan architecture

The design of housing is one of the most difficult tasks in the field of architecture. Housing meets people’s functional, social and spiritual needs. The fundamental task of this study has been to investigate the features of traditional and contemporary housing making it possible to describe them and then use this comparison to understand the differences between them

Fusing data mining, machine learning and traditional statistics to detect biomarkers associated with depression

BACKGROUND: Atheoretical large-scale data mining techniques using machine learning algorithms have promise in the analysis of large epidemiological datasets. This study illustrates the use of a hybrid methodology for variable selection that took account of missing data and complex survey design to identify key biomarkers associated with depression from a large epidemiological study.

METHODS: The study used a three-step methodology amalgamating multiple imputation, a machine learning boosted regression algorithm and logistic regression, to identify key biomarkers associated with depression in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (2009-2010). Depression was measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and 67 biomarkers were analysed. Covariates in this study included gender, age, race, smoking, food security, Poverty Income Ratio, Body Mass Index, physical activity, alcohol use, medical conditions and medications. The final imputed weighted multiple logistic regression model included possible confounders and moderators.

RESULTS: After the creation of 20 imputation data sets from multiple chained regression sequences, machine learning boosted regression initially identified 21 biomarkers associated with depression. Using traditional logistic regression methods, including controlling for possible confounders and moderators, a final set of three biomarkers were selected. The final three biomarkers from the novel hybrid variable selection methodology were red cell distribution width (OR 1.15; 95% CI 1.01, 1.30), serum glucose (OR 1.01; 95% CI 1.00, 1.01) and total bilirubin (OR 0.12; 95% CI 0.05, 0.28). Significant interactions were found between total bilirubin with Mexican American/Hispanic group (p = 0.016), and current smokers (p<0.001).

CONCLUSION: The systematic use of a hybrid methodology for variable selection, fusing data mining techniques using a machine learning algorithm with traditional statistical modelling, accounted for missing data and complex survey sampling methodology and was demonstrated to be a useful tool for detecting three biomarkers associated with depression for future hypothesis generation: red cell distribution width, serum glucose and total bilirubin.

Optimized Water Demand Management Through Intelligent Sensing And Analytics: The WISDOM Approach

New business and technology platforms are required to sustainably manage urban water resources [1,2]. However, any proposed solutions must be cognisant of security, privacy and other factors that may inhibit adoption and hence impact. The FP7 WISDOM project (funded by the European Commission - GA 619795) aims to achieve a step change in water and energy savings via the integration of innovative Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) frameworks to optimize water distribution networks and to enable change in consumer behavior through innovative demand management and adaptive pricing schemes [1,2,3]. The WISDOM concept centres on the integration of water distribution, sensor monitoring and communication systems coupled with semantic modelling (using ontologies, potentially connected to BIM, to serve as intelligent linkages throughout the entire framework) and control capabilities to provide for near real-time management of urban water resources. Fundamental to this framework are the needs and operational requirements of users and stakeholders at domestic, corporate and city levels and this requires the interoperability of a number of demand and operational models, fed with data from diverse sources such as sensor networks and crowsourced information. This has implications regarding the provenance and trustworthiness of such data and how it can be used in not only the understanding of system and user behaviours, but more importantly in the real-time control of such systems. Adaptive and intelligent analytics will be used to produce decision support systems that will drive the ability to increase the variability of both supply and consumption [3]. This in turn paves the way for adaptive pricing incentives and a greater understanding of the water-energy nexus. This integration is complex and uncertain yet being typical of a cyber-physical system, and its relevance transcends the water resource management domain. The WISDOM framework will be modeled and simulated with initial testing at an experimental facility in France (AQUASIM – a full-scale test-bed facility to study sustainable water management), then deployed and evaluated in in two pilots in Cardiff (UK) and La Spezia (Italy). These demonstrators will evaluate the integrated concept providing insight for wider adoption.

Coaching for mindfulness and wisdom in complex environment

The primary objective for this paper is to build a compendium for a systemic intervention program for managers working in high-reliability organizations on an offshore rig. The second objective is then to work as a coach for these managers.

Law and economics in the civil law world: the case of Brazilian Courts

Conventional wisdom holds that economic analysis of law is either embryonic or nonexistent outside of the United States generally and in civil law jurisdictions in particular. Existing explanations for the assumed lack of interest in the application of economic reasoning to legal problems range from the different structure of legal education and academia outside of the United States to the peculiar characteristics of civilian legal systems. This paper challenges this view by documenting and explaining the growing use of economic reasoning by Brazilian courts. We argue that, given the ever-greater role of courts in the formulation of public policies, the application of legal principles and rules increasingly calls for a theory of human behavior (such as that provided by economics) to help foresee the likely aggregate consequences of different interpretations of the law. Consistent with the traditional role of civilian legal scholarship in providing guidance for the application of law by courts, the further development of law and economics in Brazil is therefore likely to be mostly driven by judicial demand.

Object modeling for user-centered development and user interface design: the wisdom approach

João Bernardo de Sena Esteves Falcão e Cunha

Sensory aspects of liquid smoking of giant river prawn: comparison with traditional smoking

P>The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of liquid smoke on the sensory characteristics of giant river prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii). The sensorial profile was plotted using quantitative descriptive analysis and assessment of the acceptability of samples of beheaded and peeled and only beheaded freshwater prawns smoked using the traditional method or liquid smoke (LS). The prawns subjected to LS were characterised by their aroma, artificial flavour and bitter flavour. The beheaded, peeled prawns were found to be more acceptable, confirming that the presence of the shell is a limiting factor in the acceptability of smoked prawns.

Dimensões didática, afetiva e formativa de docência que tecem as representações sociais entre licenciandos da UFPI

This study intends to analyze the social representation of teaching for students of first years of undergraduate courses in Education, Letters and Biology. The field of this research was the Federal University of Piaui - Campus of Picos in 2009. To reach the objective proposed above, was used the theory of social representations to the seizure of the elements which constitute such representations according to Moscovici and colleagues, considering the contribution of Abric with his Theory of Central Nucleus and Wagner with the Theory of Sociogenesis. Data were collected in two phases: first, through the Technique of Free Association of Words (TFAW) of which 100 subjects evoked representations of their teaching through the inductor terms 'to teach', 'student' and 'teacher'. For those data we used the EVOC software that promoted to detect the elements of the core and to conclude that the social representation of teaching is one of the work performed by a master / teacher who transmits, directed to an apprentice who learns, confined to the school involving the student with all his virtues to be smart, interested and dedicated, and teacher to be friend, wise bearer of knowledge and also intelligent. Then, using the Multiple Classification Procedure (MCP) only 10 subjects made ratings of 25 more evoked words in the first phase, for the analysis of data from the MPC with the use of the SPSS software we used Multidimensional Statistical Analysis (MSA) for the Free Classification we found three dimensions of Social Representation of Teaching: The Didactic, that focuses on teacher and student being superimposed, meaning the inseparability of these elements, the Affective, which presents the elements inherent in teachers with love as the strong point of this dimension, and the Formative, that is as ambiguous as ambivalent because it sees the teacher as a professional directed to help students get an education; for Directed Classification with Similarity Structure Analysis (SSA), we learn that teaching is a profession that materializes in the classroom, which is extremely true because the action happens in this teaching space, supposing a caring, loving, cheerful, capable, apt, patient, partner, responsible, dedicated, committed educator, who has wisdom and knows how to teach and help students through dialogue to there study and learning. All of it s necessary to occur the result of teaching, which is education in a disciplinary manner. The results point to a very traditional social representation of what is the role of teachers, the role of students and the role of the relationship itself between teaching and learning through the act of teaching. With this statement, we can confirm that the structure of Social Representation of Teaching for the investigated subjects reflects the sociogenetic conditions that engendered them, and that these conditions permeate their structural organization, in particular time-context in which social representation was captured

Resistência e performance na arte de João Cota

Researching about the art of tell and the tales told by João Cota is somehow revisiting the oral tradition and social practice in the story-telling art. It takes into consideration the resistance this art still exerts, mainly by using the performance of oral transmission and receptiveness to tales. The study of this practice contributes to the vivacious and dynamcis permanence of this authentic and traditional storyteller of his repertory and of his form to tellin our culture. Story-telling is part of the humankind living heritage communicated by means of popular wisdom. Despite the risk of vanishing into thin air, along with their narrators, the tales still manage to resist the contemporary mass culture model. How long further will stories like the ones narrated by João Cota be able to resist to strong and stronger structures dictated by writing and other communication means? João Cota s practice in story-telling will be studied not only as a proposal to identify the presence of this practice and the oral cultural resistance but also, through the performance prospective, to identify the oral transmission and receptiveness to the tales that are part of this storyteller s repertoire. In other words: what he tells, how he tells it, and why he tells it. The advent of new technologies such as internet, through which people can easily communicate with others in different parts of the world, and the greater and greater expansion in the writing skill concept interfere the maintenance of the oral tradition elements present in João Cota s narratives and inserted in the Brazilian culture. This has become more visible in the latest decades although we still notice the living tradition and permanence of the story-telling practice in several parts of the country through their wise storytellers. Our research target will require - in each of its study stages reference to works by several theoreticians namely Paul Zumthor, Mikhail Bakhtin, Câmara Cascudo, theoreticians from the receptiveness aesthetic, from the written culture history, from oral cultures and reading practices, from tradition and the Brazilian Culture of oral story-telling. In order to get to know and draw a profile of this storyteller, we ve chosen to use the comprehensive interview method by French Sociologist Jean Claude Kaufmann. The originality in the method consists of the qualitative data put together in situ , concentrated on the storyteller s narratives/speeches recorded on tape, which will be the focal point of this study. Our analysis method is based on tireless sessions of listening to interviews out of which we gathered information related to the storyteller, his practice in telling the tales, and his repertoire