Falls and the Social Isolation of Older Adults in the National Health and Aging Trends Study

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Report on the Iowa Department on Aging for the year ended June 30, 2015

Report on the Iowa Department on Aging for the year ended June 30, 2015

Report on the Iowa Department of Workforce Development for the year ended June 30, 2015

Report on the Iowa Department of Workforce Development for the year ended June 30, 2015

Sexuality & Aging: Debunking the Myths, May 19, 2015

comparing the myth to the fact

Status of the Iowa Workforce and Economy, October 2016

Iowa Workforce Development's newsletter.

Bicultural individuals as workforce in Australian MNCs

This study focuses on bicultural individuals as workforce in multinational companies in Australia. The aim of the study is to research the role of these individuals in these companies, with three sub-questions; to research (bi)cultural identity biculturals have, exploiting biculturals’ competencies in multinational companies, and challenges in managing biculturals in these companies. The main theoretical concepts related to this research are biculture and a cross-cultural work environment. Furthermore, discussing biculturals as part of workforce in MNCs, by presenting opportunities and challenges, has been taken into account. The empirical part for the research was collected by semi-structured interviews between January and March 2016. The findings of this study suggest that the role of biculturals in MNCs is not established. Biculturals can be viewed as appreciated workforce but MNCs lack recognition and awareness of biculturals’ competencies. The competencies of biculturals’ are related to bicultural identity integration and sometimes competencies can be latent. Competencies bicultural individuals possess are often related to cultural knowledge, cultural frame switching, understanding and perception towards others. Australia as a nation faces cultural diversity daily but the potential behind it remains fairly untouched even on the individual level. The potential is everywhere but a more universal approach how to handle the potential still remains vague for most. There seem to be different approaches to diversity and to biculturalism, which lead to either advantage or challenge. It is found that in case the potential is recognized the result is more likely positive. Challenges may still occur yet if challenges are managed appropriately the company may be able to learn from them. Alternatively, ignorance is more likely to cause challenges that lead to a loss of resources. Biculturalism is not achieved overnight, as it was emphasized throughout this study, which highlights the role of competencies. For the future research it is necessary to find approaches how to enhance awareness and highlight possibilities, to capture currently lost potential.

Telomeres in aging and disease: lessons from zebrafish

Age is the highest risk factor for some of the most prevalent human diseases, including cancer. Telomere shortening is thought to play a central role in the aging process in humans. The link between telomeres and aging is highlighted by the fact that genetic diseases causing telomerase deficiency are associated with premature aging and increased risk of cancer. For the last two decades, this link has been mostly investigated using mice that have long telomeres. However, zebrafish has recently emerged as a powerful and complementary model system to study telomere biology. Zebrafish possess human-like short telomeres that progressively decline with age, reaching lengths in old age that are observed when telomerase is mutated. The extensive characterization of its well-conserved molecular and cellular physiology makes this vertebrate an excellent model to unravel the underlying relationship between telomere shortening, tissue regeneration, aging and disease. In this Review, we explore the advantages of using zebrafish in telomere research and discuss the primary discoveries made in this model that have contributed to expanding our knowledge of how telomere attrition contributes to cellular senescence, organ dysfunction and disease.

Effect of Aging in the Perception of Health-Related Quality of Life in End-Stage Renal Disease Patients under Online-Hemodiafiltration

This work aimed to evaluate how aging could influence patients' perception of health quality of life (HRQOL), as well as, the effect of aging on dialysis adequacy and in hematological, iron status, inflammatory and nutritional markers. In this transversal study were enrolled 305 ESRD patients under online-hemodiafiltration (OL-HDF) (59.67% males; 64.9 ± 14.3 years old). Data about comorbidities, hematological data, iron status, dialysis adequacy, nutritional and inflammatory markers were collected from patient's records. Moreover, HRQOL score, by using the Kidney Disease Quality of Life-Short Form (KDQOL-SF), was assessed. Analyzing the results according to quartiles of age, significant differences were found for some parameters evaluated by the KDQOL-SF instrument, namely for work status, physical functioning and role-physical, which decreased with increasing age. We also found a higher proportion of diabetic patients, a decrease in creatinine, iron, albumin serum levels, transferrin saturation and nPCR, with increasing age. Moreover, significant negative correlations were found between age and mean cell hemoglobin concentration, iron, transferrin saturation, albumin, nPCR, work status, physical functioning and role-physical. In conclusion, our results showed that aging is associated with a decreased work status, physical functioning and role-physical, with a decreased dialysis adequacy, iron availability and nutritional status, and with an increased proportion of diabetic patients and of patients using central venous catheter, as the vascular access. The knowledge of these changes associated with aging, which have impact in the quality of life of the patients, could be useful in their management.

Aging and semantic integration in sentence processing: Testing the cognitive workload of wrap-up

The current study investigated the cognitive workload of sentence and clause wrap-up in younger and older readers. A large number of studies have demonstrated the presence of wrap-up effects, peaks in processing time at clause and sentence boundaries that some argue reflect attention to organizational and integrative semantic processes. However, the exact nature of these wrap-up effects is still not entirely clear, with some arguing that wrap-up is not related to processing difficulty, but rather is triggered by a low-level oculomotor response or the implicit monitoring of intonational contour. The notion that wrap-up effects are resource-demanding was directly tested by examining the degree to which sentence and clause wrap-up affects the parafoveal preview benefit. Older and younger adults read passages in which a target word N occurred in a sentence-internal, clause-final, or sentence-final position. A gaze-contingent boundary change paradigm was used in which, on some trials, a non-word preview of word N+1 was replaced by a target word once the eyes crossed an invisible boundary located between words N and N+1. All measures of reading time on word N were longer at clause and sentence boundaries than in the sentence-internal position. In the earliest measures of reading time, sentence and clause wrap-up showed evidence of reducing the magnitude of the preview benefit similarly for younger and older adults. However, this effect was moderated by age in gaze duration, such that older adults showed a complete reduction in the preview benefit in the sentence-final condition. Additionally, sentence and clause wrap-up were negatively associated with the preview benefit. Collectively, the findings from the current study suggest that wrap-up is cognitively demanding and may be less efficient with age, thus, resulting in a reduction of the parafoveal preview during normal reading.

EFFECT OF ISOTHERMAL AGING ON SAC305 HARMONIC VIBRATION DURABILITY

The effect of isothermal aging on the harmonic vibration durability of Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu solder interconnects is examined. Printed wiring assemblies with daisy-chained leadless chip resistors (LCRs) are aged at 125°C for 0, 100, and 500 hours. These assemblies are instrumented with accelerometers and strain gages to maintain the same harmonic vibration profile in-test, and to characterize PWB behavior. The tested assemblies are excited at their first natural frequencies until LCRs show a resistance increase of 20%. Dynamic finite element models are employed to generate strain transfer functions, which relate board strain levels observed in-test to respective solder strain levels. The transfer functions are based on locally averaged values of strains in critical regions of the solder and in appropriate regions of the PWB. The vibration test data and the solder strains from FEA are used to estimate lower-bound material fatigue curves for SAC305 solder materials, as a function of isothermal pre-aging.

Contribution of plant phytochemicals to organic homeostasis: focus on the aging process and opportunistic infections

Aging process is conceived as a normal stage during human life cycle, but it is also considered a hot topic among scientists and medical community. Alarming rates of premature aging and oxidative stress-related diseases have increasingly affect human individuals. Stress, pollution and exposition to chemical substances are considered the main triggering factors for those conditions; in addition, they also suppress the immune system and, therefore, improve organic vulnerability and occurrence of opportunistic infections [I]. Apart from the associated morbidity and mortality, the increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance improve the severity of the clinical conditions [2]. Botanical preparations possess a multitude of bioactive properties, namely acting as antimicrobials, antioxidants, and homeostasis modulators. Thus, upcoming alternatives, mainly based in plant phytochemicals, are necessary to improve the wellbeing as also life expectancy of individuals. The present study aims to evaluate and to compare both antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of plant extracts rich in phenolic compounds. Among the tested plants, Glycyrrhiza glabra L. (licorice) evidenced the most pronounced free radicals scavenging and antimicrobial effects, followed by Salvia officina/is L. (sage), Thymus vulgaris L. (thyme) and Origanum vulgare L. (oregano). Eucalyptus globulus Labill. (blue gum) and Juglans regia L. (walnut) also showed a high effect, while Pterospartum tridentatum (L.) Willk. (carqueja) and Rubus ulmifolius Schott (elm leaf blackberry) displayed moderate effects, and lastly, Tabebuia impetigirwsa (Mart. ex DC) Standley (pau d'arco), Foeniculum vulgare Miller (fennel), Rosa canina L. (rose hips) and Matricaria recutita L. (chamomile) gave only slight effects. In general, the most pronounced bioactivities were observed in the plant preparations (infusion>decoction>hydromethanolic extract) with higher levels of phenolic compounds (both flavonoids and phenolic acids). The observed synergisms between the phenolic compounds present in the extracts highlight the use of phytochemicals as future health promoters. However, further studies are necessary to understand the effective mode of action of individual phenolic constituents as also the existence of polyvalence relationships between them.

An analysis of workforce efficiency using organization expenses indicators

The objective of this paper is to carry out an evaluation of employee efficiency in the United States using a professional data base, namely the ECS Survey on Workforce Efficiency (2000/2001) conducted by Watson Wyatt, which includes the responses of 453 organizations covering 1,685,336 employees. To that end, we measure workforce efficiency of US organizations, differentiated by profit status, industry sector and employee size, using expenses indicators. Our findings reveal that new employee strengths will depend upon developing and using the kinds of information and analyzes that can keep workers, educators, employers and employee program administrators abreast or ahead of changing conditions.

EFFECTS OF AGING ON MIDBRAIN AND CORTICAL SPEECH-IN-NOISE PROCESSING

Older adults frequently report that they can hear what they have been told but cannot understand the meaning. This is particularly true in noisy conditions, where the additional challenge of suppressing irrelevant noise (i.e. a competing talker) adds another layer of difficulty to their speech understanding. Hearing aids improve speech perception in quiet, but their success in noisy environments has been modest, suggesting that peripheral hearing loss may not be the only factor in the older adult’s perceptual difficulties. Recent animal studies have shown that auditory synapses and cells undergo significant age-related changes that could impact the integrity of temporal processing in the central auditory system. Psychoacoustic studies carried out in humans have also shown that hearing loss can explain the decline in older adults’ performance in quiet compared to younger adults, but these psychoacoustic measurements are not accurate in describing auditory deficits in noisy conditions. These results would suggest that temporal auditory processing deficits could play an important role in explaining the reduced ability of older adults to process speech in noisy environments. The goals of this dissertation were to understand how age affects neural auditory mechanisms and at which level in the auditory system these changes are particularly relevant for explaining speech-in-noise problems. Specifically, we used non-invasive neuroimaging techniques to tap into the midbrain and the cortex in order to analyze how auditory stimuli are processed in younger (our standard) and older adults. We will also attempt to investigate a possible interaction between processing carried out in the midbrain and cortex.

Fire protection durability of intumescent coatings after accelerated aging

The most common method of achieve the required fire resistance is by the use of passive fire protection systems, being intumescent coatings the fire protection material frequently used. These are usually considered thin film coatings as they are applied with a dry film thickness (DFT) between 0.3-3 [mm]. The required DFT is obtained by experimental fire resistance tests performed to assess the contribution of this reactive fire protection material to the steel member fire resistance. This tests are done after dry coating and a short time period of atmospheric conditioning, at constant temperature and humidity. As the coatings formulation is mainly made from polymeric basis compounds, it is expected that the environmental factors, such temperature, humidity and UV radiation (UVA and UVB) significantly affect the intumescent coating fire protection performance and its durability. This work presents a research study about the effects of aging on the fire protection performance of intumescent coatings. A commercial water based coating is submitted to an accelerated aging cycle, using a QUV Accelerated Weathering Tester. This tests aim to simulate 10 years of the coating natural aging. The coating durability is tested comparing the fire protection of small steel samples submitted to a radiant heat flux exposure from a cone calorimeter. In total, 28 tests were performed on intumescent coating protected steel specimens, of which 14 specimens were tested before the hydrothermal aging test and other 14 after accelerated aging. The experimental tests results of the steel temperature evolution shows that increasing the intumescent dry coating film thickness, the fire resistance time increases. After the accelerated aging cycles, the coating lose their ability to expand, resulting in an increase of the steel temperature of approximately 200 [ºC], compared to the samples without aging.