Influential factors in anaerobic digestion of rice-derived food waste and animal manure: A comprehensive review.

Utilization of organic community wastes towards deriving sustainable renewable energy and adequate disposal of the residual has been an important topic of investigation. Anaerobic digestion and co-digestion of rice-derived food waste and animal manure for sustainable biogas generation is crucial from the view-point of community consumption. This paper presents an extensive review of the important and recent contributions in the related areas.

Plant Essential Oils as Healthy Functional Ingredients of Nutraceuticals and Diet Supplements: A Review.

Essential oils (EOs) are mixtures of volatile molecules endowed with health-promoting biological activities that go beyond their role as aromas and natural preservatives and can be exploited to develop functional foods and diet supplements. Their composition is briefly addressed along with regulatory aspects. The potential health benefit of human diet supplementation with EOs is outlined through a review of the recent literature on available clinical trials and preclinical research concerning EOs activity towards: (1) irritable bowel syndrome; (2) inflammatory bowel disease; (3) regulation of microbiota; (4) gastroprotection; (5) hepatoprotection; (6) protection of the urinary tract and diuresis; (7) management of metabolic disorders including hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia; (8) anti-inflammatory and pain control; (9) immunomodulation and protection from influenza; and (10) neuroprotection and modulation of mood and cognitive performance.

Negotiating humanitarian space with criminal armed groups in urban Latin America.

Humanitarian and development agencies intervening in Latin American cities increasingly face the challenge posed by criminal armed groups (CAGs). Yet, there is a need for evidence-based comparative studies on how international agencies deal with them. Drawing on data collected in Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and Mexico, this paper presents a novel typology of humanitarian organisations' access strategies that distinguishes between different levels of interaction with CAGs.

Implementation of the Community Occupational Therapy in Dementia program in Italy (COTiD-IT): qualitative survey to identify barriers and facilitators in implementation.

Background: Community Occupational Therapy in Dementia in Italy (COTID-IT) is a feasible and effective treatment that aims improving the quality of life and well-being of people with dementia and caregivers. The implementation of the program in the national context has not been studied yet.

Aim: The objective of this study is to identify barriers and facilitators in the Italian implementation of the program.

A retrospective multicentre cohort study of the performances on attention tests in outpatients with cognitive dysfunctions without delirium.

Objective: Attention is the cardinal feature of delirium, but attentional domains may also be affected by dementia and its severity. It is, therefore, of interest to study the correlation between the severity of cognitive impairment in non-delirious patients and different measurements of attentional performance, to identify attention subdomains less affected by severity of cognitive impairment.

Methods: Neuropsychological data from non-delirious outpatients (age ≥ 65 years), presenting at two memory clinics were analysed retrospectively.

The 4-DSD: A New Tool to Assess Delirium Superimposed on Moderate to Severe Dementia.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to create, standardize, and validate a new instrument, named 4-DSD, and determine its diagnostic accuracy in the diagnosis of delirium in subjects with moderate to severe dementia.

Design: Multicenter cross-sectional observational study.

Setting And Participants: Older patients consecutively admitted to acute and rehabilitation hospital wards.

Activity-based occupational therapy intervention for delirium superimposed on dementia in nursing home setting: a feasibility study.

Objective: Multi-component interventions can reduce delirium incidence. Occupational therapy (OT) has been effective in the management of dementia. We designed a real-world feasibility study of an OT intervention in the management of delirium superimposed on dementia (DSD).

Delirium in patients with dementia and in children: Overlap of symptoms profile and possible role for future diagnosis.

Background: Delirium in the extremes of the age spectrum may show similarities in presentations, and these similarities may provide information to develop tools for the diagnosis of delirium superimposed on dementia (DSD). We sought to investigate the symptom profile and subtypes of delirium in patients with dementia, and in infants and preschool children.

Methods: This was an exploratory analysis of previous prospective cohort studies that evaluated delirium with the DSM-IV criteria in patients with dementia, and in critically ill infants (< 2 years of age) and preschool children (2-5 years of age), respectively.

Preliminary investigation of predictors of distress in informal caregivers of patients with delirium superimposed on dementia.

Objective: Delirium superimposed on dementia (DSD) is common and associated with adverse outcomes. Current evidence indicates that some patients with dementia may recall delirium with distress for them and their caregivers. The aim of this study is to identify predictors of distress in informal caregivers of older patient with DSD.

A pilot study of community-based occupational therapy for persons with dementia (COTID-IT Program) and their caregivers: evidence for applicability in Italy.

Objective: To assess the applicability in Italy of a community-based occupational therapy program (COTID) on occupational performance of persons with dementia and their caregivers.

Methods: Prospective cohort study: twenty-seven older persons with mild-to-moderate dementia living in the community and their primary caregivers were included. Ten sessions of occupational therapy over 5 weeks were delivered.

Why older people stop to drive? A cohort study of older patients admitted to a rehabilitation setting.

The aim of this study is to describe the predictive factors of driving cessation at 6-month follow-up in older patients discharged from a rehabilitation setting and evaluated by an occupational therapist in a multidisciplinary team. Of 95 patients, at 6-month 27.4% ceased to drive.

Delirium superimposed on dementia: A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of informal caregivers and health care staff experience.

Objective: Delirium superimposed on dementia is common and potentially distressing for patients, caregivers, and health care staff. We quantitatively and qualitatively assessed the experience of informal caregiver and staff (staff nurses, nurse aides, physical therapists) caring for patients with delirium superimposed on dementia.

Methods: Caregivers' and staff experience was evaluated three days after delirium superimposed on dementia resolution (T0) with a standardized questionnaire (quantitative interview) and open-ended questions (qualitative interview); caregivers were also evaluated at 1-month follow-up (T1).

Delirium superimposed on dementia: A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of patient experience.

Objective: Delirium superimposed on dementia is common and is associated with adverse outcomes. Yet little is known about the patients' personal delirium experiences. We used quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the delirium superimposed on dementia experience among older patients.

Delirium superimposed on dementia strongly predicts worse outcomes in older rehabilitation inpatients.

Objective: Delirium superimposed on dementia (DSD) is common in many settings. Nonetheless, little is known about the association between DSD and clinical outcomes. The study aim was to evaluate the association between DSD and related adverse outcomes at discharge from rehabilitation and at 1-year follow-up in older inpatients undergoing rehabilitation.

Moving from the 'why' to the 'how': reflections on humanitarian response in urban settings.

Given the rising numbers of crises in urban settings, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is currently shifting its focus from 'why' it should intervene to 'how' it should intervene effectively in these contexts. Beyond communities affected by natural disasters and epidemics, MSF has chosen to target populations in urban settings that are affected by violence or by marginalisation and neglect: these groups appear to suffer the greatest number of severe threats to their health and well-being. Recent reflection within MSF has identified a number of key operational challenges to confront in order to respond efficiently to the needs of these populations.

Depressive symptoms and one year mortality among elderly patients discharged from a rehabilitation ward after orthopaedic surgery of the lower limbs.

The objective of the present prospective observational study is to evaluate the effect of depressive symptoms on 1-year mortality in a population of elderly patients discharged from a rehabilitation unit after orthopaedic surgery of the lower limbs. A total of 222 elderly inpatients were included, and stratified according to 12-months survival. 14 (6.

Anomeric discrimination and rapid analysis of underivatized lactose, maltose, and sucrose in vegetable matrices by U-HPLC-ESI-MS/MS using porous graphitic carbon.

Lactose intolerance is a common condition caused by intestinal lactase deficiency, and a lactose-free diet represents the simplest way to avoid gastrointestinal symptoms. The emerging use of dietary supplements requires analytical tools that are capable of assessing these analytes, particularly for those based on dry herbal extracts that contain lactose together with maltose and sucrose, because of cross-contamination and/or deliberate addition as excipient. Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) and MS/MS are valuable detection methods for underivatized disaccharides; however, the absence of distinctive ions and collision-induced dissociation (CID) fragmentation patterns does not allow discrimination of stereoisomers without good chromatographic resolution.

Between war and peace: humanitarian assistance in violent urban settings.

Cities are fast becoming new territories of violence. The humanitarian consequences of many criminally violent urban settings are comparable to those of more traditional wars, yet despite the intensity of the needs, humanitarian aid to such settings is limited. The way in which humanitarian needs are typically defined, fails to address the problems of these contexts, the suffering they produce and the populations affected.

HS-SPME-GC-MS analysis of body odor to test the efficacy of foot deodorant formulations.

Background/purpose: Foot malodor is mostly due to short-chain fatty acids produced by bacterial metabolism of eccrine sweating. We aimed to develop a protocol for an objective (instrumental) efficacy evaluation of foot deodorant formulations.

Methods: Head-space solid-phase microextractions of target fatty acids from the feet of six healthy volunteers were analyzed by GC-MS.

Delirium superimposed on dementia predicts 12-month survival in elderly patients discharged from a postacute rehabilitation facility.

Background: Delirium superimposed on dementia (DSD) is highly prevalent and associated with high mortality among hospitalized elderly patients, yet little is known about the effect of DSD on midterm mortality. The purpose of this study was to assess 12-month survival in patients with DSD and matched groups with dementia alone, delirium alone, or neither delirium nor dementia.

Methods: Among 1278 consecutively admitted elderly participants (aged > or =65 years) to our Rehabilitation Unit between January 2002 and May 2005, four matched samples of 47 participants each (DSD, dementia alone, delirium alone, or neither delirium nor dementia) were selected.

A Kalman filtering approach to estimation of maximum ventricle elastance.

In this paper a method for estimating maximum ventricular elastance through an extended Kalman filter is proposed, based on measurement of ventricular volume and aortic pressure. The Kalman filter is particularly well suited to this task, since it produces an optimal estimate (in the sense that the error is statistically minimized) given noise corrupted data. The EKF model is derived from an electrical-analog model of the left ventricle and systemic load.