Full Polymer Dielectric Elastomeric Actuators (DEA) Functionalised with Carbon Nanotubes and High-K Ceramics.

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEA) are special devices which have a simple working and construction principle and outstanding actuation properties. The DEAs consist of a combination of different materials for the dielectric and electrode layers. The combination of these layers causes incompatibilities in their interconnections.

Inflammation-driven malnutrition: a new screening tool predicts outcome in Crohn's disease.

Malnutrition is a frequent feature in Crohn's disease (CD), affects patient outcome and must be recognised. For chronic inflammatory diseases, recent guidelines recommend the development of combined malnutrition and inflammation risk scores. We aimed to design and evaluate a new screening tool that combines both malnutrition and inflammation parameters that might help predict clinical outcome.

Residential long-term care: public solutions to access and quality problems.

Residential long-term care in Canada is characterized by unequal access and quality problems largely due to inadequate public funding and regulation, commercial involvement and its exclusion from medicare. Programs are patchwork, with variations across provinces in the availability of services, level of public funding, eligibility criteria and out-of-pocket costs borne by residents. Most provinces have cut long-term care bed capacity relative to the senior population in the past decade, without sufficiently expanding home and community care or adequately increasing staffing to reflect the higher acuity of the remaining residents.

Environmental cleaning and healthcare-associated infections.

The authors of "Healthcare-Associated Infections as Patient Safety Indicators" correctly identify healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) as a growing problem with severe consequences. In contrast to most literature, their article acknowledges the importance of environmental cleaning. The paper presents credible reasons why HAIs are treated as lesser threats than other adverse events.