Factors associated with change in activities of daily living performance in home health care patients with diabetes.

Older adults with diabetes are at risk for impairments in activities of daily living (ADL) performance. Home health (HH) services help patients regain their ability to perform ADLs following hospitalization, but there may be disparities in ADL improvement. We aimed to identify factors associated with change in ADL performance from the start of HH care to discharge in HH patients with diabetes age ≥65.

Risk factors for inpatient facility admission among home health care patients with diabetes.

Background: Home health care (HHC) patients with diabetes are at high risk for inpatient admissions.

Purpose: To identify variables associated with inpatient admissions among adults age ≥50 with diabetes receiving HHC in the community and in assisted living (AL).

Methods: Retrospective HHC data (collected October 2021 to March 2022 in the Southern United States) from the Outcome and Assessment Information Set D were analyzed with logistic regression (n = 5,308 patients).

Unaccounted CO leaks downstream of a large tropical hydroelectric reservoir.

Recent studies show that tropical hydroelectric reservoirs may be responsible for substantial greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, yet emissions from the surface of released water downstream of the dam are poorly characterized if not neglected entirely from most assessments. We found that carbon dioxide (CO) emission downstream of Kariba Dam (southern Africa) varied widely over different timescales and that accounting for downstream emissions and their fluctuations is critically important to the reservoir carbon budget. Seasonal variation was driven by reservoir stratification and the accumulation of CO in hypolimnetic waters, while subdaily variation was driven by hydropeaking events caused by dam operation in response to daily electricity demand.

Anthropogenic influences on Zambian water quality: hydropower and land-use change.

The Zambezi River Basin in Southern Africa is undergoing rapid development and population growth. Agricultural intensification, urbanization and future development of hydropower dams will likely lead to a degradation of surface water quality, but there have been few formal assessments of where, how and why these changes impact specific water quality parameters based on in situ data spanning a large region. We sampled a large suite of biogeochemical water quality parameters at 14 locations in four field campaigns in central and southern Zambia in 2018 and 2019 to characterize seasonal changes in water quality in response to large hydropower dams and human landscape transformations.

Living with floating vegetation invasions.

Invasions of water bodies by floating vegetation, including water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), are a huge global problem for fisheries, hydropower generation, and transportation. We analyzed floating plant coverage on 20 reservoirs across the world's tropics and subtropics, using > 30 year time-series of LANDSAT remote-sensing imagery. Despite decades of costly weed control, floating invasion severity is increasing.

Evidence of a Vestibular Origin for Crossed-Sternocleidomastoid Muscle Responses to Air-Conducted Sound.

Objectives: Small, excitatory surface potentials can sometimes be recorded from the contralateral sternocleidomastoid muscle (SCM) following monaural acoustic stimulation. Little is known about the physiological properties of these crossed reflexes. In this study, we sought the properties of crossed SCM responses and through comparison with other cochlear and vestibular myogenic potentials, their likely receptor origin.

Geo-referencing bird-window collisions for targeted mitigation.

Bird collisions with windows are an important conservation concern. Efficient mitigation efforts should prioritize retrofitting sections of glass exhibiting the highest mortality of birds. Most collision studies, however, record location meta-data at a spatial scale too coarse (i.

Neotropical peatland methane emissions along a vegetation and biogeochemical gradient.

Tropical wetlands are thought to be the most important source of interannual variability in atmospheric methane (CH4) concentrations, yet sparse data prevents them from being incorporated into Earth system models. This problem is particularly pronounced in the neotropics where bottom-up models based on water table depth are incongruent with top-down inversion models suggesting unaccounted sinks or sources of CH4. The newly documented vast areas of peatlands in the Amazon basin may account for an important unrecognized CH4 source, but the hydrologic and biogeochemical controls of CH4 dynamics from these systems remain poorly understood.

The biogeochemical implications of massive gull flocks at landfills.

Gulls have long been observed concentrating in flocks of tens to hundreds of thousands at the anthropogenic food sources provided by landfills. Yet, the biogeochemical implications of the landfill gull phenomenon have been largely ignored. This study has two goals: 1) to understand the magnitude and geographic extent of landfill gulls in North America, and 2) to quantify the amount of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) transported from landfills to gull roosting sites in order to understand their potential impacts on water quality and methane (CH) emission.

Top-down control of methane emission and nitrogen cycling by waterfowl.

Aquatic herbivores impose top-down control on the structure of wetland ecosystems, but the biogeochemical consequences of herbivory on methane (CH ) and nitrogen (N) are poorly known. To investigate the top-down effects of waterfowl on wetland biogeochemistry, we implemented exclosure experiments in a major waterfowl overwintering wetland in the southeastern United States over two growing seasons. We found that herbivory inhibited the oxidation of CH , leading to a mean increase in emission by 230% over control plots, and prevented nitrification, as indicated by low nitrate availability and undetectable emissions of nitrous oxide.

Patterns of bird-window collisions inform mitigation on a university campus.

Bird-window collisions cause an estimated one billion bird deaths annually in the United States. Building characteristics and surrounding habitat affect collision frequency. Given the importance of collisions as an anthropogenic threat to birds, mitigation is essential.

Effect of ethanol on the excitability of the inferior olive in decerebrate ferret.

Climbing fibers, which originate in the inferior olive and project to Purkinje cells and Golgi cells in the cerebral cortex, were activated at low (0.4-Hz) and high (4-Hz) frequencies by periorbital stimulation in decerebrate ferrets. Climbing fiber responses were recorded as field potentials from the c3 zone of the cerebellar surface.

Why doctors and nurses must not kill patients.

Euthanasia continues to be a subject of lively interest to many groups in society. It is often discussed in terms which appeal to those who believe there is no other way to relieve the sufferings of the dying, but which fail to explore its important ethical, professional and legal aspects. When these are examined, it is seen that the legalization of euthanasia would create major problems in medicine and nursing, chiefly centred on the likelihood of abuse and the difficulty or impossibility of its detection.

Teaching employees breast self examination. Factors that may influence practice.

Breast self examination is a widely known technique used for detection of breast lumps. Many women do not practice monthly breast self examination, although it has been proven that with early detection the prognosis of breast cancer can be improved greatly. When tend to be taught, or learn about, breast self examination at an early age.