Variety of Identifying and Assessing Preferences of Everyday Living of Older Adults

Identifying preference of older adults supports person-centred care. The most sophisticated instrument is the preference for everyday living inventory (PELI). The PELI has been translated into German language and tested in different care settings. For people who experience difficulties communicating their preference the PELI has been combined with photographs. The voice of older immigrants could lead to an enhancement of the PELI as well other preference tools. Thus, our symposium title: Variety of identifying and assessing preferences of everyday living of older adults. Our symposium includes four presentations: Dr. Bergmann will present data from a preference study in three different care settings (long-term care, nursing homes, adult day care) in Germany. The results indicate that the importance of certain preferences distinguishes between the care settings. Dr. Vanessa Burshnic will present data from her content validity study of photographs used to supplement the Preferences for Everyday Living Inventory-Nursing Home (PELI-NH) from the perspective of older adults. Content analysis revealed thematic codes describing participants’ photograph preferences including image quality, context, subject diversity, and relevance to long-term care. Mike Rommerskirch-Manietta will present results from a review to identify Instruments which can be used to assess preferences for everyday living of older adults. Interestingly instruments either represent multiple or only one domain. The study from Viktoria Peters-Nehrenheim does focus on preferences of older immigrants. She will present results how older immigrants (first generation) define preferences and how they can be assessed. Prof. Van Haitsma will be our discussant.

Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Vibrio vulnificus Using CRISPR/Cas12a Combined With a Recombinase-Aided Amplification Assay

Vibrio vulnificus is an important zoonotic and aquatic pathogen and can cause vibriosis in humans and aquatic animals (especially farmed fish and shrimp species). Rapid and sensitive detection methods for V. vulnificus are still required to diagnose human vibriosis early and reduce aquaculture losses. Herein, we developed a rapid and sensitive diagnostic method comprising a recombinase-aided amplification (RAA) assay and the CRISPR/Cas12a system (named RAA-CRISPR/Cas12a) to detect V. vulnificus. The RAA-CRISPR/Cas12a method allows rapid and sensitive detection of V. vulnificus in 40 min without a sophisticated instrument, and the limit of detection is two copies of V. vulnificus genomic DNA per reaction. Meanwhile, the method shows satisfactory specificity toward non-target bacteria and high accuracy in the spiked blood, stool, and shrimp samples. Therefore, our proposed rapid and sensitive V. vulnificus detection method, RAA-CRISPR/Cas12a, has great potential for early diagnosis of human vibriosis and on-site V. vulnificus detection in aquaculture and food safety control.

Regulatory Arbitrage in the Intersection of Accounting Standards and Tax Laws: The Case of Synthetic Leases

This paper focuses on the interplay between accounting standards and tax laws in the context of regulatory arbitrage by examining the development of synthetic leases especially in the USA. In a synthetic lease, the lease remains off balance sheet for financial reporting by the lessee, while depreciations and interest expenses can be deducted for tax purposes. Exploring the evolving structures of synthetic leases over the last 30 years, the paper demonstrates how financial engineers have been able to perpetually re-structure this sophisticated instrument to keep it off-balance sheet instrument notwithstanding regulatory changes. Specifically, it shows that the most recent revision of lease accounting standards in 2016 – that intended to mark the end of off-balance sheet leases under IFRS and US-GAAP – resulted in reviving the demand for synthetic leases as the tax benefits outweigh the structuring costs. Contributing to the debate on the shift towards international accounting convergence (including US-GAAP and IFRS), the paper argues that attempts to limit regulatory arbitrage may also consider the reciprocal linkages between accounting standards and tax laws. For instance, tax laws should be considered as a means to limit regulatory arbitrage in financial reporting.

The Role of the Indonesian Government in Implementing REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) Program Under Former President Yudhoyono

This paper examines the extent to which the Indonesian government has reduced its greenhouse gases emissions coming from deforestation and forest degradation by using REDD program. Such program is highly regarded as a sophisticated instrument to foster collaboration between developing and developed countries in slashing the rate of deforestation. Indonesia itself has enacted the program as a national policy since 2009 under former President Yudhoyono. In this article, the secondary research method is utilized to gather data as well as adopting a qualitative approach to analyse the topic. This paper has found that Indonesia’s policy to curb the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation by conducting REDD program has not yet been successful, because of weaknesses in the implementation. They include the limitation of President’s power in driving policy; the ineffective of information exchange; the inability to do Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) activities; and contradiction in the decentralization process with regards to REDD implementation. However, some achievements are identified: a slow decline in the rate of deforestation and forest degradation; the continuity partnership between Indonesia and Norway; and the more participation of local stakeholder in supporting REDD program.

Loranthus Europaeus is an Alternative Medicine in Treatment of Cyst and Mouth Inflammation Resulted from Chemotherapy of Breast Cancer

The natural product continues to be important as a source of novel drugs because these drugs do not need a sophisticated instrument, cheap resources, less toxic, no resistance to them by bacteria compared with the synthetic drugs. However, the natural product will continue to be important in addition in three areas of discovery, they are a target for production by biotechnology, as source of new lead compounds of a novel chemical structure and as the active ingredients of useful treatments divided from traditional systems of folkloric medicine.1 The herb Loranthus Europaeus leaves, and fruits were used in Iraq traditional medicine for the treatment of inflammation, tumor, and antimicrobial infection.2 For these reasons, we tried to use the phytochemical and pharmacological studies to approach to their bioactive products as a new source for medicine. The extraction of an active constituent of Loranthus Europaeus (flavonoids terpenoids and alkaloids) by using chromatography method using a thimble of suxlet with different organic solvents. The ethyl acetate extract contain flavonoid, which contains quercitin and quercitrin. The active ingredient mixture of L.E. leaves extract have used as a mouth wash for female patient different age have breast cancer and under treatment with chemotherapy. We found that the bioactive martial extracted from L.E. used as mouth wash cause the cure of the inflammation of the mouth of those ladies. In addition that humans of different sexes complaining of cyst attached to one of their tooth treated with different types of antibiotic there was no response but when have given an antibiotic with bioactive agents of this L.E. there was complete cure of the cyst and there was no need for operation which give the possibility of presence of one or more of these (quercitin and quercitrin) active agents act as positive Nanocarrier of the antibiotic to the cyst directly and cure it.

Build Your Own Microscope: Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Prism-Based TIRF Microscope

Prism-based total internal reflection fluorescence (pTIRF) microscopy is one of the most widely used techniques for the single molecule analysis of a vast range of samples including biomolecules, nanostructures, and cells, to name a few. It allows for excitation of surface bound molecules/particles/quantum dots via evanescent field of a confined region of space, which is beneficial not only for single molecule detection but also for analysis of single molecule dynamics and for acquiring kinetics data. However, there is neither a commercial microscope available for purchase nor a detailed guide dedicated for building this microscope. Thus far, pTIRF microscopes are custom-built with the use of a commercially available inverted microscope, which requires high level of expertise in selecting and handling sophisticated instrument-parts. To directly address this technology gap, here we describe a step-by-step guide on how to build and characterize a pTIRF microscope for in vitro single-molecule imaging, nanostructure analysis and other life sciences research.

Estimation of arsenic in nail using silver diethyldithiocarbamate method

<p>Spectrophotometric method of arsenic estimation in nails has four steps: a) washing of nails, b) digestion of nails, c) arsenic generation, and finally d) reading absorbance using spectrophotometer. Although the method is a cheapest one, widely used and effective, it is time consuming, laborious and need caution while using four acids. </p><p><strong>Introduction</strong></p><p>Estimation of total arsenic in water and biological samples are important for the diagnosis of arsenicosis (Misbahuddin, 2015). Biological samples include blood, urine, hair and nail. The normal amount of arsenic in blood is very low and requires sophisticated instrument to detect. Presence of arsenic in urine indicates recent exposure of arsenic. Absence of arsenic in urine sometimes does not exclude the diagnosis of arsenicosis. High concentration of arsenic in hair and nail indicates chronic exposure. The accumulation of arsenic in hair is less than the nail. There is superstition in some countries not to give hair sample. Compared to urine or blood samples, nails have the advantage of facilitating specimen collection, storage, and transportation. Therefore, the estimation of arsenic in nail is the preferred biological sample for easy collection (Karagas et al., 1996).</p><p>Estimation of arsenic in nail can be done using spectrophotometer, atomic absorption spectrometer with hydride generator (AAS-HG), High performance liquid chromatography with hydride generation with atomic fluorescence spectrometer (HPLC-HG-AFS), inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) (Chen et al., 1999), proton particle-induced X-ray emission and neutron activation analysis. Among these methods spectrophotometric method using silver diethyldithiocarbamate (SDDC) is still an effective, widely used and cheapest method.</p><p>In this method, arsenic reacts with zinc in presence of acid to produce arsine gas (AsH₃) which is scrubbed through lead acetate impregnated glass wool (remove hydrogen sulfide) and is absorbed in SDDC dissolved in hexamethylenetetramine. The red color developed due to arsine silver diethyldithio-carbamate reaction is measured by spectrophotometer at wavelength of 535 nm.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Video Clips</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/V9bapA0cp1g">Nail wash</a>: 3.2 min</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/BrG2TIWOATI">Digestion of nail</a>: 7.0 min</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/LfnNzHnIGT8">Arsine generation</a>: 10.0 min</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/kyCP0rumD1k">Reading absorbance</a>: 1.2 min</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p> </p>

INTELLIGENT CONTROLLER: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH FOR NONLINEAR SYSTEM CONTROL

Control of non liner systems is difficult in the absence of a systematic procedure as available for linear systems. Mathematical model that we use for nonlinear system control needs very expensive and sophisticated instrument. Intelligent system which is suppose to posses humanlike expertise within a specific domain, adopts itself and learn to do better in any condition. Soft computing an approach for constructing computationally intelligent system consist of several computing techniques, including neural network, fuzzy set theory and derivate free optimization method such as genetic algorithms and simulated annealing. As it incorporate human knowledge effectively, to deal with imprecision and uncertainty, and to learn to adopt itself to unknown or changing environment for better performance.

Accommodation Study for an Anemometer on a Martian Lander

Measuring the wind velocity and its turbulent fluctuations near the surface of Mars is an important component of the future exploration of Mars, not only to minimize risk in landing, but also to understand some of the most important fundamental processes that dominate Mars’ behavior today. Previous missions have included instrumentation to measure 2D mean winds, but a more sophisticated instrument has been designed that allows for fast, precise 3D measurements of the wind and its turbulent properties. These richer observations raise the question of how best to place such an instrument on a future Martian lander to minimize the flow distortions imposed by the lander, and how to correct for the perturbations that cannot be avoided. To carry out this research, computational fluid dynamic simulations in three dimensions were performed using Fluent, a commercially available software. The first step was to model the conditions at the surface of Mars and, more particularly, the quantities describing the flow in the boundary layer. Using these models, simulations were conducted with two simple shapes for the lander and with eight turbulence conditions representing neutral stability flows in the Martian boundary layer. The results are believed to be generally robust for neutral stability cases because the simulations exhibited little variability as a function of the turbulence conditions. This allowed criteria to be established that would optimize the placement of an anemometer in close proximity to a Martian lander under these conditions. The optimal position that has been derived is an elevation of 55° with a minimum distance from the lander of 0.8 times the characteristic size of the lander.

Improving the Photometry of the Pi of the Sky System

The “Pi of the Sky” robotic telescope was designed to monitor a significant fraction of the sky with good time resolution and range. The main goal of the “Pi of the Sky” detector is to look for short timescale optical transients arising from various astrophysical phenomena, mainly for the optical counterparts of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB). The system design, the observation methodology and the algorithms that have been developed make this detector a sophisticated instrument for looking for novae and supernovae stars and for monitoring blasars and AGNs activity. The final detector will consist of two sets of 12 cameras, one camera covering a field of view of 20◦ ×20◦. For data taken with the prototype detector at the Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, photometry uncertainty of 0.018–0.024 magnitudo for stars 7–10m was obtained. With a new calibration algorithm taking into account the spectral type of reference stars, the stability of the photometry algorithm can be significantly improved. Preliminary results from the BGInd variable are presented, showing that uncertainty of the order of 0.013 can be obtained.