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PubMed2006

Use of enclosures with functional vertical space by captive rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) involved in biomedical research.

We assessed space use by 2 pairs of captive female rhesus monkeys recently transferred into 2 enclosures moderately larger than their former traditional research cages and providing elevated perches at or above human eye level for all monkeys. This new space did not affect the ongoing biomedical research in which these captive monkeys were involved, and we sought to determine whether they used the elevated positions preferentially, as do wild animals. The frequency and duration of visits at each of the 9 distinct regions within these enclosures was calculated during 30-min morning and evening sessions over 20 d. We found that the monkeys frequented all regions of their enclosures in a similar manner during both morning and evening sessions. However, the duration spent at each region varied significantly between morning and evening sessions, with high perches being chosen preferentially in the evenings. Overall, the monkeys spent the majority of their time at elevated positions. These results support the view that access to functional vertical space provides a preferred environment for species- specific behavior and is an option that should be considered by other research facilities.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Perception and attitude of residents toward urban green spaces in Guangzhou (China).

Fast economic and social changes in recent years in China have brought massive expansion, redevelopment, and restructuring of cities. These changes offer cities the opportunity to improve environmental quality through urban green spaces (UGSs) and to address the challenges of meeting community aspirations. This study explored peoples' minds concerning UGSs in Guangzhou city in south China in relation to the following: (1) knowledge and perception of 25 ecosystem services and 8 negative impacts; (2) attitude toward site condition and management; (3) expectation of landscape design; and (4) preference ranking of venues. A questionnaire was designed to solicit opinions from 340 respondents randomly chosen from residents living in the study area. The results indicated widespread recognition of ecosystem services and strong support of UGS programs. Negative responses were weakly expressed. Amelioration of urban microclimate and environmental quality were emphasized. Environmental functions stressed in publicity programs, together with aggravating environmental problems in the city, tended to focus respondents' attention on UGS benefits. Wildlife habitat, species conservation and other natural ecosystem services drew limited concerns. Awareness of economic benefits was very low. Visual-landscape contributions with strong preference for naturalistic design and recreational benefits were highlighted. Compared with other countries, Guangzhou residents were characterized by visual-scenic-recreation orientation and pragmatic-utilitarian perception of UGSs, reflecting underlying differences in the understanding of inherent ecosystem services of green spaces. Relevant UGS policies and practices could adopt the approaches of market survey, citizen participation, and precision planning in order to meet increasingly mature and refined demands. Citizens' understanding of high-order ecosystem services could be enhanced to encourage appreciation of nature and their associated benefits.

Attitude↗
PubMed1998

Developmentally supportive care in a neonatal intensive care unit: a research utilization project.

PURPOSE: To implement three aspects of developmental care: lower noise levels, decreased light levels, and flexed, midline positioning. DESIGN: Research utilization project. The developmental care interventions were implemented on a daily basis for two hours of "quiet time" during each eight-hour shift. SAMPLE: 49 infants with mean gestational ages of 35.1 +/- 3.2 weeks and mean weights of 2,107 +/- 464 gm. MAIN OUTCOME VARIABLE: Noise levels, light levels, and flexed midline positioning. RESULTS: Mean light levels and mean noise levels decreased during "quiet time" on all three shifts during the project. Optimal positioning was achieved 78 percent of the time during the project period observations.

Child Development↗
PubMed2004

Cognitive theories and the design of e-learning environments.

Cognitive development refers to a mental process by which knowledge is acquired, stored, and retrieved to solve problems. Therefore, cognitive developmental theories attempt to explain cognitive activities that contribute to students' intellectual development and their capacity to learn and solve problems. Cognitive developmental research has had a great impact on the constructivism movement in education and educational technology. In order to appreciate how cognitive developmental theories have contributed to the design, process and development of constructive e-learning environments, we shall first present Piaget's cognitive theory and derive an inquiry training model from it that will support a constructivism approach to teaching and learning. Second, we will discuss an example developed by NASA that used the Web as an appropriate instructional delivery medium to apply Piaget's cognitive theory to create e-learning environments.

Cognitive Science↗
PubMed2004

Pharmacist compensation for cognitive services: focus on the physician office and community pharmacy.

We provide a stepwise approach for the clinical pharmacy practitioner in the physician clinic or community pharmacy setting to secure compensation for cognitive services. How to establish compensation for pharmacist services is explored, including evaluating the payer mix, developing a relationship with the first- or third-party payer, becoming credentialed with a third-party payer, and creating a fee structure. We detail the physical process of billing, which involves completing appropriate billing forms, appropriately using billing codes, documenting cognitive services in the patient record, and obtaining the proper waivers and/or approvals to provide specific services such as laboratory services and immunizations. This comprehensive review of compensation for cognitive services available in the community pharmacy and physician office environment is designed to be a template for pharmacists to further develop specific strategies, implement fee structures, and obtain compensation in their pharmacy environment and payer mix. Exploration into these innovative markets will enable pharmacists to increase revenue as they enhance and expand their cognitive services for patients.

Accounts Payable and Receivable↗
PubMed2000

Children and the city: a summary of recent environmental psychology research.

The environmental psychology literature is reviewed as it focuses on children's needs and experiences of towns and cities. Children are, we argue, the unacknowledged outsiders in the planning and management of urban areas; yet their enjoyment of and contribution to these areas is ignored at our peril. We discuss the importance of place attachment in the child's developing personal identity; and the rich affordances of towns and cities for the child's well-being and development, alongside an assessment of the evidence about the social and physical dangers that are more frequently stressed in popular discussions: these range from strangers and street crime, to traffic and pollution. Other related topics reviewed include: children's favourite places and their role in the child's self-regulation; the role of exploration of the local area as part of the child's widening social and cognitive world; gender differences in patterns of exploration, and whether these might be changing; and examples of children's involvement at more than a token level in the planning of their communities. The role of children as consumers in the local economy, and their use of public places, malls and plazas, has often been discussed as if they were inevitably socially problematic, and that their presence inevitably led to conflicts with adult users: yet we argue for a view of cityscapes which bring the different strands of society together. We conclude by discussing those Continental European city designs which foster the participation of children in the city's social life.

Child↗
PubMed1998

Guidelines for force-travel combinations of push button switches for older populations.

Current demographic trends indicating that older persons will comprise an increasingly larger proportion of our population points to the need for paying closer attention to age-related disabilities in designing products and environments capable of accommodating this population. This study addresses the development of design guidelines for push-button switches associated with a variety of consumer products commonly used by older persons. Three groups, each consisting of 12 male and female subjects, participated in the study, with all subjects over the age of 50 and the average age being 70 years. The groups were categorized on the basis of whether subjects were able-bodied, had arthritis affecting their hands or fingers, or had hand tremor; these categories were validated through the use of functional assessment tools. A scheme was developed to categorize commercially available switches based on force-travel combinations, and an experiment was conducted to assess the subject's ability to momentarily and continuously operate the switches, as well as to derive the subjective preferences for these switches. Based on observations from behavioral strategies, and graphical and statistical analysis of preferences, a set of design guidelines was proposed to enable consumer product designers and manufacturers to better accommodate the needs of both able-bodied and functionally impaired older adults.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2001

The association of school environments with youth physical activity.

OBJECTIVES: This study assessed the association of school environmental characteristics with student physical activity on campus. METHODS: Physical activity areas (n = 137) at 24 public middle schools were assessed for area type, size, and improvements (e.g., basketball courts). Student physical activity and the presence of equipment and supervision were directly observed before school, after lunch, and after school. RESULTS: Environmental characteristics explained 42% of the variance in the proportion of girls who were physically active and 59% of the variance for boys. CONCLUSIONS: School environments with high levels of supervision and improvements stimulated girls and boys to be more physically active.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Physico-chemical limitations in experimental investigations.

An element or compound in a natural water system is usually distributed between a variety of physico-chemical forms, both dissolved and particulate. The distribution is determined by the properties of the ion or molecule in question and by a number of major variables, including ionic strength, the nature and concentrations of major dissolved elements, particulate matter and organic complexing material, pH and the electron activity (pE); it may thus vary widely between different environments. The design of experiments to study sublethal effects of pollutants in sea water ideally requires that the test medium is closely matched to the environment for which information is needed, with respect to the ranges of concentration and activity, and the chemical speciation, of the pollutant and of any other constituents which may influence its effects. This in turn requires either that the pollutant can be added in the appropriate forms, implying a knowledge of the existing speciation, or that the added material rapidly exchanges with the forms already present. The implications of these requirements are most apparent for those pollutants that show complex chemical behaviour in sea water. This account concentrates on metals of toxicological significance. Consideration of particulate associations, redox speciation, and complex formation in the dissolved state with inorganic and organic ligands, suggests that physicochemical factors limit the usefulness, in terms of environmental predictions, of experimental studies of biological effects of metals, both inherently and through inadequate knowledge of environmental speciation and the mechanisms and rates of interconversion between species. Of particular importance are non-equilibrium features in speciation, such as the presence of thermodynamically unstable oxidation states and of kinetically non-labile associations. Interpretation of the nature of these associations is complicated by the presence of colloidal and organic macromolecular material in dissolved fractions as conventionally defined. While the chemical behaviour of some substances in sea water is considerably less complicated than that of the trace metals, there is a need with all types of pollutants for greater attention to physico-chemical factors in both the design and interpretation of experiments to investigate biological effects.

Chemical Phenomena↗
PubMed2001

Roadway safety in rural and small urbanized areas.

Police Accident Reports (PAR) reveal that in a 5-year period between 1993 and 1997, there were 892 crashes at 87 two lane, undivided roadway sites in Strafford County, NH, a county consisting of suburban and rural communities. The purpose of this paper is to describe: (1) logistic regression model building efforts to identify statistically significant factors that predict the probabilities of crashes and injury crashes; and (2) to use these models to perform a risk assessment of the study region. The models are functions of factors that describe a site by its land use activity, roadside design, use of traffic control devices and traffic exposure. Comparative risk assessment results show village sites to be less hazardous than residential and shopping sites. Residential and shopping sites, which are distinctly different from village sites, reside in single-purpose, land-use zones consisting mostly of single-family dwelling units and roadside shopping units with ample off-street parking. Village sites reside in multi-purpose, land-use zones permitting a combination of activities found in residential, shopping and commercial areas. They are pedestrian friendly, that is, have sidewalks and crosswalks, permit onstreet parking, have speed limits and other amenities that promote walking. Adjusted odds ratios and other comparative risk measures are used to explain why one site is more hazardous than another one. For example, the probability of a crash is two times more likely at a site without a sidewalk than at a site with one. The implications on roadway design to improve safety are discussed.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed2006

Radical redesign of nursing homes: applying the green house concept in Tupelo, Mississippi.

PURPOSE: We present the concept of the Green House, articulated by William Thomas as a radically changed, "deinstitutionalized" nursing home well before its first implementation, and we describe and discuss implications from the first Green Houses in Tupelo, Mississippi. DESIGN AND METHODS: Green Houses are small, self-contained houses for 10 or fewer elders, each with private rooms and full bathrooms and sharing family-style communal space, including hearth, dining area, and full kitchen. Line staff at the level of certified nursing assistants, called Shahbazim, are "universal workers," who cook meals, do laundry, provide personal care, assist with habilitation, and promote the elders' quality of life. Nurses, doctors, and other professionals comprise a visiting clinical support team for the residents and Shahbazim. Multiple Green Houses comprise a nursing home, meeting all nursing facility regulations and working within state-reimbursement levels. In 2003, four Green Houses were built on the campus of a retirement community; in June of that year, 40 residents relocated from the 140-bed nursing home to the Green Houses, including 20 residents previously living in the locked dementia unit. RESULTS: Experiences to date are positive for residents, family, and staff. The sponsor is converting the entire facility to Green Houses, and other providers around the country plan to implement Green House variants. IMPLICATIONS: Because nursing home stock is aging, many physical plants are or soon will be slated for major rebuilding, thereby providing sponsors with an opportunity to consider Green Houses. Early experience suggests that Green Houses are feasible and that outcomes are likely to be positive, and it also suggests that there are some potential issues to overcome in such a dramatic reengineering of nursing homes.

Assisted Living Facilities↗
PubMed1989

Minimizing the potential for nosocomial pneumonia: architectural, engineering, and environmental considerations for the intensive care unit.

The development of pneumonia in seriously ill patients remains an important concern of intensive care medicine. The design of the intensive care unit will have a direct effect upon the potential for infection. Persons involved in this design should consider engineering and architectural elements that will ultimately contribute to lower rates of infection. These include components to regulate the atmosphere, such as ventilation systems and temperature and humidity controls. Sources of contaminated water and the amplification mechanisms need to be addressed and minimized in the final designs. Architectural elements such as treatment space and lighting encourage optimal patient management and workable staffing patterns. Personnel who treat seriously ill patients should be part of the planning and design process in the construction and renovation of intensive care facilities.

Cross Infection↗