Enhancing End-of-Life Care Knowledge Among Older Spanish-Speaking Adults: Results From a Pilot Educational Intervention on Advance Care Planning and Care Options

BACKGROUND

Disparities in advance care planning (ACP) among older Latinos necessitate targeted interventions to enhance engagement and knowledge in end-of-life care. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a resource-efficient, culturally tailored educational intervention in improving ACP readiness and knowledge among older Latino adults in the community.

METHODS

A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was used to assess the impact of the intervention. The study involved community-dwelling older Latinos (aged 61-94) in the U.S. attending community wellness centers. Measures included participants' knowledge of ACP, care options, familiarity with hospice and palliative care, and attitudes toward hospice, assessed using pre- and post-intervention surveys.

RESULTS

Statistically significant improvements were observed in ACP knowledge, understanding of care options, and attitudes towards hospice and palliative care post-intervention. Demographic factors influenced knowledge scores, with no significant gender differences in the intervention's efficacy.

CONCLUSIONS

The educational intervention effectively enhanced end-of-life care planning readiness and knowledge among older Latinos. The study highlights the potential for sustainable, accessible, and culturally sensitive educational strategies to reduce disparities in ACP knowledge and possibly engagement.

Characterization of aerosolized particles in effluents from carbon fibre composites incorporating nanomaterials during simultaneous fire and impact

This work investigates the aerosols emitted from carbon fibre-reinforced epoxy composites (CFC) incorporating nanomaterials (nanoclays and nanotubes), subjected to simultaneous fire and impact, representing an aeroplane or automotive crash. Simultaneous fire and impact tests were performed using a previously described bespoke testing methodology with the capability to collect particles released from the front/back faces of the impacted composites plus the effluents. In this work the methodology has been further developed by connecting the Dekati Low Pressure Impactor (DLPI) and Mini Particle Sampler (MPS) sampling system in the extraction chimney. The aerosols emitted have been characterized using various devices devoted to the analysis of aerosols. The influence of the nanoadditives in the matrix on the number concentration and the size distribution of airborne particles produced, was studied with a cascade impactor in the 5 nm-10 μm range. The morphology of the separated soot fractions was examined by SEM. The measurement of aerodynamic size of particles that can deposit in human respiratory tract indicate that 75% of the soot and particles released from CFC could deposit in the lungs reaching the bronchi region at a minimum. There was however, a minimal difference between the number particle concentrations or particle-size mass distribution of particles from CFC and CFC containing nanoadditives. Moreover, no fibres were found in the effluents.

A Silenced Population

Abstract. Background: Given challenges that exceed the normal developmental requirements of adolescence, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) youth are believed to be at elevated risk for engaging in suicide-related behavior (SRB). Unfortunately, little is known about the mechanisms that put these youth potentially at risk. Aims: To determine whether peer relationship difficulties are related to increased risk of SRB in DHH youth. Method: Student records (n = 74) were retrieved from an accredited educational center for deaf and blind students in the United States. Results: Peer relationship difficulties were found to be significantly associated with engagement in SRB but not when accounting for depressive symptomatology. Limitations: The restricted sample limits generalizability. Conclusions regarding risk causation cannot be made due to the cross-sectional nature of the study. Conclusion: These results suggest the need for future research that examines the mechanisms of the relationship between peer relationship difficulties, depression, and suicide risk in DHH youth and potential preventive interventions to ameliorate the risks for these at-risk youth.

Human Rights: Its Meaning and Practice in Social Work Field Settings

The goal of the study reported in this article was to explore the conceptualizations of human rights and human rights practice among students and supervisors in social work field settings. Data were collected from 35 students and 48 supervisors through an online survey system that featured two open-ended questions regarding human rights issues in their agency and human rights practice tasks. Responses suggest that participants encountered human rights issues related to poverty, discrimination, participation/self-determination/autonomy, violence, dignity/respect, privacy, and freedom/liberty. They saw human rights practice as encompassing advocacy, service provision, assessment, awareness of threats to clients' rights, and the nature of the worker-client relationship. These results have implications for the social work profession, which has an opportunity to focus more intently on change efforts that support clients' rights. The study points to the possibilities of expanding the scope of the human rights competency within social work education and addressing the key human rights issues in field education.

The Arabidopsis AMP1 gene encodes a putative glutamate carboxypeptidase

Arabidopsis amp1 mutants show pleiotropic phenotypes, including altered shoot apical meristems, increased cell proliferation, polycotyly, constitutive photomorphogenesis, early flowering time, increased levels of endogenous cytokinin, and increased cyclin cycD3 expression. We have isolated the AMP1 gene by map-based cloning. The AMP1 cDNA encodes a 706;-amino acid polypeptide with significant similarity to glutamate carboxypeptidases. The AMP1 mRNA was expressed in all tissues examined, with higher expression in roots, stems, inflorescences, and siliques. Microarray analysis identified four mRNA species with altered expression in two alleles of amp1, including upregulation of CYP78A5, which has been shown to mark the shoot apical meristem boundary. The similarity of the AMP1 protein to glutamate carboxypeptidases, and in particular to N-acetyl alpha-linked acidic dipeptidases, suggests that the AMP1 gene product modulates the level of a small signaling molecule that acts to regulate a number of aspects of plant development, in particular the size of the apical meristem.

The Arabidopsis AMP1 gene encodes a putative glutamate carboxypeptidase

Arabidopsis amp1 mutants show pleiotropic phenotypes, including altered shoot apical meristems, increased cell proliferation, polycotyly, constitutive photomorphogenesis, early flowering time, increased levels of endogenous cytokinin, and increased cyclin cycD3 expression. We have isolated the AMP1 gene by map-based cloning. The AMP1 cDNA encodes a 706;-amino acid polypeptide with significant similarity to glutamate carboxypeptidases. The AMP1 mRNA was expressed in all tissues examined, with higher expression in roots, stems, inflorescences, and siliques. Microarray analysis identified four mRNA species with altered expression in two alleles of amp1, including upregulation of CYP78A5, which has been shown to mark the shoot apical meristem boundary. The similarity of the AMP1 protein to glutamate carboxypeptidases, and in particular to N-acetyl alpha-linked acidic dipeptidases, suggests that the AMP1 gene product modulates the level of a small signaling molecule that acts to regulate a number of aspects of plant development, in particular the size of the apical meristem.

Haplotypes of the coagulation factor XIII A subunit locus in normal and deficient subjects

Several RFLPs have been detected using a cDNA fragment encoding the amino-terminal half of the A subunit of factor XIII. The RFLPs show little linkage disequilibrium and form many different haplotypes that can be used to identify chromosomes transmitting factor XIII A subunit deficiency. Southern blot analysis of three deficient individuals from two families showed that, in these cases, factor XIII A subunit deficiency did not result from a major gene deletion or rearrangement. Factor XIII A subunit deficiency was found to be associated with three different haplotypes, suggesting heterogeneity in the mutations causing this disorder.

Effects of hypercholesterolemia on the microsomal membrane fluidity of intimal-medial versus medial layers of swine aorta: implications for the pathogenesis of vasospasm

The hypothesis was examined that hypercholesterolemia induces a decrease in arterial microsomal membrane fluidity. To investigate this hypothesis, the fluorescence anisotropy (r) of 1,6-diphenylhexa-1,3,5-triene was measured in aortic microsomes isolated from the intimal-medial (IM) and medial (M) layers of swine thoracic aortas. After 10 weeks of feeding a high fat (10% lard) diet, serum cholesterol increased 2.3-fold compared to 3.6-fold in pigs fed a similar diet supplemented with 2% cholesterol. Based upon differences in r, the membrane fluidity of the IM layer was significantly less than the M layers. The membrane fluidity of the IM layer was inversely related to the severity of hypercholesterolemia regardless of dietary treatment. There were no differences in membrane fluidity among the three dissected M layers and the membrane fluidity of these layers was refractory to changes in serum cholesterol. A decrease in the membrane fluidity of the IM layer may contribute to the abnormal regulation of vascular tone which underlies the development of vasospasm in atherosclerotic arteries.

Polypeptide synthesis during lytic induction of phage 11 of Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus phage 11 was induced to replicate by treatment of lysogens with mitomycin C. Lysis was complete in 80 min at 37 degrees C in complete synthetic medium. Labelling with L-[3H]lysine showed a stimulation of protein synthesis during phage replication, followed after 30 min by shut-down of host protein synthesis while virion protein synthesis continued. The synthesis of approximately 16 virus-specific proteins was detected during replication, with seven of these recovered in purified virions after lysis. The remainder appeared to be synthesized earlier in phage replication and thus may represent precursors of virion proteins, or regulatory proteins, or enzymes associated with phage replication. Protein synthesis during replication of three suppressible morphological (head, tail) mutants of phage 11 did not differ significantly from that seen in the wild-type lysogen, indicating that the mutation in each case affected a protein whose synthesis was not detectable, or which was synthesized but did not fulfil its role in virion maturation or assembly. However, in a suppressible 'early' mutant which did not lyse when treated with mitomycin C, the synthesis of the 'late' (virion) proteins (with one exception) did not occur. 'Early' proteins were apparently made normally in this mutant, and there was no shut-down of host protein synthesis. This mutant phage presumably encodes a defective 'early' protein involved in the regulation of replication, or a key precursor polypeptide of 'late' protein synthesis. The morphological mutants provided a means to analyse and tentatively to allocate six of the virion proteins to head or tail/baseplate structures.