Architectural Design Qualities of an Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital to Benefit Patients and Staff.

OBJECTIVES: This study is focused on how architectural design of adolescent psychiatric hospitals could positively affect not only patients but also staff members working at the hospitals. BACKGROUND: Adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18 are among the young population with the highest percentage of mental illness. However, there are limited number of intentionally designed psychiatric hospitals for adolescents. Staff who work in adolescent psychiatric hospitals may face workplace violence. Studies on environmental impacts suggest that the built environment affects patients' well-being and safety as well as staff's satisfaction, working condition, safety, and health. However, there are very few studies that focus on adolescent psychiatric hospitals and the impact of the built environment on both staff and patients. METHODS: Data were collected through literature analysis and semi-structured interviews with staff of three psychiatric state hospitals with adolescent patient units. The triangulation of multiple data sources informed a set of environmental design conditions that captures the complexity and connectedness of architectural design and the occupants of an adolescent psychiatric hospital. RESULTS: The results present architectural composition, atmosphere, lighting, natural environment, safety, and security as indispensable design conditions to create an enclosed and city-like campus that provides a serene, secure, and structured environment that benefit staff and adolescent patients. CONCLUSION: The specific design strategies that need to be incorporated in the architectural design of a safe and secure adolescent psychiatric hospital include an open floor plan that respects patients' autonomy and offers privacy while always providing staff with full visibility of patients.

Intergenerational Day Centers: A New Wave in Adult and Child Day Care.

Intergenerational Day Centers (IDCs) are an innovation that addresses two important societal challenges, the continuing need for childcare and the emerging demand for older-adult supportive services that help them remain independent in their homes. These facilities provide care, and specialized resources and activities for both older adults and children in one location. While the importance and benefits of these programs have been proven, there is scant information in the literature and best-practice guidelines on the planning and development of these programs. This qualitative study focuses on the research, planning, and building development for new IDCs in metropolitan areas. It is based on a case example of the process of establishing an IDC in the City of Austin, which was an element of the Age-Friendly Austin Plan. It examines the applicable literature and the extensive involvement of experts in architecture, community planning, and public health policy as well as data collected from community engagement workshops to facilitate the IDC's creation and operation. This study offers a developmental strategy method that can be adopted and utilized by other cities, developers, and designers who are interested in building IDCs.

Screening of lactic acid bacteria strains isolated from Iranian traditional dairy products for GABA production and optimization by response surface methodology.

A total of 50 lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolates from Iranian traditional dairy products (Motal and Lighvan cheeses, and artisanal yogurt) were screened for gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) production. Firstly, a rapid colorimetric test was performed to evaluate the glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) activity among the LAB isolates examined. Thin layer chromatography (TLC) was then performed on selected strains to identify isolates with high/moderate GABA producing capacity, and a GABase micro-titer plate assay was employed to quantify GABA. Finally, two Lactococcus (Lac.) lactis strains were selected for GABA production optimization via Response Surface Methodology (RSM) following Central Composite Design (CCD). Forty-one out of the 50 isolates showed GAD activity according to the colorimetric assay. Eight isolates displayed strong GAD activity, while nine showed no activity; low to moderate GAD activity was scored for all other isolates. GABA production was confirmed by TLC in all isolates with high GAD activity and in four selected among isoaltes with moderate activity. Among the Lactococcus strains tested, Lac. lactis 311 and Lac. lactis 491 were the strongest GABA producers with amounts of 3.3 and 1.26 mM, respectively. These two strains were subjected to GABA production optimization applying RSM and CCD on three key variables: Monosodium glutamate concentration (MSG) (between 25 and 150 mM), incubation temperature (between 25 and 37 °C), and pH (between 4.0 and 5.0). Optimal conditions for GABA production by Lac. lactis 311 and Lac. lactis 491 of temperature, pH and MSG concentration were, respectively, 35.4 and 30 °C, pH 4.5 and 4.6, and MSG concentration of 89 and 147.4 mM, respectively. Under the above conditions, the amount of GABA produced by Lac. lactis 311 and Lac. lactis 491 was 0.395 and 0.179 mg/mL, respectively. These strains and the optimal culture conditions determined in this study could be used for the biotechnological production of GABA or applied in food fermentations for the development of naturally GABA-enriched foods.

Designing Intergenerational Spaces: What to Learn From Children.

OBJECTIVES: Adopting recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, this study addresses the value of children's input on the architectural design of the built environment of intergenerational shared sites and the intergenerational interactions that took place there. BACKGROUND: Intergenerational programs bring children and older adults together, inviting them to interact, exchange ideas and support each other. Most intergenerational programs are planned by staff and often take place in a multipurpose room without direct input from child or older adult participants. METHODS: Data for this study were collected through interviews and drawings from 16 children at three intergenerational centers in Hawaii, Kansas, and Virginia. The interviews were transcribed, analyzed, coded, and categorized. Child development experts analyzed the drawings to better understand how children experience their surrounding environment. RESULTS: Four themes emerged from the triangulated data: (1) outdoor spaces offer rich opportunities for shared programming, (2) children enjoy sharing meals and snacks with intergenerational partners, (3) children recognize environmental features that facilitate or limit intergenerational interaction, and (4) varied spaces support to informal, brief intergenerational interaction. Our findings provide evidence in the value of involving children in designing intergenerational centers and programming. CONCLUSION: The children who participated in this study provided meaningful insight reflecting the experience of intergenerational activities and the impacts of the built environment on the quality and variety of these interactions.

Intracellular Relaxometry, Challenges, and Future Directions.

Nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers change their optical properties on the basis of their magnetic surroundings. Since optical signals can be detected more sensitively than small magnetic signals, this technique allows unprecedented sensitivity. Recently, NV center-based relaxometry has been used for measurements in living cells with subcellular resolution. The aim of this Outlook is to identify challenges in the field, including controlling the location of sensing particles, limitations in reproducibility, and issues arising from biocompatibility. We further provide an outlook and point to new directions in the field. These include new diamond materials with NV centers, other defects, or even entirely new materials that might replace diamonds. We further discuss new and more challenging samples, such as tissues or even entire organisms, that might be investigated with NV centers. Then, we address future challenges that have to be resolved in order to achieve this goal. Finally, we discuss new quantities that could be measured with NV centers in the future.

Architecture for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Their Therapists.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to identify an architectural design framework that can be applied to create adaptable, transformative therapy rooms that benefit children with autism and their therapists. BACKGROUND: Previous research suggests that environment shapes and influences human behavior. However, there remains a lack of evidence of effective design for pediatric rehabilitation therapy rooms. This study specifically focuses on how the design of the therapy room influences the patient's level of comfort and participation as well as the therapists' quality and efficiency of treatment to improve the overall therapeutic experience. METHOD: Two different surveys were conducted to improve the design of a therapeutic room based on professional therapist experiences. A grounded theory approach was employed to identify specific codes and categories. RESULTS: The result of this study is an architectural framework based on specific design tenets and their properties that not only can be utilized by architects and interior designers for building a new therapy center but could also be used for remodeling existing therapy rooms.

Synthesis of biological based hennotannic acid-based salts over porous bismuth coordination polymer with phosphorous acid tags.

In this paper, a novel porous polymer capable of coordinating to bismuth (PCPs-Bi) was synthesized. The Bi-PCPs was then reacted with phosphorous acid to produce a novel polymer PCPs(Bi)N(CH2PO3H2)2 which is shown to act as an efficient and recyclable catalyst. The mentioned catalyst was applied for the efficient synthesis of new mono and bis naphthoquinone-based salts of piperidine and/or piperazine via the reaction of hennotannic acid with various aldehydes, piperidine and/or piperazine, respectively. The structure of the resulting mono and bis substituted piperazine or piperidine-based naphthoquinone salts was thoroughly characterized spectroscopically. The electrochemical behavior of the products was also investigated. The presented protocol has the advantages of excellent yields (82-95%), short reaction times (4-30 min) and simple work-up.

Targeting Nanodiamonds to the Nucleus in Yeast Cells.

Nanodiamonds are widely used for drug delivery, labelling or nanoscale sensing. For all these applications it is highly beneficial to have control over the intracellular location of the particles. For the first time, we have achieved targeting the nucleus of yeast cells. In terms of particle uptake, these cells are challenging due to their rigid cell wall. Thus, we used a spheroplasting protocol to remove the cell wall prior to uptake. To achieve nuclear targeting we used nanodiamonds, which were attached to antibodies. When using non-targeted particles, only 20% end up at the nucleus. In comparison, by using diamonds linked to antibodies, 70% of the diamond particles reach the nucleus.

Effect of medium and aggregation on antibacterial activity of nanodiamonds.

Fluorescent nanodiamonds are widely used as abrasives, optical or magnetic labels, in drug delivery or nanoscale sensing. They are considered very biocompatible in mammalian cells. However, in bacteria the situation looks different and results are highly controversial. This article presents a short review of the published literature and a systematic experimental study of different strains, nanoparticle sizes and surface chemistries. Most notably, particle aggregation behaviour and bacterial clumping are taken into consideration to explain reduced colony counts, which can be wrongly interpreted as a bactericidal effect. The experiments show no mechanism can be linked to a specific material property, but prove that aggregation and bacteriostatic effect of nanodiamond attachment play a significant role in the reported results.

Analysis of different signal peptides for the secretory production of Ama r 2 in gram-positive systems (Lactococcus lactis).

Prokaryotic systems have been considered the most affordable and simplest hosts which are being employed to express recombinant proteins such as allergens; nevertheless, without appropriate signal peptide (SP), these systems cannot be used for secretory proteins. Recently, a lot of effort has been put into assessing the potential of gram-positive strains such as lactic acid bacteria for new applications in the production of heterologous proteins. Ama r 2 is a respiratory allergen from Amaranthus retroflexus, whose recombinant production in the probiotic host could be introduced as a specific and effective way to rapid diagnosis and immunotherapy of this allergy. Consequently, the production of this recombinant protein using the prokaryotic system, requires a suitable SP to protect disulfide bonds and to prevent misfolding. This study was designed to predict the best SPs for the expression of Ama r 2 protein in Lactococcus lactis as the host. In this study, 42 signal sequences were selected from SP databases and the most important features of them were evaluated. First, n, h and c regions of the SPs and their probabilities were investigated by signalP software version 4.1. Then, their physicochemical properties were evaluated by Portparam and SOLpro. Moreover, the secretion sorting and sub-cellular localization sites were evaluated by PRED-TAT and ProtcompB software programs. The results revealed that yjgB, entC2 (Entrotoxine type C-2), ent B (Entrotoxine type), blaZ (Beta lactamase), dex (number 21), blm (Beta lactamase 2), dex (Dextranase; number 20) and number 26 were introduced theatrically as the best SPs to express Ama r 2 in Lactococcus lactis.

Association of polymorphisms of complement factor I rs141853578 (G119R) with age-related macular degeneration in Iranian population.

BACKGROUND: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a complex disease, and recent studies have shown role of complement system genes in its development. Complement factor I regulates the complement pathways, and relationship between CFI polymorphisms and AMD is controversial. We evaluated the possible association of complement factor I rs141853578 (G119R) variation with advanced AMD in Iranian patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We included 371 case-control samples consisting of 220 advanced AMD patients and 151 genetically unrelated healthy controls. Extracted DNA samples amplified to obtain fragment including the polymorphic complement factor I rs141853578 (G119R) region. RESULTS: The distribution of the genotypes was significantly different in the AMD patients compared to that of controls (p = 0.035). The TT genotype frequencies for CFI were significantly higher in AMD group (7.7 vs. 2%, OR 4.67, CI 1.33-16.45, p = 0.016). This significant difference was maintained after adjustment for the effects of age and gender (OR 5.09, CI 1.42-18.20, p = 0.012). The minor allele frequency (T allele) was also significantly higher in AMD patients compared to that of controls (29.3 vs. 21.5% OR 1.51, CI 1.07-2.13, p = 0.018). CONCLUSION: Current study showed that CFI rs141853578 (G119R) is a risk factor for developing advanced type AMD. This study also suggests that the frequency of G119R polymorphism in our population is not as rare as reported from other populations.