Video Calls as a Replacement for Family Visits During Lockdowns in Aged Care: Interview Study With Family Members.

BACKGROUND: Lockdowns have been used to prevent the spread of transmissible illnesses such as influenza, norovirus, and COVID-19 in care homes. However, lockdowns deny care home residents supplemental care and the socioemotional enrichment that comes from seeing family members. Video calling has the potential to enable ongoing contact between residents and family members during lockdowns. However, video calls can be considered by some as a poor substitute for in-person visits. It is important to understand family members' experiences with video calling during lockdowns to ensure the effective use of this technology in the future. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to understand how family members use video calls to communicate with relatives living in aged care during lockdowns. We focused on experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, which involved extensive lockdowns in aged care homes. METHODS: We conducted semistructured interviews with 18 adults who had been using video calls with relatives living in aged care during pandemic lockdowns. The interviews focused on how participants had been using video calls, what benefits they gained from video-based interactions, and what challenges they encountered when using the technology. We analyzed the data using the 6-phase reflexive approach to thematic analysis by Braun and Clarke. RESULTS: We developed 4 themes through our analysis. Theme 1 interprets video calling as a medium for the continuation of care during lockdowns. Using video calls, family members were able to provide social enrichment for residents and engaged in health monitoring to uphold residents' welfare. Theme 2 highlights how video calling extended care by supporting frequent contact, transmitting nonverbal cues that were essential for communication, and negating the need for face masks. Theme 3 interprets organizational issues such as the lack of technology and staff time as impediments to the continuation of familial care through video. Finally, theme 4 highlights the need for 2-way communication, interpreting residents' unfamiliarity with video calling and their health conditions as further barriers to the continuation of care. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that, during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, video calls became a medium for enabling family members to continue participating in the care of their relatives. The use of video calls to continue care illustrates their value for families during times of mandatory lockdown and supports the use of video to complement face-to-face visits at other times. However, better support is needed for video calling in aged care homes. This study also revealed a need for video calling systems that are designed for the aged care context.

Abnormal processing of prosodic boundary in adults who stutter: An ERP study.

Characterized by involuntary disruptions in fluency speech, adults who stutter (AWS) are different from normally fluent speakers (NFS) in speech-language processing indices of phonological, semantic, and syntactic information coding. However, the neural base of the prosodic information (i.e. prosodic boundary) processing in AWS is still elusive at this point. To investigate this question, Chinese temporarily ambiguous phrases (narrative-object/modifier-noun construction) were presented in pairs to AWS and NFS in both lexical judgment and structural judgment task by using structural priming paradigm. Results showed that both AWS and NFS produced prosodic priming in the two tasks, however, AWS were more sensitive to the priming than NFS in the midline. Besides, unlike the greater right hemisphere involvement of priming effect for NFS, AWS exhibited a left hemisphere asymmetry in the lateral areas. In addition, structural judgment task elicited stronger prosodic priming effect than lexical judgment task for both groups. These results indicate that the mode of prosodic priming for AWS is different from NFS, and the priming effect is influenced by the experimental task that participants completed.

A novel approach to recycling of glass fibers from nonmetal materials of waste printed circuit boards.

The printed circuit boards (PCBs) contain nearly 70% nonmetal materials, which usually are abandoned as an industrial solid-waste byproduct during the recycling of waste PCBs. However those materials have abundant high-value glass fibers. In this study, a novel fluidized bed process technology for recycling glass fibers from nonmetal materials of waste PCBs is studied. The recycled glass fibers (RGF) are analyzed by determination of their purity, morphology and surface chemical composition. This process technology is shown to be effective and robust in treating with nonmetal materials of waste PCBs. The thermoset resins in the nonmetal materials are decomposed in the temperature range from 400 degrees C to 600 degrees C. And the glass fibers are collected at high purity and recovery rate by the cyclone separators without violating the environmental regulation. This novel fluidized bed technology for recycling high-value glass fibers from nonmetal materials of waste PCBs represents a promising way for recycling resources and resolving the environmental pollutions during recycling of waste PCBs.

The reuse of nonmetals recycled from waste printed circuit boards as reinforcing fillers in the polypropylene composites.

The feasibility of reusing nonmetals recycled from waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) as reinforcing fillers in the polypropylene (PP) composites is studied by using both mechanical and vicat softening temperature (VST) tests. The concentration of Cu leaded from the composites is also tested. The mechanical test shows that both tensile and flexural properties of the nonmetals/PP composites can be significantly improved by adding the nonmetals into PP. The maximum increment of tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength and flexural modulus of the PP composites is 28.4%, 62.9%, 87.8% and 133.0%, respectively. As much as 30 wt% nonmetals recycled from waste PCBs can be added in the PP composites without violating the environmental regulation. The VST test shows that the presence of nonmetals can improve the heat resistance of the nonmetals/PP composites for their potential applications. The optimum particle is the fine or medium nonmetals recycled from waste PCBs, and the optimum content of the nonmetals is 30 wt% basing on the comprehensive consideration. All the above results indicate that the reuse of nonmetals as reinforcing fillers in the PP composites represents a promising way for recycling resources and resolving the environmental pollutions.