Assessment of Dietary Intake in Three Cohorts of Advanced Age in Two Countries: Methodology Challenges.

OBJECTIVES: Dietary intake information is key to understanding nutrition-related outcomes. Intake changes with age and some older people are at increased risk of malnutrition. Application, difficulties, and advantages of the 24-hour multiple pass recall (24hr-MPR) dietary assessment method in three cohorts of advanced age in the United Kingdom (UK) and New Zealand (NZ) is described. PARTICIPANTS: The Newcastle 85+ study (UK) recruited a single year birth cohort of people aged 85 years during 2006-7. LiLACS NZ recruited a 10-year birth cohort of Maori (indigenous New Zealanders) aged 80-90 years and a single year birth cohort of non-Maori aged 85 years in 2010. MEASUREMENTS: Two 24hr-MPR were conducted on non-consecutive days by trained assessors. Pictorial resources and language were adapted for the New Zealand and Maori contexts. Detailed methods are described. RESULTS: In the Newcastle 85+ study, 805 (93%) participants consented to the 24-MPR, 95% of whom completed two 24hr-MPR; in LiLACS NZ, 218 (82%) consented and 203 (76%) Maori and 353 (90%) non-Maori completed two 24hr-MPR. Mean time to complete each 24hr-MPR was 22 minutes in the Newcastle 85+ study, and 45 minutes for Maori and 39 minutes for non-Maori in LiLACS NZ. Dietary assessment of participants residing in residential care and those requiring proxy respondents were successfully included in both studies. Most participants (83-94%) felt that data captured by the 24hr-MPR reflected their usual dietary intake. CONCLUSIONS: Dietary assessment using 24hr-MPR was successful in capturing detailed dietary data including information on portion size and time of eating for over 1300 octogenarians in the UK and New Zealand (Maori and non- Maori). The 24hr-MPR is an acceptable method of dietary assessment in this age group.

Enhancing departmental preparedness for COVID-19 using rapid-cycle in-situ simulation.

In response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a rapid-cycle in-situ simulation (ISS) programme was developed to facilitate identification and resolution of systems-based latent safety threats. The simulation involved a possible COVID-19 case in respiratory failure, using a mannequin modified to aerosolize phosphorescent secretions. Thirty-six individuals participated in five ISS sessions over 6 weeks, and a further 20 individuals observed these sessions. Debriefing identified latent safety threats from four domains: personnel, personal protective equipment, supply/environment and communication. These threats were addressed and resolved in later iterations. Ninety-four percent of participants felt more prepared to care for a potential case of COVID-19 after the ISS.

Health and Social Factors Associated with Nutrition Risk: Results from Life and Living in Advanced Age: A Cohort Study in New Zealand (LiLACS NZ).

OBJECTIVES: To establish the prevalence of high nutrition risk and associated health and social risk factors for New Zealand Maori and non-Maori in advanced age. DESIGN: A cross sectional analysis of inception cohorts to LiLACS NZ. SETTING: Bay of Plenty and Lakes region of the North Island, New Zealand. PARTICIPANTS: 255 Maori and 400 non- Maori octogenarians. MEASUREMENTS: Nutrition risk was assessed using a validated questionnaire Seniors in the Community: Risk Evaluation for Eating and Nutrition (SCREEN II). Demographic, social, physical and health characteristics were established using an interviewer administered questionnaire. Health related quality of life (HRQOL) was assessed with the SF-12, depressive symptoms using the GDS-15. RESULTS: Half (49%) of Maori and 38% of non-Maori participants were at high nutrition risk (SCREEN II score <49). Independent risk factors were for Maori younger age (p=0.04), lower education (p=0.03), living alone (p<0.001), depressive symptoms (p=0.01). For non- Maori high nutrition risk was associated with female gender (p=0.005), living alone (p=0.002), a lower physical health related quality of life (p=0.02) and depressive symptoms (p=0.002). CONCLUSION: Traditional risk factors apply to both Maori and non-Maori whilst education as indicative of low socioeconomic status is an additional risk factor for Maori. High nutrition risk impacts health related quality of life for non-Maori. Interventions which socially facilitate eating are especially important for women and for Maori to maintain cultural practices and could be initiated by routine screening.

Synthesis, characterization, and photophysical properties of a series of supramolecular mixed-valence compounds.

The synthesis and characterization of 10 cyano-bridged trinuclear mixed-valence compounds of the form [(NH3)5M-NC-FeII(CN)4-CN-M'(NH3)5]n+ (M = RuIII, OsIII, CrIII, or PtIV; n = 2, 3, or 4) is reported. The electronic spectra of these supramolecular compounds exhibit a single intervalent (IT) absorption band for each nondegenerate Fe-->M/M' transition. The redox potential of the Fe(II) center is shifted more positive with the addition of each coordinated metal complex, while the redox potentials of the pendant metals vary only slightly from their dinuclear counterparts. As a result, the Fe-->M IT bands are blue-shifted from those in the corresponding dinuclear mixed-valence compounds. The energies of these IT bands show a linear correlation with the ground-state thermodynamic driving force, as predicted by classical electron transfer theory. Estimates of the degree of electronic coupling (Hab) between the metal centers using a theoretical analysis of the IT band shapes indicate that most of these values are similar to those for the corresponding dinuclear species. Notable exceptions occur for the Fe-->M IT transitions in Os-Fe-M (M = Cr or Pt). The enhanced electronic coupling in these two species can be explained as a result of excited state mixing between electron transfer and/or ligand-based charge transfer states and an intensity-borrowing mechanism. Additionally, the possibility of electronic coupling between the remote metal centers in the Ru-Fe-Ru species is discussed in order to explain the observation of two closely spaced redox waves for the degenerate Ru(III) acceptors.

The effects of video feedback on the self-evaluation of performance in socially anxious subjects.

Previous research has demonstrated that socially anxious subjects appraise their own social performance as worse than it is seen by independent observers, but are able to appraise the performance of others accurately. Three studies are reported in which socially anxious subjects evaluated their own social performance after viewing it via video. In each study, ratings made following video were closer to those made by independent observers than were ratings made without the benefit of video. In addition, this effect was similar in both socially anxious and nonanxious people. A model is proposed in which self evaluation of one's social performance is based on a mental representation of one's external appearance which receives input from long term memory, internal cues, and external cues.

Single anion channels reconstituted from cardiac mitoplasts.

Ion channels from sheep cardiac mitoplast (inverted inner mitochondrial membrane vesicle) preparations were incorporated into voltage-clamped planar lipid bilayers. The appearance of anion rather than cation channels could be promoted by exposing the bilayers to osmotic gradients formed by Cl- salts of large, relatively impermeant, cations at a pH of 8.8. Two distinct activities were identified. These comprised a multisubstate anion channel of intermediate conductance (approximately 60 pS in 300 vs. 50 mM choline Cl, approximately 100 pS in symmetric 150 mM KCl), and a lower-conductance anion channel (approximately 25 or approximately 50 pS in similar conditions), which only displayed two well-defined substates, at approximately 25 and approximately 50% of the fully open state. The larger channels were not simple multiples of the lower-conductance channels, but both discriminated poorly, and to a similar extent, between anions and cations (PCl-/Pcholine+ approximately 12, PCl-/PK+ approximately 8). The lower-conductance channel was only minimally selective between different anions (PNO3-(1.0) = PCl- > PBr- > PI- > PSCN-(0.8)), and its conductance failed to saturate even in high (> 1.0 M) activities of KCl. The channels were not obviously voltage dependent, and they were unaffected by 0.5 mM SITS, H2O2, propranolol, quinine or amitriptyline, or by 2 mM ATP, or by variations in pH (5.5-8.8). Ca2+ and Mg2+ did not alter single channel activity, but did modify single current amplitudes in the lower-conductance channel. This effect, together with voltage-dependent substate behavior, is described in the following paper.

Structural features of a multisubstate cardiac mitoplast anion channel: inferences from single channel recording.

Ion channels from sheep cardiac mitoplast (inverted inner mitochondrial membrane vesicle) preparations were incorporated into voltage-clamped planar lipid bilayers. A low-conductance anion channel (approximately 40 or approximately 85 pS in symmetric 300 or 550 mM choline Cl, respectively), characterized by the presence of two well-defined substates, at approximately 25 and approximately 50% of the fully open level, was studied in detail. The substate behavior was consistent with a multibarelled channel containing four functionally coupled pores. At negative (cis-trans) membrane potentials, the putative protomers appeared to gate with substantial positive cooperativity, accounting for the apparent absence of a approximately 75% sublevel. At positive holding potentials, allosteric promoter interactions were more complicated, and the channel complex could be modeled as a dimer of dimers. The protochannels in one dimer ("dimer A") appeared to open independently of each other, and with a relatively high probability, while the monomers comprising the second dimer ("dimer B") were functionally coupled, could only open if both protomers in dimer A were open, and closed as soon as one of the monomers in dimer A shut. The channels also displayed Ca(2+)-(and Mg(2+)-) sensitive rectification related to bilayer lipid surface charge. By assuming that Ca2+ acted solely by screening surface charge, the membrane surface potential profile was used as a "microscopic ruler" to place one month of the channel within 10-11 A of the bilayer surface.