Scientific Research Publishing

Worldwide, wild birds play a vital role in the dispersal of ticks that harbour tick-borne pathogens, including Borrelia burgdorferi , the Lyme disease bacterium. Passerine birds (order: Passeriformes), commonly called songbirds, are hosts for certain hard-bodied ticks (Ixodida: Ixodidae) that carry pathogenic microorganisms. In this paper, the authors aimed to determine: 1) the infection prevalence of B. burgdorferi in bird-feeding ticks and 2) pinpoint passerine species that are most heavily involved in tick infestations and enzootic maintenance of Lyme disease spirochetes. Ticks were collected from wild-caught songbirds at various times. Using PCR testing, we found 124 (31%) of 405 ticks (4 species) to be infected with B . burgdorferi . Transstadial transmission of B .  burgdorferi  occurred from larva to nymph, plus nymph to adult, in the avian coastal tick,  Ixodes auritulus , collected from songbirds in British Columbia (B.C). Collectively, all 3 motile li...

A bone mineral density (BMD) test measures how much calcium and other types of minerals are in an area of your bone. This test helps to estimate the density of your bones and your chance of breaking a bone. Analysis of clinical documents such as bone mineral density (BMD) reports is an important component of program evaluation because it can provide insights into the accuracy of assessment of fracture risk communicated to patients and practitioners. In this paper, the authors aimed to compare fracture risk calculations from BMD test reports to those based on the 2010 Canadian guidelines. The authors retrieved BMD reports from fragility fracture patients screened through a community hospital fracture clinic participating in Ontario’s Fracture Clinic Screening Program. Fracture risk was determined according to the 2010 Canadian guidelines using age, sex, and T-score at the femoral neck, in addition to three clinical factors. Three researchers classified patients’ fracture risk unti...

Spatial working memory is the ability to remember a location where something is perceived and the ability to recall a series of visited locations. During the last few decades, a great deal of research has specifically examined spatial working memory. A commonly used task to investigate spatial working memory is the Corsi blocks task, which is used originally as a neuropsychological assessment and which is now used also in empirical studies. This study was designed to investigate whether fixation on the items to be remembered provided a beneficial effect on spatial working memory. Twenty-four undergraduate and graduate students (12 men, 12 women; M age = 21.5 yr., SD = 1.3, range = 18 - 24) volunteered to participate in the experiment. All had normal or corrected-to-normal vision. For the experiment, participants performed a computerized spatial working memory task based on the Corsi blocks task. Participants were tested individually in a private room. After the nine-point calibrat...

Possession (ownership) and taking action are concepts that contrast with each other, since the former represents stasis or little movement, and the latter is dynamic and movement itself. Thus, we have arrived at a significant question, psychologically and philosophically: Which is more important to achieve happiness, ownership (possession) or taking action? In this paper, the authors examined the happiness that people felt from possession or ownership in comparison to the happiness they achieved as a result of taking action. The purpose of this paper was to investigate Japanese people’s preference for ownership (possession) or taking action, to evaluate the correlations of this preference with gender, age, level of education, and annual income, and to discuss reasons for people’s preference. The authors performed a nationwide Internet survey in Japan to investigate these correlations. In Study 1, they investigated the more important contributor to happiness: 1) ownership, or ...

Experiencing depression is NOT a part of the aging process. However, depression among the elderly has been a public health issue in the worldwide. It can strike as a result of life stressors or vascular medical issues. Early detection and immediate treatment can bring recovery. This paper demonstrated the value of patient safety research for future strategies in this area. The aim of the present study was to analyze the relationship between the World Health Organization (WHO) Patient Safety (PS) Model and empirical research on depressed elderly patients’ experiences of quality and safe care. The research question was: Which patients’ experiences could be linked to quality and safe care as recommended by the WHO? The author adopted an implementation approach as the starting point for this interdisciplinary project. Data were collected over a four year period by the research team in Norway. The participants were recruited by mental health nurses/stakeholders working with the tar...

For patients who suffer from a chronic condition or disability, the family plays a major role. In recent decades, various theories and models for family nursing have been developed around the world. Family nursing practices and studies that focus not only on patients but also on their families have been increasing. It is essential to accumulate evidence about family nursing care toward developing family nursing skills and building family nursing expertise. Previous evaluation methods have generally focused on individual family members; however, such approaches are insufficient in examining the effectiveness of overall family intervention since they do not assess the family as a whole. To develop evaluation methods that address the whole family, it is necessary to explore the reasons for any discrepancies that may occur among the various family members. The purpose of the present study was to examine the factors that affect a couple’s evaluation of family functioning and to contri...

Cup plant ( Silphium perfoliatum L.) is a tall and vigorous diploid (n = 7) member of the Heliantheae tribe of the Asteraceae family. It is a long-lived perennial, can exceed 2 m in height, and has shoots that arise from short rhizomes on a broad woody crown. It differs from other species in the genus Silphium by its opposite pairs of cup forming leaves. Recently, cup plant is receiving global attention for its current or potential use for forage, bioenergy, biodiversity, conservation, and phytoremediation. In this paper, the authors aimed to: 1) determine genetic variation and narrow-sense heritability for biomass and related morphological traits, and 2) identify half-sib families with superior biomass yield and potential for use in cultivar development in cup plant. Field experiments were conducted over a three-year period (2011-2013) in South Dakota and Wisconsin. The cup plant population used for this genetic study was composed of progenies of 33 parent plants derived f...