Introduction: Dementia is an age-associated neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a progressive loss of neuro-cognitive function and the emergence of a wide variety of behavioral symptoms. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common types of dementia. Sleep disturbances in patients with Alzheimer's disease is common and previous studies from North America, Europe and Japan reported light therapy could improve the sleep circadian rhythm ( rest-activity) disturbances in AD. However, there was no previous Chinese study on light exposure and sleep quality nor the circadian rhythm in Chinese Alzheimer's disease patients. Objective : The objective of the present study was to investigate the association of light exposure intensity with the quality of sleep and behavioural symptoms in Chinese Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients Method: This was a cross-sectional observational study. 203 Chinese elderly patients with Alzheimer's disease were recruited from the Memory Clinic in Queen Mary Hospital, the University of Hong Kong, from July 2014 to December 2014. Socio-demographic data and comorbid diseases information were collected from all subjects. Their sleep qualities, quantities and conditions of light exposure were recorded with a sleep logbook and light meter. Their cognitive function, disturbing behaviour, depressive mood and quality of life scales were assessed by a semi-structured questionnaire. Light exposure intensity measured by Light meter (Model SDL 400). Measure for cognitive function were the Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT), Behavioral symptoms measured by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and mood by Geriatric Depression Scale. (GDS-15) The association of outdoor or indoor light exposure with sleep quality and quantities were analyzed by descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analyses. Main outcome measures: The main outcome measure was the sleep quality and quantities of patient, measured by Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. (PSQI) Results: 203 subjects (60 males and 143 females) were recruited. 70.4 % of the studied subjects were females. Male to female ratio is 1:2.38. Mean age of them was 81.6 years. The mean (SD) scores of the recruited were: AMT = 4.5 (2.9); PSQI = 6.9 (3.4); NPI =14.4 (17.2); GDS-15= 4.3 (2.8); QOL-AD (patients) = 30.7 (4.9); QOL-AD (caregivers) = 29.5 (4.7) respectively. In bivariate analysis, the Global PSQI score was significantly associated with the morning and afternoon outdoor light exposure. (r = -0.634 and -0.466, respectively) For the total light exposure and mean light exposure, both of them showed strong significant negative correlation with Global PSQI score. (r = -0.769 and -0.769 respectively). Mean (SD) light exposure per day for morning and afternoon outdoor setting were 2372.9 lux (2564.7) and 1090.8 lux (1894.6) respectively. Mean(SD) light exposure per day was 1196.7 lux (866.1) Gender identity showed significant correlation with Global PSQI score (r = 0.034). Global PSQI score was significantly associated with the NPI total score (r = 0.261, p<0.001), the GDS-15 score (r = 0.336, p<0.001), the QOL-AD for patients (r = -0.257, p<0.001), and the QOL-AD for caregivers. (-0.313, p<0.001) In multivariate analyses, using general linear models, the Global PSQI score was highly independent associated with the total light exposure (p=0.000), and significantly associated with the NPI score and Gender (p = 0.011 and 0.021), after adjusting for potential confounders in bivariate analysis. (i.e. gender, activity of daily living status, hypertension and Chronic obstructive airway disease). Confounding factors were NPI and gender. Conclusion: In the present study, We found the intensity of natural light exposure was related to good sleep quality in older Chinese Alzheimer’s disease patients with age 65 years and above in Hong Kong as well as lesser episode of behavioural symptoms. Hence, daily outdoor light exposure is highly recommended for persons with Alzheimer’s disease. / published_or_final_version / Medicine / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

Call number: LD2668 .P7 1973 E24

The objective of this study was to compare the acute heart rate variability responses to relaxation alone versus relaxation preceded by Hatha yoga. Twenty women and men (aged 18-50 years) participated in the study. Participants completed a yoga plus relaxation (YR) session and a relaxation only (R) session. The YR condition showed significant changes from baseline in HR (bpm, p < 0.001), RR (ms, p < 0.001), pNN50 (%, p = 0.009), LF (% p = 0.008) and HF (% p = 0.035). The R condition showed significant changes from baseline in HR (bpm, p < 0.001), RR (ms, p < 0.001), HF (ms2, p = 0.004), LF (%, p = 0.005), HF (%, p = 0.008) and LF/HF (%, p = 0.008). There were no significant differences between conditions for the changes from baseline for any of the variables. The results demonstrate that relaxation produces favorable changes in indices of heart rate variability whether alone or preceded by about of Hatha yoga. / by Nina Markil. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Psychology

Thesis (MTech (Environmental Health)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2007 / The widespread use of lead (Pb) and especially Pb from vehicular emissions arising from lead additives in petrol has resulted in high levels of this metal found in various soil samples taken along the road verges of Cape Town CBD. The accumulation of lead was investigated in roadside surface soil by collecting soil samples at various sites along the three major highways (N7, N2, N1), approximately three metres from the road verges and at a depth of approximately 5 cm for a period of 12 months. After digestion with 55"70 nitric acid the Pb concentrations were determined by using an Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrophotometer (ICP-AES). Results have shown the Pb concentrations in the soil at busy intersections to be higher than at other areas along the roadsides. Lead concentrations found in the roadside soils of the N1 ranged between 200 and 2000 mg/kg and these were of the highest concentrations found compared to the other two highways and were even higher than found in other studies. The roadside soils on the N1 highway, with the most traffic, according to car count data obtained, seemed more contaminated than the other two highways. It was also investigated whether earthworms (Eisenia fetida) accumulated Pb after being exposed to the contaminated soil from the sampling sites. The earthworms in the highly contaminated soil accumulated on average much higher concentrations of Pb than the earthworms in the lower Pb contaminated soil. A potential biomarker (cell membrane integrity) was applied to determine whether the earthworms experienced toxic stress as a result of the exposure to lead contaminated soil. Behavioural and morphological changes in the earthworms were also observed. The Trypan blue exclusion assay was used to measure the effect of lead exposure on the membrane stability of the coelomocytes in the coelomic fluid of earthworms. In the highest exposure groups per highway, a significant decrease in percentage viable cells were seen (N7, 36 ± 0.07%; N2 48 ± 0.09%; N1, 34 ± 0.08%). The fact that clear statistically significant responses were seen after the five week exposure period in the highest, as well as lowest exposure groups indicate that these responses could serve as an early warning system of lead exposure. The percentage cell viability (biomarker) used in this study have been useful in identifying toxic stress in earthworms caused by lead in roadside soils. The additional information obtained by using biomarkers could not be obtained by chemical analysis of soil and earthworms alone.

Approximately 3 billion people in developing countries rely on solid fuels for their cooking, heating and lighting needs (Smith 2000). Household air pollution (HAP) from the incomplete combustion of these fuels constitutes the fourth leading risk factor for death and morbidity worldwide, and the number one risk factor for disease burden in some developing nations, including Ghana (Lim et al. 2013; Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation 2016). While research shows biomass fuel combustion presents a significant global health and environmental burden, no regional, national or global policies have been enacted to reduce fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) emissions from cooking with biomass fuels. More data on personal exposures to particulate matter and BC from cooking with biomass are needed across geographic areas to assess whether exposure is mediated by (cultural) cooking customs, practices and behaviors. These data are critical in informing improved cookstove design as well as policies aimed at reducing harmful emissions and exposures from biomass smoke. The overall objective of this proposal is to examine personal exposures to cooking and non-cooking sources of HAP, characterize the elemental composition of the fine particulate matter across two common biomass fuels (charcoal and wood), and assess acute respiratory symptoms in pregnant women cooking with biomass fuels in rural Ghana. Through aerosol monitoring of PM2.5, our goal is to identify and apportion sources of personal exposures borne by cooks in rural Ghana, in order to inform mitigation policies and intervention design to alleviate health burden associated with cooking with biomass fuels. Specifically, in Aim 1 we propose to measure personal exposures and kitchen air concentrations of PM2.5 and BC across cooking locations, (i.e. enclosed, semi-enclosed, outdoor) and assess cooking characteristics (e.g. fuel, kitchen type, ethnicity) as possible determinants of exposure. In Aim 2, we will characterize the elemental composition of personal and kitchen air samples across fuel and kitchen types. These two aims will allow us to assess cooking and non-cooking sources of personal HAP exposure based on air monitoring data, composition of the filters, and survey-based cooking characteristics/demographics. In Aim 3, we propose to characterize the prevalence of adult respiratory symptoms in 1183 pregnant women in the region, and assess associations between personal exposure, measured by personal carbon monoxide (CO), and other cooking and non-cooking determinants of personal exposure, including fuel type, years cooked, kerosene lamp, mosquito coils, and charcoal production.

This study resituates the twentieth-century origins of lifestyle reform movements by examining the cultural politics of nourishment in the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), when the move toward a shared, authoritative, and seemingly objective system of dietary reform began to take shape, apart from the influence of modern nutritional sciences or the nation-state. A host of popular writers adapted older knowledge on medicine and longevity to communicate rules for dietary conduct that could apply across the spectrum of status and class. The celebration of nourishment in the emerging cultural marketplace of Tokugawa Japan in part represented an attempt to bring society back into alignment through a rhetoric that bundled self-regulation, morality, and individual and collective prosperity into a holistic sense of what the body could become in the world when properly fueled. Surrendering to a desire for the delicious was tantamount to shirking one’s duty, inviting disease, and weakening not only the individual body but the household as well. This tension between self-regulation and an expanded, socially embedded conception of bodily care became the animating logic behind the dispensation and reception of dietary advice in Japan from the eighteenth century on. As the core component in a system of healthy being, nourishing life in late-Tokugawa Japan transcended the personal longevity regimens from which it had once originated to become a perceived cure for social ills. Developments in the Tokugawa and Meiji periods reveal an ongoing tension between a universal healthy diet rooted in human physiology and Japan-specific nutritional standards meant to apply only locally. This study seeks to demonstrate how difficult it can be to isolate and identify a Japanese diet in light of waves of historical change, not only in patterns of eating but in thought and motivation behind competing visions of what to eat and why. Each new iteration of advice represents another attempt to distill and communicate priorities that often extend beyond immediate physiological concerns of bodily care. Following dietary guidance into the past compels us to think of nourishment not as a progression to an increasingly sophisticated and complete understanding of the ways in which food affects how the body performs in the world, but as a contingent struggle between systems of self-care with their own logics, claims to efficacy, and extra-physiological concerns rooted in the historical contexts from which they emerged. Chapter One examines Kaibara Ekiken’s (1630-1714) Precepts on Nourishing Life (Yōjōkun, 1713), a text that marked a turning point at which previously esoteric principles of health migrated from medical systems to an emerging popular culture of nourishment. By the end of the Tokugawa period, Yōjōkun had become both a set of specific principles recorded by Ekiken and a “brand” that others could use to legitimize their own dietary sensibilities. Ekiken carved out a new position from the earlier Chinese and Japanese longevity texts from which he drew inspiration, adapting a model of alimentary choice and personal responsibility to his own historical moment. Chapter Two explores the rise of new knowledge, new knowledge makers, and new knowledge consumers in vernacular dietary guidebooks. These guides changed the implicit structure of authority between ordinary people and those from whom they sought advice on health. Assertions that guidebooks alone could provide all the care one needed altered the terms of the relationship between everyday readers and experts by inserting a new layer of access to knowledge without the need for firsthand consultation. Despite emerging from the realm of medical knowledge, new nourishing life (yōjō) manuals betrayed a growing skepticism of doctors and medicinal healing, subordinating them to preventive nourishment regimens. Chapter Three investigates how the commercial publishing culture of late Tokugawa Japan created a venue for non-specialist authors to comment on the social place of the well-nourished body developed in nourishing life guides. Literary storybooks explored the moral and economic dimensions of health, highlighting excess, gluttony, wealth, and income disparity as themes in who should or could eat what. The chapter focuses on two ‘tales of the stomach,’ which aimed to demystify digestion and the workings of the inner body by personifying foods and bodily responses to them. I argue for a more expansive view of food publications in the Tokugawa period, as well as an understanding of didacticism inclusive enough to account for shared dietary themes across genres. Chapter Four concludes the dissertation by tracing the encounter between Tokugawa dietary health and Western scientific nutrition in the Meiji period (1868-1912), as the fledgling Japanese empire negotiated its new position vis-à-vis the West on political, cultural, and corporeal grounds. The new nutritional sciences were a novel departure from the norms of dietary thinking not only in Japan but in Europe and America, where views on diet had been largely commensurable with those of nourishing life until around the middle of the nineteenth century. Late Meiji doctor Ishizuka Sagen and the civil organizations founded to advance his ideas were among the first to use a “chemical theory of nutrition” to challenge new norms of Western science by evoking a traditionalist vision of a Japanese diet of brown rice, whole grains, miso, and vegetables. Yet vernacular advice persisted as the medium for recording and communicating nourishment to the public, and Tokugawa understandings of yōjō continued to live on in new forms.

In this study, an integrated model was proposed to examine the impact of emotional labor on quality of work life and psychological health among Chinese employees. Compared to other emotional labor models, this model considered the influence of perceived service culture as an antecedent of perceived organizational emotion control (i.e., display rules and performance monitoring). Apart from surface acting and deep acting, it also incorporated an alternative emotional regulation strategy, namely authentic self, to cope with the organizational emotion control. The integrated model included emotional expressivity as an individual factor that might influence the emotional regulation process. Two studies were conducted to examine the validity of the model. In Study 1, 486 Chinese service employees, including call center representatives, retail shop managers, human service workers, and local registered nurses were recruited. Path analysis was used to examine if the integrated model fit the cross-sectional data and results showed satisfactory model fit. A series of hierarchal regression analyses were conducted to examine the moderating effect of emotional expressivity. Instead of the hypothesized moderating effect, there were significant main effects of emotional expressivity on emotional regulation strategies. Considering the significant association between these variables, the integrated model was further revised by incorporating the emotional expressivity as an individual factor of emotional regulation strategies. Multi-sample path model analyses showed that the model was equally applicable in both gender groups for job and health outcomes. Result of the cross-sectional model showed that perceived service culture was directly related to both perceived display rules and performance monitoring. While perceived performance monitoring and authentic self were associated with surface acting, perceived display rule was in turn related to deep acting. Emotional expressivity was related to authentic self. Quality of work life was associated with surface acting and deep acting. This model could also be applied to understand psychological distress. / Study 2 was conducted to provide additional support to the integrated model, including an emotional expressivity training program and a longitudinal validation on the emotional regulation strategies model. In the emotional expressivity training program, 155 participants who had completed the questionnaire survey in Study 1 were recruited. Among them, 131 participants had joined a half-day emotional expressivity training program while 24 participants were assigned into the control group. The objective of the program was to enhance participants' positive expressivity and reduce negative expressivity and impulse strength. Results showed that the training was effective in maintaining participants' authentic self. In particular, authentic self did not change across time among training group. However, authentic self in the control group decreased significantly 3 months after the training program (T2) when it was compared to the pre-training period. In the longitudinal validation study, a longitudinal model was devised to measure changes on emotional expressivity at T1 and T2 and its relations to emotional regulation strategies among the training group (n = 131). The significant associations between perception of service culture, organizational emotion control, and emotional regulation strategies in Study 1 were also found in Study 2. Quality of work life at T2 was related to surface acting at T2 and quality of work life at TI. The longitudinal model was also applied to predict psychological distress. Deep acting, surface acting, and emotional expressivity at T2 as well as psychological distress at TI were significantly related to psychological distress at T2. Limitations, suggestions for future research, and practical implication to organizations are discussed in Chapter 6. / Cheung Yue Lok. / "July 2006." / Adviser: Catherine S. K. Tang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: B, page: 1970. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 172-189). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

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