Good social connection is associated with better physical and mental health but care home residents experience barriers to social connection. Activities present a potential avenue for improving ...social connection in care homes but residents often experience loneliness despite access to activity programmes. We therefore aimed to identify what aspects of activities facilitate social connection in care home residents.
Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews that were analysed using Thematic Analysis. A purposive sample of 35 participants, including 12 residents, 10 family caregivers, nine care home staff and four clinicians, recruited from UK care homes.
We found four main themes describing features of activities important for facilitating social connection: (1)
with respect to residents' interests, social preferences, and cognitive ability; (2) activities which foster a s
; (3) finding and emphasising
that residents share; and (4) facilitating a s
with others.
We identified the key aspects of activities which facilitate social connection in care homes. These findings can be applied to a range of existing and newly designed activities in care homes and inform the development and testing of psychosocial interventions aiming to improve social connection.
Although the view that women's olfactory abilities outperform men's is taken for granted, some studies involving large samples suggested that male and female olfactory abilities are actually similar. ...To address this discrepancy, we conducted a meta-analysis of existing studies on olfaction, targeting possible sex differences. The analyzed sample comprised
= 8 848 (5 065 women and 3 783 men) for olfactory threshold (as measured with the Sniffin Sticks Test; SST),
= 8 067 (4 496 women and 3 571 men) for discrimination (SST),
= 13 670 (7 501 women and 6 169 men) for identification (SST), and a total sample of
= 7 154 (3 866 women and 3 288 men) for works using University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT). We conducted separate meta-analyses for each aspect of olfaction: identification, discrimination and threshold. The results of our meta-analysis indicate that women generally outperform men in olfactory abilities. What is more, they do so in every aspect of olfaction analyzed in the current study. However, the effect sizes were weak and ranged between
= 0.08 and
= 0.30. We discuss our findings in the context of factors that potentially shape sex differences in olfaction. Nevertheless, although our findings seem to confirm the "common knowledge" on female olfactory superiority, it needs to be emphasized that the effect sizes we observed were notably small.
Although many studies show cultural or ecological variability in moral judgments, cross-cultural responses to the trolley problem (kill one person to save five others) indicate that certain moral ...principles might be prevalent in human populations. We conducted a study in a traditional, indigenous, non-Western society inhabiting the remote Yalimo valley in Papua, Indonesia. We modified the original trolley dilemma to produce an ecologically valid “falling tree dilemma.” Our experiment showed that the Yali are significantly less willing than Western people to sacrifice one person to save five others in this moral dilemma. The results indicate that utilitarian moral judgments to the trolley dilemma might be less widespread than previously supposed. On the contrary, they are likely to be mediated by sociocultural factors.
Food loss and food waste extensively contribute to environmental degradation. Children waste large quantities of food and more research is required to better understand this problem and consequently ...to reduce food waste in the youngest generation. Here, we examined affective and behavioral components of attitudes towards food-wasting in a group of 670 children and 123 adults, aged 3–28. The participants viewed food wasting and food saving in a video, and we tested whether age affected the moral-emotional and behavioral reactions to a food wasting vs. food saving person. The attitude towards the food wasting protagonist (operationalized as “liking” indicated on a pictorial scale) was significantly more negative than that towards the food saving protagonist in all age groups except for the three- to five-year old children. Behavioral attitude towards the video protagonists was defined as a willingness to share some goods with a food wasting vs. a food saving person, and in our study, food wasting protagonist received equal amount or less resources distributed by the participants. Additionally, our data suggest that food wasting preferentially affected food sharing in adults, but not in children, as food was shared with the food wasting protagonist in significantly smaller quantities than pens by the oldest age group. In summary, we show that even preschoolers disapprove of food wasting behavior, but only in 6–7 year old children this attitude begins to become well established; it consolidates at the age of 8–9 and starts to include a behavioral component at the age of 10–12. We suggest that pro-environmental interventions targeting food waste reduction in children should start at middle childhood and focus on behavior.
•Children waste large quantities of food which contributes to environmental degradation.•We experimentally examined attitudes towards food-wasting in children and adults.•Emotional attitude towards food wasting was negative starting from 6 years of age.•Food-wasting negatively affected participants' behavioral reactions (sharing patterns).•Interventions targeting waste reduction should start at the age of 6 years and focus on behavior.
•Study highlights subjective importance of odors in development, previously overlooked.•Novel questionnaire evaluates olfactory awareness in Scotland and Pakistan.•Ingestion-related olfactory ...awareness were observed from early age.
Developmental changes in objective olfactory abilities are well-documented, but the subjective importance of odors and olfaction from a developmental perspective has received less scientific interest. Here, in Scotland and Pakistan, we tested the importance of olfaction in 704 respondents (48.9% females) aged between 5 and 75 years old using a novel questionnaire. The scale comprised 18 items targeting six main functions of odor perception: appetite and regulation of food intake, pathogen and hazard avoidance, mating, social relations, bonding, and sensual pleasure. We found that the importance of olfaction was well-developed in children and often exceeded that of the adult samples. Notably, the ingestion-related element of olfactory importance seems to be observable from an early age. Our findings complement and advance the theory of human olfactory learning and help us understand the significance of smells from a developmental perspective.
People judge food wasting as an immoral behavior. Although moral concerns vary widely across cultures, to this date, food wasting moral judgments were investigated only among rich and industrialized ...ones. This study reports first evidence of cultural variability on moral judgments of food wasting between modern and traditional cultures. We conducted our study among the Maasai - pastoralists of Ngorongoro, Yali - horticulturalists of West Papua, and among citizens of Poland. According to the results, Maasai judge food wasting as more immoral compared to Yali and Poles. What's more, Yali judge food wasting harsher than Poles. These results suggest that there are cultural differences in moral judgments of food wasting. These differences might reflect the impact of unstable ecology on food economy of a given society. We hypothesize that harsh moral judgment concerning food waste may serve as a cultural adaptation for food insecurity.
For the bonding of the lightweight composite parts, it is desired to apply electrically conductive adhesive to maintain the ability to shield electromagnetic interference. Among various solvent-based ...adhesives, there is a new group of thermoplastic hot melt adhesives that are easy to use, solidify quickly, and are environment-friendly. To make them electrically conductive, a copolyamide-based hot melt adhesive was mixed with 5 and 10 wt% of carbon nanotubes using a melt-blending process. Well-dispersed nanotubes, observed by a high-resolution scanning microscope, led to the formation of a percolated network at both concentrations. It resulted in the electrical conductivity of 3.38 S/m achieved for 10 wt% with a bonding strength of 4.8 MPa examined by a lap shear test. Compared to neat copolyamide, Young’s modulus increased up to 0.6 GPa and tensile strength up to 30.4 MPa. The carbon nanotubes improved the thermal stability of 20 °C and shifted the glass transition of 10 °C to a higher value. The very low viscosity of the neat adhesive increased about 5–6 orders of magnitude at both concentrations, even at elevated temperatures. With a simultaneous growth in storage and loss modulus this indicates the strong interactions between polymer and carbon nanotubes.
Carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are commonly used in aviation, automotive and renewable energy markets, which are constantly growing. Increasing the production of composite parts leads to ...increased waste production and a future increase in end-of-life components. To improve the recyclability of CFRPs, new materials that fit in with the idea of a circular economy should be used as a composite matrix. One such material is a commercially available thermoplastic liquid resin, Elium® (Arkema, France). In this work, the authors investigated how the mechanical recycling process affects the properties of thermoplastic-based carbon fibre composites. CFRPs with neat Elium® resin and resin modified with 0.02 wt.% single-walled carbon nanotubes or 0.02 wt.% multi-walled carbon nanotubes were manufactured using the resin infusion process. Afterwards, prepared laminates were mechanically ground, and a new set of composites was manufactured by thermopressing. The microstructure, mechanical, thermal and electrical properties were investigated for both sets of composites. The results showed that mechanical grinding and thermopressing processes lead to a significant increase in the electrical conductivity of composites. Additionally, a sharp decrease in all mechanical properties was observed.
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