BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The efficacy of treating older persons for hypertension remains controversial. Although clinical trials suggest no short-term harm, or some benefits, there are little data on the effect on cognitive function of long-term antihypertensive treatment. We evaluated the risk of dementia and cognitive decline associated with duration of antihypertensive treatment. METHODS Dat...

This study verifies the environmental effects on agraphia in mild cognitive impairment and dementia. We compared elderly Japanese subjects living in Japan and Brazil. Methods We retrospectively analyzed the database of the Prevalence Study 1998 in Tajiri (n=497, Miyagi, Japan) and the Prevalence Study 1997 of elderly Japanese immigrants living in Brazil (n=166, migrated from Japan and living ...

Informal caregiving to the elderly is associated with the presence of both difficulties and positive rewards, but the latter have been considered less systematically in gerontological literature. In this cross-sectional study, we compared satisfaction of caregivers of demented (n=70) and stroke patients (n=44) by means of the Carer's Assessment of Satisfaction Index (CASI) and also compared the...

BACKGROUND Prior research focusing on men who have sex with men (MSM) conducted in Buenos Aires, Argentina, used convenience samples that included mainly gay identified men. To increase MSM sample representativeness, we used Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) for the first time in Argentina. Using RDS, under certain specified conditions, the observed estimates for the percentage of the population...

Finding accurate predidors of tertiary academic performance, specifically for disadvantaged students, is essential because of budget constraints and the need of the labour market to address employment equity. Increased retention, throughput and decreased dropout rates are vital. When making odmission decisions, the under preparedness of students necessitates that their potential cognitive abili...

Intelligent software personal assistants are an active research area with the potential to revolutionize the way that human organizations operate, but there has been little research quantifying how they will impact organizational performance or how organizations will or should adapt in response. In this chapter we develop a computational model of the organization to evaluate the impact differen...

We hypothesize that enhancing computer tutors to respond to student uncertainty over and above correctness is one method for increasing both student learning and self-monitoring abilities. We explore this hypothesis using data from an experiment with a wizarded spoken tutorial dialogue system, where tutor responses to uncertain and/or incorrect student answers were manipulated. Our results sugg...