6,073 research outputs found

    An empirical investigation of the relationship between integration, dynamic capabilities and performance in supply chains

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    This research aimed to develop an empirical understanding of the relationships between integration, dynamic capabilities and performance in the supply chain domain, based on which, two conceptual frameworks were constructed to advance the field. The core motivation for the research was that, at the stage of writing the thesis, the combined relationship between the three concepts had not yet been examined, although their interrelationships have been studied individually. To achieve this aim, deductive and inductive reasoning logics were utilised to guide the qualitative study, which was undertaken via multiple case studies to investigate lines of enquiry that would address the research questions formulated. This is consistent with the author’s philosophical adoption of the ontology of relativism and the epistemology of constructionism, which was considered appropriate to address the research questions. Empirical data and evidence were collected, and various triangulation techniques were employed to ensure their credibility. Some key features of grounded theory coding techniques were drawn upon for data coding and analysis, generating two levels of findings. These revealed that whilst integration and dynamic capabilities were crucial in improving performance, the performance also informed the former. This reflects a cyclical and iterative approach rather than one purely based on linearity. Adopting a holistic approach towards the relationship was key in producing complementary strategies that can deliver sustainable supply chain performance. The research makes theoretical, methodological and practical contributions to the field of supply chain management. The theoretical contribution includes the development of two emerging conceptual frameworks at the micro and macro levels. The former provides greater specificity, as it allows meta-analytic evaluation of the three concepts and their dimensions, providing a detailed insight into their correlations. The latter gives a holistic view of their relationships and how they are connected, reflecting a middle-range theory that bridges theory and practice. The methodological contribution lies in presenting models that address gaps associated with the inconsistent use of terminologies in philosophical assumptions, and lack of rigor in deploying case study research methods. In terms of its practical contribution, this research offers insights that practitioners could adopt to enhance their performance. They can do so without necessarily having to forgo certain desired outcomes using targeted integrative strategies and drawing on their dynamic capabilities

    Knowledge Distillation and Continual Learning for Optimized Deep Neural Networks

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    Over the past few years, deep learning (DL) has been achieving state-of-theart performance on various human tasks such as speech generation, language translation, image segmentation, and object detection. While traditional machine learning models require hand-crafted features, deep learning algorithms can automatically extract discriminative features and learn complex knowledge from large datasets. This powerful learning ability makes deep learning models attractive to both academia and big corporations. Despite their popularity, deep learning methods still have two main limitations: large memory consumption and catastrophic knowledge forgetting. First, DL algorithms use very deep neural networks (DNNs) with many billion parameters, which have a big model size and a slow inference speed. This restricts the application of DNNs in resource-constraint devices such as mobile phones and autonomous vehicles. Second, DNNs are known to suffer from catastrophic forgetting. When incrementally learning new tasks, the model performance on old tasks significantly drops. The ability to accommodate new knowledge while retaining previously learned knowledge is called continual learning. Since the realworld environments in which the model operates are always evolving, a robust neural network needs to have this continual learning ability for adapting to new changes

    Reshaping Higher Education for a Post-COVID-19 World: Lessons Learned and Moving Forward

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    Making Connections: A Handbook for Effective Formal Mentoring Programs in Academia

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    This book, Making Connections: A Handbook for Effective Formal Mentoring Programs in Academia, makes a unique and needed contribution to the mentoring field as it focuses solely on mentoring in academia. This handbook is a collaborative institutional effort between Utah State University’s (USU) Empowering Teaching Open Access Book Series and the Mentoring Institute at the University of New Mexico (UNM). This book is available through (a) an e-book through Pressbooks, (b) a downloadable PDF version on USU’s Open Access Book Series website), and (c) a print version available for purchase on the USU Empower Teaching Open Access page, and on Amazon

    Egocentric vision-based passive dietary intake monitoring

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    Egocentric (first-person) perception captures and reveals how people perceive their surroundings. This unique perceptual view enables passive and objective monitoring of human-centric activities and behaviours. In capturing egocentric visual data, wearable cameras are used. Recent advances in wearable technologies have enabled wearable cameras to be lightweight, accurate, and with long battery life, making long-term passive monitoring a promising solution for healthcare and human behaviour understanding. In addition, recent progress in deep learning has provided an opportunity to accelerate the development of passive methods to enable pervasive and accurate monitoring, as well as comprehensive modelling of human-centric behaviours. This thesis investigates and proposes innovative egocentric technologies for passive dietary intake monitoring and human behaviour analysis. Compared to conventional dietary assessment methods in nutritional epidemiology, such as 24-hour dietary recall (24HR) and food frequency questionnaires (FFQs), which heavily rely on subjects’ memory to recall the dietary intake, and trained dietitians to collect, interpret, and analyse the dietary data, passive dietary intake monitoring can ease such burden and provide more accurate and objective assessment of dietary intake. Egocentric vision-based passive monitoring uses wearable cameras to continuously record human-centric activities with a close-up view. This passive way of monitoring does not require active participation from the subject, and records rich spatiotemporal details for fine-grained analysis. Based on egocentric vision and passive dietary intake monitoring, this thesis proposes: 1) a novel network structure called PAR-Net to achieve accurate food recognition by mining discriminative food regions. PAR-Net has been evaluated with food intake images captured by wearable cameras as well as those non-egocentric food images to validate its effectiveness for food recognition; 2) a deep learning-based solution for recognising consumed food items as well as counting the number of bites taken by the subjects from egocentric videos in an end-to-end manner; 3) in light of privacy concerns in egocentric data, this thesis also proposes a privacy-preserved solution for passive dietary intake monitoring, which uses image captioning techniques to summarise the image content and subsequently combines image captioning with 3D container reconstruction to report the actual food volume consumed. Furthermore, a novel framework that integrates food recognition, hand tracking and face recognition has also been developed to tackle the challenge of assessing individual dietary intake in food sharing scenarios with the use of a panoramic camera. Extensive experiments have been conducted. Tested with both laboratory (captured in London) and field study data (captured in Africa), the above proposed solutions have proven the feasibility and accuracy of using the egocentric camera technologies with deep learning methods for individual dietary assessment and human behaviour analysis.Open Acces

    Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management

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    This book is a reprint of the Special Issue 'Tradition and Innovation in Construction Project Management' that was published in the journal Buildings

    The influence of culture and religion on the capital structure of SME – A pan European quantitative research

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    Diferentes teorías financieras han tratado de explicar la estructura de capital de las empresas considerándola como una elección racional con resultados limitados. Por el contrario, la teoría de las élites directivas destaca la influencia de los valores y creencias de los altos directivos en las decisiones de las empresas y la teoría institucional complementa esta visión con el papel de los valores y normas institucionales en las decisiones y opciones financieras. Nuestra investigación analiza la influencia de los valores culturales y la pertenencia a una religión en la explicación de por qué las PYMEs difieren en sus preferencias financieras, con el objetivo de enriquecer las teorías racionales del área financiera con la propuesta de la teoría de las élites directivas y la teoría institucional. Por lo tanto, el presente estudio utiliza el marco cultural de Hofstede (2021) y datos de pertenencia al cristianismo de 24 países europeos -y de las dos principales religiones cristianas- para analizar su impacto en la estructura de capital, específicamente en sus preferencias entre capital y pasivo. Además, analiza el impacto de la cultura y la religión en el comportamiento de asunción de riesgos de las PYMEs. A través de una base de datos de 27.778 pymes manufactureras de 24 países de la UE con información financiera de 2015-2019 y utilizando análisis multinivel, encontramos evidencia de que la cultura y la religión influyen en la elección de la estructura de capital en las pymes y afectan su comportamiento de toma de riesgos. Sin embargo, y en contraste con varios investigadores anteriores, que encuentran una fuerte relación entre la cultura, la religión y el comportamiento financiero de las empresas, nuestros resultados muestran un efecto de la cultura y la religión en la dirección prevista, pero, de pequeño tamaño.Different finance theories have tried to explain the capital structure of companies considering it as a rational choice with limited results. In contrast, upper echelons theory highlights the influence of top managers’ values and beliefs in the decisions of firms and the institutional theory complements this vision with the role of institutional values and norms in financial decisions and options. The research looks into the influence of cultural values and religious belonging in explaining why SMEs differ in their financial preferences aiming to fill the gap between rational finance theories and upper echelons proposal. Therefore, the present study uses the cultural framework from Hofstede (2021) and Christian belonging data from 24 European Countries and the two main Christian faiths to analyze their impact on the capital structure, specifically in their preferences between equity and liabilities. Furthermore, this study looks into the SME’s risk-taking behavior and the cultural and religious impact on this issue. Through a database of 27.778 manufacturing SMEs from 24 countries of EU with financial information from 2015-2019 and using multilevel analysis, this study finds evidence that culture and religion influences the choice of capital within SMEs and impacts their risk-taking behavior. However, and in contrast to various previous researchers, who find a strong relationship between culture and religion and financial behavior within firms, the results show a very low size effect of culture and religion on the predicting directions of financial behavior

    Science and Innovations for Food Systems Transformation

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    This Open Access book compiles the findings of the Scientific Group of the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 and its research partners. The Scientific Group was an independent group of 28 food systems scientists from all over the world with a mandate from the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. The chapters provide science- and research-based, state-of-the-art, solution-oriented knowledge and evidence to inform the transformation of contemporary food systems in order to achieve more sustainable, equitable and resilient systems

    Die therapeutische Beziehung: Differentielle Gestaltung in experimentellen Designs und in der psychotherapeutischen Behandlung

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    Mittlerweile gibt es keinen Zweifel mehr daran, dass Psychotherapie wirkt. Zahlreiche Metaanalysen belegen, dass sich etwa 80% der Patient*innen1 besser entwickeln im Vergleich zu nicht-behandelten Kontrollgruppen (Wampold + Imel, 2015). Gleichzeitig zeigen Studien zu etablierten Psychotherapien mindestens ein Drittel bis die Hälfte der Patient*innen, die am Ende als Nonresponder bezeichnet werden müssen, und sogar 60–80 %, die nicht in die Remission gelangen oder nach Psychotherapie einen Rückfall erleiden (u.a. Lambert, 2017). Hier besteht Optimierungsbedarf. In Bezug auf die Frage, was wirkt, gilt die therapeutische Allianz mittlerweile als der am häufigsten untersuchte und robusteste allgemeine Wirkfaktor (Norcross + Lambert, 2018; Wampold + Imel, 2015). Ergänzend sehen Vertreter*innen des kontextuellen Modells u.a. auch Erwartungen als wichtigen allgemeinen Wirkfaktor für erfolgreiche Psychotherapie an (Mulder, Murray, + Rucklidge, 2017). Die Forschung hat allerdings bislang keine erschöpfenden Antworten dazu geliefert, wie und warum Psychotherapie wirkt. Gleichzeitig fehlen weiterhin Antworten auf die Frage, was für welche*n Patient*in wie wirkt – what works for whom? – vor allem in Bezug auf die therapeutische Beziehungsgestaltung im Rahmen der Allianz und Erwartungen. Die Auseinandersetzung mit ebendieser Frage ist ein wichtiges Ziel der Psychotherapie- und insbesondere der Prozessforschung. Langfristig kann ein differenzierteres Verständnis für Veränderungs- und Wirkmechanismen zu einer fortlaufenden Behandlungsoptimierung sowie generellen Verbesserung der Wirksamkeit führen. Die übergeordnete Zielsetzung dieses kumulativen Dissertationsvorhabens besteht entsprechend darin, die sogenannte differentielle therapeutische Beziehungsgestaltung genauer zu beleuchten. Die differentielle Beziehungsgestaltung definieren wir als flexible und fortlaufende Adaptation des therapeutischen Beziehungsverhaltens, aufbauend auf einer individuellen Fallkonzeption und abgestimmt auf die Bedürfnisse und das Beziehungsverhalten von Patient*innen (angelehnt an Sachse, 2000, nach Caspar + Grawe, 1982; Stucki, 2004). Im Rahmen der Dissertation nutzen wir verschiedene Perspektiven und unterschiedliche methodische Ansätze, um drei spezifische Ziele anhand von vier Studien zu verfolgen: (1) Zunächst wurde der aktuelle Forschungsstand in Bezug auf die differentielle Beziehungsgestaltung in der klinischen Praxis mithilfe eines unsystematischen Reviews abgebildet (Studie I). Durch das Review wurde unter anderem deutlich, dass in der Forschungslandschaft ein Mangel an experimentellen Studien herrscht in Bezug auf die Frage, welcher therapeutische Stil für welche*n Patient*in hilfreich ist. (2) Aus diesem Grund wurde mithilfe von zwei experimentellen Designs die Umsetzung einer gezielten Variation des therapeutischen interpersonalen Stils in realistischen Settings im Sinne einer experimentellen Beziehungsgestaltung überprüft (Studien II und III). Das Review wies zudem auf die interpersonellen Charakteristika von Patient*innen als wichtige Komponente für die Beziehungsgestaltung hin, die spezifisch adressiert werden sollte, bspw. durch korrigierende heilsame Beziehungserfahrungen bei frühen traumatisierenden Erfahrungen. Hierbei ist der Psychotherapieansatz des Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) hervorzuheben. Dieser wurde speziell für Patient*innen mit persistierender depressiver Störung (PDD) entwickelt, die häufig frühe traumatisierende Beziehungserfahrungen im Rahmen von Kindesmisshandlung durchlebt haben und aktuelle interpersonelle Konflikte aufweisen (McCullough, 2003). (3) Daher wurde in Studie IV die psychotherapeutische Beziehungsgestaltung im Zusammenhang mit der Allianz als interpersoneller Wirkfaktor bei Patient*innen mit PDD einer CBASP-Behandlung genauer untersucht. In Studie I wurde in einer Übersichtsarbeit die Thematik der differentiellen Beziehungsgestaltung in der Verhaltenstherapie theoretisch sowie empirisch eingeführt und eingebettet. Diese wurde vor dem Hintergrund von (a) Therapiephasen, (b) Bedürfnissen, Motiven und Erwartungen sowie (c) frühen traumatisierenden Beziehungserfahrungen diskutiert. Offene Fragen wurden in Bezug auf eine individualisierte und empirisch verankerte therapeutische Beziehungsgestaltung erörtert. Im Artikel wird vorgeschlagen, im Rahmen einer individuellen Fallkonzeption folgende Abstufungen der Beziehungsgestaltung in der psychotherapeutischen Praxis und Forschung zu berücksichtigen: die (a) unspezifische (im Sinne der Basisvariablen), (b) indizierte (vor dem Hintergrund der individuellen Problematik) und (c) spezifische (verfolgt konkrete Behandlungsziele) Beziehungsgestaltung. In Studie II (ExTheRel) und Studie III (InterAct) wurde aufgrund der bereits beschriebenen Forschungslücke die Beziehungsgestaltung experimentell untersucht. Hierbei überprüften wir die Machbarkeit einer gezielten Variation zweier unterschiedlicher therapeutischer Stile (beziehungsorientiert vs. sachorientiert) auf konzeptueller Grundlage des interpersonellen Circumplex. In beiden Studien konnte diese gezielte Variation in einem einmaligen Beratungsgespräch unter realistischen Bedingungen bei gesunden Proband*innen mit interpersonellen Konflikten erfolgreich umgesetzt werden. Die therapeutische Allianz wurde in Studie II (N = 64) durchgehend hoch eingeschätzt und Proband*innen berichteten eine signifikante Symptomreduktion, unabhängig vom angewandten Stil. In Studie III (N = 80) wurde das experimentelle Design um Erwartungen an den therapeutischen Stil erweitert. In einem 2x2 Design erhielten Proband*innen entweder den erwarteten oder gegenteiligen Stil. Sie nahmen durchweg hohe Allianz und Zufriedenheit mit der Beratung wahr und zeigten sich zwei Wochen nach dem Gespräch weniger beeinträchtigt durch den Konflikt – unabhängig von Stil, Erwartungen und ihrer Interaktion. Diese beiden Studien zur experimentellen Beziehungsgestaltung liefern erste Belege, dass es für Berater*innen möglich ist, ihren interpersonellen Stil aktiv und bewusst zu variieren und dabei positive Allianzen zu formen, unabhängig vom Beratungsstil und/oder Erwartungen hieran und Verletzungen ebendieser. Zudem zeigen sich einmalige psychologische Beratungsgespräche zu interpersonellen Konflikten in einer gesunden Stichprobe wirksam in Bezug auf Beeinträchtigung und Belastung durch Konflikte. Die innovativen Designs können als Grundlage für weitere Prozessforschung in psychologischer Beratung und Psychotherapie dienen. Im Review (Studie I) zeigte sich des Weiteren, dass die spezifische Beziehungsgestaltung insbesondere dann wichtig ist, wenn interaktionelle Schwierigkeiten adressiert werden sollen. Daher sollte in Studie IV der interpersonelle Wirkmechanismus der Allianz im Rahmen der psychotherapeutischen Beziehungsgestaltung in einer Stichprobe mit ebendiesen interpersonellen Schwierigkeiten genauer untersucht werden. Dieses Projekt war eingebettet in eine Studie zur Untersuchung der Wirksamkeit eines stationären, individualisierten CBASP Konzeptes (CBASPersonalized) bei Patient*innen mit PDD. Ziel von Studie IV war es, ein unlängst aufgestelltes Modell von Zilcha-Mano (2017) zur Allianz in dieser Stichprobe zu prüfen. Das Zweikomponentenmodell differenziert a) eine eigenschaftsbezogene Komponente der Allianz (trait-Allianz) – die allgemeine Fähigkeit, zufriedenstellende Beziehungen aufzubauen – und (b) eine zustandsbezogene Komponente der Allianz (state-Allianz) – Veränderungen in der direkten therapeutischen Interaktion. Pfad- und Mediationsanalysen bestätigten die Passung des Modells und den bereits häufig nachgewiesenen Effekt der state-Allianz (therapeutischen Allianz) auf die depressive Symptomatik. Darüber hinaus führten positive Veränderungen in der state-Allianz auch zu einer größeren Abnahme von interpersonellen Problemen (trait-Allianz), die sich wiederum positiv auf die Abnahme der depressiven Symptomatik auswirkte. Die Ergebnisse können als vorläufige Evidenz für den in der CBASP-Behandlung vorgeschlagenen Veränderungsmechanismus der korrigierenden Beziehungserfahrungen gewertet werden, wonach eine positive und tragfähige therapeutische Allianz – die während der Therapie gezielt genutzt wird – interpersonelle Fähigkeiten verbessert, die wiederum zu einem besseren Behandlungsergebnis führen. Insgesamt untermauern die Studienergebnisse die Bedeutsamkeit der therapeutischen Beziehungsgestaltung aus klinischer und wissenschaftlicher Perspektive und liefern erste Erkenntnisse zu (a) der differentiellen Gestaltung in der Praxis, (b) Möglichkeiten zur experimentellen Gestaltung sowie (c) zugrundeliegenden interpersonellen Veränderungs- und Wirkmechanismen der psychotherapeutischen Beziehungsgestaltung bei Patient*innen mit interpersonellen Schwierigkeiten. Gleichzeitig sollten bei der Interpretation der Ergebnisse einige Limitationen berücksichtigt werden, wie methodische Einschränkungen und kleine Stichprobengrößen. Langfristig können die Studien als Grundlage für weitere Forschungsdesigns (u.a. zur Identifikation von Moderatoren und Mediatoren) sowie für die Entwicklung von Indikationskriterien für eine individualisierte Beziehungsgestaltung während längerer Psychotherapieprozesse dienen

    An Evaluation of Medication Safety related Communications in the Patient Healthcare Pathway in Kuwait

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    Background: Patient safety is a recognised public health issue. When post-market medication safety information emerges, the benefits and risks of the medication concerned are usually evaluated by drug regulatory agencies. The outcomes of such pharmacovigilance activities are communicated to the public, patients and other healthcare professionals (HCPs). The aim of these medication safety communications might vary from improving the intended recipients’ knowledge or attitudes to outlining specific actions to be followed by them. However, it is currently recognised that sharing medication-related information does not improve patients’ safety on its own if not accompanied by an accurate implementation of these recommendations in clinical practice. Despite their importance in protecting patient safety and subsequently affecting public health, no previous study was found to have evaluated or described the process of creating and disseminating medication safety communications by the Kuwaiti drug regulatory agency. Equally, no study was found to have investigated the impact of or the factors affecting the implementation of regulatory-related medication safety communications in Kuwait. Therefore, this thesis aimed to address these gaps in knowledge by evaluating medication safety communications in the patient healthcare pathway in Kuwait. Methods: This multiphase study was preceded by a systematic literature review of the factors affecting HCPs’ implementation of regulatory-related medication safety communications, using a narrative synthesis approach. Following the systematic review, multiphase research was initiated. This consisted of three phases, each of which focused on a specific stakeholder group involved in the process of medication safety communication. Phase 1 involved Kuwait Drug and Food Control (KDFC), an administration within the Ministry of Health (MOH), as the regulatory agency responsible for pharmacovigilance activities. This was a convergent mixed-methods study. Data collection in this phase included documents produced by KDFC or issued to KDFC relating to medication safety and three face-to-face interviews with KDFC employees involved in pharmacovigilance activities. Documents were analysed using a descriptive quantitative approach and a framework analysis technique. Phase 2 focused on healthcare professionals working in MOH hospitals in Kuwait. This phase was an exploratory mixed-methods study, where focus group discussions were conducted followed by the distribution of an online survey. The focus group discussions were analysed using a thematic analysis technique. In the second part of this phase, an online survey was developed based on Phase 1, the focus group discussions and the systematic literature review. Survey data analysis included descriptive analysis (frequency and percentile) and statistical analysis including principal component analysis (PCA) and the Kruskal–Wallis H test, which was followed by a post hoc analysis of variables that had significant results. Other statistical tests applied included Fisher’s exact test, the Mann–Whitney U Test, and multivariate regression analysis. Participants’ answers to open-ended survey questions were analysed using a conventional content analysis technique. Phase 3 was an interpretive phenomenology study. This phase involved semi-structured phone interviews with six female patients of childbearing age who used a valproate-related medication for epilepsy or migraine. These patients had been prescribed the valproate-related medication in one of six secondary hospitals and one specialist neurology hospital within the MOH hospitals. An interpretive phenomenological analysis technique was applied to analyse the transcripts. Results: The results of the systematic literature review indicated that the factors affecting HCPs’ implementation of medication safety communications occur at multiple levels. These levels included the sources or senders of the safety information (delays in the delivery of medications safety communications), healthcare institutions (hospitals’ position and interpretations of the recommendations), the HCPs (knowledge of the content of medications safety communications), and the patients and/or their carers (willingness to use the medication concerned). Phase 1 revealed a lack of legislation and a pharmacovigilance-specific policy. Results from Phase 2 reflected poor knowledge of the concept of medication safety communications within the context of pharmacovigilance and a lack of familiarity with the tools used by KDFC to communicate emerging medication information among HCPs. In the survey, although the majority of HCPs who responded were aware of the teratogenicity of VRM (65.1%, (n = 110/169)), only 2.6% had responded correctly to the statements of the VRM KDFC recommendations. More than half of the participants (57%) reported changing their practice to accommodate at least one intended KDFC recommendation. Providing female patients with written information (37.2%) and counselling female patients about contraceptive use (37.2%) were the most reported intended changes in practice. The most reported barriers to implementation included not having the capacity in terms of time and/or the infrastructure to implement the recommendations (33.8%). Four themes originating from patient interviews included (1) the timeline of the patient’s experience (2) varied knowledge and perception with valproate use, (3) patient’s expectations from HCPs and (4) experiences and preferences towards medication safety communications. Conclusion: Medication safety communications are essential tools for disseminating information related to medication safety updates to HCPs, patients and the public. This research identified challenges at the level of the sender (KDFC) and the intended recipients (HCPs and patients) that could reduce the ability of KDFC’s medication safety communications to reach clinical practices. The first step in increasing their reach is to adapt electronic methods for disseminating such information. Involving stakeholders, such as HCPs and patients, in evaluating the clarity and understandability of KDFC’s medication safety communications should be the focus of future research
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