870 research outputs found

    Measuring the impact of COVID-19 on hospital care pathways

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    Care pathways in hospitals around the world reported significant disruption during the recent COVID-19 pandemic but measuring the actual impact is more problematic. Process mining can be useful for hospital management to measure the conformance of real-life care to what might be considered normal operations. In this study, we aim to demonstrate that process mining can be used to investigate process changes associated with complex disruptive events. We studied perturbations to accident and emergency (A &E) and maternity pathways in a UK public hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-incidentally the hospital had implemented a Command Centre approach for patient-flow management affording an opportunity to study both the planned improvement and the disruption due to the pandemic. Our study proposes and demonstrates a method for measuring and investigating the impact of such planned and unplanned disruptions affecting hospital care pathways. We found that during the pandemic, both A &E and maternity pathways had measurable reductions in the mean length of stay and a measurable drop in the percentage of pathways conforming to normative models. There were no distinctive patterns of monthly mean values of length of stay nor conformance throughout the phases of the installation of the hospital’s new Command Centre approach. Due to a deficit in the available A &E data, the findings for A &E pathways could not be interpreted

    Marine Toxins from Harmful Algae and Seafood Safety

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    The rapid expansion of aquaculture around the world is increasingly being impacted by toxins produced by harmful marine microalgae, which threaten the safety of seafood. In addition, ocean climate change is leading to changing patterns in the distribution of toxic dinoflagellates and diatoms which produce these toxins. New approaches are being developed to monitor for harmful species and the toxins they produce. This Special Issue covers pioneering research on harmful marine microalgae and their toxins, including the identification of species and toxins; the development of new chemical and biological techniques to identify and monitor species and toxins; the uptake of marine biotoxins in seafood and marine ecosystems; and the distribution and abundance of toxins, particularly in relation to climate change

    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!)

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    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!

    Application of knowledge management principles to support maintenance strategies in healthcare organisations

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    Healthcare is a vital service that touches people's lives on a daily basis by providing treatment and resolving patients' health problems through the staff. Human lives are ultimately dependent on the skilled hands of the staff and those who manage the infrastructure that supports the daily operations of the service, making it a compelling reason for a dedicated research study. However, the UK healthcare sector is undergoing rapid changes, driven by rising costs, technological advancements, changing patient expectations, and increasing pressure to deliver sustainable healthcare. With the global rise in healthcare challenges, the need for sustainable healthcare delivery has become imperative. Sustainable healthcare delivery requires the integration of various practices that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare infrastructural assets. One critical area that requires attention is the management of healthcare facilities. Healthcare facilitiesis considered one of the core elements in the delivery of effective healthcare services, as shortcomings in the provision of facilities management (FM) services in hospitals may have much more drastic negative effects than in any other general forms of buildings. An essential element in healthcare FM is linked to the relationship between action and knowledge. With a full sense of understanding of infrastructural assets, it is possible to improve, manage and make buildings suitable to the needs of users and to ensure the functionality of the structure and processes. The premise of FM is that an organisation's effectiveness and efficiency are linked to the physical environment in which it operates and that improving the environment can result in direct benefits in operational performance. The goal of healthcare FM is to support the achievement of organisational mission and goals by designing and managing space and infrastructural assets in the best combination of suitability, efficiency, and cost. In operational terms, performance refers to how well a building contributes to fulfilling its intended functions. Therefore, comprehensive deployment of efficient FM approaches is essential for ensuring quality healthcare provision while positively impacting overall patient experiences. In this regard, incorporating knowledge management (KM) principles into hospitals' FM processes contributes significantly to ensuring sustainable healthcare provision and enhancement of patient experiences. Organisations implementing KM principles are better positioned to navigate the constantly evolving business ecosystem easily. Furthermore, KM is vital in processes and service improvement, strategic decision-making, and organisational adaptation and renewal. In this regard, KM principles can be applied to improve hospital FM, thereby ensuring sustainable healthcare delivery. Knowledge management assumes that organisations that manage their organisational and individual knowledge more effectively will be able to cope more successfully with the challenges of the new business ecosystem. There is also the argument that KM plays a crucial role in improving processes and services, strategic decision-making, and adapting and renewing an organisation. The goal of KM is to aid action – providing "a knowledge pull" rather than the information overload most people experience in healthcare FM. Other motivations for seeking better KM in healthcare FM include patient safety, evidence-based care, and cost efficiency as the dominant drivers. The most evidence exists for the success of such approaches at knowledge bottlenecks, such as infection prevention and control, working safely, compliances, automated systems and reminders, and recall based on best practices. The ability to cultivate, nurture and maximise knowledge at multiple levels and in multiple contexts is one of the most significant challenges for those responsible for KM. However, despite the potential benefits, applying KM principles in hospital facilities is still limited. There is a lack of understanding of how KM can be effectively applied in this context, and few studies have explored the potential challenges and opportunities associated with implementing KM principles in hospitals facilities for sustainable healthcare delivery. This study explores applying KM principles to support maintenance strategies in healthcare organisations. The study also explores the challenges and opportunities, for healthcare organisations and FM practitioners, in operationalising a framework which draws the interconnectedness between healthcare. The study begins by defining healthcare FM and its importance in the healthcare industry. It then discusses the concept of KM and the different types of knowledge that are relevant in the healthcare FM sector. The study also examines the challenges that healthcare FM face in managing knowledge and how the application of KM principles can help to overcome these challenges. The study then explores the different KM strategies that can be applied in healthcare FM. The KM benefits include improved patient outcomes, reduced costs, increased efficiency, and enhanced collaboration among healthcare professionals. Additionally, issues like creating a culture of innovation, technology, and benchmarking are considered. In addition, a framework that integrates the essential concepts of KM in healthcare FM will be presented and discussed. The field of KM is introduced as a complex adaptive system with numerous possibilities and challenges. In this context, and in consideration of healthcare FM, five objectives have been formulated to achieve the research aim. As part of the research, a number of objectives will be evaluated, including appraising the concept of KM and how knowledge is created, stored, transferred, and utilised in healthcare FM, evaluating the impact of organisational structure on job satisfaction as well as exploring how cultural differences impact knowledge sharing and performance in healthcare FM organisations. This study uses a combination of qualitative methods, such as meetings, observations, document analysis (internal and external), and semi-structured interviews, to discover the subjective experiences of healthcare FM employees and to understand the phenomenon within a real-world context and attitudes of healthcare FM as the data collection method, using open questions to allow probing where appropriate and facilitating KM development in the delivery and practice of healthcare FM. The study describes the research methodology using the theoretical concept of the "research onion". The qualitative research was conducted in the NHS acute and non-acute hospitals in Northwest England. Findings from the research study revealed that while the concept of KM has grown significantly in recent years, KM in healthcare FM has received little or no attention. The target population was fifty (five FM directors, five academics, five industry experts, ten managers, ten supervisors, five team leaders and ten operatives). These seven groups were purposively selected as the target population because they play a crucial role in KM enhancement in healthcare FM. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with all participants based on their pre-determined availability. Out of the 50-target population, only 25 were successfully interviewed to the point of saturation. Data collected from the interview were coded and analysed using NVivo to identify themes and patterns related to KM in healthcare FM. The study is divided into eight major sections. First, it discusses literature findings regarding healthcare FM and KM, including underlying trends in FM, KM in general, and KM in healthcare FM. Second, the research establishes the study's methodology, introducing the five research objectives, questions and hypothesis. The chapter introduces the literature on methodology elements, including philosophical views and inquiry strategies. The interview and data analysis look at the feedback from the interviews. Lastly, a conclusion and recommendation summarise the research objectives and suggest further research. Overall, this study highlights the importance of KM in healthcare FM and provides insights for healthcare FM directors, managers, supervisors, academia, researchers and operatives on effectively leveraging knowledge to improve patient care and organisational effectiveness

    Dynamics of spatial attention during motion tracking: Characterization and modeling as a function of motion predictability

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    Efficient information processing in ecological environments relies on spatial attention to selectively process relevant areas in the visual field. Attention has been shown to be biased ahead of simple, uniform target motion during smooth pursuit. However, real-world motion varies in predictability, and as such this study aimed to: a) determine how motion predictability affects attentional bias, b) characterize how visual attention adapts to changes in motion predictability, and c) implement a computational model of visual attention during motion tracking. Ten high-performance team sport athletes (5 male, 5 female) and ten healthy, young adults (5 male, 5 female) visually tracked a target moving at varying predictability levels. A probe was flashed ahead or behind target motion (2° or 6°), and manual response times (MRT) to probes were collected to indicate attention level. To investigate the temporal dynamics of attentional bias, a second tracking task was performed where the target changed predictability levels mid-trial. The effects of group, motion predictability, and probe distance, time & location on MRT bias were examined. Finally, a state-space model (input: target motion, output: attentional bias) was trained and tested on the motion tracking and MRT data using a 5-fold cross-validation. MRT were significantly biased in athletes (distance=2°) and adults (distance=2°,6°) during predictable motion (p<0.01). There was no MRT bias for semi- and un-predictable motions. Furthermore, MRT bias took longer to accumulate, than it did to de-accumulate (p<0.01). Eye movements showed that catch-up saccades were larger (p<0.01) and more frequent (p<0.01) during unpredictable motion phases, and gradually reduced in size and frequency during sustained predictable motion. Cross-validation results demonstrated that the state-space model performance in predicting attentional bias had a mean absolute error of 18.6% (SD=0.04%). In conclusion, the distribution of spatial attention during motion tracking is dependant on motion predictability, and the accumulation of bias ahead of target motion takes longer than de-accumulation. These results indicate a conservative attentional allocation scheme that introduces bias based on predicted future errors in motion extrapolation. The state-space model developed based on these experimental results may extend existing dynamic saliency frameworks to factor in the effects of motion tracking on spatial attention

    Optimising digital nature for wellbeing

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    The global burdens of negative psychological states such as stress, anxiety, and burnout represent a growing public health concern. As the incidence of these conditions has risen so too has awareness that natural environments might provide cognitive and affective benefits. Yet unrelenting urbanisation, unprecedented species extinction, and rampant ecological degradation are fostering a creeping extinction of experience, straining the links between people and planet. In an increasingly technologically mediated world, growing emphasis is being placed on how digital forms of nature could impact health. Understanding how simulated contact with the natural world might be optimised for positive wellbeing outcomes is vital if ‘virtual nature’ is to be used as a therapeutic tool. This thesis consists of three original studies – conducted with large samples and as part of national broadcast initiatives – that aimed to address this burgeoning need. We first investigated nuances in the way natural soundscapes are experienced. Through an award-winning collaboration with the BBC Natural History Unit, a novel podcast series and experiment generated responses from 7,596 participants. Results indicated how the composition of nature-based soundscapes can affect their restorative potential, demonstrated the crucial role that memories play in these relationships, and suggested that appraisals of restoration can exert an important mediating effect on pro-environmental behaviour. Next, a similar level of granularity was applied to landscape aesthetics. An online experiment probed how ephemeral features such as sunrise, sunsets, and storms can impact appraisals of virtual environments. Data from 2,509 people supported the familiar urban-nature dichotomy yet revealed substantial momentary and diurnal heterogeneity in measures of beauty and awe. Changes in these metrics also partially mediated participants’ willingness to pay to visit these locations in the ‘real world’. Partnering again with the BBC on a multi-platform broadcast initiative called Soundscapes for Wellbeing, our third experiment assessed how the visual and acoustic elements of a digital nature experience, including music, might influence viewer emotions. Analyses from 7,636 respondents suggested that whilst music could enhance high arousal feelings such as excitement, natural sounds were integral to eliciting restoration, calmness, awe, and nostalgia. Again, these data revealed a substantial moderating effect of memories, underlining the importance of lived experiences in determining outcomes. Taken together, these findings reveal important distinctions in the way natural soundscapes are perceived, demonstrate the potential for both ephemeral features and natural sounds to elicit the complex emotions of awe and nostalgia, and highlight the profound moderating effects of personal memories. Future work might focus on expanding understanding of how awe, nostalgia, and memories could represent a hitherto under-recognised depth to the therapeutic potential of encounters with nature in both virtual and real settings.Wellcome Trus

    2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog

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    2023-2024 undergraduate catalog for Morehead State University

    Neural foundations of cooperative social interactions

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    The embodied-embedded-enactive-extended (4E) approach to study cognition suggests that interaction with the world is a crucial component of our cognitive processes. Most of our time, we interact with other people. Therefore, studying cognition without interaction is incomplete. Until recently, social neuroscience has only focused on studying isolated human and animal brains, leaving interaction unexplored. To fill this gap, we studied interacting participants, focusing on both intra- and inter-brain (hyperscanning) neural activity. In the first study, we invited dyads to perform a visual task in both a cooperative and a competitive context while we measured EEG. We found that mid-frontal activity around 200-300 ms after receiving monetary rewards was sensitive to social context and differed between cooperative and competitive situations. In the second study, we asked participants to coordinate their movements with each other and with a robotic partner. We found significantly stronger EEG amplitudes at frontocentral electrodes when people interacted with a robotic partner. Lastly, we performed a comprehensive literature review and the first meta-analysis in the emerging field of hyperscanning that validated it as a method to study social interaction. Taken together, our results showed that adding a second participant (human or AI/robotic) fostered our understanding of human cognition. We learned that the activity at frontocentral electrodes is sensitive to social context and type of partner (human or robotic). In both studies, the participants’ interaction was required to show these novel neural processes involved in action monitoring. Similarly, studying inter-brain neural activity allows for the exploration of new aspects of cognition. Many cognitive functions involved in successful social interactions are accompanied by neural synchrony between brains, suggesting the extended form of our cognition
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