On vs. Off: Coronary Bypass Surgery from a Patient\u27s Perspective

Throughout the years, technological advances have changed the face of cardiac surgery, but at times, it is a return to a previous technique, which proves beneficial. Prior to the introduction of cardiopulmonary bypass, cardiac surgery was performed on a beating heart, but due to the lack of an appropriate immobilizing device, the surgery was extremely complicated. With the introduction of new stabilization devices, immobilization of the heart has become easier and beating heart surgery has gained popularity once again. Multiple studies have been done which discuss the benefits of off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery (OPCAB), but none of the studies have explored the surgery from a patient\u27s perspective. The patient is medicine\u27s most important ally and as such, it is important that health care providers understand the fears, anxieties, and experiences that their patients undergo. Studies have compared OPCAB with conventional coronary artery bypass (CABG), but the patient\u27s experience has not been explored. The purpose of this study was to determine how people who have had both OPCAB and CABG view the surgical experience, their outcomes, and the fears they had prior to surgery. The sample was comprised of four men living independently in a small midwestern community. The sample was recruited with the help of a local cardiovascular surgeon\u27s office. The participants were interviewed using an interview guide. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Inductive data analysis was completed using the transcribed interviews as well as field notes from the researcher. From the data, eight categories and five subcategories were formed. The categories included suggestions to other patients, recommendations to healthcare professionals, preoperative preparation, medications, symptoms prior to surgery, trust in doctors, postoperative depression, and comparisons between CABG and OPCAB. The last category was further subdivided into five subcategories, which included general comparison, subjective look of patient, length of stay, recovery period, and intubation experience. The information gleaned from this study is of importance to nurses as well as other healthcare professionals as they work with patients before and after either type of bypass surgery. It\u27s a lifetime experience, and, therefore, it is important that healthcare professionals are fully prepared to care for and educate patients as their hearts are mended. The findings of this study may help to provide insight and knowledge about the patient\u27s experience as they undergo one of these life-changing surgeries

Blurring of Lines: Academic and Public Libraries Revisited

Among the conclusions reached in Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: A Report to the OCLC Membership in 2005, was the following: "The similarity of perceptions about libraries and their resources across respondents from six countries is striking. It suggests that libraries are seen by information consumers as a common solution, a single organization - one entity with many outlets - constant, consistent, expected." Does this mean that many of the traditional differences between public and academic libraries also are blurring? In this pieces, I would like to explore that thought informally and then suggest some approaches libraries of all types need to take

Facebook’s effect on emotional reactivity to in-lab peer feedback manipulations

Peer feedback is a foundational currency on the social networking platform Facebook. Facebook users share photographs and personal updates their friends can then “like” or comment on – feedback often seen by users’ friends. Negative peer feedback on Facebook can have severe consequences: media outlets have attributed teen suicides to bullying on Facebook, and some worry Facebook is dangerous for young people. While Facebook provides an additional channel for peer feedback, it is unclear whether feedback on Facebook, in the absence of face-to-face feedback, prompts emotional reactivity. We conducted three studies investigating the emotional effects of Facebook-mediated peer feedback on university students. In each we measured affect and self-esteem before and after controlled manipulations of two factors: feedback valence and communication channel. In the first study, participants believed they were evaluated to determine whether they were “likeable”. We compared participants’ emotional reactivity to acceptance or rejection feedback (feedback valence) delivered after a peer evaluation manipulation occurring either on Facebook or face-to-face (communication channel). In the second study, participants were told they would join a group in determining the “most likeable” student amongst them. We compared participants’ emotional reactivity to supportive or bullying feedback (feedback valence) delivered on Facebook either privately or publicly (communication channel). In this study we additionally measured changes in participants’ perceptions of their own social status and the social status of the person delivering feedback. In the third study, we tested whether demographic and psychosocial variables moderated the effects found in the second study. We found no appreciable differences between face-to-face and Facebook-mediated feedback. Bullying on the Facebook Profile dampened self-esteem more than bullying through Facebook’s private Messenger client, which had no appreciable effect on self-esteem. Moderation analysis revealed that only people reporting depressive symptoms indicated that bullying on the Facebook Profile dampened their self-esteem. These results suggest Facebook does not itself amplify or blunt the emotional effects of peer feedback, and instead confirms the important role individual differences play in emotional reactivity. Individual and environmental triggers of emotional reactivity, such as psychosocial vulnerabilities and sociometric status, may remain the best targets for reducing the negative effects of peer victimization.Psycholog

Measuring career anchors and investigating the role of career anchor congruence

This thesis empirically examines the career orientations inventory (COI) as a measure of career anchors and then, using this measure, it goes on to investigate the relationship between career anchor congruence and work related outcomes, specifically job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The psychometric properties of the 40 item COI (presented by Igbaria and Baroudi,\ud 1993) were explored by the administration of the measure to a sample of 658 individuals from 27 organisations in the UK. Through factor analysis an eight factor structure was demonstrated in line with that proposed by Schein (1993). The factor structure was replicated with a second sample. The COI demonstrated good levels of internal consistency (.59-.83) and test retest reliability (.68-.90). Similarly it was deemed to have acceptable levels of face validity and construct validity when compared to Mantech’s (1983) Work Values Questionnaire (WVQ). An analysis of the prevalence of career anchors and the demographic differences\ud within the current sample was undertaken. This analysis provided evidence to suggest that certain career anchors may be increasing in prevalence while others are\ud decreasing. These findings are in line with current research on the way in which workplace changes are impacting upon careers (Baruch, 2004). Evidence was found\ud that indicated gender differences in scores on the COI subscales. Specifically women were found to score higher on the lifestyle anchor and men to score higher on the general management anchor. Differences were also found between the age groups considered in this study in the general management, creativity, pure challenge and lifestyle anchors. Interaction effects for age and gender were found\ud for the general management and sense of service anchors.\ud The COI was then used to develop a commensurate measure of job career anchors. This job career anchor measure discriminated between jobs within one police\ud organisation. The measure was then used to explore the relationship between career anchors, career anchor congruence (congruence between individual and job\ud career anchors), job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Evidence was found to suggest that career anchors and career anchor congruence have a direct\ud effect on job satisfaction (predicting 10% and 4% of the variance respectively). The analysis also showed support for the role of career anchor congruence as a\ud moderator to the relationship between career anchors and job satisfaction. This thesis makes full consideration of the academic contributions and practical implications of the research presented whilst also considering its limitations. A number of suggestions for the direction of future research have been made

On vs. Off: Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery from a Patient\u27s Perspective

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All-microwave and low-cost Lamb shift engineering for a fixed frequency multi-level superconducting qubit

It is known that the electromagnetic vacuum is responsible for the Lamb shift, which is a crucial phenomenon in quantum electrodynamics (QED). In circuit QED, the readout or bus resonators that are dispersively coupled can result in a significant Lamb shift of the qubit, much larger than that in the original broadband cases. However, previous approaches or proposals for controlling the Lamb shift in circuit QED demand overheads in circuit designs or non-perturbative renormalization of the system's eigenbases, which can impose formidable limitations.In this work, we propose and demonstrate an efficient and cost-effective method for controlling the Lamb shift of fixed-frequency transmons. We employ the drive-induced longitudinal coupling between the transmon and resonator. By simply using an off-resonant monochromatic driving near the resonator frequency, we can modify the Lamb shift by 32 to -30 MHz without facing the aforementioned challenges. Our work establishes an efficient way of engineering the fundamental effects of the electromagnetic vacuum and provides greater flexibility in non-parametric frequency controls of multilevel systems. In particular, this Lamb shift engineering scheme enables individually control of the frequency of transmons, even without individual drive lines

Let's Talk About Psychosis

Background: Research suggests that while patients wish to talk about positive psychotic symptoms, psychiatrists may be reluctant to do so in routine outpatient consultations. Aims: To explore the content, context and impact of discussion of positive symptoms within psychiatric consultations. Methods: Thematic analysis was applied to first discussions of positive symptoms, and overall impact assessed on the length of the consultation and the therapeutic relationship. Results: Sixty-five of 143 consultations contained discussion of a positive psychotic symptom. Symptom discussion neither harmed the therapeutic relationship nor lengthened the consultation. Patients' disclosures strongly corresponded with psychological models of psychosis, emphasizing personal meaning and emotional impact. In contrast, psychiatrists focused on topographical characteristics, such as frequency and location. Strengths in psychiatric practice included using open questions, positive reinforcement and offering explanations tentatively. Conclusions: Findings support discussion of positive symptoms within outpatient consultations, to include necessary assessment of topography and risk alongside exploration of patients' subjective experience

Resolving non-perturbative renormalization of a microwave-dressed weakly anharmonic superconducting qubit

Microwave driving is a ubiquitous technique for superconducting qubits (SCQs), but the dressed states description based on the conventionally used perturbation theory cannot fully capture the dynamics in the strong driving limit. Comprehensive studies beyond these approximations applicable to transmon-based circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) systems are unfortunately rare as the relevant works have been mainly limited to single-mode or two-state systems. In this work, we investigate a microwave-dressed transmon coupled to a single quantized mode over a wide range of driving parameters. We reveal that the interaction between the transmon and resonator as well as the properties of each mode is significantly renormalized in the strong driving limit. Unlike previous theoretical works, we establish a non-recursive, and non-Floquet theory beyond the perturbative regimes, which excellently quantifies the experiments. This work expands our fundamental understanding of dressed cavity QED-like systems beyond the conventional approximations. Our work will also contribute to fast quantum gate implementation, qubit parameter engineering, and fundamental studies on driven nonlinear systems

Two-photon sideband transition in a driven quantum Rabi model : Quantitative discussions with derived longitudinal drives and beyond the rotating wave approximation

In this work, we analytically and numerically study the sideband transition dynamics of the driven quantum Rabi model (QRM). We focus in particular on the conditions when the external transverse drive fields induce first-order sideband transitions. Inducing sideband transitions between two different systems is an essential technique for various physical models, including the QRM. However, despite its importance, a precise analytical study has not been reported yet that successfully explains the sideband transition rates in a driven QRM applicable for all system parameter configurations. In our study, we analytically derive the sideband transition rates based on second-order perturbation theory, not relying on the rotating wave approximation (RWA) \cite{RWA}. Our formula are valid for all ranges of drive frequencies and system's parameters. Our analytical derived formula agrees well with the numerical results in a regime of moderate drive amplitudes. Interestingly, we have found a non-trivial longitudinal drive effect derived from the transverse drive Hamiltonian. This accounts for significant corrections to the sideband transition rates that are expected without considering the derived longitudinal effect. Using this approach, one can precisely estimate the sideband transition rates in the QRM not confining themselves within specific parameter regimes. This provides important contributions for understanding experiments described by the driven QRM