The client-oriented model of cultural competence in healthcare organizations

The paper aims to propose a new model of cultural competence in health organizations based on the paradigm of client orientation. Starting from a literature review, this study takes inspiration from dimensions that characterize the cultural competence of health organizations, and re-articulates them in more detail by applying a client orientation view. The resulting framework is articulated into six dimensions (formal references; procedures and practices; cultural competences of human resources; cultural orientation toward client; partnership with community; and self-assessment) that define the ability of a health organization to achieve its mission, acknowledging, understanding, and valorizing cultural differences of internal clients (staff) and external clients (consumers). This study makes an effort to address the paucity of studies linking approaches to managing cultural diversity in health organizations with cultural competence within the framework of client orientation

automatic features recognition for anthropometry

Abstract For the purpose of reducing uncertainties in the measurements of morphologically complex biological objects, the authors present a new automatic method, which takes advantage from the representation of the object in the form of the 3D geometric model obtained from CT-scans or 3D scanning. In this paper, the method is verified in real cases and compared with the traditional approaches

A new view of Italian seismicity using 20 years of instrumental recordings

Abstract In this paper, we show the seismicity of the past 20 years that occurred in Italy and surrounding regions. Hypocentral locations have been obtained by using P- and S-wave arrival times from the INGV national and several regional permanent seismic networks. More than 48,000 events, selected from an original data set of about 99,780, are used to reconstruct the most complete seismic picture of the Italian region so far. The seismicity distribution allows inference on seismotectonics of this complex region of subduction versus continental collision. Our results clearly reveal the geometry of the Adria and the Ionian subduction and a continuous normal fault belt in the upper crust, following the Apennines mountain range. The depth of the seismogenic layer is computed from the cut-off of seismicity at depth and shows large variations along and across the seismic active regions. Earthquakes are generated by the different velocity of slab retreat and the subsequent asthenospheric upwelling. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The Discovery of an X-ray/UV Stellar Flare from the Late-K/Early-M Dwarf LMC 335

We report the discovery of an X-ray/UV stellar flare from the source LMC 335, captured by XMM-Newton in the field of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The flare event was recorded continuously in X-ray for its first 10 hours from the precursor to the late decay phases. The observed fluxes increased by more than two orders of magnitude at its peak in X-ray and at least one in the UV as compared to quiescence. The peak 0.1-7.0 keV X-ray flux is derived from the two-temperature APEC model to be ~(8.4 +/- 0.6) x 10^-12 erg cm-2 s-1. Combining astrometric information from multiple X-ray observations in the quiescent and flare states, we identify the NIR counterpart of LMC 335 as the 2MASS source J05414534-6921512. The NIR color relations and spectroscopic parallax characterize the source as a Galactic K7-M4 dwarf at a foreground distance of (100 - 264) pc, implying a total energy output of the entire event of ~(0.4 - 2.9) x 10^35 erg. This report comprises detailed analyses of this late-K / early-M dwarf flare event that has the longest time coverage yet reported in the literature. The flare decay can be modeled with two exponential components with timescales of ~28 min and ~4 hours, with a single component decay firmly ruled out. The X-ray spectra during flare can be described by two components, a dominant high temperature component of ~40-60MK and a low temperature component of ~10MK, with a flare loop length of about 1.1-1.3 stellar radius.Comment: 35 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Using simple sequence repeats in 9 brassica complex species to assess hypertrophic curd induction

Five Simple Sequence Repeats (SSRs) were used to assess the relationship between inflorescence characteristics and their allelic variation in 53 Brassica oleracea and Brassica wild relatives (n = 9). Curd morphometric traits, such as weight (CW), height (CH), diameter (CD1), shape (CS) inflorescence curvature angle (CA), and its curd stem diameter (CD2), were measured. The aim of the work was to analyze the relationships among the allelic patterns of the SSRs primers utilized, and their status of homo or heterozygosity registered at each locus, as well as the inflorescence morphometric traits in order to individuate genomic regions stimulating the hypertrophy of this reproductive organ. The relationships found explain the diversity among B. oleracea complex species (n = 9) for the inflorescence size and structure, allowing important time reduction during the breeding process by crossing wild species, transferring useful resistance, and organoleptic and nutraceutical traits. The five SSRs loci were BoABI1, BoAP1, BoPLD1, BoTHL1, and PBCGSSRBo39. According to the allelic variation ascertained, we evaluated the heterozygosity index (H) for each SSR above cited. The results showed a significant interaction between the H index of the BoPLD1 gene and the inflorescence characteristics, summarized by the First Principal Component (PC1) (p-value = 0.0244); we ascertained a negative correlation between the H index and inflorescence characteristics, namely CW, CH, CD1, CD2, CA. The homozygosity BoPLD1 alelles, indicated by the H index, affect the inflorescence characteristics and broccoli and cauliflower yields