Interdisciplinary Health Care Evaluation Instruments: A Review of Psychometric Evidence.

Teamwork among health care professionals has been found to improve patient outcomes and reduce burnout. Surveys from individual team members are often used to measure the effectiveness of teamwork performance, as they provide an efficient way to capture various constructs of teamwork. This allows evaluators to better understand team functioning, areas of strength, and to identify potential areas for improvement. However, the majority of published surveys are yet to be validated. We conducted a review of psychometric evidence to identify instruments frequently used in practice and identified in the literature. The databases searched included MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO. After excluding duplicates and irrelevant articles, 15 articles met the inclusion criteria for full assessment. Seven surveys were validated and most frequently identified in the literature. This review aims to facilitate the selection of instruments that are most appropriate for research and clinical practice. More research is required to develop surveys that better reflect the current reality of teamwork in our evolving health system, including a greater consideration for patient as team members. Additionally, more research is needed to encompass an increasing development of team assessment tools

Employability and entrepreneurship skills training programme for final year undergraduate students in Nigeria

The main aims of the present project are develop a training programme to enhance employability and entrepreneurship skills to final year students; promote entrepreneurial culture, self-employment, and economic independence; and capacity building among staff at the University of Ibadan. Twenty final year students participated in the training for 8 days spread over a 10 week period. Results showed that all the participants reported their experience on the program as highly rewarding. They also reported having acquired numerous skills in the course of this intervention, including: entrepreneurial ability, communication skills, assertiveness, networking, listening ability, conflict resolution and self analysis and development

Ingeniería y tratamiento curricular de los saberes sociales : Una indagación en curso

En este trabajo compartiremos un estado de avance sobre una investigación en curso respecto a la inclusión de saberes socio - humanísticos (SSH) en las carreras de ingeniería, durante lo que denominamos una etapa pos estándar. Se trata de un proyecto de investigación bienal en el marco del Programa de Incentivos, correspondiente al periodo 2015-2016, que se ha propuesto como continuidad o segunda parte del proyecto sobre la misma temática realizado en el periodo 2013-2014. En el marco de estas jornadas, presentaremos dos hipótesis acerca de las discusiones que -en términos curriculares- se han configurado alrededor de los saberes sociales y humanísticos en carreras de ingeniería. Cabe señalar en primer lugar, y como lo hemos hecho en otras presentaciones sobre estos temas, que el escenario mundial nos obliga a asumir la responsabilidad que nos compete en la formación de ciudadanos para una sociedad cada vez más impactada por los fenómenos del mercado, los controles sutiles del poder político, la doble moral de las políticas macroeconómicas, la deshumanización, la pobreza y las disparidades éticas que día a día observamos; así como la inequidad y las desigualdades de todo orden (Abate et al., 2013). Las responsabilidades que los ingenieros, como cualquier otro profesional, asuman para con la sociedad en pos de un desarrollo sostenible y sustentable se vinculan a una ética profesional y, más ampliamente, al ejercicio activo de la ciudadanía.Sección: Área Pedagógica.Facultad de Ingenierí

The Metabochip, a Custom Genotyping Array for Genetic Studies of Metabolic, Cardiovascular, and Anthropometric Traits

PMCID: PMC3410907This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Design and optimisation of organic Rankine cycles for waste heat recovery in marine applications using the principles of natural selection

Power cycles using alternative working fluids are currently receiving significant attention. Selection of working fluid among many candidates is a key topic and guidelines have been presented. A general problem is that the selection is based on numerous criteria, such as thermodynamic performance, boundary conditions, hazard levels and environmental concerns. A generally applicable methodology, based on the principles of natural selection, is presented and used to determine the optimum working fluid, boiler pressure and Rankine cycle process layout for scenarios related to marine engine heat recovery. Included in the solution domain are 109 fluids in sub and supercritical processes, and the process is adapted to the properties of the individual fluid. The efficiency losses caused by imposing process constraints are investigated to help propose a suitable process layout. Hydrocarbon dry type fluids in recuperated processes produced the highest efficiencies, while wet and isentropic fluids were superior in non-recuperated processes. The results suggested that at design point, the requirements of process simplicity, low operating pressure and low hazard resulted in cumulative reductions in cycle efficiency. Furthermore, the results indicated that non-flammable fluids were able to produce near optimum efficiency in recuperated high pressure processes

Reproductive biology of the nonnative oyster, Crassostrea gigas (Thunber, 1793) as a key for its successful spread along the rocky shores of Northern Patagonia, Argentina

Crassostrea gigas was introduced in Anegada Bay (North Patagonia, Argentina), in 1981 for aquaculture purposes. The species has, since established in the field, covered all available hard substrata in the bay and gradually expanded south along the coast of the neighboring province of Río Negro, 90 km away from its original introduction site. Our work focused on the reproductive dynamics of the species at the introduction site, with emphasis on the thermal thresholds needed for each stage of gonad development. During early spring, the oysters in Anegada Bay go through active gonad proliferation. Maturity extends mainly from October to January. The first spawning occurs in November, when seawater temperature exceeds 17°C, and peaks from December to February, when seawater temperature lies in the range ot 19–21.5°C. The timing of gonad development is size dependent. Larger (≥70 mm) and medium-size oysters begin spawning first, whereas small oysters ( 17°C), and spawning only occurs in those sites where this threshold is reached.Versión del editor

Summary of the ISEV workshop on extracellular vesicles as disease biomarkers, held in Birmingham, UK, during December 2017

This report summarises the presentations and activities of the ISEV Workshop on extracellular vesicle biomarkers held in Birmingham, UK during December 2017. Among the key messages was broad agreement about the importance of biospecimen science. Much greater attention needs to be paid towards the provenance of collected samples. The workshop also highlighted clear gaps in our knowledge about pre-analytical factors that alter extracellular vesicles (EVs). The future utility of certified standards for credentialing of instruments and software, to analyse EV and for tracking the influence of isolation steps on the structure and content of EVs were also discussed. Several example studies were presented, demonstrating the potential utility for EVs in disease diagnosis, prognosis, longitudinal serial testing and stratification of patients. The conclusion of the workshop was that more effort focused on pre-analytical issues and benchmarking of isolation methods is needed to strengthen collaborations and advance more effective biomarkers