Analysis of ground-transducer coupling in monitoring vibration from railways: A case study

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An Experimental Investigation of the Individual and Joint Effects of Financial and Non-financial Incentives on Knowledge Sharing Using Enterprise Social Media

Many organizations implement enterprise social media (ESM) in an effort to capture and store valuable knowledge that employees possess. Unfortunately, more often than not, employees do not make a large number of knowledge contributions. Using agency theory and contingency theory as foundations, we examine managerial interventions that can improve knowledge contribution rates in ESM. Specifically, we investigate the individual and joint effects of paying people to share knowledge, providing social cues, and having supporting and policing moderators on knowledge sharing. We further examine how two contingency factors—the nature of an employee’s compensation scheme (variable or fixed) for their primary work task and the employee’s belief about the importance of sharing knowledge—affect the relative efficacy of the aforementioned managerial interventions. Although we found evidence that being paid to share knowledge and believing that knowledge sharing is inherently important both increase the amount of knowledge shared, our most important results concern the existence of significant interaction effects. For persons who receive a fixed salary, we found a surprisingly large, positive synergistic effect between being paid to share knowledge and believing that knowledge sharing is important. However, introducing a policing moderator almost completely nullified this synergistic effect. We discuss the implications of these findings for both practice and research

A Deep Learning Method for Automatic Identification of Drusen and Macular Hole from Optical Coherence Tomography

Deep Learning methods have become dominant in various fields of medical imaging, including ophthalmology. In this preliminary study, we investigated a method based on Convolutional Neural Network for the identification of drusen and macular hole from Optical Coherence Tomography scans with the aim to assist ophthalmologists in diagnosing and assessing retinal diseases

Calibration of methylene-referenced lipid-dissolved xenon frequency for absolute MR temperature measurements

Purpose: Absolute MR temperature measurements are currently difficult because they require precalibration procedures specific for tissue types and conditions. Reference of the lipid-dissolved 129Xe resonance frequency to temperature-insensitive methylene protons (rLDX) has been proposed to remove the effect of macro- and microscopic susceptibility gradients to obtain absolute temperature information. The scope of this work is to evaluate the rLDX chemical shift (CS) dependence on lipid composition to estimate the precision of absolute temperature measurements in lipids. Methods: Neat triglycerides, vegetable oils, and samples of freshly excised human and rodent adipose tissue (AT) are prepared under 129Xe atmosphere and studied using high-resolution NMR. The rLDX CS is measured as a function of temperature. 1H spectra are also acquired and the consistency of methylene-referenced water proton and rLDX CS values are compared in human AT. Results: Although rLDX CS shows a dependence on lipid composition, in human and rodent AT samples the rLDX shows consistent CS values with a similar temperature dependence (–0.2058 ± 0.0010) ppm/°C × T (°C) + (200.15 ± 0.03) ppm, enabling absolute temperature measurements with an accuracy of 0.3°C. Methylene-referenced water CS values present variations of up to 4°C, even under well-controlled conditions. Conclusions: The rLDX can be used to obtain accurate absolute temperature measurements in AT, opening new opportunities for hyperpolarized 129Xe MR to measure tissue absolute temperature

Factors precipitating the risk of aspiration in hospitalized patients: findings from a multicentre critical incident technique study

Objective: To elucidate factors, other than those clinical, precipitating the risk of aspiration in hospitalized patients. Design: The Critical Incident Technique was adopted for this study in 2015. Setting: Three departments located in two academic hospitals in the northeast of Italy, equipped with 800 and 1500 beds, respectively. Participants: A purposeful sample of 12 registered nurses (RN), all of whom (i) had reported one or more episodes of aspiration during the longitudinal survey, (ii) had worked 653 years in the department, and (iii) were willing to participate, were included. Main Outcome Measure(s): Antecedent factors involved in episodes of aspiration as experienced by RNs were collected through an open-ended interview, and qualitatively analysed. Results: In addition to clinical factors, other factors interacting with each other may precipitate the risk of aspiration episodes during hospitalization: at the nursing care level (misclassifying patients, transferring tasks to other healthcare professionals and standardizing processes to remove potential threats); at the family level (misclassifying patients, dealing with the cultural relevance of eating) and at the environmental level (positioning the patient, managing time pressures, distracting patient while eating, dealing with food consistency and irritating oral medication). Conclusions: At the hospital level, an adequate nursing workforce and models of care delivery, as well as time for initial and continuing patient and family assessment are required. At the unit level, patient-centred models of care aimed at reducing care standardization are also recommended; in addition, nursing, family and environmental factors should be recorded in the incident reports documenting episodes of aspiratio

A holistic multi-methodology for sustainable renovation

A review of the barriers for building renovation has revealed a lack of methodologies, which can promote sustainability objectives and assist various stakeholders during the design stage of building renovation/retrofitting projects. The purpose of this paper is to develop a Holistic Multi-methodology for Sustainable Renovation, which aims to deal with complexity of renovation projects. It provides a framework through which to involve the different stakeholders in the design process to improve group learning and group decision-making, and hence make the building renovation design process more robust and efficient. Therefore, the paper discusses the essence of multifaceted barriers in building renovation regarding cultural changes and technological/physical changes. The outcome is a proposal for a multi-methodology framework, which is developed by introducing, evaluating and mixing methods from Soft Systems Methodologies (SSM) with Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). The potential of applying the proposed methodology in renovation projects is demonstrated through a case study

Seasonal Consumptive Demand and Prey Use by Stocked Saugeyes in Ohio Reservoirs

Community structure and species composition may be strongly influenced by predator-prey interactions resulting from and leading to episodes of population abundance or scarcity. We quantified diets of stocked saugeyes (female walleye Sander vitreus × male sauger S. canadensis) and estimated biomass of their primary prey, gizzard shad Dorosoma cepedianum, in three Ohio reservoirs at quarterly intervals during July 2002-July 2003 to determine whether saugeye consumptive demand could exceed the supply of available gizzard shad prey, resulting in a shift to alternative prey. We incorporated water temperature and saugeye diet composition, growth, and mortality into walleye bioenergetics models, which allowed us to compare estimated prey-specific consumption rates by saugeyes with gizzard shad standing stocks estimated with acoustics. Spring and summer were critical seasons. During spring, gizzard shad biomass was low, saugeye consumptive demand was low, and saugeyes consumed primarily alternative prey. During summer, when age-0 gizzard shad became available as prey, saugeyes consumed similar proportions of gizzard shad and alternative prey. Saugeye cumulative consumptive demand in summer was high and approached the gizzard shad standing stock. However, during fall and winter, gizzard shad supply was adequate to support high (fall) or declining (winter) saugeye consumptive demand. Across reservoirs and seasons, saugeyes consumed alternative prey to varying degrees, primarily sunfishes Lepomis spp., yellow perch Perca flavescens, logperch Percina caprodes, and minnows Pimephales spp. Seasonal asynchrony between saugeye consumptive demand and gizzard shad biomass during spring and summer indicated that a saugeye population with high survival, growth, and consumptive demand will opportunistically increase use of prey other than gizzard shad. The manner in which saugeye predation quantitatively influences these prey species could not be assessed. However, overexploitation of gizzard shad prey appears to be unlikely at current saugeye population sizes, particularly considering the opportunistic use of alternative prey and the high reproductive potential of gizzard shad.Funding for this research was provided by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife; Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Project F-69-P, Fish Management in Ohio; and the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at The Ohio State University