Regulate Pollution or Land Use - Managing Toxic Air Contaminants in Southern California

A California air quality management district recently proposed to limit the location of potential receivers, in contrast with sources, of air toxics. The author argues that, although this particular proposal was later abandoned, it amounted to land use regulation. He also argues that such action usurps local control and is unwarranted

Radical Technological Innovation and Perception: A Non-Physician Practitioners’ Perspective

Radical technological innovations, such as chatbots, fundamentally alter many aspects of healthcare organizations. For example, they transform how clinicians care for their patients. Despite the potential benefits, they cannot be integrated into practice without the support of the clinicians whose jobs are affected. While previous research shed important light on physicians’ perceptions, little is known on nonphysician practitioners view said innovations. This paper reports on a qualitative study, involving 10 nonphysician clinicians from Ontario, Canada, conducted to determine the perceptions and cognitions of clinicians regarding radical innovation and their previous experiences with technological change. Results indicate that clinicians as semi-autonomous agents can interpret and act upon their environment with regard to determining how innovations such as chatbots are implemented

The speech-language pathologist's changing role - collaboration within the classroom

This study gathered descriptive information on the status of classroom-based delivery of speech and language services in Canada. A sample of Canadian speech- language pathologists working in schools were surveyed using a questionnaire mailed in March, 1996. By June, 1996,253 usable questionnaires had been received, resulting in an 82% return rate. A total of 73% of respondents spent time on intervention in classrooms. The mean percentage of time spent was 22.1%. -- Seven service delivery approaches for classroom-based intervention, ranging from least collaborative (Approach One) to most collaborative (Approach Seven), were listed on the questionnaire. Respondents were asked to indicate the approaches they had used. Use was compared to respondents’ personal, professional, and situational characteristics. Results of chi-square analyses revealed no pattern of significant relationships among variables. -- Respondents were questioned about their use of the seven classroom-based approaches with four disorder types and four grade level categories. Additionally, they were asked to judge the success and appropriateness of the approaches. The approaches were used by the largest percentages of respondents for language disorders, followed in order by those for articulation, fluency, and voice disorders, and for students in Kindergarten to Grade 3, followed in order by those for Grades 4 to 6, Grades 7 to 9, and Grades 10 to 12. The approaches were judged successful and appropriate with all disorder types and all grade level categories by a majority of respondents who used them. -- Respondents were asked to rank advantages and disadvantages of the approaches to speech-language pathologists, teachers, and caseload and non-caseload students, and factors that encourage and discourage use of the approaches. The chief benefits of classroom- based service delivery were considered the increased harmonization of speech and language goals and curriculum goals and the carryover of speech and language skills to the classroom. The prime drawbacks of classroom-based approaches.were judged to be the additional time required for planning and the de-emphasis on individualized programming for students requiring speech and language services. The largest factor facilitating the use of classroom-based intervention was perceived to be teacher support. The greatest constraining factor was considered lack of time. -- Respondents were queried on needs for further information about the approaches and preferred methods of obtaining information. A large majority of respondents perceived that further information is needed for speech-language pathologists who use classroom-based approaches. The area of greatest need was judged to be curriculum content. The preferred method of obtaining information was inservices or conferences. -- Chi-square analyses showed that for all disorder types and grade level categories, the approaches were judged more appropriate by respondents who had used them than by respondents who had not used them. Nondirectional independent samples r-tests were conducted to test for differences between the views of the two groups on advantages and disadvantages of the approaches to speech-language pathologists, teachers, caseload and non-caseload students, and on factors that encourage and discourage use. The two groups' views on advantages and disadvantages to the four groups were similar to one another, although the groups’ views on encouraging and discouraging factors differed. More respondents who had used the approaches perceived a need for additional information. Respondents in the two groups shared views on perceived areas of need and preferred methods of obtaining information. -- Results of the study are consistent with reports in the literature on the use of classroom-based approaches by speech-language pathologists. Its findings reflect the speech-language pathologist's current shift from a diagnostician of speech and language disorders to a language specialist who collaborates with teachers through use of a holistic approach to students' communication needs

Flexible multi-layer virtual machine design for virtual laboratory in distributed systems and grids.

We propose a flexible Multi-layer Virtual Machine (MVM) design intended to improve efficiencies in distributed and grid computing and to overcome the known current problems that exist within traditional virtual machine architectures and those used in distributed and grid systems. This thesis presents a novel approach to building a virtual laboratory to support e-science by adapting MVMs within the distributed systems and grids, thereby providing enhanced flexibility and reconfigurability by raising the level of abstraction. The MVM consists of three layers. They are OS-level VM, queue VMs, and components VMs. The group of MVMs provides the virtualized resources, virtualized networks, and reconfigurable components layer for virtual laboratories. We demonstrate how our reconfigurable virtual machine can allow software designers and developers to reuse parallel communication patterns. In our framework, the virtual machines can be created on-demand and their applications can be distributed at the source-code level, compiled and instantiated in runtime. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2005 .K56. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-03, page: 1405. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2005

Approaches to decision-making among late-stage melanoma patients: a multifactorial investigation.

PurposeThe treatment decisions of melanoma patients are poorly understood. Most research on cancer patient decision-making focuses on limited components of specific treatment decisions. This study aimed to holistically characterize late-stage melanoma patients' approaches to treatment decision-making in order to advance understanding of patient influences and supports.Methods(1) Exploratory analysis of longitudinal qualitative data to identify themes that characterize patient decision-making. (2) Pattern analysis of decision-making themes using an innovative method for visualizing qualitative data: a hierarchically-clustered heatmap. Participants were 13 advanced melanoma patients at a large academic medical center.ResultsExploratory analysis revealed eight themes. Heatmap analysis indicated two broad types of patient decision-makers. "Reliant outsiders" relied on providers for medical information, demonstrated low involvement in decision-making, showed a low or later-in-care interest in clinical trials, and expressed altruistic motives. "Active insiders" accessed substantial medical information and expertise in their networks, consulted with other doctors, showed early and substantial interest in trials, demonstrated high involvement in decision-making, and employed multiple decision-making strategies.ConclusionWe identified and characterized two distinct approaches to decision-making among patients with late-stage melanoma. These differences spanned a wide range of factors (e.g., behaviors, resources, motivations). Enhanced understanding of patients as decision-makers and the factors that shape their decision-making may help providers to better support patient understanding, improve patient-provider communication, and support shared decision-making

Decision Support Facility for the APS Control System

The Advanced Photon Source is now in its fifth year of routine beam production. The EPICS-based [1] control system has entered the phase in its life cycle where new control algorithms must be implemented under increasingly stringent operational and reliability requirements. The sheer volume of the control system (~270,000 records, ~145 VME-based input-output controllers (IOCs), and ~7,000,000 lines of EPICS ASCII configuration code), presents a daunting challenge for code maintenance. The present work describes a relational database that provides an integrated view of the interacting components of the entire APS control system, including the IOC low-level logic, the physical wiring documentation, and high-level client applications. The database is extracted (booted) from the same operational CVS repository as that used to load the active IOCs. It provides site-wide decision support facilities to inspect and trace control flow and to identify client (e.g., user interface) programs involved at any selected point in the front-end logic. The relational database forms a basis for generalized documentation of global control logic and its connection with both the physical I/O and with external high-level applications

An RPO-Based Ordering Modulo Permutation Equations and Its Applications to Rewrite Systems

Rewriting modulo equations has been researched for several decades but due to the lack of suitable orderings, there are some limitations to rewriting modulo permutation equations. Given a finite set of permutation equations E, we present a new RPO-based ordering modulo E using (permutation) group actions and their associated orbits. It is an E-compatible reduction ordering on terms with the subterm property and is E-total on ground terms. We also present a completion and ground completion method for rewriting modulo a finite set of permutation equations E using our ordering modulo E. We show that our ground completion modulo E always admits a finite ground convergent (modulo E) rewrite system, which allows us to obtain the decidability of the word problem of ground theories modulo E