The hare and the hortoise [sic]: The potential versus the reality of eTP implementation

In a health system increasingly driven by cost constraints, there is a focus on improved electronic transfer of information to support healthcare delivery. One area of healthcare that has moved more quickly than others to achieve this is prescribing in the primary care environment. Whilst the move to electronic transfer of prescriptions has reduced transcription errors, the regulatory environment persists with handwritten signatures. This constraint, whilst addressed slowly with technology solutions, needs support from legislative change. The ultimate step is to have a secure mobile model, which would support the move to a fully-electronic, paperless transaction model

Future of Australia’s ETP: Script exchange, script vault or secure mobile alternative

Electronic transfer of prescriptions is an essential element of electronic medications management. Unfortunately, current manual and preliminary electronic transfer of prescription methods are not patient focussed, leading to a suboptimal solution for the patient. This is increasingly relevant in the push for more patient engagement in their own healthcare. The area is highly controlled by legislation and regulation. Through research and an analysis of the possible methods to improve and personalise electronic transfer of prescriptions, this paper provides an overview of these conclusions, and presents an alternative technical solution. The solution has been derived from a number of experiments in data transfer techniques using a mobile phone. The paper explains how this meets the current regulations and legislation, as well as providing a patient centred approach to the problem. Ultimately, healthcare outcomes will improve where patients are given the opportunity and the tools to better engage in their own healthcare management, and secure electronic transfer of prescriptions with patient access to their own medication lists may improve compliance and reduce healthcare costs

Creation of quantum error correcting codes in the ultrastrong coupling regime

We propose to construct large quantum graph codes by means of superconducting circuits working at the ultrastrong coupling regime. In this physical scenario, we are able to create a cluster state between any pair of qubits within a fraction of a nanosecond. To exemplify our proposal, creation of the five-qubit and Steane codes is numerically simulated. We also provide optimal operating conditions with which the graph codes can be realized with state-of-the-art superconducting technologies.Comment: Added a new appendix sectio

Microstructured porous ZnO thin film for increased light scattering and improved efficiency in inverted organic photovoltaics

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Microstructured porous zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film was developed and demonstrated as an electron selective layer for enhancing light scattering and efficiency in inverted organic photovoltaics. High degree of porosity was induced and controlled in the ZnO layer by incorporation of polyethylene glycol (PEG) organic template. Scanning electron microscopy, contact angle and absorption measurements prove that the ZnO: PEG ratio of 4:1 is optimal for the best performance of porous ZnO. Ensuring sufficient pore-filling, the use of porous ZnO leads to a marked improvement in device performance compared to non-porous ZnO, with 35% increase in current density and 30% increase in efficiency. Haze factor studies indicate that the performance improvement can be primarily attributed to the improved light scattering enabled by such a highly porous structure. (C) 2014 Optical Society of Americ

Security of eprescription: Security of data at rest in prescription exchange services vs on mobile devices

One area of healthcare that has moved more quickly than others in adopting electronic transfer of information is prescribing in the primary care environment. Several Acts and Regulations have been repealed and amended at Commonwealth and State levels to enable this progress over the past decade, as medication provision is a strictly controlled area of healthcare. Further, numerous standards and specifications have been developed and adopted to support and safeguard the regulatory changes and facilitate the electronic transfer of prescriptions. However, the current model of electronic prescription transfer comes with a substantial price tag for ongoing use. With the Nation’s growing and aging population, the number of prescriptions will increase annually, and thus it is necessary to find more cost-effective alternatives with comparable security and privacy assurances. An obvious potential solution lies in using devices that have been a part of our daily lives for well over a decade - mobile smartphones. An investigation was conducted to determine whether or not such technology is capable of meeting legislative requirements for prescribing whilst providing a cost-effective alternative prescription transfer model. Using technology such as near field communication for transfer process together with existing encryption technique demonstrates this can meet the security requirements of data at rest. This investigation established that although the proposed alternative is a work in progress and not a flawless one, it indeed opens up opportunities to incorporate many useful features in addition to eliminating the associated ongoing costs while providing comparable privacy and security assurances

A non-contact capacitance type level transducer for liquid characterization

The liquid properties such as buoyancy, pressure at a depth, relative electrical permittivity, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, absorption of radiation, liquid surface reflection of sound or light waves, are used to design the different types of liquid level transducers for liquid level measurement in any process industry. The contact-type level-sensing transducers have the disadvantage that their characteristic properties may change due to physical or chemical reaction between the liquid and the probing material, and hence may affect accuracy besides their life time. The non-contact-type level-sensing probes may have longer life period, but they are comparatively costly and require various environmental and experimental precautionary measures when being used. In this paper, a low-cost non-contact capacitance type liquid level measuring technique has been designed and used for liquid identification objectives. The results obtained are very much consistent with the theoretical derivations

Capacitive transducer circuits for liquid level measurement

This work is making use of the capacitive element that is made of two electrodes - a column of liquid the level of which is to be measured, and a metallic tube that is pulled and fitted over a PVC tube of accordingly smaller dimensions. Both of the electrodes are provided with contact terminals for easy connection within a bridge circuit, which is powered by a sinusoidal source of given amplitude and known frequency. Precautionary measures are taken for improved linearity and minimal interference of the power supply on experimental data obtained as a result of measurement. The experimental data shows good consistency with the theoretical details and derivations

Dye-sensitized solar cell with a pairof carbon-based electrodes

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We have fabricated a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) with a pair of carbon-based electrodes using a transparent, conductive carbon nanotubes (CNTs) film modified with ultra-thin titanium-sub-oxide (TiOx) as the working electrode and a bilayer of conductive CNTs and carbon black as the counter electrode. Without TiOx modification, the DSSC is almost nonfunctional whereas the power conversion efficiency (PCE) increases significantly when the working electrode is modified with TiOx. The performance of the cell could be further improved when the carbon black film was added on the counter electrode. The improved efficiency can be attributed to the inhibition of the mass recombination at the working electrode/electrolyte interface by TiOx and the acceleration of the electron transfer kinetics at the counter electrode by carbon black. The DSSC with a pair of carbon-based electrodes gives the PCE of 1.37%

Dye-sensitized solar cell with a titanium-oxide-modified carbon nanotube transparent electrode

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Transparent and conductive carbon-based materials are promising for window electrodes in solid-state optoelectronic devices. However, the catalytic activity to redox reaction limits their application as a working electrode in a liquid-type dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). In this letter, we propose and demonstrate a transparent carbon nanotubes (CNTs) film as the working electrode in a DSSC containing iodide/triiodide redox couples. This implementation is realized by inhibiting the charge-transfer kinetics at CNT/redox solution interface with an aid of thin titanium oxide film that facilitates the unidirectional flow of electrons in the cell without sacrificing the electrical and optical properties of CNT. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3610488

Effect of shell thickness on small-molecule solar cells enhanced by dual plasmonic gold-silica nanorods

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Chemically synthesized gold (Au)-silica nanorods with shell thickness of 0 nm-10 nm were incorporated into the bulk heterojunction of a small-molecule organic solar cell. At optimal (1 wt. %) concentration, Au-silica nanorods with 5 nm shell thickness resulted in the highest power conversion efficiency of 8.29% with 27% relative enhancement. Finite-difference time-domain simulation shows that the localized electric field intensity at the silica shell-organic layer interface decreases with the increase of shell thickness for both 520 nm and 680 nm resonance peaks. The enhanced haze factor for transmission/reflection of the organic layer is not strongly dependent on the shell thickness. Bare Au nanorods yielded the lowest efficiency of 5.4%. Light intensity dependence measurement of the short-circuit current density shows that the silica shell reduces bimolecular recombination at the Au surface. As a result, both localized field intensity and light scattering are involved in efficiency enhancement for an optimized shell thickness of 5 nm. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC