2,736 research outputs found
"Taking your place at the table": an autoethnographic study of chaplains' participation on an interdisciplinary research team.
BackgroundThere are many potential benefits to chaplaincy in transforming into a "research-informed" profession. However little is known or has been documented about the roles of chaplains on research teams and as researchers or about the effects of research engagement on chaplains themselves. This report describes the experience and impact of three chaplains, as well as tensions and challenges that arose, on one particular interdisciplinary team researching a spiritual assessment model in palliative care. Transcripts of our research team meetings, which included the three active chaplain researchers, as well as reflections of all the members of the research team provide the data for this descriptive, qualitative, autoethnographic analysis.MethodsThis autoethnographic project evolved from the parent study, entitled "Spiritual Assessment Intervention Model (AIM) in Outpatient Palliative Care Patients with Advanced Cancer." This project focused on the use of a well-developed model of spiritual care, the Spiritual Assessment and Intervention Model (Spiritual AIM). Transcripts of nine weekly team meetings for the parent study were reviewed. These parent study team meetings were attended by various disciplines and included open dialogue and intensive questions from non-chaplain team members to chaplains about their practices and Spiritual AIM. Individual notes (from reflexive memoing) and other reflections of team members were also reviewed for this report. The primary methodological framework for this paper, autoethnography, was not only used to describe the work of chaplains as researchers, but also to reflect on the process of researcher identity formation and offer personal insights regarding the challenges accompanying this process.ResultsThree major themes emerged from the autoethnographic analytic process: 1) chaplains' unique contributions to the research team; 2) the interplay between the chaplains' active research role and their work identities; and 3) tensions and challenges in being part of an interdisciplinary research team.ConclusionsDescribing the contributions and challenges of one interdisciplinary research team that included chaplains may help inform chaplains about the experience of participating in research. As an autoethnographic study, this work is not meant to offer generalizable results about all chaplains' experiences on research teams. Research teams that are interdisciplinary may mirror the richness and efficacy of clinical interdisciplinary teams. Further work is needed to better characterize both the promise and pitfalls of chaplains' participation on research teams
Sympathetic hyperactivity syndrome following cerebral fat embolization
To date, there have been no reports of paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity syndrome (PSHS) associated with cerebral fat
embolization. We describe the case of a young male who developed acute brain injury and acute hypoxemic respiratory
failure secondary to significant fat embolization following a traumatic femur injury. Our patient demonstrated episodes of
significant hypertension, tachycardia, fever and extensor posturing. Extensive evaluation lead to the diagnosis and appropriate
treatment for PSHS. Ultimately, the patient went on to have a good neurologic recovery after a prolonged hospitalization.
We will discuss PSHS diagnostic criteria, pathophysiology and treatment options. This diagnosis should be considered in
all brain-injured patients with paroxysms of autonomic instability and abnormal movements
A Multivariate Training Technique with Event Reweighting
An event reweighting technique incorporated in multivariate training
algorithm has been developed and tested using the Artificial Neural Networks
(ANN) and Boosted Decision Trees (BDT). The event reweighting training are
compared to that of the conventional equal event weighting based on the ANN and
the BDT performance. The comparison is performed in the context of the physics
analysis of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will
explore the fundamental nature of matter and the basic forces that shape our
universe. We demonstrate that the event reweighting technique provides an
unbiased method of multivariate training for event pattern recognition.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure
Sympathetic hyperactivity syndrome following cerebral fat embolization
To date, there have been no reports of paroxysmal sympathetic hyperactivity syndrome (PSHS) associated with cerebral fat
embolization. We describe the case of a young male who developed acute brain injury and acute hypoxemic respiratory
failure secondary to significant fat embolization following a traumatic femur injury. Our patient demonstrated episodes of
significant hypertension, tachycardia, fever and extensor posturing. Extensive evaluation lead to the diagnosis and appropriate
treatment for PSHS. Ultimately, the patient went on to have a good neurologic recovery after a prolonged hospitalization.
We will discuss PSHS diagnostic criteria, pathophysiology and treatment options. This diagnosis should be considered in
all brain-injured patients with paroxysms of autonomic instability and abnormal movements
A Submillimeter HCN Laser in IRC+10216
We report the detection of a strong submillimeter wavelength HCN laser line
at a frequency near 805 GHz toward the carbon star IRC+10216. This line, the
J=9-8 rotational transition within the (04(0)0) vibrationally excited state, is
one of a series of HCN laser lines that were first detected in the laboratory
in the early days of laser spectroscopy. Since its lower energy level is 4200 K
above the ground state, the laser emission must arise from the inner part of
IRC+10216's circumstellar envelope. To better characterize this environment, we
observed other, thermally emitting, vibrationally excited HCN lines and find
that they, like the laser line, arise in a region of temperature approximately
1000 K that is located within the dust formation radius; this conclusion is
supported by the linewidth of the laser. The (04(0)0), J=9-8 laser might be
chemically pumped and may be the only known laser (or maser) that is excited
both in the laboratory and in space by a similar mechanism.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Getting beta-alpha without penguins
Oscillation effects in B0 -> Ks D0 and related processes are considered to
determine delta=beta-alpha+pi. We suggest that D0 decays to CP eigenstates used
in concert with inclusive D0 decays provide a powerful method for determining
delta cleanly i.e. without any complication from penguin processes. The CP
asymmetry is expected to be <=40% for D0 decays to non-CP eigenstates and <=80%
for decays to CP eigenstates. This method can lead to a fairly accurate
determination of delta with O(10^8-10^9) B-mesons.Comment: 4 pages 1 figure; Version 2: minor changes; references added; Some
changes in response to Referee Comment
Dpes massless QCD have vacuum energy?
It is widely thought that this question has a positive answer, but we argue
that the support for this belief from both experiment and theory is weak or
nonexistent. We then list some of the ramifications of a negative answer.Comment: 8 pages, no figures, version to appear in NJ
Measuring V_ub and probing SUSY with double ratios of purely leptonic decays of B and D mesons
The experimental prospects for precise measurements of the leptonic decays
B_u -> tau nu / mu nu, B_s -> mu+ mu-, D -> mu nu and D_s -> mu nu / tau nu are
very promising. Double ratios involving four of these decays can be defined in
which the dependence on the values of the decay constants is essentially
eliminated, thus enabling complementary measurements of the CKM matrix element
V_ub with a small theoretical error. We quantify the experimental error in a
possible future measurement of |V_ub| using this approach, and show that it is
competitive with the anticipated precision from the conventional approaches.
Moreover, it is shown that such double ratios can be more effective than the
individual leptonic decays as a probe of the parameter space of supersymmetric
models. We emphasize that the double ratios have the advantage of using |V_ub|
as an input parameter (for which there is experimental information), while the
individual decays have an uncertainty from the decay constants (e.g. f_B_s),
and hence a reliance on theoretical techniques such as lattice QCD.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figure
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