Fostering Empathy in Communication Sciences and Disorders Through Interprofessional Simulation: Bridging the Gap Between Lecture and Practice

This exploratory study sought to understand the experiences of CSD students participating in an interprofessional simulation focused on empathy development and how it could inform their future practice. This study used a non-random, purposive sample of 29 CSD students from one United States university who attended one of three Team STEPPS seminar training days that were offered during three separate semesters. Post-seminar surveys were completed, and conventional content analysis used to analyze data. Three primary themes, and corresponding subthemes emerged: (a) establish trust (build rapport; identify patient care goals; and encourage active participation; (b) facilitate collaborative plan of care (provide education; interprofessional communication; patient-centered care; boost morale; and put self in patient’s shoes); and (c) navigate challenging conversations (disagreement between patient and family; grief with terminal diagnosis; and end-of-life conversations). Students also shared both their current and plans for future learning on empathy. Implications relating to interprofessional and CSD education are discussed and posited

A type system for counting instances of software components

We identify an abstract language for component software based on process algebra. Besides the usual operators for sequential, alternative and parallel composition, it has primitives for instantiating components and for deleting instances of components. We define an operational semantics for our language and give a type system in which types express quantitative information on the components involved in the execution of the expressions of the language. Included in this information is for each component the maximum number of instances that are simultaneously active during the execution of the expression. The type system is compositional by the novel use of ‘deficit types’. The type inference algorithm runs in time quadratic in the size of the input. We consider extensions of the language with loops and tail recursion, and with a scope mechanism. We illustrate the approach with some examples, one on UML diagram refinement and one on counting objects on the free store in C++

A young man with acute dilated cardiomyopathy associated with methylphenidate

An 18-year-old obese man with a body mass index of 40, diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and treated with methylphenidate (Concerta®) was acutely admitted to hospital with hypoxia and dyspnoea. On investigation signs of liver-, renal-, and heart-failure were found. Noradrenalin infusion was started. Echocardiography showed dilated left ventricle and an ejection fraction (EF) of 25%. Liver function improved, noradrenalin and dobutamine were tapered, but three days after admission a new echocardiography showed an EF of 10%. The patient was transferred to the National Hospital (Rikshospitalet, Oslo), where intensified treatment including intra aortic balloon pump (IABP) was instituted. Cardiac function improved, and 3 weeks later the IABP was disconnected. EF at this point was 15%. The patient was denied heart transplantation due to various cofactors. The investigation concluded with a probable relationship between his cardiomyopathy and the use of methylphenidate (Concerta)

On adopting Ontology Alignment techniques within the Phenotype Acquisition Process

The work presented in this paper is framed within the context of the BigMed project, aproject funded by the Norwegian Research Council. One of the objectives of BigMed isto enhance the phenotype acquisition process in newborns with a monogenetic disorder,one of the four patient groups studied in the project. The use of the Human PhenotypeOntology (HPO) [1] to tag phenotypes and systems like PhenoTips have substantiallycontributed to the overall phenotype acquisition workflow. PhenoTips [2] is a systemfor the acquisition of phenotypic information in patients with a genetic disease. Phe-noTips also suggests, given a selected set of HPO terms, candidate diagnoses usingOMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man) codes, and related genes for a subse-quent genetic test. Although PhenoTips represents a fantastic effort, we believe it couldbe extended with suitable Semantic Web solutions. In this paper, we present the firststeps to adopt ontology alignment techniques to contribute to the diagnostic process

Faecal Cortisol Metabolites as an Indicator of Adrenocortical Activity in Farmed Blue Foxes

Welfare studies of blue foxes would benefit from a measurement of faecal cortisol metabolites (FCMs) as a non-invasive, physiological stress parameter reflecting hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Before implementation, a species-specific validation of such a method is required. Therefore, we conducted a physiological validation of an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to measure FCMs in blue foxes. Twenty individuals (nine males and eleven females) were injected with synthetic adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and faecal samples were collected every third h for two days. The FCM baseline levels were assessed based on the first sampling day (control period, 144 samples), followed by the ACTH injection and the second day of sampling (treatment period, 122 samples). FCMs were analysed with a 5α-pregnane-3ß,11ß,21-triol-20-one EIA. We compared the estimated mean FCM concentrations of the treatment samples to the baseline average. All samples for the two periods were collected at the same time of the day, which enabled to test the data also with an hourly pairwise comparison. With the two statistical approaches, we tested whether a possible diurnal fluctuation in the FCM concentrations affected the interpretation of the results. Compared to the baseline levels, both approaches showed 2.4–3.2 times higher concentrations on time points sampled 8–14 h after the ACTH injection (p < 0.05). The estimated FCM concentrations also fluctuated slightly within the control period (p < 0.01). Inter-individual variations in FCM levels were marked, which highlights the importance of having a sufficient number of animals in experiments utilising FCMs. The sampling intervals of 3 h enabled forming of informative FCM curves. Taken together, this study proves that FCM analysis with a 5α-pregnane-3ß,11ß,21-triol-20-one EIA is a valid measurement of adrenocortical activity in the farmed blue foxes. Therefore, it can be utilised as a non-invasive stress indicator in future animal welfare studies of the species

Faecal Cortisol Metabolites as an Indicator of Adrenocortical Activity in Farmed Blue Foxes

Welfare studies of blue foxes would benefit from a measurement of faecal cortisol metabolites (FCMs) as a non-invasive, physiological stress parameter reflecting hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Before implementation, a species-specific validation of such a method is required. Therefore, we conducted a physiological validation of an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) to measure FCMs in blue foxes. Twenty individuals (nine males and eleven females) were injected with synthetic adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and faecal samples were collected every third h for two days. The FCM baseline levels were assessed based on the first sampling day (control period, 144 samples), followed by the ACTH injection and the second day of sampling (treatment period, 122 samples). FCMs were analysed with a 5α-pregnane-3ß,11ß,21-triol-20-one EIA. We compared the estimated mean FCM concentrations of the treatment samples to the baseline average. All samples for the two periods were collected at the same time of the day, which enabled to test the data also with an hourly pairwise comparison. With the two statistical approaches, we tested whether a possible diurnal fluctuation in the FCM concentrations affected the interpretation of the results. Compared to the baseline levels, both approaches showed 2.4–3.2 times higher concentrations on time points sampled 8–14 h after the ACTH injection (p < 0.05). The estimated FCM concentrations also fluctuated slightly within the control period (p < 0.01). Inter-individual variations in FCM levels were marked, which highlights the importance of having a sufficient number of animals in experiments utilising FCMs. The sampling intervals of 3 h enabled forming of informative FCM curves. Taken together, this study proves that FCM analysis with a 5α-pregnane-3ß,11ß,21-triol-20-one EIA is a valid measurement of adrenocortical activity in the farmed blue foxes. Therefore, it can be utilised as a non-invasive stress indicator in future animal welfare studies of the species

Zirconium alloy getter bed air-ingress thermal failure analysis

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1998.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 42).In the event of an unexpected inrush of air into a packed St-909 getter bed, the exothermic reaction of oxygen and pellet material pushes temperatures within the bed to extremely high levels. This failure mode, which could be caused by a line rupture, was modeled, analyzed, and a full-scale experiment was performed in the Tritium Science and Engineering group at Los Alamos National Laboratory to confirm the results that the primary bed container will not fail from overheating. The oxidation of St-909 pellets was modeled and determined to be limited by the oxide diffusing into the pellet material. An effective diffusivity of the oxide into the pellet and its variance with temperature was determined. In the full-scale experiment, air was pumped through the bed at 15 standard liters per minute. Oxygen breaking through the bed was gradual and began after almost one hour of air flow. Maximum temperatures along the centerline of the bed reached 1280°C, primary container temperatures reached 840°C, and the primary container maintained structural integrity throughout the experiment.by Valerie A. Hovland.S.M

Multibeam bathymetric surveys of submarine volcanoes and mega-pockmarks on the Chatham Rise, New Zealand

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2011. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Taylor & Francis for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 54 (2011): 329-339, doi:10.1080/00288306.2011.589860.Multibeam bathymetric surveys east of the South Island of New Zealand present images of submarine volcanoes and pockmarks west of Urry Knolls on the Chatham Rise, and evidence of submarine erosion on the southern margin of the Chatham Rise. Among numerous volcanic cones, diameters of the largest reach ~2000 m, and some stand as high as 400 m above the surrounding seafloor. The tops of most of the volcanic cones are flat, with hints of craters, and some with asymmetric shapes may show flank collapses. There are hints of both northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast alignments of volcanoes, but no associated faulting is apparent. Near and to the west of these volcanoes, huge pockmarks, some more than ~1 km in diameter, disrupt bottom topography. Pockmarks in this region seem to be confined to sea floor shallower than ~1200 m, but we see evidence of deeper pockmarks at water depths of up to 2100 m on profiles crossing the Bounty Trough. The pockmark field on the Chatham Rise seems to be bounded on the south by a trough near 1200 m depth; like others, we presume that contour currents have eroded the margin and created the trough.This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under grants EAR-0409564, EAR-0409609, and EAR-0409835.2012-08-3

Finding Data Should be Easier than Finding Oil

The competitiveness of modern enterprises heavily depends on their ability to make the right business decisions by relying on efficient and timely analysis of the right business critical data. In large and data intensive companies such as Equinor, a Norwegian multinational oil and gas company with more than 20,000 employees, gathering such data is not a trivial task due to the growing size and complexity of corporate information sources. As a result, the data gathering task is often the most time-consuming part of the decision making process, in particular when it comes to the work processes of Equinor's exploration geologists that should find in a timely manner new exploitable accumulations of oil or gas in given areas by analysing data about these areas. In this work we present our experience in addressing this data challenge tast at Equinor. We have developed and deployed at Equinor a semantic data access system that relies on the Ontology Based Data Access (OBDA) approach. Our system is based on our solid theoretical contributions and has been extensively evaluated at Equinor