Use of sectorial essential models in organizational interventions aiming at the implementation of quality assurance processes

In view of the growing supply of models in various domains and in different formats, and the potential benefits to organizations using them, this article proposes to (1) present the theoretical background to the organizational developments, (2) to propose a framework for defining organizational models of quality in HEIs, and (3) situate and discuss issues associated with the use of methodological approaches that employ, “as is” and “to be” models, but also “ought to be” models and the benefits of the use of sectorial essential models, in organizational interventions. Organizational intervention is a generic designation for any activity involving organizational change, in order to achieve benefits for the organization. The interventions that adopt information technologies, or at least, the introduction of significant changes in activities with a strong emphasis in information processing, are especially relevant. This definition comprises organizational interventions, which aim at implementing quality assurance processes. This work in progress emphasises the following representations: business processes; management indicators for a business’ sector; business conceptual model (ontology). These models correspond to good organizational practices of a specific sector, and are generally promoted, developed and disseminated by corporate associations, or professional societies within a business area. The use of these models in organizational interventions has numerous benefits, primarily those related to the use of methodological approaches that employ, not only “as is” and “to be” models, but also “ought to be” models. The combination of these models is recommended in several informational systems’ development methodologies

Rupture of splenic angiosarcoma: a rare cause of spontaneous haemoperitoneum

Primary splenic angiosarcoma, a very rare mesenchymal tumour of endothelial cell origin, comprises 2.6% of all cases of angiosarcoma and 10% of all primitive splenic tumours. Clinical presentation is usually unspecific, with abdominal pain and anaemia. Rupture is a rare complication and should prompt emergency splenectomy. Prognosis is usually poor because of liver, lung or bone metastases. We describe the case of an 80-year-old woman admitted to the emergency room with syncope, hypotension and vomiting. She stabilised after fluid resuscitation. Investigations showed anaemia, a large, heterogeneous spleen and free fluid in the abdominal cavity. She underwent emergency splenectomy. Pathology revealed primary splenic angiosarcoma. The postoperative period was complicated by respiratory failure but the patient made an otherwise uneventful course and was discharged 2 weeks after surgery. Six months after the operation she remains free of disease with no adjuvant treatment

Speech features for discriminating stress using branch and bound wrapper search

Stress detection from speech is a less explored field than Automatic Emotion Recognition and it is still not clear which features are better stress discriminants. VOCE aims at doing speech classification as stressed or not-stressed in real-time, using acoustic-prosodic features only. We therefore look for the best discriminating feature subsets from a set of 6285 features – 6125 features extracted with openSMILE toolkit and 160 Teager Energy Operator (TEO) features. We use a mutual information filter and a branch and bound wrapper heuristic with an SVM classifier to perform feature selection. Since many feature sets are selected, we analyse them in terms of chosen features and classifier performance concerning also true positive and false positive rates. The results show that the best feature types for our application case are Audio Spectral, MFCC, PCM and TEO. We reached results as high as 70.36% for generalisation accuracyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Efficacy of dignity therapy for depression and anxiety in terminally-ill patients: early results of a randomized controlled trial

Objective: Dignity therapy (DT) is a short-term psychotherapy developed for patients living with a life-limiting illness. Our aim was to determine the influence of DT on symptoms of depression and anxiety in people with a life-threatening disease with high level of distress, referred to an inpatient palliative care unit. Method: This was an open-label randomized controlled trial. Sixty terminally ill patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: intervention group (DT+ standard palliative care [SPC]) or control group (SPC alone). The main outcomes were symptoms of depression and anxiety, measured with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, assessed at baseline, day 4, day 15, and day 30 of follow-up. Results: Of the 60 participants, 29 were randomized to DT and 31 to SPC. Baseline characteristics were similar between the two groups. DT was associated with a significant decrease in depressive symptoms at day 4 and day 15 (mean = −4.46, 95% CI, −6.91–2.02, p = 0.001; mean= −3.96, 95% CI, −7.33 to −0.61; p = 0.022, respectively), but not at day 30 (mean = −3.33, 95% CI, −7.32–0.65, p = 0.097). DT was also associated with a significant decrease in anxiety symptoms at each follow-up (mean= −3.96, 95% CI, −6.66 to −1.25, p = 0.005; mean= −6.19, 95% CI, −10.49 to −1.88, p = 0.006; mean = −5.07, 95% CI, −10.22 to −0.09, p = 0.054, respectively). Significance of results: DT appears to have a short-term beneficial effect on the depression and anxiety symptoms that often accompany patients at the end of their lives. Future research with larger samples compared with other treatments is needed to better understand the potential benefits of this psychotherapy

USPIO-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging for nodal staging in patients with head and neck cancer

PURPOSE: To determine the accuracy of ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO)-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for nodal staging in patients with head and neck cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty patients with carcinomas of the upper aerodigestive tract were prospectively enrolled. MRI was performed before and 24-36 hours after intravenous infusion of an USPIO agent, ferumoxtran-10 (Sinerem; Guerbet, France; and Combidex; Advanced Magnetics) at a dose of 2.6 mg Fe/kg using T2-weighted spin-echo and gradient-echo sequences. Surgery was performed the same day or the day after the ferumoxtran-10-enhanced MR examination. Based on MRI, selected nodes were surgically removed and directly correlated with pathology using hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) and Perls stainings. RESULTS: A total of 63 nodes were studied; 36 were nonmetastatic, 25 metastatic, and two inflammatory. Ferumoxtran-10-enhanced MRI allowed diagnosis of 24 metastatic and 30 nonmetastatic nodes, yielding a sensitivity of 96%, a specificity of 78.9%, a positive predictive value of 75%, and a negative predictive value of 96.8%, compared to 64%, 78.9%, 66.6%, and 76.9%, respectively, for nonenhanced MRI. Accuracy of ferumoxtran-10-enhanced MRI was 85.7%. The gradient-echo T2-weighted sequence was the most accurate to detect signal loss in nonmetastatic nodes. CONCLUSION: USPIO-enhanced MRI is useful for nodal staging of patients with head and neck cancer

Partial purification and thermal stability of two peroxidases from Pithecellobium dulce (Roxb.) Benth. Aril.

Abstract: Two peroxidase (POX) forms, named PdPI and PdPII, were partially purified from the Pithecellobium dulce aril, using ammonium sulfate precipitation and anion exchange chromatography. Zymography of the proteins obtained after precipitation in the range of 60-90% ammonium sulfate (F6090 fraction) showed two bands with peroxidase activity. In DE-52 cellulose column, the peroxidase activity was detected in unadsorbed peak (PdPI) and adsorbed peak eluted with 0.2 mol L-1 NaCl (PdPII) suggesting that PdPI (~114 KDa) and PdPII (~77 KDa) are basic and acidic proteins, respectively, being PdPI stable at 80 ºC. This is the first report of partial purification of POX from P. dulce aril, indicating that this species may be a new source of enzymes for use in biosensors and other biotechnological applications. [Purificação Parcial e Estabilidade Térmica de Duas Peroxidases Extraídas de Arilos de Pithecellobium dulce (Roxb.) Benth]. Resumo: Duas formas de peroxidase (POX), denominadas PdPI e PdPII, foram parcialmente purificadas de arilos de Pithecellobium dulce, utilizando precipitação com sulfato de amônio e cromatografia de troca iônica. O zimograma das proteínas obtidas após precipitação com sulfato de amônio na faixa de 60 a 90% de saturação (fração F6090), mostrou duas bandas com atividade peroxidásica. Na coluna de celulose DE-52, a atividade peroxidásica foi detectada nos picos não adsorvido (PdPI) e adsorvido (PdPII) eluído com NaCl 0,2 mol L-1, sugerindo que a PdPI (~114 KDa) e a PdPII (~77 KDa) são proteínas básicas e ácidas, respectivamente, sendo a PdPI estável a 80 ºC. Este é o primeiro relato de purificação parcial de POX obtida de arilos de P. dulce, indicando que esta espécie pode ser uma nova fonte de enzimas para utilização em biossensores e outras aplicações biotecnológicas.[HEVILA OLIVEIRA SALLES FIGUEIREDO]

Affective analysis of customer service calls

This paper presents an affective and acoustic-prosodic analysis of a call-center corpus (700 phone calls with corresponding customer satisfaction levels). Our main goal is to understand how customers’ satisfaction correlates to the acoustic-prosodic and affective information (emotions and personality traits) of the interactions. A subset of 30 calls was manually annotated with emotions (frustrated vs.neutral) and personality traits (Big-Five model). Results on automatic satisfaction prediction from acoustic-prosodic features show a number of very informative linguistic knowledge-based features, especially pitch and energy ranges. The affective analysis also provides encouraging results, relating low/high satisfaction levels with the presence/absence of customer frustration. Concerning personality, customers tend to express signs of anxiety and nervousness, while agents are generally perceived as extroverted and open.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio