Caring for continence in stroke care settings: a qualitative study of patients’ and staff perspectives on the implementation of a new continence care intervention

Objectives: Investigate the perspectives of patients and nursing staff on the implementation of an augmented continence care intervention after stroke. Design: Qualitative data were elicited during semi-structured interviews with patients (n = 15) and staff (14 nurses; nine nursing assistants) and analysed using thematic analysis. Setting: Mixed acute and rehabilitation stroke ward. Participants: Stroke patients and nursing staff that experienced an enhanced continence care intervention. Results: Four themes emerged from patients’ interviews describing: (a) challenges communicating about continence (initiating conversations and information exchange); (b) mixed perceptions of continence care; (c) ambiguity of focus between mobility and continence issues; and (d) inconsistent involvement in continence care decision making. Patients’ perceptions reflected the severity of their urinary incontinence. Staff described changes in: (i) knowledge as a consequence of specialist training; (ii) continence interventions (including the development of nurse-led initiatives to reduce the incidence of unnecessary catheterisation among patients admitted to their ward); (iii) changes in attitude towards continence from containment approaches to continence rehabilitation; and (iv) the challenges of providing continence care within a stroke care context including limitations in access to continence care equipment or products, and institutional attitudes towards continence. Conclusion: Patients (particularly those with severe urinary incontinence) described challenges communicating about and involvement in continence care decisions. In contrast, nurses described improved continence knowledge, attitudes and confidence alongside a shift from containment to rehabilitative approaches. Contextual components including care from point of hospital admission, equipment accessibility and interdisciplinary approaches were perceived as important factors to enhancing continence care

Financial signal processing: a self calibrating model

Previous work on multifactor term structure models has proposed that the short rate process is a function of some unobserved diffusion process. We consider a model in which the short rate process is a function of a Markov chain which represents the 'state of the world'. This enables us to obtain explicit expressions for the prices of zero-coupon bonds and other securities. Discretizing our model allows the use of signal processing techniques from Hidden Markov Models. This means we can estimate not only the unobserved Markov chain but also the parameters of the model, so the model is self-calibrating. The estimation procedure is tested on a selection of U.S. Treasury bills and bonds.Bonds

Potential markets for a satellite-based mobile communications system

The objective of the study was to define the market needs for improved land mobile communications systems. Within the context of this objective, the following goals were set: (1) characterize the present mobile communications industry; (2) determine the market for an improved system for mobile communications; and (3) define the system requirements as seen from the potential customer's viewpoint. The scope of the study was defined by the following parameters: (1) markets were confined to U.S. and Canada; (2) range of operation generally exceeded 20 miles, but this was not restrictive; (3) the classes of potential users considered included all private sector users, and non-military public sector users; (4) the time span examined was 1975 to 1985; and (5) highly localized users were generally excluded - e.g., taxicabs, and local paging

Measuring the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the classroom

In 2003, the ICT Curriculum Integration Performance Measurement Instrument was developed from an extensive review of the contemporary international and Australian research pertaining to the definition and measurement of ICT curriculum integration in classrooms (Proctor, Watson, & Finger, 2003). The 45-item instrument that resulted was based on theories and methodologies identified by the literature review. This paper describes psychometric results from a large-scale evaluation of the instrument subsequently conducted, as recommended by Proctor, Watson and Finger (2003). The resultant 20-item, two-factor instrument, now called Learning With ICTs: Measuring ICT Use in the Curriculum is both statistically and theoretically robust. This paper should be read in association with the original paper published in Computers in the Schools (Proctor, Watson & Finger, 2003) that described in detail the theoretical framework underpinning the development of the instrument

Analysis and Geometric Optimization of Single Electron Transistors for Read-Out in Solid-State Quantum Computing

The single electron transistor (SET) offers unparalled opportunities as a nano-scale electrometer, capable of measuring sub-electron charge variations. SETs have been proposed for read-out schema in solid-state quantum computing where quantum information processing outcomes depend on the location of a single electron on nearby quantum dots. In this paper we investigate various geometries of a SET in order to maximize the device's sensitivity to charge transfer between quantum dots. Through the use of finite element modeling we model the materials and geometries of an Al/Al2O3 SET measuring the state of quantum dots in the Si substrate beneath. The investigation is motivated by the quest to build a scalable quantum computer, though the methodology used is primarily that of circuit theory. As such we provide useful techniques for any electronic device operating at the classical/quantum interface.Comment: 13 pages, 17 figure

FlexCore: Massively Parallel and Flexible Processing for Large MIMO Access Points

Large MIMO base stations remain among wireless network designers’ best tools for increasing wireless throughput while serving many clients, but current system designs, sacrifice throughput with simple linear MIMO detection algorithms. Higher-performance detection techniques are known, but remain off the table because these systems parallelize their computation at the level of a whole OFDM subcarrier, sufficing only for the less demanding linear detection approaches they opt for. This paper presents FlexCore, the first computational architecture capable of parallelizing the detection of large numbers of mutually-interfering information streams at a granularity below individual OFDM subcarriers, in a nearly-embarrassingly parallel manner while utilizing any number of available processing elements. For 12 clients sending 64-QAM symbols to a 12-antenna base station, our WARP testbed evaluation shows similar network throughput to the state-of-the-art while using an order of magnitude fewer processing elements. For the same scenario, our combined WARP-GPU testbed evaluation demonstrates a 19x computational speedup, with 97% increased energy efficiency when compared with the state of the art. Finally, for the same scenario, an FPGA-based comparison between FlexCore and the state of the art shows that FlexCore can achieve up to 96% better energy efficiency, and can offer up to 32x the processing throughput