Automated scientific document retrieval

A PowerPoint presentation on "Automated scientific document retrieval" presented during OUM Seminar Series 03/2010 at OUM Theatrette on 9 April 2010

Psychiatric Patients’ Perception of Involvement in the Plan of Care

Background: There is an increased need to actively engage and involve patients in their care planning in healthcare facilities including psychiatric facilities (Wills, Riefer, Schauer, & del Vecchio, 2011). There has been a growing interest in patient-centered care and patients’ involvement in their plan of care as it leads to positive healthcare outcomes and increased patient satisfaction. However, there is a lack of research on how psychiatric patients perceive their involvement in the care planning while they are admitted to an inpatient psychiatric facility. Aim: The aim of this qualitative phenomenological research study was to explore patients’ perception of being involved in their plan of care during an inpatient psychiatric hospital stay. Method: The hermeneutic phenomenological research approach was used to understand and interpret the meaning of psychiatric patients’ lived experiences of being admitted to an inpatient psychiatric facility. A sample of 12 participants who had been admitted to an inpatient psychiatric facility with in last 12 months was obtained. The participants’ ages ranged from 29-76 years. Data were collected using digitally recorded one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Colaizzi’s (1978) 7-step data analysis method was used to analyze the meaning of participants’ lived experiences. Findings: Seven major themes were identified: participants’ knowledge about the plan of care, involvement, safety, compartmentalization of care, psychiatric inpatient admission as a turning point, inpatient as a holding place, and importance of social support. Conclusion: This study shows that psychiatric patients desire to be informed and involved in their plan of care. They want to receive care that is individualized and centered to their specific needs. They desire a safe and therapeutic environment to focus on their mental health. This study also suggests positive inpatient experience when patients’ family/friends are actively involved in their care. Implication: The findings of this study may lead to a cascade of changes at different levels in healthcare to improve the quality of care provided to patients in inpatient psychiatric facilities

Negotiating Ambivalent Gender Space for Collective and Individual Empowerment: Sikh Women\u27s Life Writing in the Diaspora

In order to examine gender and identity within Sikh literature and culture and to understand the construction of gender and the practice of Sikhi within the contemporary Sikh diaspora in the US, I analyze a selection from creative non-fiction pieces, variously termed essays, personal narrative, or life writing, in Meeta Kaur’s edited collection, Her Name is Kaur: Sikh American Women Write About Love, Courage, and Faith. Gender, understood as a social construct (Butler, among others), is almost always inconsistent and is related to religion, which, too, is a construct and is also almost always inconsistent in many ways. Therefore, my reading critically engages with the following questions regarding life writing through a postcolonial feminist and intersectional lens: What are lived religions and how are the practices, narratives, activities and performances of ‘being’ Sikh imagined differently in the diaspora as represent in my chosen essays? What are some of the tenets of Sikhism, viewed predominantly as patriarchal within dominant cultural spaces, and how do women resist or appropriate some of them to reconstruct their own ideas of being a Sikh? In Kaur’s collection of essays, there are elements of traditional autobiography, such as the construction of the individual self, along with the formation of communal identity, in the postcolonial life writing. I will critique four narrative in Kaur’s anthology as testimonies to bear witness and to uncover Sikh women’s hybrid cultural and religious practices as reimagined and practiced by the female Sikh writers

A Review for Digital Microscope Using Raspberry Pi

This paper provides the way of digitization of the microscope by using the raspberry pi kit which includes the touch screen and the Pi camera. We demonstrate the use of the raspberry pi 2 kit as an alternative to the USB camera so as to directly view the data and analyze. The raspberry pi kit would lead to the instant detection and the review of the sample which could be sent directly through internet. The main concern in this paper is to decrease the work of a biologist and getting a better view for the sample to demonstrate and examine the sample

Documents Organisation Strategies of Open University Malaysia (OUM) Postgraduate Students

This study aims to investigate student document organisation strategies in their desktops primarily. The most common document management system used by students on their desktops is the hierarchical folder system integrated within their computer operating system

The future value of collaborative online learning ( COL ) for ODL

COL described here is the online interaction between students who are prompted to discuss course-related items for their team assignments. They will be rewarded by marks for doing so. Alongside with traditional examinations, we consider this kind of progressive Collaborative Online Learning (COL) equally as the most important evaluation factor within an open distant learning university of the future. However, the usage of this kind of learning is still at a stage of infancy. Subsequently, the commitment to make proper use of it will be derived from a state-of-the-art definition that links back to the bind spot also of the most recent international publications on COL. A. In the first part, this paper focuses on progressive COL by a cluster content analysis. We will ask how many of the current undergraduate programmes at Open University Malaysia are utilizing this idea. As a result, based upon the previous definition, it is stated that there is basically NO progressive COL which is triggered by the tutors in charge. B. Subsequently, the paper would like to elaborate on the slumbering potential that lies in COL. The authors suggest that it is not only an eminent tool for the students to rehearse for real-life virtual teams, but it is deemed as one of the most efficient consequences of modern online learning at all. C. Thereupon, in the third part, a catalogue of tailor-made recommendations for progressive COL will be derived a) Entailing the steps of how the usage of COL could be improved. b) Comprising of a catalogue is thrown out which proposes a future tutor evaluation checklist. c) It will conclude in practical ideas of benchmarking how to trigger COL among tutors in charge

Antimycotic activity of biogenically synthesised metal and metal oxide nanoparticles against plant pathogenic fungus Fusarium moniliforme (F. fujikuroi)

263-270Consistent and injudicious application of antifungal agents to control fungal pathogens on crops results in off-target ill-effects on livestock and human health besides issues, such as disruption of ecological balance. In this context, development of novel specific antifungal agents such as metal or metal oxide nanoparticles without side effects becomes a necessity. Here, we attempted green synthesis of three different metal and metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) (Ag, ZnO and FeO) by incubating metal salts with Trichoderma harzianum hyphal or mycelial extract (HE). The AgNPs were also generated using hyphal filtrate (HF). The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by microscopy and spectroscopy techniques and evaluated by poisoned food technique/agar well diffusion technique under in vitro conditions on Czapek dox agar against plant pathogenic fungus Fusarium moniliforme. The tested NPs exhibited varied efficacy for curbing the growth of F. moniliforme. A NP concentration dependent increase in percent growth inhibition was recorded for the above mentioned three types of NPs. Moreover, the antimycotic efficacy of the microbial synthesized Ag NPs also varied for the T. harzianum cell free filtrate and hyphal extract formulations. Maximum percent hyphal growth inhibition (58.83%) was recorded for T. harzianum HE Ag NPs at 800 ppm followed by FeO NPs at 400 ppm (40.38%)

Performance Study of Some Reverse Osmosis Systems for Removal of Uranium and Total Dissolved Solids in Underground Waters of Punjab State, India

Radionuclides (uranium, thorium, radium, radon gas etc.) are found naturally in air, water, soil and rock. Everyday, we ingest and inhale these radionuclides through the air we breathe and through food and water we take. Out of the internal exposure via ingestion of radionuclides, water contributes the major portion. The natural radioactivity of water is due to the activity transfer from bed rock and soils. In our surveys carried out in the past few years, we have observed high concentrations of uranium and total dissolved solids (TDS) in drinking waters of some southern parts of Punjab State exceeding the safe limits recommended by national and international agencies. The main drinking water source is the underground water procured from different depths. Due to the highly saline taste, disorders in their digestive systems and other ailments, people are installing reverse osmosis (RO) systems in their houses. Some RO systems have been installed on commercial basis. The state government is also in the process of installing community RO systems at the village level. As high values of uranium are also undesired and may pose health hazards due to radioactivity and toxicity of uranium, we have conducted a survey in the field to study the performance of various RO systems for removal of uranium and TDS. Water samples from about forty RO systems from Faridkot, Mansa, Bathinda and Amritsar districts of Punjab State were collected and analyzed. Our results show that some RO systems are able to remove more than 99% of uranium in the underground waters used for drinking purposes. TDS values are also reduced considerably to the desired levels. So RO systems can be used to avoid the risk of unduly health problems posed by high concentrations of uranium and TDS in drinking water