8,799 research outputs found
Acceptability of the MD Anderson Symptom Inventory and qualitative analysis of barriers to palliative care services for rural and non-rural populations
The United States health system strives to improve the care patients receive while reducing healthcare expenditures. A significant portion of the nation’s healthcare expenditure is spent on end of life care. Palliative care provides one solution to reducing healthcare expenditures while improving the patient experience. Reducing symptom intensity is one example of palliative care’s success. A midwest palliative care program was tasked to gather quality data on the service’s ability to manage patient symptoms.
The program selected the MD Anderson Symptom Inventory to improve symptom assessment and provide quality metrics for the organization. Additionally, research suggests rural populations have poorer access to palliative care services compared to non-rural patients. In response, a qualitative questionnaire was administered to rural and non-rural patients at consultation to gather information regarding barriers to palliative care services. Finally, the quality improvement initiative was evaluated for acceptability, feasibility, and sustainability. The scholarly project provided the organization characteristics of the population served, accurately assessed symptoms, and tracked performance of symptom management over time. The implications of this project is the MD Anderson Symptom Inventory provided a sustainable and feasible plan for a community based palliative care program to generate and gather quality data. The perceived barrier questionnaire revealed that patients experience symptoms for a long time prior to a palliative care referral and a knowledge gap exists regarding the role and existence of palliative care
Impacts of Alternative Policies Regulating Dockage
Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,
Quantification of the Individual Characterstics of the Human Dentition: Methodology
This study provides a method for comparing six individual human dentition characteristics using the standard measuring tool in Adobe Photoshop CS2 as compared to measuring individual characteristics with an automated software program under development at Marquette University, which has been adapted for bitemark analysis. The algorithm identifies color-specific pixels and automatically calculates the measurements
A Methodology for Three-Dimensional Quantification of Anterior Tooth Width
The use of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) technology has been shown to be more accurate in measuring individual incisor tooth widths than the use of wax exemplars. There were fewer differences by investigators using CBCT than others using an F-test in a mixed model of the measurement differences of investigators, wax type, and which tooth was measured. In addition, the frequency of outliers was less in the CBCT method (a total of 5) as compared to the two-dimensional measurements in ether Aluwax (a total of 8) or Coprwax (a total of 12). Both results indicate that CBCT measurements accounted more precisely for tooth width and level of eruption
Stellar and Planetary Properties of K2 Campaign 1 Candidates and Validation of 17 Planets, Including a Planet Receiving Earth-like Insolation
The extended Kepler mission, K2, is now providing photometry of new fields
every three months in a search for transiting planets. In a recent study,
Foreman-Mackey and collaborators presented a list of 36 planet candidates
orbiting 31 stars in K2 Campaign 1. In this contribution, we present stellar
and planetary properties for all systems. We combine ground-based
seeing-limited survey data and adaptive optics imaging with an automated
transit analysis scheme to validate 21 candidates as planets, 17 for the first
time, and identify 6 candidates as likely false positives. Of particular
interest is K2-18 (EPIC 201912552), a bright (K=8.9) M2.8 dwarf hosting a 2.23
\pm 0.25 R_Earth planet with T_eq = 272 \pm 15 K and an orbital period of 33
days. We also present two new open-source software packages which enable this
analysis. The first, isochrones, is a flexible tool for fitting theoretical
stellar models to observational data to determine stellar properties using a
nested sampling scheme to capture the multimodal nature of the posterior
distributions of the physical parameters of stars that may plausibly be
evolved. The second is vespa, a new general-purpose procedure to calculate
false positive probabilities and statistically validate transiting exoplanets.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journal. Updated to closely reflect published version in ApJ
(2015, 809, 25
A new approach for performing contamination control bakeouts in JPL thermal vacuum test chambers
Contamination control requirements for the Wide Field/Planetary Camera II (WF/PC II) are necessarily stringent to protect against post-launch contamination of the sensitive optical surfaces, particularly the cold charge coupled device (CCD) imaging surfaces. Typically, thermal vacuum test chambers have employed a liquid nitrogen (LN2) cold trap to collect outgassed contaminants. This approach has the disadvantage of risking recontamination of the test article from shroud offgassing during post-test warmup of the chamber or from any shroud warming of even a few degrees during the bakeout process. By using an enclave, essentially a chamber within a chamber, configured concentrically and internally within an LN2 shroud, a method was developed, based on a design concept by Taylor, for preventing recontamination of test articles during bakeouts and subsequent post-test warmup of the vacuum chamber. Enclaves for testing WF/PC II components were designed and fabricated, then installed in three of JPL's Environmental Test Lab chambers. The design concepts, operating procedures, and test results of this development are discussed
Effects of lateral diffusion on morphology and dynamics of a microscopic lattice-gas model of pulsed electrodeposition
The influence of nearest-neighbor diffusion on the decay of a metastable
low-coverage phase (monolayer adsorption) in a square lattice-gas model of
electrochemical metal deposition is investigated by kinetic Monte Carlo
simulations. The phase-transformation dynamics are compared to the
well-established Kolmogorov-Johnson-Mehl-Avrami theory. The phase
transformation is accelerated by diffusion, but remains in accord with the
theory for continuous nucleation up to moderate diffusion rates. At very high
diffusion rates the phase-transformation kinetic shows a crossover to
instantaneous nucleation. Then, the probability of medium-sized clusters is
reduced in favor of large clusters. Upon reversal of the supersaturation, the
adsorbate desorbs, but large clusters still tend to grow during the initial
stages of desorption. Calculation of the free energy of subcritical clusters by
enumeration of lattice animals yields a quasi-equilibrium distribution which is
in reasonable agreement with the simulation results. This is an improvement
relative to classical droplet theory, which fails to describe the
distributions, since the macroscopic surface tension is a bad approximation for
small clusters.Comment: Minor corrections and modifications. 15 pages with 10 figures.
Accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical Physics, see
http://jcp.aip.org/jcp
Color camera computed tomography imaging spectrometer for improved spatial-spectral image accuracy
Computed tomography imaging spectrometers ("CTIS"s) having color focal plane array detectors are provided. The color FPA detector may comprise a digital color camera including a digital image sensor, such as a Foveon X3.RTM. digital image sensor or a Bayer color filter mosaic. In another embodiment, the CTIS includes a pattern imposed either directly on the object scene being imaged or at the field stop aperture. The use of a color FPA detector and the pattern improves the accuracy of the captured spatial and spectral information
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