A scoping review of Indigenous suicide prevention in circumpolar regions

Background. Suicide is a serious public health challenge in circumpolar regions, especially among Indigenous youth. Indigenous communities, government agencies and health care providers are making concerted efforts to reduce the burden of suicide and strengthen protective factors for individuals, families and communities. The persistence of suicide has made it clear that more needs to be done. Objective. Our aim was to undertake a scoping review of the peer-reviewed literature on suicide prevention and interventions in Indigenous communities across the circumpolar north. Our objective was to determine the extent and types of interventions that have been reported during past decade. We want to use this knowledge to support community initiative and inform intervention development and evaluation. Design. We conducted a scoping review of online databases to identify studies published between 2004 and 2014. We included articles that described interventions in differentiated circumpolar Indigenous populations and provided evaluation data. We retained grey literature publications for comparative reference. Results. Our search identified 95 articles that focused on suicide in distinct circumpolar Indigenous populations; 19 articles discussed specific suicide-related interventions and 7 of these described program evaluation methods and results in detail. The majority of publications on specific interventions were found in North American countries. The majority of prevention or intervention documentation was found in supporting grey literature sources. Conclusion. Despite widespread concern about suicide in the circumpolar world and active community efforts to promote resilience and mental well-being, we found few recorded programs or initiatives documented in the peer-reviewed literature, and even fewer focusing specifically on youth intervention. The interventions described in the studies we found had diverse program designs and content, and used varied evaluation methods and outcomes. The studies we included consistently reported that it was important to use communitybased and culturally guided interventions and evaluations. This article summarizes the current climate of Indigenous circumpolar suicide research in the context of intervention and highlights how intervention-based outcomes have largely remained outside of peer-reviewed sources in this region of the world

Do absorption and realistic distraction influence performance of component task surgical procedure?

Background. Surgeons perform complex tasks while exposed to multiple distracting sources that may increase stress in the operating room (e.g., music, conversation, and unadapted use of sophisticated technologies). This study aimed to examine whether such realistic social and technological distracting conditions may influence surgical performance. Methods. Twelve medical interns performed a laparoscopic cholecystectomy task with the Xitact LC 3.0 virtual reality simulator under distracting conditions (exposure to music, conversation, and nonoptimal handling of the laparoscope) versus nondistracting conditions (control condition) as part of a 2 x 2 within-subject experimental design. Results. Under distracting conditions, the medical interns showed a significant decline in task performance (overall task score, task errors, and operating time) and significantly increased levels of irritation toward both the assistant handling the laparoscope in a nonoptimal way and the sources of social distraction. Furthermore, individual differences in cognitive style (i.e., cognitive absorption and need for cognition) significantly influenced the levels of irritation experienced by the medical interns. Conclusion. The results suggest careful evaluation of the social and technological sources of distraction in the operation room to reduce irritation for the surgeon and provision of proper preclinical laparoscope navigation training to increase security for the patient.Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin

Changes in timber haul emissions in the context of shifting forest management and infrastructure

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Although significant amounts of carbon may be stored in harvested wood products, the extraction of that carbon from the forest generally entails combustion of fossil fuels. The transport of timber from the forest to primary milling facilities may in particular create emissions that reduce the net sequestration value of product carbon storage. However, attempts to quantify the effects of transport on the net effects of forest management typically use relatively sparse survey data to determine transportation emission factors. We developed an approach for systematically determining transport emissions using: 1) -remotely sensed maps to estimate the spatial distribution of harvests, and 2) - industry data to determine landscape-level harvest volumes as well as the location and processing totals of individual mills. These data support spatial network analysis that can produce estimates of fossil carbon released in timber transport.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Transport-related emissions, evaluated as a fraction of transported wood carbon at 4 points in time on a landscape in western Montana (USA), rose from 0.5% in 1988 to 1.7% in 2004 as local mills closed and spatial patterns of harvest shifted due to decreased logging on federal lands.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The apparent sensitivity of transport emissions to harvest and infrastructure patterns suggests that timber haul is a dynamic component of forest carbon management that bears further study both across regions and over time. The monitoring approach used here, which draws only from widely available monitoring data, could readily be adapted to provide current and historical estimates of transport emissions in a consistent way across large areas.</p

A review of open top chamber (OTC) performance across the ITEX Network

Open top chambers (OTCs) were adopted as the recommended warming mechanism by the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) network in the early 1990’s. Since then, OTCs have been deployed across the globe. Hundreds of papers have reported the impacts of OTCs on the abiotic environment and the biota. Here we review the impacts of the OTC on the physical environment, with comments on the appropriateness of using OTCs to characterize the response of biota to warming. The purpose of this review is to guide readers to previously published work and to provide recommendations for continued use of OTCs to understand the implications of warming on low stature ecosystems. In short, the OTC is a useful tool to experimentally manipulate temperature, however the characteristics and magnitude of warming varies greatly in different environments, therefore it is important to document chamber performance to maximize the interpretation of biotic response. When coupled with long-term monitoring, warming experiments are a valuable means to understand the impacts of climate change on natural ecosystems

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey of SDSS-III

The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) is designed to measure the scale of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter over a larger volume than the combined efforts of all previous spectroscopic surveys of large scale structure. BOSS uses 1.5 million luminous galaxies as faint as i=19.9 over 10,000 square degrees to measure BAO to redshifts z<0.7. Observations of neutral hydrogen in the Lyman alpha forest in more than 150,000 quasar spectra (g<22) will constrain BAO over the redshift range 2.15<z<3.5. Early results from BOSS include the first detection of the large-scale three-dimensional clustering of the Lyman alpha forest and a strong detection from the Data Release 9 data set of the BAO in the clustering of massive galaxies at an effective redshift z = 0.57. We project that BOSS will yield measurements of the angular diameter distance D_A to an accuracy of 1.0% at redshifts z=0.3 and z=0.57 and measurements of H(z) to 1.8% and 1.7% at the same redshifts. Forecasts for Lyman alpha forest constraints predict a measurement of an overall dilation factor that scales the highly degenerate D_A(z) and H^{-1}(z) parameters to an accuracy of 1.9% at z~2.5 when the survey is complete. Here, we provide an overview of the selection of spectroscopic targets, planning of observations, and analysis of data and data quality of BOSS.Comment: 49 pages, 16 figures, accepted by A

Peaceful Coexistence: Examining Kent’s Relativistic Solution to the Quantum Measurement Problem

Can there be ‘peaceful coexistence’ between quantum theory and special relativity? Thirty years ago, Shimony hoped that isolating the culprit (i.e. the false assumption) in proofs of Bell inequalities as Outcome Independence would secure such peaceful coexistence: or, if not secure it, at least show a way—maybe the best or only way—to secure it. In this paper, I begin by being sceptical of Shimony’s approach, urging that we need a relativistic solution to the quantum measurement problem (Sect. 2). Then I analyse Outcome Independence in Kent’s realist one-world Lorentz-invariant interpretation of quantum theory (Sects. 3 and 4). Then I consider Shimony’s other condition, Parameter Independence, both in Kent’s proposal and more generally, in the light of recent remarkable theorems by Colbeck, Renner and Leegwater (Sect. 5). For both Outcome Independence and Parameter Independence, there is a striking analogy with the situation in pilot-wave theory. Finally, I will suggest that these recent theorems make some kind of peaceful coexistence mandatory for someone who, like Shimony, endorses Parameter Independence.Nagoya University, Graduate School of Information Science. Supported in part by the JSPS KAKENHI No. 26247016 and the John Templeton Foundation ID 35771

Integration of robotic surgery into routine practice and impacts on communication, collaboration, and decision making: A realist process evaluation protocol

Background: Robotic surgery offers many potential benefits for patients. While an increasing number of healthcare providers are purchasing surgical robots, there are reports that the technology is failing to be introduced into routine practice. Additionally, in robotic surgery, the surgeon is physically separated from the patient and the rest of the team, with the potential to negatively impact teamwork in the operating theatre. The aim of this study is to ascertain: how and under what circumstances robotic surgery is effectively introduced into routine practice; and how and under what circumstances robotic surgery impacts teamwork, communication and decision making, and subsequent patient outcomes. Methods and design: We will undertake a process evaluation alongside a randomised controlled trial comparing laparoscopic and robotic surgery for the curative treatment of rectal cancer. Realist evaluation provides an overall framework for the study. The study will be in three phases. In Phase I, grey literature will be reviewed to identify stakeholders' theories concerning how robotic surgery becomes embedded into surgical practice and its impacts. These theories will be refined and added to through interviews conducted across English hospitals that are using robotic surgery for rectal cancer resection with staff at different levels of the organisation, along with a review of documentation associated with the introduction of robotic surgery. In Phase II, a multi-site case study will be conducted across four English hospitals to test and refine the candidate theories. Data will be collected using multiple methods: the structured observation tool OTAS (Observational Teamwork Assessment for Surgery); video recordings of operations; ethnographic observation; and interviews. In Phase III, interviews will be conducted at the four case sites with staff representing a range of surgical disciplines, to assess the extent to which the results of Phase II are generalisable and to refine the resulting theories to reflect the experience of a broader range of surgical disciplines. The study will provide (i) guidance to healthcare organisations on factors likely to facilitate successful implementation and integration of robotic surgery, and (ii) guidance on how to ensure effective communication and teamwork when undertaking robotic surgery