Infection control in delivery care units, Gujarat state, India: A needs assessment

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

South African podiatry students’ perceptions of feedback given as part of clinical training

Abstract: As part of their clinical training podiatry students spend time in clinical settings treating patients under the supervision of qualified podiatrists. The role and purpose of feedback during such clinical training is to improve students’ knowledge, skills and behaviour. Feedback is an integral part of the learning process that should enhance students’ clinical learning experiences. However, there is no data on podiatry students’ satisfaction or lack thereof about feedback provided during clinical training. The aim of this study was to determine the perceptions of podiatry students on feedback given or received during clinical training..

Dr. PIAS: an integrative system for assessing the druggability of protein-protein interactions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The amount of data on protein-protein interactions (PPIs) available in public databases and in the literature has rapidly expanded in recent years. PPI data can provide useful information for researchers in pharmacology and medicine as well as those in interactome studies. There is urgent need for a novel methodology or software allowing the efficient utilization of PPI data in pharmacology and medicine.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To address this need, we have developed the 'Druggable Protein-protein Interaction Assessment System' (Dr. PIAS). Dr. PIAS has a meta-database that stores various types of information (tertiary structures, drugs/chemicals, and biological functions associated with PPIs) retrieved from public sources. By integrating this information, Dr. PIAS assesses whether a PPI is druggable as a target for small chemical ligands by using a supervised machine-learning method, support vector machine (SVM). Dr. PIAS holds not only known druggable PPIs but also all PPIs of human, mouse, rat, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) proteins identified to date.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The design concept of Dr. PIAS is distinct from other published PPI databases in that it focuses on selecting the PPIs most likely to make good drug targets, rather than merely collecting PPI data.</p

Challenging the Moral Status of Blood Donation

The World Health Organisation encourages that blood donation becomes voluntary and unremunerated, a system already operated in the UK. Drawing on public documents and videos, this paper argues that blood donation is regarded and presented as altruistic and supererogatory. In advertisements, donation is presented as something undertaken for the benefit of others, a matter attracting considerable gratitude from recipients and the collecting organisation. It is argued that regarding blood donation as an act of supererogation is wrongheaded, and an alternative account of blood donation as moral obligation is presented. Two arguments are offered in support of this position. First, the principle of beneficence, understood in a broad consequentialist framework obliges donation where the benefit to the recipient is large and the cost to the donor relatively small. This argument can be applied, with differing levels of normativity, to various acts of donation. Second, the wrongness of free riding requires individuals to contribute to collective systems from which they benefit. Alone and in combination these arguments present moral reasons for donation, recognised in communication strategies elsewhere. Research is required to evaluate the potential effects on donation of a campaign which presents blood donation as moral obligation, but of wider importance is the recognition that other-regarding considerations in relation to our own as well as others’ health result in a range not only of choices but also of obligations

IIMA in HealthCare Management: Abstract of Publications (2000-2010)

This working paper is a compilation of the abstracts of all our publications in the last 10 years, which include 40 referred journal articles, 54 Working Papers, 19 Chapters in Books and 18 Case Studies.[W.P. No. 2010-04-04]Journal Articles, Working Papers, Chapters in Books, Case Studies

Modal split evaluation of a maritime container terminal

Maritime container terminals are playing a growing role within global transport chains. As intermodal nodes between sea traffic flows and inland distribution, they are very important to shipping lines. The current trend of moving towards economies of scale in regard to mother vessels is also having a tremendous impact on seaport operations and hinterland transportation in terms of ‘call size’. This paper deals with the study of multimodal container flows at an Italian maritime terminal, focusing the attention on the performance of road and rail connections. In this framework, the current modal unbalance generates heavy problems of congestion and compromises the overall terminal competitiveness. This paper applies a discrete event simulation approach, in order to evaluate the feasibility of an alternative and more balanced scenario achievable in a short-mid-term perspective. Our goal is to enhance the performance of rail connections, without proposing the realisation of a new railway line which is only attainable in the long run, but trying to exploit to the full the available endowment of assets through a deep operational restructuring. Simulation runs performed in this perspective revealed the adequacy of such an approach and demonstrated the successful effects of a modal re-equilibrium. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2009) 11, 77–97. doi:10.1057/mel.2008.22