Giroscope Housing Organisation: a study of tenant satisfaction

Giroscope is an award winning community based housing organisation in West Hull that buys and renovates empty properties to provide rental accommodation for people in housing need. Giroscope was conceived by a group of students and unemployed people in 1985 in response to the problem of homelessness in Hull and established as a limited company and workers co-operative in 1986. Initially set up to provide accommodation for its founders only, Giroscope has since expanded and now lets 30 properties. It remained a workers’ co-operative until January 2007 when it was converted to a registered charity. With a view to reviewing and improving the quality of their service Giroscope approached us in January 2007 and invited us to carry out an independent tenants’ satisfaction survey. We were commissioned to undertake a comprehensive study of tenant satisfaction, with particular emphasis on the quality of the repairs and maintenance service, as this is an area in which Giroscope have recently been trying to make improvements

I\u27ll See You on Myspace

Social network sites like MySpace and Facebook are a popular online venue for interaction and expression. This study was designed to identify the ways in which people present themselves online in the social network environment of MySpace.com. To examine the types of self-presentation displayed in MySpace profiles, this study drew from current online research, self-presentation theory (Goffman, 1959 Jones, 1990), nonverbal traditions, and the field of visual communication to develop a novel measurement scheme which could be used to analyze photographic and textual elements. Content analysis of a random sample of public profiles selected from MySpace.com focused primarily on the photographic self-presentation found in the primary profile photograph. The content analysis revealed that competence and ingratiation were the most commonly used strategies exhibited in the sampled profiles. Additionally, significant relationships were found between intimidating behaviors and the intended audience, and intimidating behaviors and the user\u27s sex. Demographic information revealed that males and females were equally represented in the sample, and racial/ethnic diversity closely resembled the U.S. population as reported in the 2000 U.S. Census. Furthermore, non-significant results suggest a possible relationship between the user\u27s sex and the types of nonverbal behaviors demonstrated in the photograph, similar to Goffman\u27s (1979) work on gender displays in commercial advertising photograph

High-Tech Trash

High-Tech Trash: Glitch, Noise, and Aesthetic Failure maps an archaeology of failure in a culture seemingly ill-equipped to deal with it. To better understand failure, Kane argues, we must abstract from our subjective, personal disappointments and see them as meaningful symbols of a broader human struggle. By connecting twenty-first century digital aesthetics to critical issues in the history of high-tech, the book elucidates what it means to be an error-prone, fallible human in an age of hyper technology; to fail again and again without recourse to anything but repetition

High-Tech Trash

High-Tech Trash analyzes creative strategies in glitch, noise, and error to chart the development of an aesthetic paradigm rooted in failure. Carolyn L. Kane explores how technologically influenced creative practices, primarily from the second half of the twentieth and first quarter of the twenty-first centuries, critically offset a broader culture of pervasive risk and discontent. In so doing, she questions how we continue onward, striving to do better and acquire more, despite inevitable disappointment. High-Tech Trash speaks to a paradox in contemporary society in which failure is disavowed yet necessary for technological innovation.  “Leonard Cohen sang ‘There’s a crack in everything…that’s how the light gets in.’ Here, Carolyn Kane teaches us how to see that light, one crack at a time.” FRED TURNER, author of The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties  “Kane profiles art practices and media discourses that exploit and celebrate, rather than filter or suppress, all kinds of errors and noises. A welcome intervention in a number of discursive fields.” PETER KRAPP, author of Noise Channels: Glitch and Error in Digital Culture  “An original work of scholarship that addresses some of the most pervasive phenomena and foundational questions in the contemporary media environment.” ROBERT HARIMAN, coauthor of The Public Image: Photography and Civic Spectatorship  CAROLYN L. KANE is Associate Professor of Communication at Ryerson University and author of Chromatic Algorithms: Synthetic Color, Computer Art, and Aesthetics after Code

Can patients independently identify their urinary incontinence symptoms?

INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: The objective of our study is to compare patient self-reported urinary incontinence symptoms based on the International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire- Short Form (ICIQ-SF) question number 6 (When does urine leak?) with physician-assessed interpretation of the patient\u27s urinary incontinence symptoms. METHODS: This trial is a cross-sectional study of patients who presented to a tertiary urogynecology center with symptoms of urinary incontinence between January 2014 and August 2016. We compared patient-reported symptoms on the ICIQ-SF with physician interpretation of urinary complaints during their initial visit. The urinary incontinence symptoms included stress urinary incontinence (SUI), urgency urinary incontinence (UUI), insensible urine loss, nocturnal enuresis, and post-micturition dribbling. RESULTS: A total of 432 patients with a mean age of 61 were included in this evaluation. The most common urinary incontinence symptoms according to the physician were UUI (n = 357, 83%), followed by SUI (n = 308, 71%). Of the patients who were diagnosed by a physician with the symptom of UUI, only 61% self-identified as having this symptom based on the ICIQ-SF, and for SUI, only 66% self-identified as having SUI symptoms based on the ICIQ-SF. Overall UUI (κ = 0.30) appears to have poor agreement, as does nocturnal enuresis (κ = 0.39), when compared with physician historical assessment. CONCLUSION: There is a discrepancy between patient-reported urinary incontinence symptoms on the ICIQ-SF and physician-assessed symptoms. Symptomatology entered into electronic medical records by patients is often inaccurate. Physician validation is essential in understanding the underlying the precise symptomatology

Randomized Trial of 3 Techniques of Perineal Skin Closure During Second‐Degree Perineal Laceration Repair

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151863/1/jmwh13020.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151863/2/jmwh13020_am.pd

Moving Toward Patient‐Centered Care: Women's Decisions, Perceptions, and Experiences of the Induction of Labor Process

Background Patient preferences and clinician practices are possible causative factors to explain the increase in induction of labor, but scientific studies that demonstrate this link are limited. The purpose of this study is to identify factors that influence inductions from the perspective of women. Methods A qualitative investigation using grounded theory methodology was conducted. Women were interviewed preinduction and postinduction. Analysis of the interviews was conducted using constant comparison to identify codes, categories, and themes. Through this process the complex intersection between women, their clinician, and the application of evidence‐based care in clinical practice was explored. Results Five major themes from the preinduction interview were identified; safety of baby, women's trust in their clinician, relief of discomfort and/or anxiety, diminish potential or actual risk, and lack of informed decision making. Five major themes were identified from the postinduction interview; lack of informed decision making, induction as part of a checklist, women's trust in their clinician, happy with induction, and opportunities to improve the experience. Conclusions Lack of informed decision making was cited as a barrier to optimal care. This study has important implications for patient‐centered research and clinical care, requiring the inclusion of women and the salient concepts of care that they identify.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107354/1/birt12080.pd

Plan de marketing para mejorar el posicionamiento de la Empresa SG Comarpi S.A.C de la ciudad de Moyobamba, año 2019

La presente investigación denominada “Plan de marketing para mejorar el posicionamiento de la empresa SG COMARPI SAC de la ciudad de Moyobamba, año 2019” busca implementar a la empresa de una herramienta que le permita mejorar su actual posicionamiento en el mercado, para lo cual se ha planteado una investigación de tipo pre experimental con una muestra de estudio de 224 clientes, a los cuales tras aplicarles una encuesta de 12 preguntas a fin de evaluar el Plan de marketing y una encuesta de 23 preguntas para evaluar el posicionamiento de la empresa tanto antes como después de la implementación del plan de marketing, se logró identificar que la empresa tiene una definición poco clara de la misión, los objetivos no son formulados en base a la situación real de la empresa., existe una falta de promoción de los atributos que ofrecen sus productos, la empresa tiene poca participación de marca en la ciudad, entre otros; es por ello que en base a ellos se logró implementar un plan de marketing que cubra cada una de dichos factores, logrando una mejora significativa en el posicionamiento de la empresa, concluyendo de esta manera que

Precision near-infrared radial velocity instrumentation II: Non-Circular Core Fiber Scrambler

We have built and commissioned a prototype agitated non-circular core fiber scrambler for precision spectroscopic radial velocity measurements in the near-infrared H band. We have collected the first on-sky performance and modal noise tests of these novel fibers in the near-infrared at H and K bands using the CSHELL spectrograph at the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF). We discuss the design behind our novel reverse injection of a red laser for co-alignment of star-light with the fiber tip via a corner cube and visible camera. We summarize the practical details involved in the construction of the fiber scrambler, and the mechanical agitation of the fiber at the telescope. We present radial velocity measurements of a bright standard star taken with and without the fiber scrambler to quantify the relative improvement in the obtainable blaze function stability, the line spread function stability, and the resulting radial velocity precision. We assess the feasibility of applying this illumination stabilization technique to the next generation of near-infrared spectrographs such as iSHELL on IRTF and an upgraded NIRSPEC at Keck. Our results may also be applied in the visible for smaller core diameter fibers where fiber modal noise is a significant factor, such as behind an adaptive optics system or on a small < 1 meter class telescope such as is being pursued by the MINERVA and LCOGT collaborations.Comment: Proceedings of the SPIE Optics and Photonics Conference "Techniques and Instrumentation for Detection of Exoplanets VI" held in San Diego, CA, August 25-29, 201

Retrieval of Precise Radial Velocities from Near-Infrared High Resolution Spectra of Low Mass Stars

Given that low-mass stars have intrinsically low luminosities at optical wavelengths and a propensity for stellar activity, it is advantageous for radial velocity (RV) surveys of these objects to use near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. In this work we describe and test a novel RV extraction pipeline dedicated to retrieving RVs from low mass stars using NIR spectra taken by the CSHELL spectrograph at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, where a methane isotopologue gas cell is used for wavelength calibration. The pipeline minimizes the residuals between the observations and a spectral model composed of templates for the target star, the gas cell, and atmospheric telluric absorption; models of the line spread function, continuum curvature, and sinusoidal fringing; and a parameterization of the wavelength solution. The stellar template is derived iteratively from the science observations themselves without a need for separate observations dedicated to retrieving it. Despite limitations from CSHELL's narrow wavelength range and instrumental systematics, we are able to (1) obtain an RV precision of 35 m/s for the RV standard star GJ 15 A over a time baseline of 817 days, reaching the photon noise limit for our attained SNR, (2) achieve ~3 m/s RV precision for the M giant SV Peg over a baseline of several days and confirm its long-term RV trend due to stellar pulsations, as well as obtain nightly noise floors of ~2 - 6 m/s, and (3) show that our data are consistent with the known masses, periods, and orbital eccentricities of the two most massive planets orbiting GJ 876. Future applications of our pipeline to RV surveys using the next generation of NIR spectrographs, such as iSHELL, will enable the potential detection of Super-Earths and Mini-Neptunes in the habitable zones of M dwarfs.Comment: 64 pages, 28 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in PAS