Evolving Roles and Structures of Triadic Engagement in Healthcare

Purpose This study focuses on the changing nature of healthcare service encounters by studying the phenomenon of triadic engagement incorporating interactions between patients, local and virtual networks and healthcare professionals. Design/methodology/approach An 18-month longitudinal ethnographic study documents interactions in naturally occurring healthcare consultations. Professionals (n=13) and patients (n=24) within primary and secondary care units were recruited. Analysis of observations, field notes and interviews provides an integrated picture of triadic engagement. Findings Triadic engagement is conceptualised against a two-level framework. (1) The structure of triadic consultations is identified in terms of the human voice, virtual voice and networked voice. These are related to: companions’ contributions to discussions and the virtual network impact. (2) Evolving roles are mapped to three phases of transformation: enhancement; empowerment; emancipation. Triadic engagement varied across conditions. Research limitations/implications These changing roles and structures evidence an increasing emphasis on the responsible consumer and patients/companions to utilise information/support in making health-related decisions. The nature and role of third voices requires clear delineation. Practical implications Structures of consultations should be rethought around the diversity of patient/companion behaviours and expectations as patients undertake self-service activities. Implications for policy and practice are: the parallel set of local/virtual informational and service activities; a network orientation to healthcare; tailoring of support resources/guides for professionals and third parties to inform support practices. Originality/value Contributions are made to understanding triadic engagement and forwarding the agenda on patient-centred care. Longitudinal illumination of consultations is offered through an exceptional level of access to observe consultations

Spread of Infectious Diseases with a Latent Period

Infectious diseases spread through human networks. Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model is one of the epidemic models to describe infection dynamics on a complex network connecting individuals. In the metapopulation SIR model, each node represents a population (group) which has many individuals. In this paper, we propose a modified metapopulation SIR model in which a latent period is taken into account. We call it SIIR model. We divide the infection period into two stages: an infected stage, which is the same as the previous model, and a seriously ill stage, in which individuals are infected and cannot move to the other populations. The two infectious stages in our modified metapopulation SIR model produce a discontinuous final size distribution. Individuals in the infected stage spread the disease like individuals in the seriously ill stage and never recover directly, which makes an effective recovery rate smaller than the given recovery rate.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Me, Myself, and Future Generations: The Role of Affinity and Effectiveness in the Creation of Consumer Environmental Stewardship (CENS)

Policymakers, consumer advocate groups, and researchers agree that consumers need to increase their proenvironmental behaviors if a decent standard of living is to be ensured for future generations. Despite high levels of environmental concern, consumers still refrain from large-scale adoption of proenvironmental behaviors. Social marketers agree that a change in attitudes is not enough to stimulate the necessary behavioral change and are looking for ways to help consumers overcome the costs (e.g., price premiums, inconvenience) that are often associated with proenvironmental behaviors. Currently, consumers often see proenvironmental behavior as a trade-off between short-term personal benefits and longer term collective benefits. The authors contribute to the social marketing literature on proenvironmental behavior by introducing the concept of Consumer Environmental Stewardship (CENS), which centers on the use of intrinsic motivation to stimulate a personal sense of responsibility for the environment. The findings, based on a survey and three experiments, show that the stimulation of consumers’ affinity with future generations (AFGs) and perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) can help to promote CENS, which in turn raises proenvironmental behaviors. However, this research also shows that increasing levels of AFGs can backfire and result in lower levels of CENS, if consumers experience low levels of PCE

Making omnichannel an augmented reality: the current and future state of the art

Purpose—This paper explores the current and future role of Augmented Reality (AR) as an enabler of omnichannel experiences across the customer journey. To advance the conceptual understanding and managerial exploitation of AR, the paper synthesises current research, illustrating how a variety of current applications merge online and offline experiences, and provides a future research agenda to help advance the state of the art in AR. Design/methodology/approach—Drawing on situated cognition theorising as a guiding framework, the paper reviews previously published research and currently deployed applications to provide a roadmap for future research efforts on AR-enabled omnichannel experiences across the customer journey. Findings—AR offers myriad opportunities to provide customers with a seamless omnichannel journey, smoothing current obstacles, through a unique combination of i) embedded, ii) embodied, and iii) extended customer experiences. These three principles constitute the overarching value drivers of AR and offer coherent, theory-driven organising principles for managers and researchers alike. Originality/value—Current research has yet to provide a relevant, conceptually robust understanding of AR-enabled customer experiences. In light of the rapid development and widespread deployment of the technology, this paper provides an urgently needed framework for guiding the development of AR in an omnichannel context

Effect of fuel isotope mass on q-profile formation in JET hybrid plasmas

EUROfusion Consortium 63305

Stationary waves in a superfluid exciton gas in quantum Hall bilayers

Stationary waves in a superfluid magnetoexciton gas in nu = 1 quantum Hall bilayers are considered. The waves are induced by counter-propagating electrical currents that flow in a system with a point obstacle. It is shown that stationary waves can emerge only in imbalanced bilayers in a certain diapason of currents. It is found that the stationary wave pattern is modified qualitatively under a variation of the ratio of the interlayer distance to the magnetic length d/l. The advantages of use graphene-dielectric-graphene sandwiches for the observation of stationary waves are discussed. We determine the range of parameters (the dielectric constant of the layer that separates two graphene layers and the ratio d/l) for which the state with superfluid magnetoexcitons can be realized in such sandwiches. Typical stationary wave patterns are presented as density plotsComment: 17 pages, 8 figure