749 research outputs found

    Clinicians’ experience of providing care: a rapid review

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    Background: Health care services internationally are refocussing care delivery towards patient centred, integrated care that utilises effective, efficient and innovative models of care to optimise patient outcomes and system sustainability. Whilst significant efforts have been made to examine and enhance patient experience, to date little has progressed in relation to provider experience. This review aims to explore this knowledge gap by capturing evidence of clinician experience, and how this experience is defined and measured in the context of health system change and innovation. Methods: A rapid review of published and grey literature review was conducted utilising a rapid evidence assessment methodology. Seventy-nine studies retrieved from the literature were included in the review. Fourteen articles were identified from the grey literature search and one article obtained via hand searching. In total, 94 articles were included in the review. This study was commissioned by and co-designed with the New South Wales, Ministry of Health. Results: Clinician experience of delivering health care is inconsistently defined in the literature, with identified articles lacking clarity regarding distinctions between experience, engagement and work-related outcomes such as job satisfaction. Clinician experience was commonly explored using qualitative research that focused on experiences of discrete health care activities or events in which a change was occurring. Such research enabled exploration of complex experiences. In these contexts, clinician experience was captured in terms of self-reported information that clinicians provided about the health care activity or event, their perceptions of its value, the lived impacts they experienced, and the specific behaviours they displayed in relation to the activity or event. Moreover, clinician’s experience has been identified to have a paucity of measurement tools. Conclusion: Literature to date has not examined clinician experience in a holistic sense. In order to achieve the goals identified in relation to value-based care, further work is needed to conceptualise clinician experience and understand the nature of measurement tools required to assess this. In health system application, a broader ‘clinician pulse’ style assessment may be valuable to understand the experience of clinical work on a continuum rather than in the context of episodes of change/care

    Mechanochemical action of the dynamin protein

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    Dynamin is a ubiquitous GTPase that tubulates lipid bilayers and is implicated in many membrane severing processes in eukaryotic cells. Setting the grounds for a better understanding of this biological function, we develop a generalized hydrodynamics description of the conformational change of large dynamin-membrane tubes taking into account GTP consumption as a free energy source. On observable time scales, dissipation is dominated by an effective dynamin/membrane friction and the deformation field of the tube has a simple diffusive behavior, which could be tested experimentally. A more involved, semi-microscopic model yields complete predictions for the dynamics of the tube and possibly accounts for contradictory experimental results concerning its change of conformation as well as for plectonemic supercoiling.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures; typos corrected, reference adde

    An Improved Model for Dynamin Assembly Revealed by Cryo-EM

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    Continua com: AvaluaciĂł de la qualitat de l'aire a la ciutat de Barcelon

    Switching the Interpenetration of Confined Asymmetric Polymer Brushes

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    The interpenetration of two polymer brushes on approaching flat surfaces has been investigated. When compacting polymer brushes with an asymmetric charge on each surface, one neutral and the other weakly charged, we find that the brush interpenetration becomes a parameter that can be controlled by the pH of the hydrating solution. The switching between high and low degrees of brush interpenetration was investigated with numerical self-consistent field theory (nSCF) and experimentally using a sample environment which combines neutron reflectometry with a surface force type apparatus. Initially, a pair of uncharged poly(ethylene oxide), PEO, brushes are examined, where one of the brushes is deuterated to distinguish it from a hydrogenous counterpart. We find in both nSCF and these experiments that there is no significant overlap between the brushes as both compact into polymer blocks with little hydration. However, when a weak polyelectrolyte poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate), PDMAEMA, brush is confined against a deuterated neutral PEO brush and the pH of the hydrating solution is below the polycation’s pKa of 7.5, then the presence of charged groups on the PDMAEMA allows significant interpenetration to occur between the two polymer brushes on contact. This interpenetration remains once the polymer brushes dehydrate due to the confining pressure that is applied. Raising the pH to a value above the pKa, removes the charges from the polyelectrolyte brush resulting in little to no interpenetration between the two brushes. Therefore, by simply adjusting the pH of the hydrating solution the interpenetration state between polymer brush pairs can be switched when one brush is a weak polyelectrolyte. Since polymer brushes are widely investigated and used to reduce friction between solid surfaces, this effect may have significant implications in the design and operation of polymer brushes with controllable friction properties

    Exact Cover with light

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    We suggest a new optical solution for solving the YES/NO version of the Exact Cover problem by using the massive parallelism of light. The idea is to build an optical device which can generate all possible solutions of the problem and then to pick the correct one. In our case the device has a graph-like representation and the light is traversing it by following the routes given by the connections between nodes. The nodes are connected by arcs in a special way which lets us to generate all possible covers (exact or not) of the given set. For selecting the correct solution we assign to each item, from the set to be covered, a special integer number. These numbers will actually represent delays induced to light when it passes through arcs. The solution is represented as a subray arriving at a certain moment in the destination node. This will tell us if an exact cover does exist or not.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, New Generation Computing, accepted, 200

    Exploiting Organometallic Chemistry to Functionalize Small Cuprous Oxide Colloidal Nanocrystals

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    The ligand chemistry of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals mediates their solubility, band gap, and surface facets. Here, selective organometallic chemistry is used to prepare small, colloidal cuprous oxide nanocrystals and to control their surface chemistry by decorating them with metal complexes. The strategy is demonstrated using small (3-6 nm) cuprous oxide (Cu2O) colloidal nanocrystals (NC), soluble in organic solvents. Organometallic complexes are coordinated by reacting the surface Cu-OH bonds with organometallic reagents, M(C6F5)2, M = Zn(II) and Co(II), at room temperature. These reactions do not disrupt the Cu2O crystallinity or nanoparticle size; rather, they allow for the selective coordination of a specific metal complex at the surface. Subsequently, the surface-coordinated organometallic complex is reacted with three different carboxylic acids to deliver Cu-O-Zn(O2CR') complexes. Selective nanocrystal surface functionalization is established using spectroscopy (IR, 19F NMR), thermal gravimetric analyses (TGA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM, EELS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Photoluminescence efficiency increases dramatically upon organometallic surface functionalization relative to that of the parent Cu2O NC, with the effect being most pronounced for Zn(II) decoration. The nanocrystal surfaces are selectively functionalized by both organic ligands and well-defined organometallic complexes; this synthetic strategy may be applicable to many other metal oxides, hydroxides, and semiconductors. In the future, it should allow NC properties to be designed for applications including catalysis, sensing, electronics, and quantum technologies

    Unraveling the Steric Link to Copper Precursor Decomposition: A Multi-Faceted Study for the Printing of Flexible Electronics

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    The field of printed electronics strives for lower processing temperatures to move toward flexible substrates that have vast potential: from wearable medical devices to animal tagging. Typically, ink formulations are optimized using mass screening and elimination of failures; as such, there are no comprehensive studies on the fundamental chemistry at play. Herein, findings which describe the steric link to decomposition profile: combining density functional theory, crystallography, thermal decomposition, mass spectrometry, and inkjet printing, are reported. Through the reaction of copper(II) formate with excess alkanolamines of varying steric bulk, tris-co-ordinated copper precursor ions: "[CuL3 ]," each with a formate counter-ion (1-3) are isolated and their thermal decomposition mass spectrometry profiles are collected to assess their suitability for use in inks (I1-3 ). Spin coating and inkjet printing of I1,2 provides an easily up-scalable method toward the deposition of highly conductive copper device interconnects (ρ = 4.7-5.3 × 10-7 Ω m; ≈30% bulk) onto paper and polyimide substrates and forms functioning circuits that can power light-emitting diodes. The connection among ligand bulk, coordination number, and improved decomposition profile supports fundamental understanding which will direct future design

    Suited for Success? : Suits, Status, and Hybrid Masculinity

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    This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Men and Masculinities, March 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X17696193, published by SAGE Publishing, All rights reserved.This article analyzes the sartorial biographies of four Canadian men to explore how the suit is understood and embodied in everyday life. Each of these men varied in their subject positions—body shape, ethnicity, age, and gender identity—which allowed us to look at the influence of men’s intersectional identities on their relationship with their suits. The men in our research all understood the suit according to its most common representation in popular culture: a symbol of hegemonic masculinity. While they wore the suit to embody hegemonic masculine configurations of practice—power, status, and rationality—most of these men were simultaneously marginalized by the gender hierarchy. We explain this disjuncture by using the concept of hybrid masculinity and illustrate that changes in the style of hegemonic masculinity leave its substance intact. Our findings expand thinking about hybrid masculinity by revealing the ways subordinated masculinities appropriate and reinforce hegemonic masculinity.Peer reviewe
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