Quality improvement in clinical documentation: does clinical governance work?

INTRODUCTION: The quality of nursing documentation is still a challenge in the nursing profession and, thus, in the health care industry. One major quality improvement program is clinical governance, whose mission is to continuously improve the quality of patient care and overcome service quality problems. The aim of this study was to identify whether clinical governance improves the quality of nursing documentation. METHODS: A quasi-experimental method was used to show nursing documentation quality improvement after a 2-year clinical governance implementation. Two hundred twenty random nursing documents were assessed structurally and by content using a valid and reliable researcher made checklist. RESULTS: There were no differences between a nurse's demographic data before and after 2 years (P>0.05) and the nursing documentation score did not improve after a 2-year clinical governance program. CONCLUSION: Although some efforts were made to improve nursing documentation through clinical governance, these were not sufficient and more attempts are needed

Fast cellular automata implementation on graphic processor unit (GPU) for salt and pepper noise removal

Noise removal operation is commonly applied as pre-processing step before subsequent image processing tasks due to the occurrence of noise during acquisition or transmission process. A common problem in imaging systems by using CMOS or CCD sensors is appearance of the salt and pepper noise. This paper presents Cellular Automata (CA) framework for noise removal of distorted image by the salt and pepper noise. In order to enhance the performance of the designed CA for noise removal, a parallel programming approach has been adopted and implemented on GPU. The results obtained show that the proposed CA models implemented on general purpose processor and GPU are able to suppress noise in high noise intensity up to 90 percents. The proposed CA implemented on GPU has successfully outperformed the method implemented on CPU by factor of 2 for gray scale image and factor of 10 for color images

Teratogenic effects of carbamazepine on embryonic eye development in pregnant mice

Background: Carbamazepine is an antiepileptic drug used widely for the treatment of epileptic seizures and neuropathic pain. Several malformations in humans, mainly neural tube defects, have been reported as a consequence of its use during pregnancy. The association between maternal use of carbamazepine and congenital eye malformations is not very well understood. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine this association after intraperitoneal injection of carbamazepine during the period of organogenesis in mice. Methods: Balb/c timed-pregnant mice were divided into 4 experimental and control groups. Two experimental groups received daily intraperitoneal injections of 15mg/kg (group I) or 30mg/kg (group II) of carbamazepine on gestational days 6 to 15. Two control groups received normal saline or Tween 20 (polysorbate 20). Dams underwent Cesarean section on gestational day 18 and embryos were harvested. External examination for eye malformations, routine histological processing of malformed fetuses to study eye morphology, and skeletal staining were performed. Results: The mean weight and crown-rump of the fetuses in both experimental groups were significantly reduced compared with those of the control groups. Various malformations were detected such as brachygnathia, calvarial deformity, vertebral deformity, short tail, and brachydactyly. Premature opening of one or both eyes with mild to severe exophthalmos occurred in the 2 experimental groups. Deformed lens, retinal folds with undeveloped layers, and corneal folds with absence of surface epithelium were detected in both experimental groups. Conclusions: This study, to the best of our knowledge, showed for the first time that intraperitoneal administration of carbamazepine at clinically comparable doses during organogenesis can induce several eye malformations in mice. The implication of these results needs to be considered when carbamazepine is administered during human pregnancy. © 2010 Informa UK Ltd

Color Glass Condensate in Brane Models or Don't Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays Probe 1015eV10^{15}eV Scale ?

In a previous work hep-ph/0203165 we have studied propagation of relativistic particles in the bulk for some of most popular brane models. Constraints have been put on the parameter space of these models by calculating the time delay due to propagation in the bulk of particles created during the interaction of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays with protons in the terrestrial atmosphere. The question was however raised that probability of hard processes in which bulk modes can be produced is small and consequently, the tiny flux of UHECRs can not constrain brane models. Here we use Color Glass Condensate (CGC) model to show that effects of extra dimensions are visible not only in hard processes when the incoming particle hits a massive Kaluza-Klein mode but also through the modification of soft/semi-hard parton distribution. At classical level, for an observer in the CM frame of UHECR and atmospheric hadrons, color charge sources are contracted to a thin sheet with a width inversely proportional to the energy of the ultra energetic cosmic ray hadron and consequently they can see an extra dimension with comparable size. Due to QCD interaction a short life swarm of partons is produced in front of the sheet and its partons can penetrate to the extra-dimension bulk. This reduces the effective density of partons on the brane or in a classical view creates a delay in the arrival of the most energetic particles if they are reflected back due to the warping of the bulk. In CGC approximation the density of swarm at different distance from the classical sheet can be related and therefore it is possible (at least formally) to determine the relative fraction of partons in the bulk and on the brane at different scales. Results of this work are also relevant to the test of brane models in hadron colliders like LHC.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures. Text is modified to highlight the relation between the distribution gluons at high and low rapidity scales. v3: published versio

Application of internet and information technology in recruitment of safe blood donors.

The present study focuses on the role of information technology in blood safety policies. In order to reach to higher levels of blood safety we have to put our maximum force in the recruitment of safe blood donors via public education. Innovative use of mass media in recruitment of blood donors especially the youth and those of higher education level and disseminating the basic information about blood donation can be our success key. There is an urgent need to find new ways of recruiting blood donors rather than traditional methods of donor education. Effectiveness of internet based educational intervention in other disciplines of health has already been proven; however, few researches exist concerning internet application for online recruitment of safe blood donors. Finally, internet users' population and blood donors are similar in many aspects of their socio-demographic determinants and it is reasonable to deduce that online education and dissemination of knowledge of safe blood donation can be considered an efficient modus of recruitment of voluntary non-remunerated blood donors

Facial first impressions are not mandatory : A priming investigation

Made Open Access under the Elsevier agreementPeer reviewedPublisher PD

3D reconstruction for volume of interest in computed tomography laser mammography images

Computer assisted diagnosis systems (CADs) is now commonly used as a second opinion to help radiologists in image interpretation by emphasizing on the suspicious areas. Segmentation of region of interests in 2-dimensional (2D) or volume of interests in 3-dimensional (3D) images is a critical step in CAD systems. 3D image segmentation using 2D slices has been a keen of interest for research purpose. In this paper we propose to reconstruct a 3D form of volume of interests (VOIs) from a series of 2D images in computed tomography laser mammography (CTLM). In this paper, a 3D Fuzzy C-Means clustering have been implemented to reconstruct VOIs for breast cancer detection in CTLM images. To assess the accuracy of the extracted VOIs against ground truth, percentage error factor is used and produced error value of 10.72% in our dataset of 62 CTLM breast images collected among Malaysian participants

On the behaviour of single scale hard small xx processes in QCD near the black disc limit

We argue that at sufficiently small Bjorken $x$ where pQCD amplitude rapidly increases with energy and violates probability conservation the shadowing effects in the single-scale small $x$ hard QCD processes can be described by an effective quantum field theory of interacting quasiparticles. The quasiparticles are the perturbative QCD ladders. We find, within the WKB approximation, that the smallness of the QCD coupling constant ensures the hierarchy among many-quasiparticle interactions evaluated within physical vacuum and in particular, the dominance in the Lagrangian of the triple quasiparticle interaction. It is explained that the effective field theory considered near the perturbative QCD vacuum contains a tachyon relevant for the divergency of the perturbative QCD series at sufficiently small $x$. We solve the equations of motion of the effective field theory within the WKB approximation and find the physical vacuum and the transitions between the false (perturbative) and physical vacua. Classical solutions which dominate transitions between the false and physical vacua are kinks that cannot be decomposed into perturbative series over the powers of $\alpha_s$. These kinks lead to color inflation and the Bose-Einstein condensation of quasiparticles. The account of the quantum fluctuations around the WKB solution reveals the appearance of the "massless" particles-- "phonons". It is explained that "phonons" are relevant for the black disc behaviour of small $x$ processes, leading to a Froissart rise of the cross-section. The condensation of the ladders produces a color network occupying a "macroscopic" longitudinal volume. We discuss briefly the possible detection of new QCD effects.Comment: 24 pages, 1 Figure. References added, and several misprints eliminate