73 research outputs found
Panel 7 Paradoxes in Alternative Work Arrangements
This panel will present and debate various paradoxes surrounding the implementation of Alternative Work Arrangements (AWA). AWA includes such topics as telecommuting, remote work, telecenters, and other conceptions of the virtual office. This is an especially relevant topic to the ICIS theme, Networking and Electronic Communities, because the nature of alternative work arrangements requires organizations to rethink the fundamental ways individuals in their communities work, both alone and in groups. The AWA perspective assumes that technologies will not eliminate jobs, but will facilitate the transformation of traditional work arrangements by allowing flexibility in “when” and “where” work is done. The impact on the nature of work, workers, work groups, businesses and home life are all relevant to a debate about AWA
Process for extracting ethanol from fermentation broths for direct blending into gasoline while preserving the broth for recycling
Describes a method of producing ethanol from a fermentation source for direct blending into gasoline to form gasohol by extracting ethanol from the fermentation broth with a non-toxic solvent compatible with gasoline. The invention includes extraction outside of the fermentor and the recycling of the extracted broth back to the fermentor. An extracting column is used for the extraction and recycling and the extract can be dried before blending it with the gasoline. The preferred solvent is an alkylate
Creating Bridges of Interprofessional Education: Opportunities for Collaborating Across Multiple Disciplines and Campuses
Introduction and Purpose: The purpose of this special interest report is to discuss strategies used by to integrate simulation activities across multiple campuses and programs to foster inter- and intra-professional education. Inter-professional (IP) simulations were done between multiple campuses of a large scale, multi-state, health science university. These simulations utilized Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD), Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), and Master of Science Speech/Language Pathology (MS-SLP) students and faculty. IP simulations involved DPT students and faculty from the health sciences university in one state and physical therapist assistant (PTA) students and faculty from a different university in that same state.
Summary of Use and Results: When IP learning opportunities are designed into health science curricula, it can enhance knowledge, skills, and attitudes to prepare future clinicians to work as part of a collaborative practice-ready workforce. Students participating in IP activities identified themselves having more competence and sense of salience with IP interactions. Valuable student learning occurs when students are armed with attitudes and knowledge of IP collaboration. Moving forward from these experiences, students can progress in IP activities that further translate into enhanced competencies and develop IP technical skills.
Importance to Members: Integrating inter- and intra- professional education in clinical and academic settings has the potential to improve behaviors amongst team players promoting improved patient safety and patient outcomes. However, there continues to be a need for research demonstrating the efficacy of IPE and its impact on student and clinician learning and the effects on patient outcomes.
IPE Simulation Opportunity 1: IP Collaboration of OT and PT Students:
Within the first two weeks of beginning our OT and PT program, students are introduced to an interdisciplinary simulation experience to anchor emerging skills to basic concepts of patient care. The experience is simple and intimate, but organically creates open discussion much deeper than a lab activity involving students partnering with other students to practice learned therapeutic interventions and procedures. The experience is set up with a simulated patient prompted to ask the students questions such as “What is the difference between OT and PT?” Student observers watch as their fellow classmates in the simulation hot seat have to problem solve within a natural hospital environment. The experience brings to light the social components involved in the usually rehearsed informed consent, environmental barriers such as bed rails and tray tables, interprofessional communication with the other discipline with a patient present, and interpretation of vital assessments in patient friendly language. The class debriefs after the simulation to observations, perspectives, and insights. This initial simulation provides an initial experience bridging academia to real-world clinical practice.
IPE Simulation Opportunity 2: Intgraprofessional Collaboration of PT and PTA Students
Three short simulations were conducted with a group of DPT students and a group of PTA students. The first simulation was of PTA and DPT students reviewing a medical record together and planning for a treatment session on a complex neuro case with a recent history of seizures, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and craniotomy. They had a simulated Clinical Instructor (CI) to guide them. The second simulation involved mobilizing this patient in an EVA walker with multiple lines and tubes with the patient’s mother present with CI guidance as needed. The third simulation involved responding to the patient having a seizure with the mother present and then a debriefing with their CI on the session using the Clinical Performance Indicators (CPI) to guide the discussion.
IPE Simulation Opportunity 3: Interprofessional Collaboration of OT, PT, and SLP
During SLP program development, IPEC core competencies were mapped to the clinical curriculum and activities developed for OT, PT, and SLP students’ IPE experiences. The activities designed by an IPE faculty team included simulation case scenarios experienced by students each trimester. The case scenarios vary in complexity across IPEC competencies and sub-competencies. For each case scenario simulation, an SLP, PT, and OT student volunteer to act out the improvised scenario, with one or two other students acting as patients, caregivers, or other team members. The rest of the participants observe the scenario and upon completion, all students (actors and observers) participate in a debriefing, which includes reactions, observations, reflections, and discussion. The debrief sessions are structured using the General Interprofessional Debriefing Questions Facilitator Guide to ensure IPEC core competencies were addressed in the simulation. Student feedback is positive with general requests to offer additional experiences.
Conclusions: It is important for future research to explore the validity, reliability, and efficacy of IP learning activities to develop best-practices in IPE. This will help clinicians and educators in customizing their needs to meet patient outcomes, accreditation standards, programmatic goals, and institutional goals in their respective programs and settings
The Arab League Boycott and WTO Accession: Can Foreign Policy Excuse Discriminatory Sanctions?
2011 Report of NSF Workshop Series on Scientific Software Security Innovation Institute
Over the period of 2010-2011, a series of two workshops were held in response to NSF Dear Colleague Letter NSF 10-050 calling for exploratory workshops to consider requirements for Scientific Software Innovation Institutes (S2I2s). The specific topic of the workshop series was the potential benefits of a security-focused software institute that would serve the entire NSF research and development community.
The first workshop was held on August 6th, 2010 in Arlington, VA and represented an initial exploration of the topic. The second workshop was held on October 26th, 2011 in Chicago, IL and its goals were to 1) Extend our understanding of relevant needs of MREFC and large NSF Projects, 2) refine outcome from first workshop with broader community input, and 3) vet concepts for a trusted cyberinfrastructure institute. Towards those goals, the participants other 2011workshop included greater representation from MREFC and large NSF projects, and, for the most part, did not overlap with the participants from the 2010 workshop.
A highlight of the second workshop was, at the invitation of the organizers, a presentation by Scott Koranda of the LIGO project on the history of LIGO’s identity management activities and how those could have benefited from a security institute. A key analysis he presented is that, by his estimation, LIGO could have saved 2 senior FTE-years of effort by following suitable expert guidance had it existed.
The overarching finding from the workshops is that security is a critical crosscutting issue for the NSF software infrastructure and recommended a security focused activity to address this issue broadly, for example a security software institute (S2I2) under the SI2 program. Additionally, the 2010 workshop participants agreed to 15 key additional findings, which the 2011 workshop confirmed, with some refinement as discussed in this report.NSF Grant # 1043843Ope
Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial
Background
Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy
Web-based alcohol screening and brief intervention for Māori and non-Māori: the New Zealand e-SBINZ trials
BACKGROUND: Hazardous alcohol consumption is a leading modifiable cause of mortality and morbidity among young people. Screening and brief intervention (SBI) is a key strategy to reduce alcohol-related harm in the community, and web-based approaches (e-SBI) have advantages over practitioner-delivered approaches, being cheaper, more acceptable, administrable remotely and infinitely scalable. An efficacy trial in a university population showed a 10-minute intervention could reduce drinking by 11% for 6 months or more among 17-24 year-old undergraduate hazardous drinkers. The e-SBINZ study is designed to examine the effectiveness of e-SBI across a range of universities and among Māori and non-Māori students in New Zealand. METHODS/DESIGN: The e-SBINZ study comprises two parallel, double blind, multi-site, individually randomised controlled trials. This paper outlines the background and design of the trial, which is recruiting 17-24 year-old students from seven of New Zealand's eight universities. Māori and non-Māori students are being sampled separately and are invited by e-mail to complete a web questionnaire including the AUDIT-C. Those who score >4 will be randomly allocated to no further contact until follow-up (control) or to assessment and personalised feedback (intervention) via computer. Follow-up assessment will occur 5 months later in second semester. Recruitment, consent, randomisation, intervention and follow-up are all online. Primary outcomes are (i) total alcohol consumption, (ii) frequency of drinking, (iii) amount consumed per typical drinking occasion, (iv) the proportions exceeding medical guidelines for acute and chronic harm, and (v) scores on an academic problems scale. DISCUSSION: The trial will provide information on the effectiveness of e-SBI in reducing hazardous alcohol consumption across diverse university student populations with separate effect estimates for Māori and non-Māori students. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) ACTRN12610000279022
Adult Consequences of Late Adolescent Alcohol Consumption: A Systematic Review of Cohort Studies
In a systematic review of cohort studies of adolescent drinking and later outcomes, Jim McCambridge and colleagues show that although studies suggest links to worse adult physical and mental health and social consequences, existing evidence is of poor quality
Effects of antiplatelet therapy after stroke due to intracerebral haemorrhage (RESTART): a randomised, open-label trial
Background:
Antiplatelet therapy reduces the risk of major vascular events for people with occlusive vascular disease, although it might increase the risk of intracranial haemorrhage. Patients surviving the commonest subtype of intracranial haemorrhage, intracerebral haemorrhage, are at risk of both haemorrhagic and occlusive vascular events, but whether antiplatelet therapy can be used safely is unclear. We aimed to estimate the relative and absolute effects of antiplatelet therapy on recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage and whether this risk might exceed any reduction of occlusive vascular events.
Methods:
The REstart or STop Antithrombotics Randomised Trial (RESTART) was a prospective, randomised, open-label, blinded endpoint, parallel-group trial at 122 hospitals in the UK. We recruited adults (≥18 years) who were taking antithrombotic (antiplatelet or anticoagulant) therapy for the prevention of occlusive vascular disease when they developed intracerebral haemorrhage, discontinued antithrombotic therapy, and survived for 24 h. Computerised randomisation incorporating minimisation allocated participants (1:1) to start or avoid antiplatelet therapy. We followed participants for the primary outcome (recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage) for up to 5 years. We analysed data from all randomised participants using Cox proportional hazards regression, adjusted for minimisation covariates. This trial is registered with ISRCTN (number ISRCTN71907627).
Findings:
Between May 22, 2013, and May 31, 2018, 537 participants were recruited a median of 76 days (IQR 29–146) after intracerebral haemorrhage onset: 268 were assigned to start and 269 (one withdrew) to avoid antiplatelet therapy. Participants were followed for a median of 2·0 years (IQR [1·0– 3·0]; completeness 99·3%). 12 (4%) of 268 participants allocated to antiplatelet therapy had recurrence of intracerebral haemorrhage compared with 23 (9%) of 268 participants allocated to avoid antiplatelet therapy (adjusted hazard ratio 0·51 [95% CI 0·25–1·03]; p=0·060). 18 (7%) participants allocated to antiplatelet therapy experienced major haemorrhagic events compared with 25 (9%) participants allocated to avoid antiplatelet therapy (0·71 [0·39–1·30]; p=0·27), and 39 [15%] participants allocated to antiplatelet therapy had major occlusive vascular events compared with 38 [14%] allocated to avoid antiplatelet therapy (1·02 [0·65–1·60]; p=0·92).
Interpretation:
These results exclude all but a very modest increase in the risk of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage with antiplatelet therapy for patients on antithrombotic therapy for the prevention of occlusive vascular disease when they developed intracerebral haemorrhage. The risk of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage is probably too small to exceed the established benefits of antiplatelet therapy for secondary prevention
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