Improving the Deaf community's access to prostate and testicular cancer information: a survey study

BACKGROUND: Members of the Deaf community face communication barriers to accessing health information. To resolve these inequalities, educational programs must be designed in the appropriate format and language to meet their needs. METHODS: Deaf men (102) were surveyed before, immediately following, and two months after viewing a 52-minute prostate and testicular cancer video in American Sign Language (ASL) with open text captioning and voice overlay. To provide the Deaf community with information equivalent to that available to the hearing community, the video addressed two cancer topics in depth. While the inclusion of two cancer topics lengthened the video, it was anticipated to reduce redundancy and encourage men of diverse ages to learn in a supportive, culturally aligned environment while also covering more topics within the partnership's limited budget. Survey data were analyzed to evaluate the video's impact on viewers' pre- and post-intervention understanding of prostate and testicular cancers, as well as respondents' satisfaction with the video, exposure to and use of early detection services, and sources of cancer information. RESULTS: From baseline to immediately post-intervention, participants' overall knowledge increased significantly, and this gain was maintained at the two-month follow-up. Men of diverse ages were successfully recruited, and this worked effectively as a support group. However, combining two complex cancer topics, in depth, in one video appeared to make it more difficult for participants to retain as many relevant details specific to each cancer. Participants related that there was so much information that they would need to watch the video more than once to understand each topic fully. When surveyed about their best sources of health information, participants ranked doctors first and showed a preference for active rather than passive methods of learning. CONCLUSION: After viewing this ASL video, participants showed significant increases in cancer understanding, and the effects remained significant at the two-month follow-up. However, to achieve maximum learning in a single training session, only one topic should be covered in future educational videos

Active fixturing: literature review and future research directions

Fixtures are used to fixate, position and support workpieces and represent a crucial tool in manufacturing. Their performance determines the result of the whole manufacturing process of a product. There is a vast amount of research done on automatic fixture layout synthesis and optimisation and fixture design verification. Most of this work considers fixture mechanics to be static and the fixture elements to be passive. However, a new generation of fixtures has emerged that has actuated fixture elements for active control of the part–fixture system during manufacturing operations to increase the end product quality. This paper analyses the latest studies in the field of active fixture design and its relationship with flexible and reconfigurable fixturing systems. First, a brief introduction is given on the importance of research of fixturing systems. Secondly, the basics of workholding and fixture design are visited, after which the state-of-the-art in active fixturing and related concepts is presented. Fourthly, part–fixture dynamics and design strategies which take these into account are discussed. Fifthly, the control strategies used in active fixturing systems are examined. Finally, some final conclusions and prospective future research directions are presented

Trajectories of dementia-related cognitive decline in a large mental health records derived patient cohort

Background: Modeling trajectories of decline can help describe the variability in progression of cognitive impairment in dementia. Better characterisation of these trajectories has significant implications for understanding disease progression, trial design and care planning. Methods: Patients with at least three Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) scores recorded in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Electronic Health Records, UK were selected (N = 3441) to form a retrospective cohort. Trajectories of cognitive decline were identified through latent class growth analysis of longitudinal MMSE scores. Demographics, Health of Nation Outcome Scales and medications were compared across trajectories identified. Results: Four of the six trajectories showed increased rate of decline with lower baseline MMSE. Two trajectories had similar initial MMSE scores but different rates of decline. In the faster declining trajectory of the two, a higher incidence of both behavioral problems and sertraline prescription were present. Conclusions: We find suggestive evidence for association of behavioral problems and sertraline prescription with rate of decline. Further work is needed to determine whether trajectories replicate in other datasets

USE OF EPICS FOR HIGH-LEVEL CONTROL OF SNS CONVENTIONAL FACILITIES [1]

Abstract The SNS Project intends to integrate Conventional Facility Controls with its EPICS-based Accelerator and Target Control Systems. EPICS will therefore be used to provide distributed high-level access to all subsystems of the SNS conventional facilities, including cooling water towers, chilled water, deionized water, HVAC, waste processing, and power monitoring. EPICS will provide operator displays and high-level control for more than 1000 process variables. EPICS support will be provided by four IOCs using PowerPC-based VMEbus controllers. Low-level control will be provided by Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PLCs that will communicate among themselves using ControlNet and with EPICS using EtherNet/I

General guidelines for medically screening mixed population groups potentially exposed to nerve or vesicant agents

A number of state and local planners have requested guidance on screening protocols and have expressed interest in sampling body fluids from exposed or potentially exposed individuals as a means of estimating agent dose. These guidelines have been developed to provide a clear statement that could be used by state and local emergency response personnel in the event of a nerve or vesicant agent incident resulting in off-post contamination; maximum protection from harm is the goal. The assumption is that any population group so exposed would be heterogeneous for age, gender, reproductive status, and state of health

EWA learning in bilateral call markets

This paper is about learning in bilateral call markets. In these markets, a buyer and a seller are privately informed of their values and submit their bids anonymously. If the buyer’s bid is (weakly) more than the seller’s ask, they trade at the midpoint of their bids. Understanding learning in bilateral call markets serves as a foundation for studying learning in more complex market institutions such as posted offers and double auctions. It also forces a generalization of learning models developed for simpler games to environments in which learning contingent on one realized random variable, such as a buyer’s valuation in one trial. Similarity-based generalization is a natural way to extend what is learned locally, which is undoubtedly important when people learn in very complex environments (which has not been thoroughly explored experimentally)