Could health information systems enhance the quality of Aboriginal health promotion? A retrospective audit of Aboriginal health programs in the Northern Territory of Australia.

BACKGROUND:In Australia, health services are seeking innovative ways to utilize data stored in health information systems to report on, and improve, health care quality and health system performance for Aboriginal Australians. However, there is little research about the use of health information systems in the context of Aboriginal health promotion. In 2008, the Northern Territory's publicly funded healthcare system introduced the quality improvement program planning system (QIPPS) as the centralized online system for recording information about health promotion programs. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential for utilizing data stored in QIPPS to report on quality of Aboriginal health promotion, using chronic disease prevention programs as exemplars. We identify the potential benefits and limitations of health information systems for enhancing Aboriginal health promotion. METHODS:A retrospective audit was undertaken on a sample of health promotion projects delivered between 2013 and 2016. A validated, paper-based audit tool was used to extract information stored in the QIPPS online system and report on Aboriginal health promotion quality. Simple frequency counts were calculated for dichotomous and categorical items. Text was extracted and thematically analyzed to describe community participation processes and strategies used in Aboriginal health promotion. RESULTS:39 Aboriginal health promotion projects were included in the analysis. 34/39 projects recorded information pertaining to the health promotion planning phases, such as statements of project goals, 'needs assessment' findings, and processes for consulting Aboriginal people in the community. Evaluation findings were reported in approximately one third of projects and mostly limited to a recording of numbers of participants. For almost half of the projects analyzed, community participation strategies were not recorded. CONCLUSION:This is the first Australian study to shed light on the feasibility of utilizing data stored in a purposefully designed health promotion information system. Data availability and quality were limiting factors for reporting on Aboriginal health promotion quality. Based on our learnings of QIPPS, strategies to improve the quality and accuracy of data entry together with the use of quality improvement approaches are needed to reap the potential benefits of future health promotion information systems

A magnetic model for the incommensurate I phase of spin-Peierls systems

A magnetic model is proposed for describing the incommensurate I phase of spin-Peierls systems. Based on the harmonicity of the lattice distortion, its main ingredient is that the distortion of the lattice adjusts to the average magnetization such that the system is always gapful. The presence of dynamical incommensurabilities in the fluctuation spectra is also predicted. Recent experimental results for CuGeO_3 obtained by NMR, ESR and light scattering absorption are well understood within this model.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, Latex with EPL style files all include

Quantum internal modes of solitons in 1d easy-plane antiferromagnet in strong magnetic field

In presence of a strong external magnetic field the dynamics of solitons in a one-dimensional easy-plane Heisenberg antiferromagnet exhibits a number of peculiarities. Dynamics of internal soliton degrees of freedom is essentially quantum, and they are strongly coupled to the "translational" mode of soliton movement. These peculiarities lead to considerable changes in the response functions of the system which can be detected experimentally.Comment: 8 pages, RevTeX, 6 figures, uses psfig.sty, submitted to PR

Tetramerisation of a frustrated spin-1/2 chain

We investigate a model of a frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain coupled to adiabatic phonons with a general form of magnetoelastic coupling. For large enough frustration and lattice coupling a new tetramerised phase with three different bond lengths is found. We argue that the zig-zag spin-1/2 chain LiV$_2$O$_5$ might be a good candidate to observe such a phase

The spin-Peierls instability in spin 1/2 XY chain in the non adiabatic limit

The spin-Peierls instability in spin 1/2 XY chain coupled to dispersionless phonons of frequency $\omega$ has been studied in the nonadiabatic limit. We have chosen the Lang-Firsov variational wave function for the phonon subsystem to obtain an effective spin Hamiltonian. The effective spin Hamiltonian is then solved in the framework of mean-field approximation. We observed a dimerized phase when g is less than a critical value and an anti-ferromagnetic phase when it is greater than a critical value . The variation of lattice distortion, dimerized order parameter and energy gap with spin phonon coupling parameter has also been investigated here.Comment: 15 pages (Revtex, including 5 .ps figures); Submitted to PR

Possible Localized Modes in the Uniform Quantum Heisenberg Chains of Sr2CuO3

A model of mobile-bond defects is tentatively proposed to analyze the "anomalies" observed on the NMR spectrum of the quantum Heisenberg chains of Sr2CuO3. A bond-defect is a local change in the exchange coupling. It results in a local alternating magnetization (LAM), which when the defect moves, creates a flipping process of the local field seen by each nuclear spin. At low temperature, when the overlap of the LAM becomes large, the defects form a periodic structure, which extends over almost all the chains. In that regime, the density of bond-defects decreases linearly with T.Comment: 4 pages + 3 figures. To appear in Physical Review

How to obtain lattices from (f,σ,δ)-codes via a generalization of Construction A

We show how cyclic (f,σ,δ)-codes over finite rings canonically induce a Z-lattice in RN by using certain quotients of orders in nonassociative division algebras defined using the skew polynomial f. This construction generalizes the one using certain σ-constacyclic codes by Ducoat and Oggier, which used quotients of orders in non-commutative associative division algebras defined by f, and can be viewed as a generalization of the classical Construction A for lattices from linear codes. It has the potential to be applied to coset coding, in particular to wire-tap coding. Previous results by Ducoat and Oggier are obtained as special cases

Inotropic effect of nicardipine in patients with heart failure: Assessment by left ventricular end-systolic pressure-volume analysis

AbstractNicardipine, a new dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker, has been investigated for the treatment of coronary artery disease and heart failure. To assess the inotropic effect of nicardipine in humans independent of its vasodilator effect, equihypotensive doses of intravenous nitroprusside (mean infusion rate 65 ± 13 μg/min) and nicardipine (mean dose 5.2 ± 0.4 mg) were administered to 15 patients with heart failure (New York Heart Association functional classes II to IV, radionuclide left ventricular ejection fraction 0.15 ± 0.02). Left ventricular micromanometer pressure and simultaneous radionuclide left ventricular volume were obtained at baseline, during nitroprusside infusion, during a second baseline period and during nicardipine infusion.Heart rate did not change significantly with either nitroprusside or nicardipine. Mean systemic arterial pressure decreased by an average of 21 mm Hg with both drugs. A greater decrease in left ventricular end-diastolic pressure occurred with nitroprusside (27 ± 2 to 14 ± 2 mm Hg, p < 0.01) than with nicardipine (27 ± 2 to 23 ± 3 mm Hg, p < 0.05), and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure decreased significantly only with nitroprusside. Cardiac index increased from 1.8 ± 0.1 to 2.1 ± 0.1 liters/min per m2(p < 0.05) with nitroprusside and to a greater extent from 1.7 ± 0.1 to 2.4 ± 0.1 liters/min per m2(p < 0.01) with nicardipine. Left ventricular ejection fraction increased with nicardipine (0.15 ± 0.01 to 0.19 ± 0.01, p < 0.01), but not with nitroprusside.Peak positive first derivative of left ventricular pressure (dP/dt) decreased by 9% with both agents. Left ventricular pressure-volume loops were constructed for 14 patients. In 12 patients, the left ventricular end-systolic pressure-volume relation was shifted rightward with nicardipine, indicating a negative inotropic effect, with no shift in the remaining 2 patients.Thus, nicardipine has a negative inotropic effect in patients with heart failure. Despite this effect, left ventricular ejection fraction and cardiac index increased with nicardipine. This overall improvement in ventricular systolic performance was due to a reduction in afterload

Spin-Peierls instability in a quantum spin chain with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

We analysed the ground state energy of some dimerized spin-1/2 transverse XX and Heisenberg chains with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction to study the influence of the latter interaction on the spin-Peierls instability. We found that DM interaction may act either in favour of the dimerization or against it. The actual result depends on the dependence of DM interaction on the distortion amplitude in comparison with such dependence for the isotropic exchange interaction.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 3 figure

Diffusion of hydrogen in crystalline silicon

The coefficient of diffusion of hydrogen in crystalline silicon is calculated using tight-binding molecular dynamics. Our results are in good quantitative agreement with an earlier study by Panzarini and Colombo [Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 1636 (1994)]. However, while our calculations indicate that long jumps dominate over single hops at high temperatures, no abrupt change in the diffusion coefficient can be observed with decreasing temperature. The (classical) Arrhenius diffusion parameters, as a consequence, should extrapolate to low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, including 5 postscript figures; submitted to Phys. Rev. B Brief Repor