20,176 research outputs found
General practitioner empathy, patient enablement, and patient-reported outcomes in primary care in an area of high socio-economic deprivation in Scotland - a pilot prospective study using structural equation modelling
<b>Objective</b> The aim of this pilot prospective study was to investigate the relationships between general practitioners (GPs) empathy, patient enablement, and patient-assessed outcomes in primary care consultations in an area of high socio-economic deprivation in Scotland.<p></p>
<b>Methods</b> This prospective study was carried out in a five-doctor practice in an area of high socio-economic deprivation in Scotland. Patientsâ views on the consultation were gathered using the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) Measure and the Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI). Changes in main complaint and well-being 1 month after the contact consultation were gathered from patients by postal questionnaire. The effect of GP empathy on patient enablement and prospective change in outcome was investigated using structural equation modelling.<p></p>
<b>Results</b> 323 patients completed the initial questionnaire at the contact consultation and of these 136 (42%) completed and returned the follow-up questionnaire at 1 month. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the construct validity of the CARE Measure, though omission of two of the six PEI items was required in order to reach an acceptable global data fit. The structural equation model revealed a direct positive relationship between GP empathy and patient enablement at contact consultation and a prospective relationship between patient enablement and changes in main complaint and well-being at 1 month.<p></p>
<b>Conclusion</b> In a high deprivation setting, GP empathy is associated with patient enablement at consultation, and enablement predicts patient-rated changes 1 month later. Further larger studies are desirable to confirm or refute these findings.<p></p>
<b>Practice implications</b> Ways of increasing GP empathy and patient enablement need to be established in order to maximise patient outcomes. Consultation length and relational continuity of care are known factors; the benefit of training and support for GPs needs to be further investigate
Laser-induzierte schnelle thermische Desorption von Festkörper-OberflÀchen
Absorption of a pulse of laser light in the surface region of a solid causes a fast temperature increase, followed, after the end of the laser pulse, by a rapid decrease to the base temperature. Experiments with a Nd laser (power 105â106 W/cm2, half width of the pulse 150 ”sec) showed that desorption of CO from a Pd surface reaches its maximum rate within the time constant of the system (⌠0.5 msec). This effect can be used for example to investigate the kinetics of adsorption/desorption processes by means of relaxation methods. © 1972, Walter de Gruyter. All rights reserved
Automatic structures, rational growth and geometrically finite hyperbolic groups
We show that the set of equivalence classes of synchronously
automatic structures on a geometrically finite hyperbolic group is dense in
the product of the sets over all maximal parabolic subgroups . The
set of equivalence classes of biautomatic structures on is
isomorphic to the product of the sets over the cusps (conjugacy
classes of maximal parabolic subgroups) of . Each maximal parabolic is a
virtually abelian group, so and were computed in ``Equivalent
automatic structures and their boundaries'' by M.Shapiro and W.Neumann, Intern.
J. of Alg. Comp. 2 (1992) We show that any geometrically finite hyperbolic
group has a generating set for which the full language of geodesics for is
regular. Moreover, the growth function of with respect to this generating
set is rational. We also determine which automatic structures on such a group
are equivalent to geodesic ones. Not all are, though all biautomatic structures
are.Comment: Plain Tex, 26 pages, no figure
Simple Max-Min Ant Systems and the Optimization of Linear Pseudo-Boolean Functions
With this paper, we contribute to the understanding of ant colony
optimization (ACO) algorithms by formally analyzing their runtime behavior. We
study simple MAX-MIN ant systems on the class of linear pseudo-Boolean
functions defined on binary strings of length 'n'. Our investigations point out
how the progress according to function values is stored in pheromone. We
provide a general upper bound of O((n^3 \log n)/ \rho) for two ACO variants on
all linear functions, where (\rho) determines the pheromone update strength.
Furthermore, we show improved bounds for two well-known linear pseudo-Boolean
functions called OneMax and BinVal and give additional insights using an
experimental study.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure
Enhanced spin accumulation at room temperature in graphene spin valves with amorphous carbon interfacial layers
We demonstrate a large enhancement of the spin accumulation in monolayer
graphene following electron-beam induced deposition of an amorphous carbon
layer at the ferromagnet-graphene interface. The enhancement is 10^4-fold when
graphene is deposited onto poly(methyl metacrylate) (PMMA) and exposed with
sufficient electron-beam dose to cross-link the PMMA, and 10^3-fold when
graphene is deposited directly onto SiO2 and exposed with identical dose. We
attribute the difference to a more efficient carbon deposition in the former
case due to an increase in the presence of compounds containing carbon, which
are released by the PMMA. The amorphous carbon interface can sustain very large
current densities without degrading, which leads to very large spin
accumulations exceeding 500 microeVs at room temperature
A Bell pair in a generic random matrix environment
Two non-interacting qubits are coupled to an environment. Both coupling and
environment are represented by random matrix ensembles. The initial state of
the pair is a Bell state, though we also consider arbitrary pure states.
Decoherence of the pair is evaluated analytically in terms of purity; Monte
Carlo calculations confirm these results and also yield the concurrence of the
pair. Entanglement within the pair accelerates decoherence. Numerics display
the relation between concurrence and purity known for Werner states, allowing
us to give a formula for concurrence decay.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
A Theory of Errors in Quantum Measurement
It is common to model random errors in a classical measurement by the normal
(Gaussian) distribution, because of the central limit theorem. In the quantum
theory, the analogous hypothesis is that the matrix elements of the error in an
observable are distributed normally. We obtain the probability distribution
this implies for the outcome of a measurement, exactly for the case of 2x2
matrices and in the steepest descent approximation in general. Due to the
phenomenon of `level repulsion', the probability distributions obtained are
quite different from the Gaussian.Comment: Based on talk at "Spacetime and Fundamental Interactions: Quantum
Aspects" A conference to honor A. P. Balachandran's 65th Birthda
3C 295, a cluster and its cooling flow at z=0.46
We present ROSAT HRI data of the distant and X-ray luminous (L_x(bol)=2.6^
{+0.4}_{-0.2} 10^{45}erg/sec) cluster of galaxies 3C 295. We fit both a
one-dimensional and a two-dimensional isothermal beta-model to the data, the
latter one taking into account the effects of the point spread function (PSF).
For the error analysis of the parameters of the two-dimensional model we
introduce a Monte-Carlo technique. Applying a substructure analysis, by
subtracting a cluster model from the data, we find no evidence for a merger,
but we see a decrement in emission South-East of the center of the cluster,
which might be due to absorption. We confirm previous results by Henry &
Henriksen(1986) that 3C 295 hosts a cooling flow. The equations for the simple
and idealized cooling flow analysis presented here are solely based on the
isothermal beta-model, which fits the data very well, including the center of
the cluster. We determine a cooling flow radius of 60-120kpc and mass accretion
rates of dot{M}=400-900 Msun/y, depending on the applied model and temperature
profile. We also investigate the effects of the ROSAT PSF on our estimate of
dot{M}, which tends to lead to a small overestimate of this quantity if not
taken into account. This increase of dot{M} (10-25%) can be explained by a
shallower gravitational potential inferred by the broader overall profile
caused by the PSF, which diminishes the efficiency of mass accretion. We also
determine the total mass of the cluster using the hydrostatic approach. At a
radius of 2.1 Mpc, we estimate the total mass of the cluster (M{tot}) to be
(9.2 +/- 2.7) 10^{14}Msun. For the gas to total mass ratio we get M{gas}/M{tot}
=0.17-0.31, in very good agreement with the results for other clusters of
galaxies, giving strong evidence for a low density universe.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
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