394 research outputs found
Patient safety culture lives in departments and wards: Multilevel partitioning of variance in patient safety culture
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Aim of study was to document 1) that patient safety culture scores vary considerably by hospital department and ward, and 2) that much of the variation is across the lowest level organizational units: the wards. Setting of study: 500-bed Norwegian university hospital, September-December 2006.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data collected from 1400 staff by (the Norwegian version of) the generic version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ Short Form 2006). Multilevel analysis by MLwiN version 1.10.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Considerable parts of the score variations were at the ward and department levels. More organization level variation was seen at the ward level than at the department level.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Patient safety culture improvement efforts should not be limited to all-hospital interventions or interventions aimed at entire departments, but include involvement at the ward level, selectively aimed at low-scoring wards. Patient safety culture should be studied as closely to the patient as possible. There may be such a thing as "hospital safety culture" and the variance across hospital departments indicates the existence of department safety cultures. However, neglecting the study of patient safety culture at the ward level will mask important local variations. Safety culture research and improvement should not stop at the lowest formal level of the hospital (wards, out-patient clinics, ERs), but proceed to collect and analyze data on the micro-units within them.</p
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Paleoecology and evolutionary response of planktonic foraminifera to the mid-Pliocene Warm Period and Plio-Pleistocene bipolar ice sheet expansion
The Pliocene-Recent is associated with many important climatic and paleoceanographic changes, which have shaped the biotic and abiotic nature of the modern world. The closure of the Central American Seaway and the development and intensification of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets had profound global impacts on the latitudinal and vertical structure of the oceans, triggering the extinction and radiation of many marine groups. In particular, marine calcifying planktonic foraminifera, which are highly sensitive to water column structure, exhibited a series of extinctions as global temperatures fell. By analyzing high-resolution (∼ 5 kyr) sedimentary records from the Eastern Equatorial Pacific Ocean, complemented with global records from the novel Triton dataset, we document the biotic changes in this microfossil group, within which three species displayed isochronous co-extinction, and species with cold-water affinity increased in dominance as meridional temperature gradients steepened. We suggest that these changes were associated with the terminal stages of the closure of the Central American Seaway, where following the sustained warmth of the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, bipolar ice sheet expansion initiated a world in which cold- and deep-dwelling species became increasingly more successful. Such global-scale paleoecological and macroevolutionary variations between the Pliocene and the modern icehouse climate would suggest significant deviations from pre-industrial baselines within modern and future marine plankton communities as anthropogenic climate forcing continues
Proxy evidence for state-dependence of climate sensitivity in the Eocene greenhouse
Despite recent advances, the link between the evolution of atmospheric CO2 and climate during the Eocene greenhouse remains uncertain. In particular, modelling studies suggest that in order to achieve the global warmth that characterised the early Eocene, warmer climates must be more sensitive to CO2 forcing than colder climates. Here, we test this assertion in the geological record by combining a new high-resolution boron isotope-based CO2 record with novel estimates of Global Mean Temperature. We find that Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) was indeed higher during the warmest intervals of the Eocene, agreeing well with recent model simulations, and declined through the Eocene as global climate cooled. These observations indicate that the canonical IPCC range of ECS (1.5 to 4.5 °C per doubling) is unlikely to be appropriate for high-CO2 warm climates of the past, and the state dependency of ECS may play an increasingly important role in determining the state of future climate as the Earth continues to warm
Precision measurement of the top quark mass from dilepton events at CDF II
We report a measurement of the top quark mass, M_t, in the dilepton decay
channel of
using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of p\bar{p} collisions collected
with the CDF II detector. We apply a method that convolutes a leading-order
matrix element with detector resolution functions to form event-by-event
likelihoods; we have enhanced the leading-order description to describe the
effects of initial-state radiation. The joint likelihood is the product of the
likelihoods from 78 candidate events in this sample, which yields a measurement
of M_{t} = 164.5 \pm 3.9(\textrm{stat.}) \pm 3.9(\textrm{syst.})
\mathrm{GeV}/c^2, the most precise measurement of M_t in the dilepton channel.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, version includes changes made prior to
publication by journa
Measurement of the Ratios of Branching Fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) and B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi)
Using 355 pb^-1 of data collected by the CDF II detector in \ppbar collisions
at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron, we study the fully
reconstructed hadronic decays B -> D pi and B -> D pi pi pi. We present the
first measurement of the ratio of branching fractions B(Bs -> Ds pi pi pi) /
B(Bd -> Dd pi pi pi) = 1.05 pm 0.10 (stat) pm 0.22 (syst). We also update our
measurement of B(Bs -> Ds pi) / B(Bd -> Dd pi) to 1.13 pm 0.08 (stat) pm 0.23
(syst) improving the statistical uncertainty by more than a factor of two. We
find B(Bs -> Ds pi) = [3.8 pm 0.3 (stat) pm 1.3 (syst)] \times 10^{-3} and B(Bs
-> Ds pi pi pi) = [8.4 pm 0.8 (stat) pm 3.2 (syst)] \times 10^{-3}.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
Cross Section Measurements of High- Dilepton Final-State Processes Using a Global Fitting Method
We present a new method for studying high- dilepton events
(, , ) and simultaneously
extracting the production cross sections of , , and p\bar{p} \to \ztt at a center-of-mass energy of TeV. We perform a likelihood fit to the dilepton data in a parameter
space defined by the missing transverse energy and the number of jets in the
event. Our results, which use of data recorded with the CDF
II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, are pb, pb, and
\sigma(\ztt) =291^{+50}_{-46} pb.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, to be submitted to PRD-R
Top Quark Mass Measurement from Dilepton Events at CDF II with the Matrix-Element Method
We describe a measurement of the top quark mass using events with two charged
leptons collected by the CDF II detector from collisions with TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron. The likelihood in top mass is
calculated for each event by convoluting the leading order matrix element
describing
with detector resolution functions. The presence of background events in the
data sample is modeled using similar calculations involving the matrix elements
for major background processes. In a data sample with integrated luminosity of
340 pb, we observe 33 candidate events and measure This
measurement represents the first application of this method to events with two
charged leptons and is the most precise single measurement of the top quark
mass in this channel.Comment: 21 pages, 14 figure
Search for New Physics in Lepton + Photon + X Events with L=305 pb-1 of ppbar Collisions at roots=1.96 TeV
We present results of a search for anomalous production of events containing
a charged lepton (either electron or muon) and a photon, both with high
transverse momentum, accompanied by additional signatures, X, including missing
transverse energy (MET) and additional leptons and photons. We use the same
kinematic selection criteria as in a previous CDF search, but with a
substantially larger data set, 305 pb-1, a ppbar collision energy of 1.96 TeV,
and the upgraded CDF II detector. We find 42 Lepton+Photon+MET events versus a
standard model expectation of 37.3 +- 5.4 events. The level of excess observed
in Run I, 16 events with an expectation of 7.6 +- 0.7 events (corresponding to
a 2.7 sigma effect), is not supported by the new data. In the signature of
Multi-Lepton+Photon+X we observe 31 events versus an expectation of 23.0 +- 2.7
events. In this sample we find no events with an extra photon or MET and so
find no events like the one ee+gg+MET event observed in Run I.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted to PR
Measurement of the Lambda_b Lifetime in Lambda_b --> J/psi Lambda0 in p-pbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV
We report a measurement of the Lambda_b lifetime in the exclusive decay
Lambda_b --> J/psi Lambda0 in p-pbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV using an
integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb^{-1} of data collected by the CDF II detector
at the Fermilab Tevatron. Using fully reconstructed decays, we measure
tau(Lambda_b) = 1.593 ^{+0.083}_{-0.078} (stat.) +- 0.033 (syst.) ps. This is
the single most precise measurement of tau(Lambda_b) and is 3.2 sigma higher
than the current world average.Comment: 7 Pages, 2 Figures, 1 Table. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Observation of WZ Production
We report the first observation of the associated production of a W boson and
a Z boson. This result is based on 1.1 fb-1 of integrated luminosity from ppbar
collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the
Fermilab Tevatron. We observe 16 WZ candidates passing our event selection with
an expected background of 2.7 +/- 0.4 events. A fit to the missing transverse
energy distribution indicates an excess of events compared to the background
expectation corresponding to a significance equivalent to six standard
deviations. The measured cross section is sigma(ppbar -> WZ) =
5.0^{+1.8}_{-1.6} pb, consistent with the standard model expectation.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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