German evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of Psoriasis vulgaris (short version)

Psoriasis vulgaris is a common and chronic inflammatory skin disease which has the potential to significantly reduce the quality of life in severely affected patients. The incidence of psoriasis in Western industrialized countries ranges from 1.5 to 2%. Despite the large variety of treatment options available, patient surveys have revealed insufficient satisfaction with the efficacy of available treatments and a high rate of medication non-compliance. To optimize the treatment of psoriasis in Germany, the Deutsche Dermatologische Gesellschaft and the Berufsverband Deutscher Dermatologen (BVDD) have initiated a project to develop evidence-based guidelines for the management of psoriasis. The guidelines focus on induction therapy in cases of mild, moderate, and severe plaque-type psoriasis in adults. The short version of the guidelines reported here consist of a series of therapeutic recommendations that are based on a systematic literature search and subsequent discussion with experts in the field; they have been approved by a team of dermatology experts. In addition to the therapeutic recommendations provided in this short version, the full version of the guidelines includes information on contraindications, adverse events, drug interactions, practicality, and costs as well as detailed information on how best to apply the treatments described (for full version, please see Nast et al., JDDG, Suppl 2:S1–S126, 2006; or http://www.psoriasis-leitlinie.de)

Sacred Space, Deity's Face: 'Sattvicification' as a strategy to set up and maintain the Shree Raam Mandir in Wijchen as a sacred site

My main focus is on the idea of ritual purity as a quality held high in this particular non-brahmanic Hindu temple in the Netherlands. The process of 'sattvicification' may have similarities with generally recognized processes such as 'brahmanization', 'agamization', 'yogaization' and 'vedantaization', but something more is at stake here. I suggest that some factors in this process are the awareness of the Western gaze, and a deeply felt urge to create a truely sacred site after having been forced to make do with improvised places for so long

Burnout in Australian paramedics

Background: Burnout has consistently been identified as an issue in health professionals, with paramedics in particular frequently noted to have high burnout rates. Aims: The current study aimed to describe the prevalence of total work burnout in Australian paramedics and of three subcategories: personal, work-related and patient-related burnout. Methods: This cross-sectional online survey presented the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) to a national convenience sample (n=893) over a 5-week period from April–May 2015. The primary outcome was prevalence of total burnout (%). Secondary outcomes were prevalence of subgroups of burnout and predictive factors. Findings: More than half (55.9%) of respondents were determined to have total burnout at the time of completing the survey; 43.4% had patient-related burnout; 62.7% had work related burnout; and 69.1% had personal-related burnout. Females, metropolitan work location, and having worked for 15–19 years as a paramedic were all predictive of total burnout. Conclusions: The study showed high prevalence of total burnout among this sample of Australian paramedics

Student paramedic stigma towards people with mental illness : an international study

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Reflections and experiences of student paramedics undertaking international work-integrated learning placements

International work-integrated learning (WIL) is increasingly common in health-related programs in Australian universities. Paramedicine programs are beginning to explore international WIL in line with the globalization of paramedicine as a profession and the national higher education emphasis on outward bound learning experiences. Using qualitative methods, the present study reports the experiences of undergraduate paramedicine students undertaking inaugural WIL placements in either South Africa or New Zealand. The placements, of a 3-week duration, used a placement model that did not include an accompanying academic from the host institution. Key themes to emerge include appropriateness of WIL location, timing of international WIL within an undergraduate program, and the potential to be overwhelmed by the combination of an intense early clinical experience and demands of managing oneself on an unaccompanied placement experience. This research provides valuable information to assist development of international WIL programs in paramedicine courses and other clinical health disciplines

Student paramedic stigma towards people with mental illness : an international study

Objective: Stigma towards mental illness has been described in many health professions at the undergraduate level, but not in the discipline of paramedicine. The objective of this research was to describe levels of stigma towards people with mental illness as self-reported by undergraduate paramedicine students in Australia, Finland, New Zealand and South Africa. Design: Using a cross-sectional design, an online survey was administered consisting of a validated instrument measuring self-reported stigma levels. Setting: Four undergraduate paramedicine university programs in Australia, New Zealand, Finland and South Africa. Method: The Opening Minds Scale for Health Providers (OMS-HC) is a validated, 20-item instrument measuring self-reported stigma. The 20 OMS-HC items were summed and generalised linear models with log link and Poisson family were used to examine associated factors. Results: The overall level of self-reported stigma across students from all countries was 53, on a scale ranging from 20 (‘least stigmatised’) to 100 (‘most stigmatised’). Compared with the Australian cohort, total stigma scores increased significantly by 8% in New Zealand (p=0.01), 15% (p<0.001), and 18% in South Africa (p=0.002). Subscale analysis revealed high scores for social distance as a construct of stigma more broadly. Conclusion: The findings provide an important baseline that can be used by paramedicine programs to inform development of mental healthcare curricula seeking to reduce stigma during the formative undergraduate years of professional development. The findings can be applied in a teaching and learning setting as source material to stimulate discussion and promote student self-reflection in a range of teaching activities

Fast Hough Transform on GPUs : Exploration of Algorithm Trade-Offs

The Hough transform is a commonly used algorithm to detect lines and other features in images. It is robust to noise and occlusion, but has a large computational cost. This paper introduces two new implementations of the Hough transform for lines on a GPU. One focuses on minimizing processing time, while the other has an input-data independent processing time. Our results show that optimizing the GPU code for speed can achieve a speed-up over naive GPU code of about 10×. The implementation which focuses on processing speed is the faster one for most images, but the implementation which achieves a constant processing time is quicker for about 20% of the images. Fulltext Previe