55 research outputs found
A feasibility study of signed consent for the collection of patient identifiable information for a national paediatric clinical audit database
Objectives: To investigate the feasibility of obtaining signed consent
for submission of patient identifiable data to a national clinical
audit database and to identify factors influencing the consent process
and its success.
Design: Feasibility study.
Setting: Seven paediatric intensive care units in England.
Participants: Parents/guardians of patients, or patients aged 12-16
years old, approached consecutively over three months for signed
consent for submission of patient identifiable data to the national
clinical audit database the Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network
(PICANet).
Main outcome measures: The numbers and proportions of admissions for
which signed consent was given, refused, or not obtained (form not
returned or form partially completed but not signed), by age, sex,
level of deprivation, ethnicity (South Asian or not), paediatric index
of mortality score, length of hospital stay (days in paediatric
intensive care).
Results: One unit did not start and one did not fully implement the
protocol, so analysis excluded these two units. Consent was obtained
for 182 of 422 admissions (43%) (range by unit 9% to 84%). Most
(101/182; 55%) consents were taken by staff nurses. One refusal (0.2%)
was received. Consent rates were significantly better for children who
were more severely ill on admission and for hospital stays of six days
or more, and significantly poorer for children aged 10-14 years. Long
hospital stays and children aged 10-14 years remained significant in a
stepwise regression model of the factors that were significant in the
univariate model.
Conclusion: Systematically obtaining individual signed consent for
sharing patient identifiable information with an externally located
clinical audit database is difficult. Obtaining such consent is
unlikely to be successful unless additional resources are specifically
allocated to training, staff time, and administrative support
Utah Gender Wage Gap: A 2021 Update
The gender wage gap is the difference between what women and men earn for performing full-time, year-round paid work. Nationally, women earn 16–18% less than men. Although the gap has substantially narrowed from 41% when the Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963, varying reports estimate that, depending on the rate of change, it may take anywhere from 40 to 130 years to close the gap. Estimates suggest that over a 40-year career, the wage gap can amount to a lifetime earnings deficit of 800k. In Utah, women earn approximately 30% less than men, ranking close to last in most state comparisons, which is consistent with what we reported in 2017. With approximately 60% of women over age 16 participating in the labor force, this topic is highly relevant for Utah. Closing the gender wage gap will strengthen economic stability and prosperity for families, communities, and the state. This research snapshot, an update from a 2017 report, focuses on three main areas
Nucleation at the phase transition near 40 C in MnAs nanodisks
The phase transition near 40 C of both as grown thin epitaxial MnAs films prepared by molecular beam epitaxy on GaAs 001 and nanometer scale disks fabricated from the same films is studied. The disks are found to exhibit a pronounced hysteresis in the temperature curve of the phase composition. In contrast, supercooling and overheating take place far less in the samples of continuous layers. These phenomena are explained in terms of the necessary formation of nuclei of the other phase in each of the disks independent from each other. The influence of the elastic strains in the disks is reduced considerabl
Exchange bias in GeMn nanocolumns: the role of surface oxidation
We report on the exchange biasing of self-assembled ferromagnetic GeMn
nanocolumns by GeMn-oxide caps. The x-ray absorption spectroscopy analysis of
this surface oxide shows a multiplet fine structure that is typical of the Mn2+
valence state in MnO. A magnetization hysteresis shift |HE|~100 Oe and a
coercivity enhancement of about 70 Oe have been obtained upon cooling (300-5 K)
in a magnetic field as low as 0.25 T. This exchange bias is attributed to the
interface coupling between the ferromagnetic nanocolumns and the
antiferromagnetic MnO-like caps. The effect enhancement is achieved by
depositing a MnO layer on the GeMn nanocolumns.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Facilities for macromolecular crystallography at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin
Three macromolecular crystallography MX beamlines at the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin HZB are available for the regional, national and international structural biology user community. The state of the art synchrotron beamlines for MX BL14.1, BL14.2 and BL14.3 are located within the low section of the BESSY II electron storage ring. All beamlines are fed from a superconducting 7 T wavelength shifter insertion device. BL14.1 and BL14.2 are energy tunable in the range 5 16 keV, while BL14.3 is a fixed energy side station operated at 13.8 keV. All three beamlines are equipped with CCD detectors. BL14.1 and BL14.2 are in regular user operation providing about 200 beam days per year and about 600 user shifts to approximately 50 research groups across Europe. BL14.3 has initially been used as a test facility and was brought into regular user mode operation during the year 2010. BL14.1 has recently been upgraded with a microdiffractometer including a mini k goniometer and an automated sample changer. Additional user facilities include office space adjacent to the beamlines, a sample preparation laboratory, a biology laboratory safety level 1 and high end computing resources. In this article the instrumentation of the beamlines is described, and a summary of the experimental possibilities of the beamlines and the provided ancillary equipment for the user community is give
Bridging the Divide Between Iterative Optical Polishing and Automation
Several recent business reports have described the global growth in demand for optical and photonic components, paralleled by technical reports on the growing shortage of skilled manufacturing staf to meet this demand. It is remarkable that producing ultraprecision surfaces remains so dependent on people, in contrast to other sectors of the economy, e.g., car manufacturing. Clearly, training can play some role, but ultimately, only process automation can provide the solution. This paper explores why automation is a challenge and summarizes multidisciplinary work aiming to assemble the building blocks required to realize automation
“Supposing that truth is a woman, what then?” The Lie Detector, The Love Machine and the Logic of Fantasy
One of the consequences of the public outcry over the 1929 St Valentine’s Day massacre was the establishment of a Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory at Northwestern University. The photogenic “Lie Detector Man”, Leonarde Keeler, was the Laboratory’s poster boy and his instrument the jewel in the crown of forensic science. The press often depicted Keeler gazing at a female suspect attached to his “sweat box”; a galvanometer electrode in her hand, a sphygmomanometer cuff on her arm and a rubber pneumograph tube strapped across her breasts. Keeler’s fascination with the deceptive charms of the female body was one he shared with his fellow lie detector pioneers, all of whom met their wives – and in William Marston’s case his mistress too – through their engagement with the instrument. Marston employed his own “Love Meter”, as the press dubbed it, to prove that “brunettes react far more violently to amatory stimuli than blondes”. In this paper I draw on the psychoanalytic concepts of fantasy and pleasure to argue that the female body played a pivotal role in establishing the lie detector’s reputation as an infallible and benign mechanical technology of truth
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