781 research outputs found
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Service quality in alcohol treatment: a qualitative study
The objective of the study was to qualitatively evaluate the managerial and organisational issues associated with service quality in a privately funded alcohol treatment centre in the UK. Two different groups of participants at a private treatment clinic were interviewed. The first group comprised 25 of its patients. The second group comprised 15 staff members of the same clinic. All 40 interviews were transcribed and a thematic analysis was performed on the data to reveal the key themes. Six themes emerged from the interviews amongst patients and staff of the treatment clinic. The six themes were: (1) the fellowship of patients, (2) professionalism, (3) process and measurement, (4) incarceration, (5) empathy gap, and (6) access to treatment. Findings suggested there was a strong emphasis on management of the service delivery with established quality systems and performance measurement systems in place. The two service quality gaps, suggested by the research, were the rigid delivery of service and a lack of empathetic relationships with patients. Furthermore, by evaluating the service quality delivery from the service user’s perspective, a voice was given to a group of patients, who in research terms have gone largely unheard
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Delivering service quality in alcohol treatment: a qualitative comparison of public and private treatment centres by service users and service providers
In the UK, quality of care has now been placed at the centre of the National Health Service (NHS) modernisation programme. To date, there has been little research on the service quality delivery of alcohol treatment services from the perspective of both the service user and service provider. Therefore, this qualitative study explored the perceptions of healthcare service delivery among problem drinkers and alcohol treatment service providers in both an NHS service and a private clinic (n=70). The NHS sample comprised 17 patients and 13 members of the healthcare team. The private clinic sample comprised 25 patients and 15 members of staff. Thematic analysis revealed four key themes: (1) how service quality delivery is defined; (2) funding of services; (3) choice in alcohol treatment services; and (4) processes and measurements of service delivery. The main factors influencing the service expectations of problem drinkers were their personal need for treatment and past experience of services. An additional factor that emerged from the study was the range and level of services that problem drinker can access creating a ‘revolving door’ practice. Implications arising from this study are also discussed
Marketing in SMEs: a '4Ps' self-branding model
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which traditional marketing theory and practice can be applied in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and consider how owner-managers perceive their own role in marketing within a small business setting. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative exploratory approach using semi-structured in-depth interviews amongst owner-managers of SMEs in the UK. Findings – SME marketing is effective in that it embraces some relevant concepts of traditional marketing, tailors activities to match its customers and adds its own unique attribute of self-branding as bestowed by the SME owner-manager. Research limitations/implications – The study was limited to the UK and to a small sample of SMEs and as such the findings are not necessarily generalisable. Originality/value – A “4Ps” model for SME self-branding is proposed, which encompasses the attributes of personal branding, (co)production, perseverance and practice
Estimation of conditional laws given an extreme component
Let be a bivariate random vector. The estimation of a probability of
the form is challenging when is large, and a
fruitful approach consists in studying, if it exists, the limiting conditional
distribution of the random vector , suitably normalized, given that
is large. There already exists a wide literature on bivariate models for which
this limiting distribution exists. In this paper, a statistical analysis of
this problem is done. Estimators of the limiting distribution (which is assumed
to exist) and the normalizing functions are provided, as well as an estimator
of the conditional quantile function when the conditioning event is extreme.
Consistency of the estimators is proved and a functional central limit theorem
for the estimator of the limiting distribution is obtained. The small sample
behavior of the estimator of the conditional quantile function is illustrated
through simulations.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figur
Linear Estimation of Location and Scale Parameters Using Partial Maxima
Consider an i.i.d. sample X^*_1,X^*_2,...,X^*_n from a location-scale family,
and assume that the only available observations consist of the partial maxima
(or minima)sequence, X^*_{1:1},X^*_{2:2},...,X^*_{n:n}, where
X^*_{j:j}=max{X^*_1,...,X^*_j}. This kind of truncation appears in several
circumstances, including best performances in athletics events. In the case of
partial maxima, the form of the BLUEs (best linear unbiased estimators) is
quite similar to the form of the well-known Lloyd's (1952, Least-squares
estimation of location and scale parameters using order statistics, Biometrika,
vol. 39, pp. 88-95) BLUEs, based on (the sufficient sample of) order
statistics, but, in contrast to the classical case, their consistency is no
longer obvious. The present paper is mainly concerned with the scale parameter,
showing that the variance of the partial maxima BLUE is at most of order
O(1/log n), for a wide class of distributions.Comment: This article is devoted to the memory of my six-years-old, little
daughter, Dionyssia, who leaved us on August 25, 2010, at Cephalonia isl. (26
pages, to appear in Metrika
How are falls and fear of falling associated with objectively measured physical activity in a cohort of community-dwelling older men?
BACKGROUND: Falls affect approximately one third of community-dwelling older adults each year and have serious health and social consequences. Fear of falling (FOF) (lack of confidence in maintaining balance during normal activities) affects many older adults, irrespective of whether they have actually experienced falls. Both falls and fear of falls may result in restrictions of physical activity, which in turn have health consequences. To date the relation between (i) falls and (ii) fear of falling with physical activity have not been investigated using objectively measured activity data which permits examination of different intensities of activity and sedentary behaviour.
METHODS: Cross-sectional study of 1680 men aged 71-92 years recruited from primary care practices who were part of an on-going population-based cohort. Men reported falls history in previous 12 months, FOF, health status and demographic characteristics. Men wore a GT3x accelerometer over the hip for 7 days.
RESULTS: Among the 12% of men who had recurrent falls, daily activity levels were lower than among non-fallers; 942 (95% CI 503, 1381) fewer steps/day, 12(95% CI 2, 22) minutes less in light activity, 10(95% CI 5, 15) minutes less in moderate to vigorous PA [MVPA] and 22(95% CI 9, 35) minutes more in sedentary behaviour. 16% (n = 254) of men reported FOF, of whom 52% (n = 133) had fallen in the past year. Physical activity deficits were even greater in the men who reported that they were fearful of falling than in men who had fallen. Men who were fearful of falling took 1766(95% CI 1391, 2142) fewer steps/day than men who were not fearful, and spent 27(95% CI 18, 36) minutes less in light PA, 18(95% CI 13, 22) minutes less in MVPA, and 45(95% CI 34, 56) minutes more in sedentary behaviour. The significant differences in activity levels between (i) fallers and non-fallers and (ii) men who were fearful of falling or not fearful, were mediated by similar variables; lower exercise self-efficacy, fewer excursions from home and more mobility difficulties.
CONCLUSIONS: Falls and in particular fear of falling are important barriers to older people gaining health benefits of walking and MVPA. Future studies should assess the longitudinal associations between falls and physical activity
Longitudinal grey and white matter changes in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease
Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia are characterised by progressive brain atrophy. Longitudinal MRI volumetry may help to characterise ongoing structural degeneration and support the differential diagnosis of dementia subtypes. Automated, observer-independent atlas-based MRI volumetry was applied to analyse 102 MRI data sets from 15 bvFTD, 14 AD, and 10 healthy elderly control participants with consecutive scans over at least 12 months. Anatomically defined targets were chosen a priori as brain structures of interest. Groups were compared regarding volumes at clinic presentation and annual change rates. Baseline volumes, especially of grey matter compartments, were significantly reduced in bvFTD and AD patients. Grey matter volumes of the caudate and the gyrus rectus were significantly smaller in bvFTD than AD. The bvFTD group could be separated from AD on the basis of caudate volume with high accuracy (79% cases correct). Annual volume decline was markedly larger in bvFTD and AD than controls, predominantly in white matter of temporal structures. Decline in grey matter volume of the lateral orbitofrontal gyrus separated bvFTD from AD and controls. Automated longitudinal MRI volumetry discriminates bvFTD from AD. In particular, greater reduction of orbitofrontal grey matter and temporal white matter structures after 12 months is indicative of bvFTD
Sampling-based Algorithms for Optimal Motion Planning
During the last decade, sampling-based path planning algorithms, such as
Probabilistic RoadMaps (PRM) and Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRT), have
been shown to work well in practice and possess theoretical guarantees such as
probabilistic completeness. However, little effort has been devoted to the
formal analysis of the quality of the solution returned by such algorithms,
e.g., as a function of the number of samples. The purpose of this paper is to
fill this gap, by rigorously analyzing the asymptotic behavior of the cost of
the solution returned by stochastic sampling-based algorithms as the number of
samples increases. A number of negative results are provided, characterizing
existing algorithms, e.g., showing that, under mild technical conditions, the
cost of the solution returned by broadly used sampling-based algorithms
converges almost surely to a non-optimal value. The main contribution of the
paper is the introduction of new algorithms, namely, PRM* and RRT*, which are
provably asymptotically optimal, i.e., such that the cost of the returned
solution converges almost surely to the optimum. Moreover, it is shown that the
computational complexity of the new algorithms is within a constant factor of
that of their probabilistically complete (but not asymptotically optimal)
counterparts. The analysis in this paper hinges on novel connections between
stochastic sampling-based path planning algorithms and the theory of random
geometric graphs.Comment: 76 pages, 26 figures, to appear in International Journal of Robotics
Researc
Chronic Fluid Flow Is an Environmental Modifier of Renal Epithelial Function
Although solitary or sensory cilia are present in most cells of the body and their existence has been known since the sixties, very little is been known about their functions. One suspected function is fluid flow sensing- physical bending of cilia produces an influx of Ca++, which can then result in a variety of activated signaling pathways. Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) is a progressive disease, typically appearing in the 5th decade of life and is one of the most common monogenetic inherited human diseases, affecting approximately 600,000 people in the United States. Because ADPKD is a slowly progressing disease, I asked how fluid flow may act, via the primary cilium, to alter epithelial physiology during the course of cell turnover. I performed an experiment to determine under what conditions fluid flow can result in a change of function of renal epithelial tissue. A wildtype epithelial cell line derived the cortical collecting duct of a heterozygous offspring of the Immortomouse (Charles River Laboratory) was selected as our model system. Gentle orbital shaking was used to induce physiologically relevant fluid flow, and periodic measurements of the transepithelial Sodium current were performed. At the conclusion of the experiment, mechanosensitive proteins of interest were visualized by immunostaining. I found that fluid flow, in itself, modifies the transepithelial sodium current, cell proliferation, and the actin cytoskeleton. These results significantly impact the understanding of both the mechanosensation function of primary cilia as well as the understanding of ADPKD disease progression
High "Normal" blood glucose is associated with decreased brain volume and cognitive performance in the 60s: the PATH through Life Study
Context:Type 2 diabetes is associated with cerebral atrophy, cognitive impairment and dementia. We recently showed higher glucose levels in the normal range not to be free of adverse effects and to be associated with greater hippocampal and amygdalar atrophy in older community-dwelling individuals free of diabetes.Objective:This study aimed to determine whether blood glucose levels in the normal range
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