Families of stable and metastable solitons in coupled system of scalar fields

In this paper, we obtain stable and metastable soliton solutions of a coupled system of two real scalar fields with five five discrete points of vacua. These solutions have definite topological charges and rest energies and show classical dynamical stability. From a quantum point of view, however, the V-type solutions are expected to be unstable and decay to D-type solutions. The induced decay of a V-type soliton into two D-type ones is calculated numerically, and shown to be chiral, in the sense that the decay products do not respect left-right symmetry.Comment: 9 pages and 5 figure

Conceptual framework for developing a diabetes information network

Objective: To provide a conceptual framework for managing diabetic patient care, and creating an information network for clinical research. Background: A wide range of information technology (IT) based interventions such as distance learning, diabetes registries, personal or electronic health record systems, clinical information systems, and clinical decision support systems have so far been used in supporting diabetic care. Previous studies demonstrated that IT could improve diabetes care at its different aspects. There is however no comprehensive conceptual framework that defines how different IT applications can support diverse aspects of this care. Therefore, a conceptual framework that combines different IT solutions into a wide information network for improving care processes and for research purposes is widely lacking. In this study we describe the theoretical underpin of a big project aiming at building a wide diabetic information network namely DIANET. Research design and methods: A literature review and a survey of national programs and existing regulations for diabetes management was conducted in order to define different aspects of diabetic care that should be supported by IT solutions. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in this study. In addition to the results of a previous systematic literature review, two brainstorming and three expert panel sessions were conducted to identify requirements of a comprehensive information technology solution. Based on these inputs, the requirements for creating a diabetes information network were identified and used to create a questionnaire based on 9-point Likert scale. The questionnaire was finalized after removing some items based on calculated content validity ratio and content validity index coefficients. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was also calculated (α Total= 0.98, P < 0.05, CI=0.95). The final questionnaire was containing 45 items. It was sent to 13 clinicians at two diabetes clinics of endocrine and metabolism research institute in order to assess the necessity level of the requirements for diabetes information network conceptual framework. The questionnaires were returned by 10 clinicians. Each requirement item was labeled as essential, semi-essential, or non-essential based on the mean of its scores. Results: All requirement items were identified as essential or semi-essential. Thus, all of them were used to build the conceptual framework. The requirements were allocated into 11 groups each one representing a module in the conceptual framework. Each module was described separately. Conclusion: We proposed a conceptual framework for supporting diabetes care and research. Integrating different and heterogeneous clinical information systems of healthcare facilities and creating a comprehensive diabetics data warehouse for research purposes, would be possible by using the DIANET framework. � 2016 Hossein Riazi, Mostafa Langarizadeh, Bagher Larijani, and Leila Shahmoradi

Managing diabetes mellitus using information technology: A systematic review

Objective: To review published evidences about using information technology interventions in diabetes care and determine their effects on managing diabetes. Design: Systematic review of information technology based interventions. Research design and methods: MEDLINE®/PubMed were electronically searched for articles published between 2004/07/01 and 2014/07/01. A comprehensive, electronic search strategy was used to identify eligible articles. Inclusion criteria were defined based on type of study and effect of information technology based intervention in relation to glucose control and other clinical outcomes in diabetic patients. Studies must have used a controlled design to evaluate an information technology based intervention. A total of 3613 articles were identified based on the searches conducted in MEDLINE from PubMed. After excluding duplicates (n = 6), we screened titles and abstracts of 3607 articles based on inclusion criteria. The remaining articles matched with inclusion criteria (n = 277) were reviewed in full text, and 210 articles were excluded based on exclusion criteria. Finally, 67 articles complied with our eligibility criteria and were included in this study. Results: In this study, the effect of various information technology based interventions on clinical outcomes in diabetic patients extracted and measured from selected articles is described and compared to each other. Conclusion: Information technology based interventions combined with the usual care are associated with improved glycemic control with different efficacy on various clinical outcomes in diabetic patients. © 2015 Riazi et al