The Effect of Drying Delay Time on Paper Coatings

There are many variables which impact the final properties of coated paper. One of the major variables is the drying of the coating. Drying delay time is a significant factor which affects coated sheet properties. Delay times of 0, 5, and 10 seconds were used in this trial. The cylindrical laboratory coater (CLC) was used to apply coating to paper stock, and the coated paper was tested to determine the effects of increasing the time interval between application of the coating colour to the point when the IR dryer was turned on. It was found that increasing drying delay time affects both starch/latex and CMC/latex (carboxymethyl cellulose) coating colours. There is notable effect on roughness, porosity, pick, and optical properties. Porosity, roughness, and K & N ink brightness reduction all experienced maximum values at 5 seconds of delay time. Opacity and brightness values were also greatest at 5 seconds delay time. Gloss measurements revealed lowest values at 5 seconds delay time due to high roughness of the sheet. The general trend of pick strength as measured by the wax pick test was a decrease in pick strength as delay time was increased. This was due to the loss of binder near the surface of the sheet as delay time was increased

Usability and Accessibility of Air Force Intranet Web Sites

The Air Force is moving to a network centric environment where information must be data visible, accessible, and understandable. This transformation has seen the adoption of the Internet web browser as a de facto standard for information access. The Technology Acceptance Model suggests that information systems must not only be useful but also be usable and a large body of usability engineering knowledge exists to support usable design. In addition, the U.S. government mandates specific minimum design features required to support disabled user access. This research effort seeks to establish an understanding of how well common practice usability design principles and government mandated accessibility guidelines are followed by Air Force intranet web sites. Heuristic evaluation is used to investigate web site usability. Accessibility is inspected against government guidelines. The results of this study suggest that Air Force intranet web sites do not adequately comply with many usability principles and that accessibility compliance varies from site to site. Furthermore, although the majority of usability and accessibility design principles are not captured in military guidance, scores were higher for those principles that are captured in the guidance than for those that are not

DETERMINING OPTIMAL REPLACEMENT AGE OF BEEF COWS IN THE PRESENCE OF STOCHASTIC ELEMENTS

Livestock Production/Industries,

Characteristics of Real-Time, Non-Critical Incident Debriefing Practices in the Emergency Department.

INTRODUCTION: Benefits of post-simulation debriefings as an educational and feedback tool have been widely accepted for nearly a decade. Real-time, non-critical incident debriefing is similar to post-simulation debriefing; however, data on its practice in academic emergency departments (ED), is limited. Although tools such as TeamSTEPPS® (Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety) suggest debriefing after complicated medical situations, they do not teach debriefing skills suited to this purpose. Anecdotal evidence suggests that real-time debriefings (or non-critical incident debriefings) do in fact occur in academic EDs;, however, limited research has been performed on this subject. The objective of this study was to characterize real-time, non-critical incident debriefing practices in emergency medicine (EM). METHODS: We conducted this multicenter cross-sectional study of EM attendings and residents at four large, high-volume, academic EM residency programs in New York City. Questionnaire design was based on a Delphi panel and pilot testing with expert panel. We sought a convenience sample from a potential pool of approximately 300 physicians across the four sites with the goal of obtaining \u3e100 responses. The survey was sent electronically to the four residency list-serves with a total of six monthly completion reminder emails. We collected all data electronically and anonymously using SurveyMonkey.com; the data were then entered into and analyzed with Microsoft Excel. RESULTS: The data elucidate various characteristics of current real-time debriefing trends in EM, including its definition, perceived benefits and barriers, as well as the variety of formats of debriefings currently being conducted. CONCLUSION: This survey regarding the practice of real-time, non-critical incident debriefings in four major academic EM programs within New York City sheds light on three major, pertinent points: 1) real-time, non-critical incident debriefing definitely occurs in academic emergency practice; 2) in general, real-time debriefing is perceived to be of some value with respect to education, systems and performance improvement; 3) although it is practiced by clinicians, most report no formal training in actual debriefing techniques. Further study is needed to clarify actual benefits of real-time/non-critical incident debriefing as well as details on potential pitfalls of this practice and recommendations for best practices for use

Landowner Reports of Deer Hunter Damage in Arkansas

Damage to property from deer hunters, though usually not discovered immediately, is a problem for many Arkansans. A questionnaire survey was mailed to 3,773 rural landowners in Arkansas to determine the type and cost of damage suffered from hunters. Thirty-five percent reported minor problems, and 15% reported severe damage from hunters. The most common problems caused by hunters were fence cutting (33%), severe littering (16%), road damage (13%), crop damage (10%), cattle shot (8%), gates left open (6%), and trespassing (6%). Eighty-three (5%) of the landowners reported damage costs of $500 or more; one sustained a$15,000 loss. Total state-wide losses are estimated at almost $15 million per year. Solutions lie in cultivating a stewardship position among landowners and a stronger ethic of respect among hunters. Mandatory hunter education programs can help instill hunter ethics, while posting laws can provide the administrative mechanism to control access and exposure

Chapter 9 Which Patient Takes Centre Stage?

The growth of personalised medicine and patient partnerships in biomedical research are reshaping both the emotional and material intersections between human patients and animal research. Through tracing the creative work of patients, publics, scientists, clinicians, artists, film-makers, and campaigning groups this chapter explores how ‘patient voices’ are being rearticulated and represented around animal research. The figure of ‘the patient’ has been a powerful actor in arguments around animal research, mostly ‘spoken for’ by formal organisations, especially in publicity material making ethical justifications for the need and funding of medical research. Here, patient voices make corporeal needs legible, gather expectations and resources, and provide the horizon for embodying future hopes. However, the accessibility of digital media, alongside local institutional experiments in openness, is creating alternative spaces for voicing patient interfaces with animal research. On research establishment websites, and elsewhere, patients’ perspectives are emerging in short films, taking up positions as narrators, tour guides, and commentators, inviting the public to follow them into these previously inaccessible spaces. The embodied experience of patients, sometimes severely affected by the current absences in biomedical research, are used to authorise their presence in these places, and allow them to ask questions of animal researchers. The films are powerful and emotional vehicles for voicing patient experiences and opening up animal research. They also refigure the affective responsibilities around animal research, resituating a public debate around ethics within the body of the patient. The future expectations personified in the abstract figure of the patient, are rendered turbulent in the ambiguous corporeal encounter between human and animals undergoing similar experiences of suffering

Soundscape and the Experience of Positive Silence

This body of work employs a practice-based research methodology to explore the experience of silence as positive, of benefit to the individual and, by extension, wider society. The research is positioned within the related fields of Sound Art and Sound Studies with the practice component including soundwalks, sound installation, exhibition and phenomenological enquiry initiated through listenings and reflections. Current research in this area has explored the value of silence through quiet space studies, acoustics and psychoacoustics as well as research in the field of psychology around the human experience of solitude, mindful awareness and distraction. This doctoral research draws upon the insights of these disciplines to inform both the artworks and thinking that cohered into the themes explored in this commentary. Solitary and shared silences characterised by thresholds, masking, sounds of nature, simplicity, familiarity, safety and quality of attention are explored. In so doing, psychological theories of extended mind, construal level and psychological distance are considered in relation to the web of interactions between individual and soundscape. In all, these investigations revealed auditory distraction as a feature of the soundscape that consistently undermined the experience of silence as positive. Acknowledging the growing influence of the ‘attention economy,’ the work explores the psychoacoustic basis for auditory attention and concludes by forwarding practical strategies for working with distraction that have been developed and refined through listening exercises and participatory arts practice