32,143 research outputs found

    Economic evaluation of a nursing-led intermediate care unit

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    Objectives: The aim of this paper is to examine the costs of introducing a nursing-led ward program together with examining the impact this may have on patients' outcomes. Methods; The study had a sample size of 177 patients with a mean age of 77, and randomized to either a treatment group (care on a nursing-led ward, n = 97) or a control group (standard care usually on a consultant-led acute ward, n = 80). Resource use data including length of stay, tests and investigations performed, and multidisciplinary involvement in care were collected. Results: There were no significant differences in outcome between the two groups. The inpatient costs for the treatment group were significantly higher, due to the longer length of stay in this group. However, the postdischarge costs were significantly lower for the treatment group. Conclusions: The provision of nursing-led intermediate care units has been proposed as a solution to inappropriate use of acute medical wards by patients who require additional nursing rather than medical care. Whether the treatment group is ultimately cost-additive is dependent on how long reductions in postdischarge resource use are maintained

    Community Structure in Time-Dependent, Multiscale, and Multiplex Networks

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    Network science is an interdisciplinary endeavor, with methods and applications drawn from across the natural, social, and information sciences. A prominent problem in network science is the algorithmic detection of tightly-connected groups of nodes known as communities. We developed a generalized framework of network quality functions that allowed us to study the community structure of arbitrary multislice networks, which are combinations of individual networks coupled through links that connect each node in one network slice to itself in other slices. This framework allows one to study community structure in a very general setting encompassing networks that evolve over time, have multiple types of links (multiplexity), and have multiple scales.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Includes main text and supporting material. This is the accepted version of the manuscript (the definitive version appeared in Science), with typographical corrections included her

    The case for a wet, warm climate on early Mars

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    Arguments are presented in support of the idea that Mars possessed a dense CO2 atmosphere and a wet, warm climate early in its history. The plausibility of a CO2 greenhouse is tested by formulating a simple model of the CO2 geochemical cycle on early Mars. By scaling the rate of silicate weathering on Earth, researchers estimated a weathering time constant of the order of several times 10 to the 7th power years for early Mars. Thus, a dense atmosphere could have existed for a geologically significant time period (approx. 10 to the 9th power years) only if atmospheric CO2 was being continuously resupplied. The most likely mechanism by which this could have been accomplished is the thermal decomposition of carbonate rocks induced directly or indirectly by intense, global scale volcanism

    Malaria, Intestinal Parasitic Infection, Anemia, and Malnourishment in Rural Cameroonian Villages with an Assessment of Early Interventions

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    Malaria, water-borne diarrheal diseases, and geohelminth infections, combined with severe malnutrition ravage entire villages throughout subSaharan Africa. The Bawa Health Initiative (BHI) is a 501c(3) non-profit organization with the goal of implementing a comprehensive public health program in an attempt to address these problems in a series of rural villages located in the West Province of Cameroon, Africa. Interventions include the provision of permethrin-treated bed nets to reduce the transmission of malaria, the installation of biosand water filters to reduce the prevalence of water-borne diseases, and a geohelminth control program utilizing mass treatment with albendazole. This study details the results of surveys conducted to monitor the success of the interventions. Since implementation of interventions, the number of clinical cases of malaria, diarrheal disease and typhoid has decreased, the prevalence of water-borne protozoan parasites has decreased, the prevalence and intensities of geohelminth infections has significantly decreased, and the prevalence of anemia has significantly decreased. When viewed in its entirety, these data show that the comprehensive approach to public health challenges in these villages initiated by BHI has been extremely successful. However, much work remains to be done. The primary purpose of this paper is to further inform academicians, students, and the general public about the continuing problems associated with these diseases and to describe and assess the effectiveness of some current interventions being used to combat them

    The phase-dependent Infrared brightness of the extrasolar planet upsilon Andromedae b

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    The star upsilon Andromeda is orbited by three known planets, the innermost of which has an orbital period of 4.617 days and a mass at least 0.69 that of Jupiter. This planet is close enough to its host star that the radiation it absorbs overwhelms its internal heat losses. Here we present the 24 micron light curve of this system, obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope. It shows a clear variation in phase with the orbital motion of the innermost planet. This is the first demonstration that such planets possess distinct hot substellar (day) and cold antistellar (night) faces.Comment: "Director's cut" of paper to appear in Science, 27 October, 200
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