A transatlantic comparative study of acute dysphagia services

This was the first study to compare acute dysphagia service provision directly between the UK and the US. It examined variations in acute dysphagia services between the UK and the US, determined clinicians’ perceptions of their own service and that of their transatlantic counterparts, and elicited the reason for variation. An online survey was distributed to randomly-allocated teaching hospitals in the UK and the US, and speech and language therapists working with acute dysphagia responded anonymously via an automated system. Content analysis was employed to convert free-text responses to numeric data, and then this and existing numeric responses were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. Variability was high, with the US having on average 0.95 whole time equivalent more clinicians per hospital than the UK. This resulted in an increased number of new patients examined and increased frequency of review of existing patients compared to the UK. In contrast, the UK had significantly increased waiting times with no patient being assessed on the same day as referral (compared to 63.6% of US responses). Notable variation was also seen in objective or instrumental assessment, with most US patients receiving videofluoroscopy or fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (compared to only one UK hospital). Finance was found to be at the root of the variation. However, the more extensive US service was found to be more cost-effective

The adaptation of an English spellchecker for Japanese writers

It has been pointed out that the spelling errors made by second-language writers writing in English have features that are to some extent characteristic of their first language, and the suggestion has been made that a spellchecker could be adapted to take account of these features. In the work reported here, a corpus of spelling errors made by Japanese writers writing in English was compared with a corpus of errors made by native speakers. While the great majority of errors were common to the two corpora, some distinctively Japanese error patterns were evident against this common background, notably a difficulty in deciding between the letters b and v, and the letters l and r, and a tendency to add syllables. A spellchecker that had been developed for native speakers of English was adapted to cope with these errors. A brief account is given of the spellchecker’s mode of operation to indicate how it lent itself to modifications of this kind. The native-speaker spellchecker and the Japanese-adapted version were run over the error corpora and the results show that these adaptations produced a modest but worthwhile improvement to the spellchecker’s performance in correcting Japanese-made errors

Key technology issues for space robotic systems

Robotics has become a key technology consideration for the Space Station project to enable enhanced crew productivity and to maximize safety. There are many robotic functions currently being studied, including Space Station assembly, repair, and maintenance as well as satellite refurbishment, repair, and retrieval. Another area of concern is that of providing ground based experimenters with a natural interface that they might directly interact with their hardware onboard the Space Station or ancillary spacecraft. The state of the technology is such that the above functions are feasible; however, considerable development work is required for operation in this gravity-free vacuum environment. Furthermore, a program plan is evolving within NASA that will capitalize on recent government, university, and industrial robotics research and development (R and D) accomplishments. A brief summary is presented of the primary technology issues and physical examples are provided of the state of the technology for the initial operational capability (IOC) system as well as for the eventual final operational capability (FOC) Space Station