Quality and efficiency improvements in the health care administration system of Mauritius

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to develop quality and efficiency improvements in the health care administration system of Mauritius. The aim of the study is to describe how the health care services of Mauritius could be improved based on the results obtained during this investigation. Methodology: The health care executives, board members, search firm executives, and health administration managers, as well as several patients, were selected by stratified sampling 1802 participants (quantitative) and by purposive sampling method nine focus groups of nine participants each (qualitative). The population for the qualitative research was comprised of patients and health care professionals selected by the purposive sampling technique. The population was comprised of patients and health care professionals for quantitative phase selected by stratified and the health care professionals for qualitative part selected through purposive sampling technique. Findings: The participants showed a preference for Patients’ Satisfactions, ISO Quality Standards Compliance, workforce efficiency, infrastructure fitness, and adaptability principally experience a better quality of care. Moreover, there was no statistical difference between financial cost and quality of health care was depicted. The outcome of the study: A common aspect, recognised empirically, is the approach regarding enhanced external pressure on the healthcare administrators in their work. Higher administration decisions, patient pressure and judgments made by policymakers have impacted and established the choices prepared by health care managers regarding where to concentrate attempts of growth. In the context of practical implications, health care administrators must properly make new management control systems so that they help healthcare systems in their work. Implications for the healthcare leader’s perceptions are that knowledge from the environment is normally complicated and not easy to define and also transmitted from particular stakeholders.Health StudiesD. Litt. et Phil. (Health Studies

(The) function of Christian education in the maintenance of mental health.

Typewritten sheets in cover. Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Approche informatique du document manuscrit

Les technologies mises en oeuvre avec le logiciel BIT-Alpha, sont la base d'un outil informatique d'aide à l'analyse de l'écriture manuscrite naturelle, pour transcription et identification, pour une utilisation en paléographie. Dans l'image numérique, la capture du contenu du document en permet une analyse, puis une interprétation et une valorisation. La binarisation, la capture des lignes et la segmentation de l'image sont exposées et commentées. L'identification des mots, puis des lettres permet une première reconnaissance de l'écriture, basée sur l'analyse du graphisme. La transcription du texte s'appuie en complément sur des considérations linguistiques. Les critères d'analyse du graphisme permettent aussi une aide à l'identification du scribe. Une idée de mesure et de normalisation de la différentiation entre écritures est envisagée. Les éléments graphiques peuvent être édités. En exemple, le traitement d'un texte manuscrit est détaillé

Assessing Environmental Impacts of newly created Earth Roads in Developing Countries: The case of Cameroon

Newly created earth roads are fundamental facilitators for development in many developing countries. However, positive or negative environmental and human impacts accompany its construction. This study investigated the assessment of the possible environmental and human impacts of the 70 km Benakuma-Bawuro-Akwaya earth road construction project in Cameroon. The study employed qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data were collected using interviews, road observation and questionnaire. Result of the study reveals that inhabitants were not motivated from the destruction of their properties. Water pollution, the destruction of water sources, Soil and farms pollution/destruction and fauna and flora destruction were identified as major negative environmental impacts, while human damages were recorded mainly in the domains of housing and changing Socio-cultural and demographic features. The total cost of destruction accessed using the EIA was far more than the government estimation called “compensation cost”. In conclusion, the implementation of Impacts Assessment prior to, during and after the construction of newly earth roads would encouraged a stronger participation of beneficiary communities to optimize positive pre and post construction benefits and minimize negative ones; while reducing possible pressure on evaluators and minimizing corruption avenues which can be very common in developing countries. Key-words: Earth road construction, pollution, impact assessmen

Water analysis with the help of tensor canonical decompositions

Coopération universitaire et scientifique Franco-VietnamienneInternational audienceRaw data are collected in five measurement locations along the Var river. It is assumed that some locations interact with each other, whereas others do not. In such a context, we are interested in determining the contribution of each location and in better understanding the water exchanges that are involved. Organic components can also be identified thanks to methods such as Canonical Polyadic decompositions (CP) (sometimes known as Parafac), applied to 3D fluorescence spectra calculated from the collected samples. The expected impact is a more efficient detection of polluting matters in water

Rostral Prefrontal Cortex and the Focus of Attention in Prospective Memory

Prospective memory (PM) denotes the function to realize intentions after a delay while being immersed in distracting ongoing (OG) activity. Here, we scrutinize the often-reported involvement of rostral prefrontal cortex (rPFC; approximating Brodmann area 10) in such situations: This region might mediate attention between external stimuli and the internally maintained intention, that is, between stimulus-oriented (SO) and stimulus-independent (SI) processing. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) we orthogonally crossed 1) PM versus OG activity only, with 2) SO versus SI attention. In support of the hypothesis, common regions of medial rPFC exhibited greater blood oxygen level–dependent (BOLD) signal for the contrasts of both OG task only versus PM and SO versus SI attending. However, activation related to the former contrast extended more superiorly, suggesting a functional gradient along a dorsal–ventral axis within this region. Moreover, region-of-interest analyses revealed that PM versus OG task only was associated with greater BOLD signal in left lateral rPFC, reflecting the requirement to maintain delayed intentions. Distinct aspects of this region were also transiently engaged at transitions between SO and SI conditions. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that some of the rostral prefrontal signal changes associated with PM performance reflect relative differences in SO versus SI processing

Gated blood-pool SPECT evaluation of changes after radiofrequency catheter ablation of accessory pathways Evidence for persistent ventricular preexcitation despite successful therapy

AbstractOBJECTIVESThis study was designed to prospectively evaluate the effects of radiofrequency ablation in Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome by scintigraphic analysis.BACKGROUNDThe functional changes triggered by radiofrequency current ablation of atrioventricular accessory pathways are not fully known.METHODSForty-four patients with WPW syndrome were consecutively investigated before and 48 h after radiofrequency therapy. Fourteen patients had right sided atrioventricular pathways and 30 patients had left sided bypass-tracts. Planar gated imaging and gated blood pool tomography were performed in all of these patients.RESULTSA significant increase in the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was demonstrated in patients with left preexcitation (62.2 ± 7.9% before ablation against 64.4 ± 6.3% after ablation, p = 0.02) but not for those with right sided anomalous pathway. Phase analysis only gave significant differences following ablation of right sided pathways (left-to-right phase difference = 14.4 ± 13.8° before ablation versus 7.5 ± 7.2° after ablation, p < 0.05). Early abnormal ventricular contraction persisted in 12 patients with right accessory pathways and in 8 patients with left accessory pathways despite the complete disappearance of any abnormal conduction as proven electrophysiologically.CONCLUSIONSFollowing catheter ablation of atrioventricular accessory pathways: 1) an improvement of left ventricular function may be seen, particularly in patients with left sided accessory pathways, and 2) unexpected persistence of local ventricular preexcitation at the site of successful ablation may be detected

Cosmological Spectral Deconvolution

One of the main goals of modern observational cosmology is to map the large scale structure of the Universe. A potentially powerful approach for doing this would be to exploit three-dimensional spectral maps, i.e. the specific intensity of extragalactic light as a function of wavelength and direction on the sky, to measure spatial variations in the total extragalactic light emission and use these as a tracer of the clustering of matter. A main challenge is that the observed intensity as a function of wavelength is a convolution of the source luminosity density with the rest-frame spectral energy distribution. In this paper, we introduce the method of spectral deconvolution as a way to invert this convolution and extract the clustering information. We show how one can use observations of the mean and angular fluctuations of extragalactic light as a function of wavelength, assuming statistical isotropy, to reconstruct jointly the rest-frame spectral energy distribution of the sources and the source spatial density fluctuations. This method is more general than the well known line mapping technique as it does not rely on spectral lines in the emitted spectra. After introducing the general formalism, we discuss its implementation and limitations. This formal paper sets the stage for future more practical studies