Studies on development of online measurement of PM2.5 and PM10 releasing from industrial flue gas stack

The industrial area is facing the problem of deteriorate ambient air quality due to excessive industrial pollution. Exposure to air borne fine particular matter is a major threat to human health. National ambient air quality standards for PM2.5 and PM10 are 100µg/m3 and 80µg/m3 respectively in ambient air. At preset statutory norms are available for measurement of particular matter in stack only due to unavailability of PM2.5 and PM10 measurement techniques. The current study focuses on the development of online method for continued measurement of PM2.5 and PM10

Guilty Displeasures: White Resistance in the Social Justice Classroom

In this article, the author reflects on the challenges of teaching white law students about racism and whiteprivilege asa racializedprofessor To situateher experiences and to better understand the obstacles that professors who teach critically about race and racism confront, she draws from theories of racial identity development and research on student evaluations to contextualize student responses to antiracist pedagogy Grappling with racism in a meaningful way leaves many white students feeling distraught, angry and guilty, among other unpleasant emotions. Professors who initiate these discussions become the natural targets of criticism and blame as students struggle with their discomfort. The hostility of resistant white students can be interpreted as racial microaggressions that compromise the psychological well-being and deplete the emotional and physical resources of racialized professors. However, understanding negative student reactions in the context of structural racism and embracing students\u27 sense of disequilibrium as a necessary part of social transformation enable professors to reconceptualize personal attacks as something more constructive. The author concludes that teaching about racism and white privilege in a critical way an obligation shared by all educators, offers personal and collective rewards that outweigh any costs

Investigating the Evidence of Behavioral, Cognitive, and Psychiatric Endophenotypes in Autism: A Systematic Review

Substantial evidence indicates that parents of autistic individuals often display milder forms of autistic traits referred to as the broader autism phenotype (BAP). To determine if discrete endophenotypes of autism can be identified, we reviewed the literature to assess the evidence of behavioral, cognitive, and psychiatric profiles of the BAP. A systematic review was conducted using EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PsycEXTRA, and Global Health. Sixty papers met our inclusion criteria and results are discussed according to the proportion of studies that yield significant deficits per domain. The behavioral, cognitive, and psychiatric endophenotypes in parents of autistic probands are still not clarified; however, evidence suggests mild social/communication deficits, rigid/aloof personality traits, and pragmatic language difficulties as the most useful sociobehavioral candidate endophenotype traits. The existence of deficits in the cognitive domain does suggest familial vulnerability for autism. Furthermore, increased depressed mood and anxiety can also be useful markers; however, findings should be interpreted with caution because of the small number of studies in such heterogeneously broad domains and several methodological limitations

Development of a programme to facilitate interprofessional simulation-based training for final year undergraduate healthcare students

Original report can be found at: http://www.health.heacademy.ac.uk/publications/miniproject/alinier260109.pdfIntroduction: Students have few opportunities to practise alongside students from other disciplines. Simulation offers an ideal context to provide them with concrete experience in a safe and controlled environment. This project was about the development of a programme to facilitate interprofessional scenario-based simulation training for final year undergraduate healthcare students and explored whether simulation improved trainees’ knowledge of other healthcare discipline’s roles and skills. Methods: A multidisciplinary academic project team was created and trained for the development and facilitation of this project. The team worked on the development of appropriate multiprofessional scenarios and a strategy to recruit the final year students on a volunteer basis to the project. By the end of the project 95 students were involved in small groups to one of fifteen 3-hour interprofessional simulation sessions. Staff role played the relatives, doctor on call, and patient when it was more appropriate than using a patient simulator (Laerdal SimMan/SimBaby) in the simulated community setting and paediatric or adult emergency department. Each session had 3 to 4 of the following disciplines represented (Adult/Children/Learning Disability Nursing, Paramedic, Radiography, Physiotherapy) and each student observed and took part in one long and relevant high-fidelity scenario. Half the students were randomly selected to fill in a 40-item questionnaire testing their knowledge of other disciplines before the simulation (control group) and the others after (experimental group). Students were assessed on the questions relating to the disciplines represented in their session. Results: By the end of the project 95 questionnaires were collected of which 45 were control group students (Questionnaire before simulation) and 50 experimental group students (Questionnaire after simulation). Both groups were comparable in terms of gender, discipline and age representation. Participants were: Adult nurses (n=46), Children’s nurses (n=4), Learning Disability nurses (n=7), Nurses, Paramedics (n=8), Radiographers (n=20), Physiotherapists (n=8). 15 sessions were run with an average of around 7 participants and at least 3 disciplines represented. The knowledge test results about the disciplines represented was significantly different between the control and experimental groups (Control 73.80%, 95% CI 70.95-76.65; and Experimental 78.81%, 95% CI 75.76-81.87, p=0.02). In addition, there were sometimes reliable differences between the groups in their view of multidisciplinary training; confidence about working as part of a multidisciplinary team was 3.33 (SD=0.80, Control) and 3.79 (SD=0.90, Experimental), p=0.011; their anticipation that working as part of a multidisciplinary team would make them feel anxious was 2.67 (SD=1.17, Control) and 2.25 (SD=1.04, Experimental), p=0.073; their perception of their knowledge of what other healthcare professionals can or cannot do was 3.00 (SD=0.91, Control) and 3.35 (SD=0.93, Experimental), p=0.066; their view that learning with other healthcare students before qualification will improve their relationship after qualification was 3.93 (SD=1.14, Control) and 4.33 (SD=0.81, Experimental), p=0.055; their opinion about interprofessional learning helping them to become better team workers before qualification was 3.96 (SD=1.24, Control) and 4.42 (SD=0.77, Experimental), p=0.036. Conclusions: Although the difference is relatively small (~5%), the results demonstrate that students gained confidence and knowledge about the skills and role of other disciplines involved in their session. Through simulation, the positivism of students about different aspects of learning or working with other healthcare disciplines has significantly improved. Students gained knowledge of other disciplines simply by being given the opportunity to take part in a multiprofessional scenario and observe another one. The results of the test and their reported perception about multidisciplinary team working suggest that they are better prepared to enter the healthcare workforce. Discussions during the debriefings highlighted the fact that multidisciplinary training is important. The main challenges identified have been the voluntary student attendance and timetabling issues forcing us to run the session late in the day due to the number of disciplines involved in each session and their different placement rota. The aim is now to timetable formally this session within their curriculum. Introducing simulation in the undergraduate curriculum should facilitate its implementation as Continuing Professional Development once these students become qualified healthcare professionals

Immersive clinical simulation in undergraduate health care interprofessional education : knowledge and perceptions

Background: Interprofessional simulation at the undergraduate level has been tested but is still very scarcely used due to curriculum and logistical issues. Over a 3-year period we have conducted extracurricular immersive simulation sessions for multiprofessional groups of final year healthcare students. Methods: Following ethical approval, a series of scenarios requiring various combinations of healthcare professionals' inputs were designed for students attending the simulation sessions on offer. Another team of faculty were involved in the creation of a questionnaire to test students on discipline specific knowledge and about their perception of multidisciplinary working. Students recruited to the study were semi-randomly selected to either a control or experimental group which determined whether they completed the knowledge questionnaire prior to or after simulation exposure. Results: Participants were 237 students from Adult/Children/Learning Disability/Mental Health Nursing, Paramedic, Radiography, Physiotherapy, and Pharmacy. Questionnaire data analysis showed that experimental group students reported a higher perceived level of knowledge of other professions and were more confident about working as part of a multidisciplinary team than control group students (P<0.05). Although positive for both groups, experimental group students expressed greater appreciation for pre-qualification interprofessional learning opportunities. The experimental group outscored the control group by 3.23 percentage points on the discipline knowledge questionnaire (p<0.05). Conclusions: The study shows that even limited interprofessional simulation exposure enabled students to acquire knowledge of other professions and develop a better appreciation of interprofessional learning. Discussions during the debriefings highlighted the fact that interprofessional training is important and valued by students, especially if it is well contextualized and facilitated through the exposure to realistic scenarios.Peer reviewedSubmitted Versio

Implementation of watershed based image segmentation algorithm in FPGA

The watershed algorithm is a commonly used method of solving the image segmentation problem. However, of the many variants of the watershed algorithm not all are equally well suited for hardware implementation. Different algorithms are studied and the watershed algorithm based on connected components is selected for the implementation, as it exhibits least computational complexity, good segmentation quality and can be implemented in the FPGA. It has simplified memory access compared to all other watershed based image segmentation algorithms. This thesis proposes a new hardware implementation of the selected watershed algorithm. The main aim of the thesis is to implement image segmentation algorithm in a FPGA which requires minimum hardware resources, low execution time and is suitable for use in real time applications. A pipelined architecture of algorithm is designed, implemented in VHDL and synthesized for Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGA. In the implementation, image is loaded to external memory and algorithm is repeatedly applied to the image. To overcome the problem of over-segmentation, pre-processing step is used before the segmentation and implemented in the pipelined architecture. The pipelined architecture of pre-processing stage can be operated at up to 228 MHz. The computation time for a 512 x 512 image is about 35 to 45 ms using one pipelined segmentation unit. A proposal of parallel architecture is discussed which uses multiple segmentation units and is fast enough for the real time applications. The implemented and proposed architectures are excellent candidates to use for different applications where high speed performance is needed