Human Resource Practices in Public Healthcare Sector: a Perceptual Study Among Healthcare Professionals

The study is aimed to identify various human resource practices in the public healthcare sector and to measure the level of human resource practices. The study adopts the perceptual view of healthcare professionals such as medical officers and staff nurses working in Primary Health Centres of Tamilnadu. A survey using a questionnaire is used to collect data from healthcare professionals. The results indicated that human resource practices such as job autonomy and job security are perceived to be useful and necessary, while training and performance management system are found to provide necessary inputs for carrying job duties and practices such as career growth opportunities and compensation need the attention of the officials of Health and Family Welfare department of Tamilnadu Government for enhancing the utility of these practices

Adiabatic charge pumping through a dot at the junction of N quantum wires

We study adiabatic charge pumping through a quantum dot placed at the junction of $N$ quantum wires. We explicitly map out the pattern of pumped charge as a function of the time-varying tunneling parameters coupling the wires to the dot and the phase between any two time varying parameters controlling the shape of the dot. We find that with $N-2$ time-independent well-coupled leads, the maximum pumped charge in the remaining two leads is strongly suppressed with increasing $N$, leading to the possibility of tuning of the pumped charge, by modulating the coupling of the $N-2$ leads.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, version to be published in PR

Tunneling through two resonant levels: fixed points and conductances

We study point contact tunneling between two leads of a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid through two degenerate resonant levels in parallel. This is one of the simplest cases of a quantum junction problem where the Fermi statistics of the electrons plays a non-trivial role through the Klein factors appearing in bosonization. Using a mapping to a `generalized Coulomb model' studied in the context of the dissipative Hofstadter model, we find that any asymmetry in the tunneling amplitudes from the two leads grows at low temperatures, so that ultimately there is no conductance across the system. For the symmetric case, we identify a non-trivial fixed point of this model; the conductance at that point is generally different from the conductance through a single resonant level.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Susceptibility Gene Prediction in Hereditary Disease Retinoblastoma

Nowadays Bioinformatics, proteomics and Genomics are the most intriguing sciences to understand the human genome and diseases. Several hereditary genetic diseases like Retinoblastoma involve a sequence of complex interactions between multiple biological processes. With this paper, genetic similarities were found within a selected group of patient\u27s DNA sequences through the use of signal processing tools. DNA, RNA and protein sequences have similarities in structure and function of the gene with their location. In this paper, we introduce a novel method using scoring matrix and wavelet windowing, for the integrative gene prediction. The proposed methods not only integrate multiple genomic data but can be used to predict gene location, gene mutation and genetic disorder from the multi-block genomic data. The performance was assessed by simulation

Perceived barriers to pediatrician and family practitioner participation in pediatric clinical trials: Findings from the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative.

Despite legislation to stimulate pediatric drug development through clinical trials, enrolling children in trials continues to be challenging. Non-investigator (those who have never served as a clinical trial investigator) providers are essential to recruitment of pediatric patients, but little is known regarding the specific barriers that limit pediatric providers from participating in and referring their patients to clinical trials. We conducted an online survey of pediatric providers from a wide variety of practice types across the United States to evaluate their attitudes and awareness of pediatric clinical trials. Using a 4-point Likert scale, providers described their perception of potential barriers to their practice serving as a site for pediatric clinical trials. Of the 136 providers surveyed, 52/136 (38%) had previously referred a pediatric patient to a trial, and only 17/136 (12%) had ever been an investigator for a pediatric trial. Lack of awareness of existing pediatric trials was a major barrier to patient referral by providers, in addition to consideration of trial risks, distance to the site, and time needed to discuss trial participation with parents. Overall, providers perceived greater challenges related to parental concerns and parent or child logistical barriers than study implementation and ethics or regulatory barriers as barriers to their practice serving as a trial site. Providers who had previously been an investigator for a pediatric trial were less likely to be concerned with potential barriers than non-investigators. Understanding the barriers that limit pediatric providers from collaboration or inhibit their participation is key to designing effective interventions to optimize pediatric trial participation

Transport in quantum wires

With a brief introduction to one-dimensional channels and conductance quantisation in mesoscopic systems, we discuss some recent experimental puzzles in these systems, which include reduction of quantised conductances and an interesting {\it odd-even} effect in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. We then discuss a recent non-homogeneous Luttinger liquid model proposed by us, which addresses and gives an explanation for the reduced conductances and the {\it odd-even} effect. We end with a brief summary and discussion of future projects.Comment: Talk presented at the International Discussion Meeting on Mesoscopic and Disordered systems, December, 2000, 16 pages, 2 figure

Field Theories of Frustrated Heisenberg Antiferromagnets

We study the Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain with both dimerization and frustration. The classical ground state has three phases: a Neel phase, a spiral phase and a colinear phase. In each phase, we discuss a non-linear sigma model field theory governing the low energy excitations. We study the theory in the spiral phase in detail using the renormalization group. The field theory, based on an $SO(3)$ matrix-valued field, becomes $SO(3) \times SO(3)$ and Lorentz invariant at long distances where the elementary excitation is analytically known to be a massive spin-$1/2$ doublet. The field theory supports $Z_2 ~$ solitons which lead to a double degeneracy in the spectrum for half-integer spins (when there is no dimerization).Comment: Latex, 12 pages, 2 figures (gzipped and uuencoded

Parents' perceived obstacles to pediatric clinical trial participation: Findings from the clinical trials transformation initiative.

Enrollment of children into pediatric clinical trials remains challenging. More effective strategies to improve recruitment of children into trials are needed. This study used in-depth qualitative interviews with parents who were approached to enroll their children in a clinical trial in order to gain an understanding of the barriers to pediatric clinical trial participation. Twenty-four parents whose children had been offered the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial were interviewed: 19 whose children had participated in at least 1 clinical trial and 5 who had declined participation in any trial. Each study aspect, from the initial explanation of the study to the end of the study, can affect the willingness of parents to consent to the proposed study and future studies. Establishing trust, appropriate timing, a transparent discussion of risks and benefits oriented to the layperson, and providing motivation for children to participate were key factors that impacted parents' decisions. In order for clinical trial accrual to be successful, parents' priorities and considerations must be a central focus, beginning with initial trial design. The recommendations from the parents who participated in this study can be used to support budget allocations that ensure adequate training of study staff and improved staffing on nights and weekends. Studies of parent responses in outpatient settings and additional inpatient settings will provide valuable information on the consent process from the child's and parent's perspectives. Further studies are needed to explore whether implementation of such strategies will result in improved recruitment for pediatric clinical trials