A Comparison of Homemade Phantoms for Ultrasound Guided Peripheral Intravenous Catheter Insertion

Purpose: Ultrasound (U/S) guided peripheral intravenous catheter (PIV) placement is implemented in clinical settings across the medical field, with evidence supporting the use of point-of-care U/S as a procedural tool to improve patient outcomes. Non-commercial vascular access phantoms made of various materials have been described in published literature and online tutorials; however, there has been no comparison of the models. The primary objective of this study is to determine if non-commercial phantoms are useful for the education of U/S guided PIV placement. Methods: This prospective observational study trialed six unique phantom models: 1) the Amini ballistics gel model, 2) the Morrow ballistics gel model, 3) the University of California San Diego (UCSD) gelatin model, 4) the Rippey chicken model, 5) the Nolting spam model, 6) and the Johnson tofu model. Selected phantoms were assembled through instructions from the source reference. Six U/S fellowship trained Emergency Medicine physicians performed U/S guided PIV placement on each model to evaluate their effectiveness pertaining to phantom haptics, echogenicity properties, and utility for PIV practice. Results/ Conclusion: The Rippey model outperformed other models in this study, doing so with a mid-level cost and minimal preparation time. The Rippey model scored highest on aggregate scores pertaining to haptics, echogenicity, and utility for U/S guided PIV placement and comparability to commercial products. Non-commercial U/S phantoms may represent cost-effective and useful PIV insertion educational tools. Future studies should investigate the utility of these phantoms in teaching USIV to novice learners and direct comparison of non-commercial to commercial phantoms

Expert-quality Dataset Labeling via Gamified Crowdsourcing on Point-of-Care Lung Ultrasound Data

data interpretation. Building such tools requires labeled training datasets. We tested whether a gamified crowdsourcing approach can produce clinical expert-quality lung ultrasound clip labels. 2,384 lung ultrasound clips were retrospectively collected. Six lung ultrasound experts classified 393 of these clips as having no B-lines, one or more discrete B-lines, or confluent B-lines to create two sets of reference standard labels: a training and test set. Sets trained users on a gamified crowdsourcing platform, and compared concordance of the resulting crowd labels to the concordance of individual experts to reference standards, respectively. 99,238 crowdsourced opinions were collected from 426 unique users over 8 days. Mean labeling concordance of individual experts relative to the reference standard was 85.0% ± 2.0 (SEM), compared to 87.9% crowdsourced label concordance (p=0.15). Scalable, high-quality labeling approaches such as crowdsourcing may streamline training dataset creation for machine learning model development

Organizational and corporate identity revisited: Towards a comprehensive understanding of identity in business

ABSTRACT: Purpose – This paper provides a comprehensive and integrative review of academic literature analyzing identity in business. The literature review proposed by the authors helps clearing up theoretical and practical understanding of this concept. Design/methodology/approach – A review of existing literature in organizational behavior and marketing fields is proposed to clarify the meaning of organizational and corporate identity. On the basis of this review, the authors also identify an integrative perspective proposed for managers to identify and effectively manage all dimensions of their business identities. Findings – Literature on the identity of businesses is extensive and blurred, failing to provide useful guidance for practitioners to manage this concept. A new approach proposes understanding this kind of identity as a global concept that integrates proposals from diverse research fields in order to take advantage of cross-fertilization. Practical implications – This research allows identity and communication managers to understand dimensions of business identity for a more effective management of this concept in their organizations. Originality/value – The line of research that proposes an integrative multidisciplinary approach to the study of identity in business is quite new and, as so, it still needs further contributions to clarify this nascent domain. In this paper, the authors also classify previous studies on business identity according to the theoretical approach they assume just as no other research has done before. Borra

The corporate identity audit A set of objective measurement tools for your company's image and reputation

Part of a pack 'A Company Self-Assessment' (Pack ISBN 0273638882)SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:m00/19007 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

The role of packaging for consumer products: understanding the move towards ‘plain’ tobacco packaging

The Australian Government intends to introduce plain tobacco packaging in 2012. We consider whether such a move appears justified by examining the wider marketing literature in order to understand the role that packaging has for consumer goods. Packaging is often called the fifth ‘p’ of the marketing mix. It is an effective marketing medium for all consumer products and helps build consumer relationships through possession and usage. Common packaging strategies to promote the product, distinguish products from competitors, communicate brand values and target specific consumer groups include innovative, special edition, value and green packaging. These strategies, combined with the visual and structural aspects of packaging design, such as colour, size and shape, influence consumer perceptions and purchase and usage behaviour. This gives packaging an important role at point-of-purchase and also post-purchase. Packaging also has a close relationship with the product, influencing perceived product attributes, and is a key representative of the brand. We conclude that plain tobacco packaging appears justified, based on the importance of packaging as a promotional tool, and will fundamentally restrict the opportunity for tobacco companies to influence consumers through package design

Brand management in terrorism: the case of Hezbollah

This paper examines the essential brand management strategies used by Hezbollah to expand its popularity base among Muslims. As a form of public communication, brand management consists of determining how a brand should be positioned, to what kind of audience it should be targeted, and how its ideal reputation should be preserved. An example of Hezbollah’s brand is its main logo: an image featuring a yellow background and icons like an AK-47, which symbolises militancy overall. Brand management is successful when it meets three successful criteria: differentiation, credibility, and authenticity. An important conclusion of this analysis is that terrorist organisations can fashion brands through powerful communicative strategies so as to promote the organisations’ images and agendas. In this particular analysis, it was found that Hezbollah uses powerful rhetoric and visual imagery throughout the Shia Muslim world. Because the power of brands resides in brand awareness, the public identity that Hezbollah radiates is what matters the most to the organisation