Localization Transition in Incommensurate non-Hermitian Systems

A class of one-dimensional lattice models with incommensurate complex potential $V(\theta)=2[\lambda_r cos(\theta)+i \lambda_i sin(\theta)]$ is found to exhibit localization transition at $|\lambda_r|+|\lambda_i|=1$. This transition from extended to localized states manifests in the behavior of the complex eigenspectum. In the extended phase, states with real eigenenergies have finite measure and this measure goes to zero in the localized phase. Furthermore, all extended states exhibit real spectrum provided $|\lambda_r| \ge |\lambda_i|$. Another novel feature of the system is the fact that the imaginary part of the spectrum is sensitive to the boundary conditions {\it only at the onset to localization}

On Link Estimation in Dense RPL Deployments

The Internet of Things vision foresees billions of devices to connect the physical world to the digital world. Sensing applications such as structural health monitoring, surveillance or smart buildings employ multi-hop wireless networks with high density to attain sufficient area coverage. Such applications need networking stacks and routing protocols that can scale with network size and density while remaining energy-efficient and lightweight. To this end, the IETF RoLL working group has designed the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). This paper discusses the problems of link quality estimation and neighbor management policies when it comes to handling high densities. We implement and evaluate different neighbor management policies and link probing techniques in Contiki’s RPL implementation. We report on our experience with a 100-node testbed with average 40-degree density. We show the sensitivity of high density routing with respect to cache sizes and routing metric initialization. Finally, we devise guidelines for design and implementation of density-scalable routing protocols

Sensor, Signal, and Imaging Informatics in 2017.

Objective To summarize significant contributions to sensor, signal, and imaging informatics literature published in 2017.Methods PubMed® and Web of Science® were searched to identify the scientific publications published in 2017 that addressed sensors, signals, and imaging in medical informatics. Fifteen papers were selected by consensus as candidate best papers. Each candidate article was reviewed by section editors and at least two other external reviewers. The final selection of the four best papers was conducted by the editorial board of the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Yearbook.Results The selected papers of 2017 demonstrate the important scientific advances in management and analysis of sensor, signal, and imaging information.ConclusionThe growth of signal and imaging data and the increasing power of machine learning techniques have engendered new opportunities for research in medical informatics. This synopsis highlights cutting-edge contributions to the science of Sensor, Signal, and Imaging Informatics

Health-Related Beliefs, Practices, and Experiences of Migrant Dominicans in the Northeastern United States

Purpose: This study aimed to discover and describe migrant Dominican cultural beliefs and practices related to health, the ways that migrant Dominicans take care of their health in their new environment, and their experience with professional health care in the Northeastern United States. Design: This descriptive qualitative study was guided by Leininger’s Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality and four-phase analysis method. The health-related beliefs, practices and experiences of a convenience sample of 15 self-identified adult Dominicans living in the United States for six months or more were explored in three focus groups, assisted by trained culturally appropriate interpreters. Findings: Data analysis of focus group transcripts and observations revealed four themes: (a) stress affects health and well-being, (b) family support and faith in God are essential for healing, and promoting health and well-being, (c) migrant Dominicans use both folk care and professional care to treat illness and promote healing, health, and well-being, and (d) perceptions about the quality of professional care are affected by access to care, cost, communication and expressions of caring practices. Discussion and Conclusion: Implications and recommendations for nursing practice, education and research are discussed. Design and implementation challenges from this study, and strategies used to bridge cultural and linguistic barriers, may guide others in planning research with similar populations

Health-Related Beliefs, Practices, and Experiences of Migrant Dominicans in the Northeastern United States

Purpose: This study aimed to discover and describe migrant Dominican cultural beliefs and practices related to health, the ways that migrant Dominicans take care of their health in their new environment, and their experience with professional health care in the Northeastern United States. Design: This descriptive qualitative study was guided by Leininger’s Theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality and four-phase analysis method. The health-related beliefs, practices and experiences of a convenience sample of 15 self-identified adult Dominicans living in the United States for six months or more were explored in three focus groups, assisted by trained culturally appropriate interpreters. Findings: Data analysis of focus group transcripts and observations revealed four themes: (a) stress affects health and well-being, (b) family support and faith in God are essential for healing, and promoting health and well-being, (c) migrant Dominicans use both folk care and professional care to treat illness and promote healing, health, and well-being, and (d) perceptions about the quality of professional care are affected by access to care, cost, communication and expressions of caring practices. Discussion and Conclusion: Implications and recommendations for nursing practice, education and research are discussed. Design and implementation challenges from this study, and strategies used to bridge cultural and linguistic barriers, may guide others in planning research with similar populations

The power of nursing: Influencing global health policy and decision-making at the United Nations

This presentation demonstrates the power of Sigma Nursing to influence global health policy and decision-making at the United Nations with examples of inspirational leadership and collaborative partnerships, and provides strategies for engagement with the UN 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals locally, regionally and globally

Collaborative partnerships for advancing nurse practice and patient outcomes through EBP fellowships

Session presented on: Sunday, November 17, 2013: Over the last decade, nursing educators have worked to embed evidence-based practice in curricula. Yet gaps exist in the preparation of the workforce educated prior to the infusion of evidence-based practice in nursing education. Three Joanna Briggs Institute Collaborating centers have developed and implemented clinical fellowships to address the professional development needs of clinicians. The fellowships build fundamental evidence-based practice skills that include defining problems, asking questions, searching and appraising evidence, implementing the evidence, and evaluating and sustaining outcomes. Because of the collaborative nature of the centers, each fellowship shares common elements; however, each uses somewhat different models and strategies to fit their unique contexts. All of the programs focus on designing and implementing practical, evidence-based solutions for high priority, patient-centered clinical problems. The Texas Christian University Center prepares front line staff through a series of workshops based on the Iowa Model with mentors employed in the fellow\u27s facility supporting the fellows throughout implementation. The New Jersey Center enhances nurses\u27 fundamental skills but focuses on developing expert facilitators based on the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Service. The Indiana Center blends aspects of both programs. Teams of front line staff and clinical leaders, acting as facilitators, attend an intensive on-campus workshop; Center faculty members serve as mentors throughout the implementation of projects. This symposium will address three key aspects of these Centers experiences. First, we will address how to build academic-clinical partnerships and how they add value to both the academic and clinical centers. Second, we will address how our Centers collaborate and discuss the curricula, models and costs of the programs. Finally, we will share our experiences with the challenges of implementing evidence and the impact of our programs on nursing practice and patient outcomes

Ambient-aware continuous care through semantic context dissemination

Background: The ultimate ambient-intelligent care room contains numerous sensors and devices to monitor the patient, sense and adjust the environment and support the staff. This sensor-based approach results in a large amount of data, which can be processed by current and future applications, e. g., task management and alerting systems. Today, nurses are responsible for coordinating all these applications and supplied information, which reduces the added value and slows down the adoption rate. The aim of the presented research is the design of a pervasive and scalable framework that is able to optimize continuous care processes by intelligently reasoning on the large amount of heterogeneous care data. Methods: The developed Ontology-based Care Platform (OCarePlatform) consists of modular components that perform a specific reasoning task. Consequently, they can easily be replicated and distributed. Complex reasoning is achieved by combining the results of different components. To ensure that the components only receive information, which is of interest to them at that time, they are able to dynamically generate and register filter rules with a Semantic Communication Bus (SCB). This SCB semantically filters all the heterogeneous care data according to the registered rules by using a continuous care ontology. The SCB can be distributed and a cache can be employed to ensure scalability. Results: A prototype implementation is presented consisting of a new-generation nurse call system supported by a localization and a home automation component. The amount of data that is filtered and the performance of the SCB are evaluated by testing the prototype in a living lab. The delay introduced by processing the filter rules is negligible when 10 or fewer rules are registered. Conclusions: The OCarePlatform allows disseminating relevant care data for the different applications and additionally supports composing complex applications from a set of smaller independent components. This way, the platform significantly reduces the amount of information that needs to be processed by the nurses. The delay resulting from processing the filter rules is linear in the amount of rules. Distributed deployment of the SCB and using a cache allows further improvement of these performance results

STTI and the United Nations: Our record of progress and the work ahead

Sigma Theta Tau International holds Special consultative status with the United Nations. This presentation informs members of what STTI has achieved by its relationship with United Nations, how its work has been accomplished and what to expect in the future