1,816 research outputs found
Cities, The Sharing Economy and What's Next
This report seeks to provide an analysis of what is currently happening in American cities so that city leaders may better understand, encourage and regulate the growing sharing economy. Interviews were conducted with city officials on the impact of the sharing economy and related topics, and the report centers around five key themes: innovation, economic development, equity, safety and implementation.The sharing economy is also commonly referred to as collaborative consumption, the collaborative economy, or the peer-to-peer economy. This term refers to business models that enable providers and consumers to share resources and services, from housing to vehicles and more. These business models typically take the form of an online and/or application-based platform for business transactions
What is psychosis? A meta-synthesis of inductive qualitative studies exploring the experience of psychosis
Qualitative studies have played an important role in elucidating the lived experience of psychosis and there has recently been an increase in the number of such studies. There is now an urgent need to draw together the findings of these studies. This paper performed a meta-synthesis of inductive qualitative peer-reviewed research into psychosis. Ninety-eight articles were identified for systematic appraisal. Four themes, âLosingâ, âIdentifying a need for, and seeking, helpâ, âRebuilding and reforgingâ, and âBetter than new: gifts from psychosisâ, were identified. The important implications these themes for clinicians and future research are examined upon. These findings also highlight that the experience of psychosis is much more than simply just hallucinations and/or delusions
The Ice in Voices:Understanding negative content in auditory-verbal hallucinations
Negative voice-content is the best sole predictor of whether the hearer of an auditory-verbal hallucination will experience distress/impairment necessitating contact with mental health services. Yet, what causes negative voice-content and how interventions may reduce it remains poorly understood. This paper offers definitions of negative voice content and considers what may cause negative voice-content. We propose a framework in which adverse life-events may underpin much negative voice-content, a relation which may be mediated by me- chanisms including hypervigilance, reduced social rank, shame and self-blame, dissociation, and altered emo- tional processing. At a neurological level, we note how the involvement of the amygdala and right Broca's area could drive negative voice-content. We observe that negative interactions between hearers and their voices may further drive negative voice-content. Finally, we consider the role of culture in shaping negative voice-content. This framework is intended to deepen and extend cognitive models of voice-hearing and spur further devel- opment of psychological interventions for those distressed by such voices. We note that much of the relevant research in this area remains to be performed or replicated. We conclude that more attention needs to be paid to methods for reducing negative voice-content, and urge further research in this important area
Hearing the Unheard: An Interdisciplinary, Mixed Methodology Study of Womenâs Experiences of Hearing Voices (Auditory Verbal Hallucinations)
This paper explores the experiences of women who âhear voicesâ (auditory verbal hallucinations). We begin by examining historical understandings of women hearing voices, showing these have been driven by androcentric theories of how womenâs bodies functioned leading to women being viewed as requiring their voices be interpreted by men. We show the twentieth century was associated with recognition that the mental violation of womenâs minds (represented by some voice-hearing) was often a consequence of the physical violation of womenâs bodies. We next report the results of a qualitative study into voice-hearing womenâs experiences (n = 8). This found similarities between womenâs relationships with their voices and their relationships with others and the wider social context. Finally, we present results from a quantitative study comparing voice-hearing in women (n = 65) and men (n = 132) in a psychiatric setting. Women were more likely than men to have certain forms of voice-hearing (voices conversing) and to have antecedent events of trauma, physical illness, and relationship problems. Voices identified as female may have more positive affect than male voices. We conclude that women voice-hearers have and continue to face specific challenges necessitating research and activism, and hope this paper will act as a stimulus to such work
Multi-century trends to wetter winters and drier summers in the England and Wales precipitation series explained by observational and sampling bias in early records
Globally, few precipitation records extend to the 18th century. The England Wales Precipitation (EWP) series is a notable exception with continuous monthly records from 1766. EWP has found widespread use across diverse fields of research including trend detection, evaluation of climate model simulations, as a proxy for mid-latitude atmospheric circulation, a predictor in long-term European gridded precipitation data sets, the assessment of drought and extremes, tree-ring reconstructions and as a benchmark for other regional series. A key finding from EWP has been the multi-centennial trends towards wetter winters and drier summers. We statistically reconstruct seasonal EWP using independent, quality-assured temperature, pressure and circulation indices. Using a sleet and snow series for the UK derived by Profs. Gordon Manley and Elizabeth Shaw to examine winter reconstructions, we show that precipitation totals for pre-1870 winters are likely biased low due to gauge under-catch of snowfall and a higher incidence of snowfall during this period. When these factors are accounted for in our reconstructions, the observed trend to wetter winters in EWP is no longer evident. For summer, we find that pre-1820 precipitation totals are too high, likely due to decreasing network density and less certain data at key stations. A significant trend to drier summers is not robustly present in our reconstructions of the EWP series. While our findings are more certain for winter than summer, we highlight (a) that extreme caution should be exercised when using EWP to make inferences about multi-centennial trends, and; (b) that assessments of 18th and 19th Century winter precipitation should be aware of potential snow biases in early records. Our findings underline the importance of continual re-appraisal of established long-term climate data sets as new evidence becomes available. It is also likely that the identified biases in winter EWP have distorted many other long-term European precipitation series
Binary Stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster
We report on a high-spatial-resolution survey for binary stars in the
periphery of the Orion Nebula Cluster, at 5 - 15 arcmin (0.65 - 2 pc) from the
cluster center. We observed 228 stars with adaptive optics systems, in order to
find companions at separations of 0.13" - 1.12" (60 - 500 AU), and detected 13
new binaries. Combined with the results of Petr (1998), we have a sample of 275
objects, about half of which have masses from the literature and high
probabilities to be cluster members. We used an improved method to derive the
completeness limits of the observations, which takes into account the elongated
point spread function of stars at relatively large distances from the adaptive
optics guide star. The multiplicity of stars with masses >2 M_sun is found to
be significantly larger than that of low-mass stars. The companion star
frequency of low-mass stars is comparable to that of main-sequence M-dwarfs,
less than half that of solar-type main-sequence stars, and 3.5 to 5 times lower
than in the Taurus-Auriga and Scorpius-Centaurus star-forming regions. We find
the binary frequency of low-mass stars in the periphery of the cluster to be
the same or only slightly higher than for stars in the cluster core (<3 arcmin
from theta1C Ori). This is in contrast to the prediction of the theory that the
low binary frequency in the cluster is caused by the disruption of binaries due
to dynamical interactions. There are two ways out of this dilemma: Either the
initial binary frequency in the Orion Nebula Cluster was lower than in
Taurus-Auriga, or the Orion Nebula Cluster was originally much denser and
dynamically more active.Comment: 20 page
The provision and impact of online patient access to their electronic health records (EHR) and transactional services on the quality and safety of health care: systematic review protocol
Background: Innovators have piloted improvements in communication, changed patterns of practice and patient empowerment from online access to electronic health records (EHR). International studies of online services, such as prescription ordering, online appointment booking and secure communications with primary care, show good uptake of email consultations, accessing test results and booking appointments; when technologies and business process are in place. Online access and transactional services are due to be rolled out across England by 2015; this review seeks to explore the impact of online access to health records and other online services on the quality and safety of primary health care.
Objective: To assess the factors that may affect the provision of online patient access to their EHR and transactional services, and the impact of such access on the quality and safety of health care.
Method: Two reviewers independently searched 11 international databases during the period 1999â2012. A range of papers including descriptive studies using qualitative or quantitative methods, hypothesis-testing studies and systematic reviews were included. A detailed eligibility criterion will be used to shape study inclusion .A team of experts will review these papers for eligibility, extract data using a customised extraction form and use the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) instrument to determine the quality of the evidence and the strengths of any recommendation. Data will then be descriptively summarised and thematically synthesised. Where feasible, we will perform a quantitative meta-analysis
The ugrizYJHK luminosity distributions and densities from the combined MGC, SDSS and UKIDSS LAS datasets
We combine data from the MGC, SDSS and UKIDSS LAS surveys to produce
ugrizYJHK luminosity functions and densities from within a common, low redshift
volume (z<0.1, ~71,000 h_1^-3 Mpc^3 for L* systems) with 100 per cent
spectroscopic completeness. In the optical the fitted Schechter functions are
comparable in shape to those previously reported values but with higher
normalisations (typically 0, 30, 20, 15, 5 per cent higher phi*-values in u, g,
r, i, z respectively over those reported by the SDSS team). We attribute these
to differences in the redshift ranges probed, incompleteness, and adopted
normalisation methods. In the NIR we find significantly different Schechter
function parameters (mainly in the M* values) to those previously reported and
attribute this to the improvement in the quality of the imaging data over
previous studies. This is the first homogeneous measurement of the
extragalactic luminosity density which fully samples both the optical and
near-IR regimes. Unlike previous compilations that have noted a discontinuity
between the optical and near-IR regimes our homogeneous dataset shows a smooth
cosmic spectral energy distribution (CSED). After correcting for dust
attenuation we compare our CSED to the expected values based on recent
constraints on the cosmic star-formation history and the initial mass function.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, Accepted in MNRAS: 2010 January 18; in original
form 2009 August 1
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