408 research outputs found
Obesity bias in diagnostic radiography students: A survey of attitudes, perceptions and technical confidence
Introduction: Obesity bias exists in healthcare professionals and students from numerous disciplines and negatively impacts the quality of care, outcomes, engagement, and satisfaction of their patients. With obesity rates continuing to rise in the United Kingdom (UK), more patients will be affected than ever, and it is becoming an increasingly important issue to tackle. This study aims to assess the attitudes to obesity of student diagnostic radiographers and determine if obesity bias exists in this population.
Method: Student radiographers (n=140) at a single university in the UK were invited to complete an online survey comprising measures designed to assess levels of bias and attitudes towards obesity, including the Attitude Towards Obese Persons (ATOP) scale. Likert-type scales were used to collect quantitative data, and data analysis included descriptive statistics, frequencies, and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.
Results: Responses were received from n=38 students. The mean ATOP score for participants was 70.37 (SD=19.26). With 26% (n=10) scoring below 60, demonstrating strong negative attitudes towards obese individuals. Additionally, students (76.3%; n=29) indicated that they observed high levels of obesity bias whilst on clinical placement. There was a statistically significant correlation between levels of weight bias and students’ confidence in working with obese patients (r(36)=0.4, p 0.01). Students who are less confident working with obese patients had higher levels of obesity bias.
Conclusions: Obesity bias exists in radiography students at levels comparable to those that have been found previously in other healthcare professionals and students. Furthermore, radiography students lacked confidence in their technical ability to work with obese patients and lower confidence levels were associated with higher levels of obesity bias.
Implications for Practice: The findings of this study provide preliminary knowledge upon which future research can be built
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Proceedings of ECAI International Workshop on Neural-Symbolic Learning and reasoning NeSy 2006
Trichinella pseudospiralis outbreak in France.
Four persons became ill with trichinellosis after eating meat from a wild boar hunted in Camargue, France. Nonencapsulated larvae of Trichinella pseudospiralis were detected in meat and muscle biopsy specimens. The diagnoses were confirmed by molecular typing. Surveillance for the emerging T. pseudospiralis should be expanded
BNCI systems as a potential assistive technology: ethical issues and participatory research in the BrainAble project
This paper highlights aspects related to current research and thinking about ethical issues in relation to Brain Computer Interface (BCI) and Brain-Neuronal Computer Interfaces (BNCI) research through the experience of one particular project, BrainAble, which is exploring and developing the potential of these technologies to enable people with complex disabilities to control computers. It describes how ethical practice has been developed both within the multidisciplinary research team and with participants. Results: The paper presents findings in which participants shared their views of the project prototypes, of the potential of BCI/BNCI systems as an assistive technology, and of their other possible applications. This draws attention to the importance of ethical practice in projects where high expectations of technologies, and representations of “ideal types” of disabled users may reinforce stereotypes or drown out participant “voices”. Conclusions: Ethical frameworks for research and development in emergent areas such as BCI/BNCI systems should be based on broad notions of a “duty of care” while being sufficiently flexible that researchers can adapt project procedures according to participant needs. They need to be frequently revisited, not only in the light of experience, but also to ensure they reflect new research findings and ever more complex and powerful technologies
Use of particle counter system for the optimization of sampling ,identification and decontamination procedures for biological aerosols dispersion in confined environment
Abstract
In a CBRNe (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and explosive) scenario, biological agents hardly allow
efficient detection/identification because of the incubation time that provides a lag in symptoms outbreak following
their dissemination. The detection of atmospheric dispersion of biological agents (i.e.: toxins, viruses, bacteria and so
on) is a key issue for the safety of people and security of environment. Another fundamental aspect is related to the
efficiency of the sampling method, which leads to the identification of the agent released, in fact an effective sampling
method is needed either to identify the contamination and to check for the decontamination procedure.
Environmental monitoring is one of the ways to improve fast detection of biological agents; for instance, particle
counters with the ability of discriminating between biological and non-biological particles are used for a first warning
when the amount of biological particles exceeds a particular threshold. Nevertheless, these systems are not able to
distinguish between pathogen and non-pathogen organisms, thus, classical “laboratory” assays are still required to
unambiguously identify the particle which triggered the warning signal. In this work, a combination of commercially
available equipment for detection and identification of the atmospheric dispersion of biological agents was evaluated in
partnership between the Italian Army, the Department of Industrial Engineering and the School of Medicine and
Surgery of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. The aim of this work, whose results are presented here, was to
conduce preliminary studies on the dynamics of biological aerosols fallout after its dispersion, to improve detection,
sampling and identification techniques. This will help minimizing the impact of the release of biological agents,
guarantee environmental, and people safety and securit
Impact of polarisation mode dispersion infield demonstration of 40Gbit/s solitontransmission over 500 km
40Gbitis single-wavelength altemate-polarisation soliton
transmission over 5 0 0 h has been successfully demonstrated in a
field trial using dispersion-shifted fibre. Comparisons with an
equivalent laboratory trial and numerial simulations show that
the main source of impairment is polarisation mode dispersion
Impact of the polarization mode dispersion on a field demonstration of 40 Gbit/s soliton transmission over 500 km
Manipulation and removal of defects in spontaneous optical patterns
Defects play an important role in a number of fields dealing with ordered
structures. They are often described in terms of their topology, mutual
interaction and their statistical characteristics. We demonstrate theoretically
and experimentally the possibility of an active manipulation and removal of
defects. We focus on the spontaneous formation of two-dimensional spatial
structures in a nonlinear optical system, a liquid crystal light valve under
single optical feedback. With increasing distance from threshold, the
spontaneously formed hexagonal pattern becomes disordered and contains several
defects. A scheme based on Fourier filtering allows us to remove defects and to
restore spatial order. Starting without control, the controlled area is
progressively expanded, such that defects are swept out of the active area.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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