Mental disturbances and perceived complexity of nursing care in medical inpatients: results from a European study

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: The relationship between mental disturbances - anxiety and depression, somatization and alcohol abuse - on admission to internal medicine units and perceived complexity of care as indicated by the nurse at discharge was studied. The goal was to study the utility of short screeners for mental disturbances to select patients for case-management on admission. DESIGN: The study had a cohort design: patients were included on admission and followed through their hospital stay until discharge. The study was conducted within the framework of the European Biomed 1 Risk Factor study. RESEARCH METHODS AND INSTRUMENTS: In the first 3 days of admission the patients were interviewed by a trained health care professional, who scored the SCL-8D, a somatization questionnaire based on the Whiteley-7 and the CAGE. At discharge, nurses rated the complexity of the patient's care. RESULTS: Patients with high scores on anxiety and depression (SCL-8D) and on somatization received higher ratings on perceived nursing complexity than those with low scores, with and without control for age, severity of illness and chronicity. The actual nursing intensity and medical care utilization, as measured daily by means of a checklist, could not explain these relations. No differences were found between patients with high or low scores on alcohol abuse. CONCLUSIONS: The study shows a potential use of screeners for mental disturbances to detect patients for whom nurses might need additional help. However, mental disturbance is not the sole criterion: functional status and other variables that predict medical and nursing care utilization should be included in a screening strategy for case-management programme

Service Interaction Flow Analysis Technique for Service Personalization

Abstract Service interaction flows are difficult to capture, analyze, outline, and represent for research and design purposes. We examine how variation of personalized service flows in technology-mediated service interaction can be modeled and analyzed to provide information on how service personalization could support interaction. We have analyzed service interaction cases in a context of technology-mediated car rental service. With the analysis technique we propose, inspired by Interaction Analysis method, we were able to capture and model the situational service interaction. Our contribution regarding technology-mediated service interaction design is twofold: First, with the increased understanding on the role of personalization in managing variation in technology-mediated service interaction, our study contributes to designing service management information systems and human-computer interfaces that support personalized service interaction flows. Second, we provide a new analysis technique for situated interaction analysis, particularly when the aim is to understand personalization in service interaction flows

Multi-factor service design: identification and consideration of multiple factors of the service in its design process

Service design is a multidisciplinary area that helps innovate services by bringing new ideas to customers through a design-thinking approach. Services are affected by multiple factors, which should be considered in designing services. In this paper, we propose the multi-factor service design (MFSD) method, which helps consider the multi-factor nature of service in the service design process. The MFSD method has been developed through and used in five service design studies with industry and government. The method addresses the multi-factor nature of service for systematic service design by providing the following guidelines: (1) identify key factors that affect the customer value creation of the service in question (in short, value creation factors), (2) define the design space of the service based on the value creation factors, and (3) design services and represent them based on the factors. We provide real stories and examples from the five service design studies to illustrate the MFSD method and demonstrate its utility. This study will contribute to the design of modern complex services that are affected by varied factors

Nucleolus: the fascinating nuclear body

Nucleoli are the prominent contrasted structures of the cell nucleus. In the nucleolus, ribosomal RNAs are synthesized, processed and assembled with ribosomal proteins. RNA polymerase I synthesizes the ribosomal RNAs and this activity is cell cycle regulated. The nucleolus reveals the functional organization of the nucleus in which the compartmentation of the different steps of ribosome biogenesis is observed whereas the nucleolar machineries are in permanent exchange with the nucleoplasm and other nuclear bodies. After mitosis, nucleolar assembly is a time and space regulated process controlled by the cell cycle. In addition, by generating a large volume in the nucleus with apparently no RNA polymerase II activity, the nucleolus creates a domain of retention/sequestration of molecules normally active outside the nucleolus. Viruses interact with the nucleolus and recruit nucleolar proteins to facilitate virus replication. The nucleolus is also a sensor of stress due to the redistribution of the ribosomal proteins in the nucleoplasm by nucleolus disruption. The nucleolus plays several crucial functions in the nucleus: in addition to its function as ribosome factory of the cells it is a multifunctional nuclear domain, and nucleolar activity is linked with several pathologies. Perspectives on the evolution of this research area are proposed

Customer Experience Management

Dieser Beitrag leistet einen Beitrag zur Marketingforschung, da er den jungen aber von zunehmender Relevanz geprägten Forschungsstrang zum Themenkomplex CEM grundlegend entwickelt. Zum einen zeigt das identifizierte Rahmenkonzept auf, dass CEM über einzelne unternehmerische Fähigkeiten wie dem Design von Serviceerlebnissen, das die bisherige CEM-Forschung bestimmt hat, hinausgeht. Zum anderen leistet das Konzept einen Beitrag zur Synthese fragmentierter, aber miteinander zusammenhängender Literaturströmungen in der Marketingforschung ..

Iodine status of non-pregnant women and availability of food vehicles for fortification with iodine in a remote community in Gulf province, Papua New Guinea

Adequate iodine status of women of childbearing age is essential for optimal growth and development of their offspring. The objectives of the current study were to assess the iodine status of non-pregnant women, availability and use of commercial salt, extent to which it is iodised, and availability of other industrially processed foods suitable for fortification with iodine. This prospective cross-sectional study was carried out in 2018 in a remote area in Gulf province, Papua New Guinea. Multistage cluster sampling was used to randomly select 300 women visiting local markets. Of these, 284 met study criteria of being non-pregnant and non-lactating. Single urine samples were collected from each of them. Discretionary salt intake was assessed; salt samples were collected from a sub-sample of randomly selected households. A semi-structured, pre-tested questionnaire to assess use and availability of commercial salt and other processed foods was modified and used. Salt was available on the interview day in 51.6% of households. Mean iodine content in household salt samples was 37.8 ± 11.8 ppm. Iodine content was below 30.0 ppm in 13.1% and below 15.0 ppm in 3.3% of salt samples. Mean iodine content of salt available at markets was 39.6 ± 0.52 ppm. Mean discretionary intake of salt per capita per day was 3.9 ± 1.21 g. Median UIC was 34.0 μg/L (95% CI, 30.0-38.0 ppm), indicating moderate iodine deficiency. For women with salt in the household, median UIC was 39.5 μg/L (95% CI, 32.0-47.0 μg/L), compared to median UIC of 29.0 μg/L (95% CI, 28.0-32.0 μg/L) for those without salt. This community has low consumption of iodised salt, likely due to limited access. Investigation of other industrially processed foods indicated salt is the most widely consumed processed food in this remote community, although 39.8% of households did use salty flavourings

Autonomous RC Cars for Control Research and Education: Implementation of Virtual Potential Based Navigation and Platooning

Autonomous and collaborative vehicles not only are seen as a possible solution to reducing congestion and traffic related fatalities. They also provide an excellent multi-domain test bench for engineering education at undergraduate and graduate level. Yet, the use of real scale platforms for experimental educational activities bears prohibitive costs and complexity. While several small scale autonomous platforms have been developed in recent years to address this issue, still they require a significant investment of time and money, which is not always ideal for undergraduate education. Furthermore, none of the available platforms are specifically developed for platooning experiments. In this paper, we detail the results of an undergraduate student's project where a pair of relatively low-cost, off-the-shelf small scale RC cars have been used to implement and test a well known platooning algorithm from the literature. Furthermore, a Virtual Potential Field (VPF) based lateral controller has been included in order to allow the cars to navigate a prescribed closed-circuit track. Self-location of each car has been obtained via a ceiling-mounted motion capture system. Results have shown that, even using a relatively low sampling rate of 10 Hz, accuracies in the order of 1 cm can be obtained when platooning at 0.5 m/s along a circuit of 4 by 3 m. As further improvements to the platform, apart from higher sampling rates for the control law, the inclusion of onboard perception is being explored, in order to eliminate the need for an external motion capture system. </p