Factors determining the behavior and effectiveness of personal decision support systems users: An examination of Fishbein\u27s model

Personal computing, and the microcomputer which support it, are referred to as Personal Decision Support Systems (PDSS) (Lehman, 1985). Empirical studies regarding personal computing have been of the general field study type, primarily examining trends and/or establishing the basic concept of personal computing. This research builds and empirically tests a research model that conceptualizes some impact variables which are internal to the user, as intervening in the relationship between the situational or external variables identified by previous MIS research and system success (utilization, decision performance, and satisfaction). This study employs a framework, based on Fishbein and Ajzen\u27s intention-behavior model (1975), to integrate variables indicated to be important by previous findings in MIS studies, and to provide a micro-description of how those variables affect success of personal DSS. The conceptual model consists of six independent variables (users\u27 experience and education, enduser tools, end-user support, end-user training, task fepetitiveness, and task analyzability) and their impact on three intermediate variables (attitude, intention, and actual usage) and one dependent variable (user satisfaction). j The methodology employed in this study involves a two-phased cross-sectional field survey of personal DSS users in seven large organizations. To examine the mechanisms by which the independent and intermediate variables affect success, eight hypotheses were investigated using stepwise multiple regression analysis. Three hypotheses were supported. Although the study failed to shed light on how the determinants a//ecf success, it co^irmed the underlying conceptual framework of Fishbein\u27s model

An investigation into self-reported foot and lower limb problems associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE): a research proposal

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can manifest in the lower limb with joint and muscle pains and in severe cases, disorganisation of the joints and tendon rupture. In the foot and lower limb, Raynaud’s phenomenon and other circulatory problems have been reported and may be associated with loss of sensation or altered pain perception. Associated with impaired peripheral neurovascular function are changes in tissue viability leading to either callus formation or thinning of the skin and ulceration. Many medications used to manage SLE can impact on the person’s resistance to infections and consequently fungal, bacterial or viral infections can spread rapidly and persist. Although there is some evidence for this range of problems occurring in the foot, it is not known how prevalent they are, what interaction there is between problems, and how these impact upon a person’s health related quality of life (HRQoL). Thus, the main aim of this study is to determine the self-reported foot and lower limb problems experienced by people with SLE. A secondary aim is to explore the impact that the identified foot and lower complications may have upon patients with SLE. It is anticipated that this research will highlight areas of potential health care need and thus can be used to inform recommendations about foot health care for this patient group and the focus of future research

Decoherence of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steering

We consider two systems A and B that share Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering correlations and study how these correlations will decay, when each of the systems are independently coupled to a reservoir. EPR steering is a directional form of entanglement, and the measure of steering can change depending on whether the system A is steered by B, or vice versa. First, we examine the decay of the steering correlations of the two-mode squeezed state. We find that if the system B is coupled to a reservoir, then the decoherence of the steering of A by B is particularly marked, to the extent that there is a sudden death of steering after a finite time. We find a different directional effect, if the reservoirs are thermally excited. Second, we study the decoherence of the steering of a Schr\"odinger cat state, modeled as the entangled state of a spin and harmonic oscillator, when the macroscopic system (the cat) is coupled to a reservoir

Overcoming data scarcity of Twitter: using tweets as bootstrap with application to autism-related topic content analysis

Notwithstanding recent work which has demonstrated the potential of using Twitter messages for content-specific data mining and analysis, the depth of such analysis is inherently limited by the scarcity of data imposed by the 140 character tweet limit. In this paper we describe a novel approach for targeted knowledge exploration which uses tweet content analysis as a preliminary step. This step is used to bootstrap more sophisticated data collection from directly related but much richer content sources. In particular we demonstrate that valuable information can be collected by following URLs included in tweets. We automatically extract content from the corresponding web pages and treating each web page as a document linked to the original tweet show how a temporal topic model based on a hierarchical Dirichlet process can be used to track the evolution of a complex topic structure of a Twitter community. Using autism-related tweets we demonstrate that our method is capable of capturing a much more meaningful picture of information exchange than user-chosen hashtags.Comment: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, 201

An immunotherapy survivor population: health-related quality of life and toxicity in patients with metastatic melanoma treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors

© The Author(s) 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.Purpose The immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have resulted in subgroups of patients with metastatic melanoma achievinghigh-quality durable responses. Metastatic melanoma survivors are a new population in the era of cancer survivorship. The aimofthis study was to evaluate metastatic melanoma survivors in terms of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), immune-relatedadverse events (irAEs) and exposure to immunosuppressive agents in a large single centre in the UK.Methods We defined the survivor population as patients with a diagnosis of metastatic melanoma who achieved a durableresponse to an ICI and had been followed-up for a minimum of 12 months from initiation of ICI without disease progression.HRQoL was assessed using SF-36. Electronic health records were accessed to collect data on demographics, treatments, irAEsand survival. HRQoL data was compared with two norm-based datasets.Results Eighty-four metastatic melanoma survivors were eligible and 87% (N = 73) completed the SF-36. ICI-related toxicity ofany grade occurred in 92%of patients and 43%had experienced a grade 3 or 4 toxicity. Almost half (49%) of the patients requiredsteroids for the treatment of ICI-related toxicity, whilst 14% required treatment with an immunosuppressive agent beyondsteroids.Melanoma survivors had statistically significant lower HRQoL scores with regard to physical, social and physical rolefunctioning and general health compared with the normative population. There was a trend towards inferior scores in patientswith previous exposure to ipilimumab compared with those never exposed to ipilimumab.Conclusions Our results show that metastatic melanoma survivors have potentially experienced significant ICI-related toxicityand experience significant impairments in specific HRQoL domains. Future service planning is required to meet this population’sunique survivorship needs.Peer reviewe

Patients’ experiences of lupus related foot problems : a qualitative investigation

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) can present with a variety of symptoms. Previous research has shown there is a high prevalence of lower limb and foot problems in patients with SLE associated with the musculoskeletal, vascular and neurological changes. Furthermore, there is a high prevalence of infections affecting the feet and a range of common skin and nail problems. However, it is not known how these foot problems impact upon people’s lives. Therefore, we aimed to explore this using a qualitative approach. Method: Following ethical approval, 12 participants were recruited who had a diagnosis of SLE, current and/or past experience of foot problems and were over 18 years in age. Following consent, interviews were carried out with an interpretivist phenomenological approach to both data collection and analysis. Results: Seven themes provide insight into: foot problems and symptoms; the impact of these foot problems and symptoms on activities; disclosure and diagnosis of foot problems; treatment of foot problems and symptoms; perceived barriers to professional foot care; unanswered questions about feet and foot care; and identification of the need for professional foot care and foot care advice. Conclusion: These participants tend to “self-treat” rather than disclose that they may need professional foot care. A lack of focus upon foot health within a medical consultation is attributed to the participant’s belief that it is not within the doctor’s role, even though it is noted to contribute to reduced daily activity. There is a need for feet to be included as a part of patient monitoring and for foot health management to be made accessible for people with SLE