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Provenance Store Evaluation
Requirements for the provenance store and access API are developed. Existing RDF stores and APIs are evaluated against the requirements and performance benchmarks. The teamās conclusion is to use MySQL as a database backend, with a possible move to Oracle in the near-term future. Both Jena and Sesameās APIs will be supported, but new code will use the Jena AP
The First Provenance Challenge
The first Provenance Challenge was set up in order to provide a forum for the community to help understand the capabilities of different provenance systems and the expressiveness of their provenance representations. To this end, a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging workflow was defined, which participants had to either simulate or run in order to produce some provenance representation, from which a set of identified queries had to be implemented and executed. Sixteen teams responded to the challenge, and submitted their inputs. In this paper, we present the challenge workflow and queries, and summarise the participants contributions
Evaluating the Implementation and Feasibility of a WebBased Tool to Support Timely Identification and Care for the Frail Population in Primary Healthcare Settings
Background: Understanding and addressing the needs of frail persons is an emerging health priority for Nova Scotia
and internationally. Primary healthcare (PHC) providers regularly encounter frail persons in their daily clinical work.
However, routine identification and measurement of frailty is not standard practice and, in general, there is a lack
of awareness about how to identify and respond to frailty. A web-based tool called the Frailty Portal was developed
to aid in identifying, screening, and providing care for frail patients in PHC settings. In this study, we will assess
the implementation feasibility and impact of the Frailty Portal to: (1) support increased awareness of frailty among
providers and patients, (2) identify the degree of frailty within individual patients, and (3) develop and deliver actions
to respond to frailtyl in community PHC practice.
Methods: This study will be approached using a convergent mixed method design where quantitative and qualitative
data are collected concurrently, in this case, over a 9-month period, analyzed separately, and then merged to summarize,
interpret and produce a more comprehensive understanding of the initiativeās feasibility and scalability. Methods will
be informed by the āImplementing the Frailty Portal in Community Primary Care Practiceā logic model and questions
will be guided by domains and constructs from an implementation science framework, the Consolidated Framework
for Implementation Research (CFIR).
Discussion: The āFrailty Portalā aims to improve access to, and coordination of, primary care services for persons
experiencing frailty. It also aims to increase primary care providersā ability to care for patients in the context of their
frailty. Our goal is to help optimize care in the community by helping community providers gain the knowledge they
may lack about frailty both in general and in their practice, support improved identification of frailty with the use of
screening tools, offer evidence based severity-specific care goals and connect providers with local available community
supports
The Newcomer Health Clinic in Nova Scotia: A Beacon Clinic to Support the Health Needs of the Refugee Population
Abstract
Refugees tend to have greater vulnerability compared to the general population reporting greater need for physical,
emotional, or dental problems compared to the general population. Despite the importance of creating strong
primary care supports for these patients, it has been demonstrated that there is a significant gap in accessing
primary care providers who are willing to accept the refugee population. These have resulted in bottlenecks in the
transition or bridge clinics and have left patients orphaned without a primary care provider. This in turn results
in higher use of emergency service and other unnecessary costs to the healthcare system. Currently there are few
studies that have explored these challenges from primary care provider perspectives and very few to none from
patient perspectives. A novel collaborative implementation initiative in primary healthcare (PHC) is seeking to
improve primary medical care for the refugee population by creating a globally recommended transition or beacon
clinic to support care needs of new arrivals and transitions to primary care providers. We discuss the innovative
elements of the clinic model in this paper
Improving Care for the Frail in Nova Scotia: An Implementation Evaluation of a Frailty Portal in Primary Care Practice
Abstract
Background: Understanding and addressing the needs of frail patients has been identified as an important strategy by
the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA). Primary care (PC) providers are in a key position to aid in the identification
of, and response to frailty as part of routine care. Unlike singular chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension
which garner a disease-based approach and identification as part of standard practice, frailty is only just emerging as a
concept for PC. The web-based Frailty Portal was developed to aid in the identification of, assessment and care planning
for frail patients in PC practice. In this study we assess the implementation feasibility and impact of the Frailty Portal
by: (1) identifying factors influencing the Frailty Portalās use in community PC practice, and (2) examination of the
immediate impact of the āFrailty Portalā on frail patients, their caregivers and PC providers.
Methods: A convergent mixed method approach was implemented among PC providers in community-based practice in
the NSHA, Central Zone. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently over a 9-month period. A sample
of patients who underwent assessment and/or their caregiver were approached for survey participation.
Results: Fourteen community PC providers (10 family physicians, 4 nurse practitioners) completed 48 patient assessments
and completed or begun 41 care plans; semi-structured interviews were conducted among 9 providers. Nine patients
and 5 caregivers participated in the survey. PC providers viewed frailty as an important concept but implementation
challenges were met, primarily with respect to the time required for use and lack of fit with traditional practice routines.
Additional barriers included tool usability and accessibility, training and care planning steps, and privacy. Impacts of the
tools use with respect to confidence and knowledge showed early promise.
Conclusion: This feasibility study highlights the need for added health system supports, resources and financial incentives
for successful implementation of the Frailty Portal in community PC practice. We suggest future implementation
integrate the Frailty Portal to practice electronic medical records (EMRs) and target providers with largely geriatric
practice populations and those practicing within interdisciplinary, collaborative primary healthcare (PHC) teams
Why does fertilization reduce plant species diversity? Testing three competition-based hypotheses
1 Plant species diversity drops when fertilizer is added or productivity increases. To explain this, the total competition hypothesis predicts that competition above ground and below ground both become more important, leading to more competitive exclusion, whereas the light competition hypothesis predicts that a shift from below-ground to above-ground competition has a similar effect. The density hypothesis predicts that more above-ground competition leads to mortality of small individuals of all species, and thus a random loss of species from plots. 2 Fertilizer was added to old field plots to manipulate both below-ground and above-ground resources, while shadecloth was used to manipulate above-ground resources alone in tests of these hypotheses. 3 Fertilizer decreased both ramet density and species diversity, and the effect remained significant when density was added as a covariate. Density effects explained only a small part of the drop in diversity with fertilizer. 4 Shadecloth and fertilizer reduced light by the same amount, but only fertilizer reduced diversity. Light alone did not control diversity, as the light competition hypothesis would have predicted, but the combination of above-ground and below-ground competition caused competitive exclusion, consistent with the total competition hypothesis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75695/1/j.1365-2745.2001.00662.x.pd
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