3,311 research outputs found
Fire and rescue service community safety initiatives: measuring impact
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to discuss methods of capturing the impact of fire and rescue service (FRS) community safety work which directly aims to reduce the occurrence of specific incidents. Design/methodology/approach - The impact assessment method described focuses on addressing one of the major problems with regards to attributing outcomes to FRS community safety work; the influence of external factors. This paper looked to assess the incident trends within a case study UK FRS within the context of the following external data sets: first, incident trends within other UK FRSs; second, demographic trends; and third, incident data from other public services. Findings - There were instances, either across the whole region served by the case study FRS, or within specific districts, where evidence suggested a strong likelihood of the community safety work of the case study FRS contributing towards an observed reduction in incidents. These findings were established through filtering the impact of widespread external factors, which could impact upon incident figures. Research limitations/implications - The utility of this impact assessment relies upon FRS consistently recording the specific aims and focus of individual community safety activity, so that any positive outcomes can be attributed to a particular group of community safety initiatives. Originality/value - This paper discusses how an evaluation process, to deter mine the likelihood of community safety impacting upon incident numbers, can be practically applied to a FRS
Disorder effect in low dimensional superconductors
The quasiparticle density of states (DOS), the energy gap, the superfluid
density , and the localization effect in the s- and d-wave
superconductors with non-magnetic impurity in two dimensions (2D) are studied
numerically. For strong (unitary) scatters, we find that it is the range of the
scattering potential rather than the symmetry of the superconducting pairing
which is more important in explaining the impurity dependences of the specific
heat and the superconducting transition temperature in Zn doped YBCO. The
localization length is longer in the d-wave superconducting state than in the
normal state, even in the vicinity of the Fermi energy.Comment: 2 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript file, IRC-940610
Implementing & Evaluating a Nurse-Led Educational Intervention for Bone Marrow Transplant Patients in the Acute Care Setting
Objective: The Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Basics Class is a nurse-led educational program dedicated to preparing patients and their caregivers of the treatment outline and self-care behaviors associated with receiving a BMT. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention in order to support the needs of the BMT patient and promote patient-centered care.
Study Design: Retrospective review to evaluate a quality improvement project.
Participants & Methods: As of July 2016, the BMT Basics Class became a standard of care at an NCI-designated academic cancer center in the southeastern United States. Between July 20, 2016 and November 30, 2016, 33 patients who received a BMT attended the class with their caregiver, making them eligible project participants. A retrospective evaluation of CLABSI rates, 30-day readmission rates, length of stay, and patient satisfaction scores was conducted pre- (July 2015 to November 2015) and post- (July 2016 to November 2016) intervention to determine if there were any improvements in quality indicators for the patients who attended the class compared to patients who received a transplant before the class was created.
Results: There were no significant statistical differences between the pre- and post-implementation groups for length of stay or patient experience scores. 30-day readmission rate was lower among the post-implementation group (7.69% vs. 2.56%) with fewer patients readmitted for infection. However, there was an increase in CLABSI rate in the post-implementation group.
Conclusion: Educational interventions, such as the BMT Basics Class, could provide a patient-centered approach to improving quality of care, when implemented in addition to current evidence-based practice
LRG-BEASTS III: Ground-based transmission spectrum of the gas giant orbiting the cool dwarf WASP-80
We have performed ground-based transmission spectroscopy of the hot Jupiter
orbiting the cool dwarf WASP-80 using the ACAM instrument on the William
Herschel Telescope (WHT) as part of the LRG-BEASTS programme. This is the third
paper of a ground-based transmission spectroscopy survey of hot Jupiters using
low-resolution grism spectrographs. We observed two transits of the planet and
have constructed transmission spectra spanning a wavelength range of
4640-8840A. Our transmission spectrum is inconsistent with a previously claimed
detection of potassium in WASP-80b's atmosphere, and is instead most consistent
with a haze. We also do not see evidence for sodium absorption at a resolution
of 100A.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Rayleigh scattering in the transmission spectrum of HAT-P-18b
We have performed ground-based transmission spectroscopy of the hot Jupiter
HAT-P-18b using the ACAM instrument on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT).
Differential spectroscopy over an entire night was carried out at a resolution
of using a nearby comparison star. We detect a bluewards slope
extending across our optical transmission spectrum which runs from 4750 to
9250\AA. The slope is consistent with Rayleigh scattering at the equilibrium
temperature of the planet (852K). We do not detect enhanced sodium absorption,
which indicates that a high-altitude haze is masking the feature and giving
rise to the Rayleigh slope. This is only the second discovery of a Rayleigh
scattering slope in a hot Jupiter atmosphere from the ground, and our study
illustrates how ground-based observations can provide transmission spectra with
precision comparable to the Hubble Space Telescope.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
An XMM-Newton observation of the nova-like variable UX UMa: spatially and spectrally resolved two-component X-ray emission
In the optical and ultraviolet regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, UX
Ursae Majoris is a deeply eclipsing cataclysmic variable. However, no soft
X-ray eclipse was detected in ROSAT observations. We have obtained a 38 ksec
XMM-Newton observation to further constrain the origin of the X-rays. The
combination of spectral and timing information allows us to identify two
components in the X-ray emission of the system. The soft component, dominant
below photon energies of 2 keV, can be fitted with a multi-temperature plasma
model and is uneclipsed. The hard component, dominant above 3 keV, can be
fitted with a kT ~ 5 keV plasma model and appears to be deeply eclipsed. We
suggest that the most likely source of the hard X-ray emission in UX UMa, and
other systems in high mass transfer states, is the boundary layer.Comment: To appear in MNRAS Letter
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