40,054 research outputs found
Exploring the challenges of implementing e-health: a protocol for an update of a systematic review of reviews.
There is great potential for e-health to deliver cost-effective, quality healthcare and spending on e-health systems by governments and healthcare systems is increasing worldwide. However, the literature often describes problematic and unsuccessful attempts to implement these new technologies into routine clinical practice. To understand and address the challenges of implementing e-health, a systematic review was conducted in 2009, which identified several conceptual barriers and facilitators to implementation. As technology is rapidly changing and new e-health solutions are constantly evolving to meet the needs of current practice, an update of this review is deemed necessary to understand current challenges to the implementation of e-health. This research aims to identify, summarise and synthesise currently available evidence, by undertaking a systematic review of reviews to explore the barriers and facilitators to implementing e-health across a range of healthcare settings
Scoping a public health impact assessment of aquaculture with particular reference to tilapia in the UK
Background. The paper explores shaping public health impact assessment tools for tilapia, a novel emergent aquaculture sector in the UK. This Research Council’s UK Rural Economy and Land Use project embraces technical, public health, and marketing perspectives scoping tools to assess possible impacts of the activity. Globally, aquaculture produced over 65 million tonnes of food in 2008 and will grow significantly requiring apposite global public health impact assessment tools.<p></p>
Methods. Quantitative and qualitative methods incorporated data from a tridisciplinary literature. Holistic tools scoped tilapia farming impact assessments. Laboratory-based tilapia production generated data on impacts in UK and Thailand along with 11 UK focus groups involving 90 consumers, 30 interviews and site visits, 9 visits to UK tilapia growers and 2 in The Netherlands.<p></p>
Results. The feasibility, challenges, strengths, and weaknesses of creating a tilapia Public Health Impact Assessment are analysed. Occupational and environmental health benefits and risks attached to tilapia production were identified.<p></p>
Conclusions. Scoping public health impacts of tilapia production is possible at different levels and forms for producers, retailers, consumers, civil society and governmental bodies that may contribute to complex and interrelated public health assessments of aquaculture projects. Our assessment framework constitutes an innovatory perspective in the field
The influence of risk perception in epidemics: a cellular agent model
Our work stems from the consideration that the spreading of a disease is
modulated by the individual's perception of the infected neighborhood and
his/her strategy to avoid being infected as well. We introduced a general
``cellular agent'' model that accounts for a hetereogeneous and variable
network of connections. The probability of infection is assumed to depend on
the perception that an individual has about the spreading of the disease in her
local neighborhood and on broadcasting media. In the one-dimensional
homogeneous case the model reduces to the DK one, while for long-range coupling
the dynamics exhibits large fluctuations that may lead to the complete
extinction of the disease
Spatial synchronization and extinction of species under external forcing
We study the interplay between synchronization and extinction of a species.
Using a general model we show that under a common external forcing, the species
with a quadratic saturation term in the population dynamics first undergoes
spatial synchronization and then extinction, thereby avoiding the rescue
effect. This is because the saturation term reduces the synchronization time
scale but not the extinction time scale. The effect can be observed even when
the external forcing acts only on some locations provided there is a
synchronizing term in the dynamics. Absence of the quadratic saturation term
can help the species to avoid extinction.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
The public health potential of the current health apps for increasing physical activity
I consider my PhD as having 2 distinctive parts: A) to ascertain the quality of physical activity (PA) applications (apps) on the market in terms of safety, effectiveness, and user experience (Studies 1, 2); B) to assess the efficacy of selected PA apps with potential, physically inactive, users (Studies 3, 4). I am finalising part A of the PhD and I am writing the protocols for part B. It would be valuable to gain the views of experts to make sure I am considering the topic from both behaviour change discipline and user experience research
Velocity fluctuations of noisy reaction fronts propagating into a metastable state: testing theory in stochastic simulations
The position of a reaction front, propagating into a metastable state,
fluctuates because of the shot noise of reactions and diffusion. A recent
theory [B. Meerson, P.V. Sasorov, and Y. Kaplan, Phys. Rev. E 84, 011147
(2011)] gave a closed analytic expression for the front diffusion coefficient
in the weak noise limit. Here we test this theory in stochastic simulations
involving reacting and diffusing particles on a one-dimensional lattice. We
also investigate a small noise-induced systematic shift of the front velocity
compared to the prediction from the spatially continuous deterministic
reaction-diffusion equation.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Analytical and experimental investigation of gas bearing tilting pad pivots Final report
Fretting damage in gas bearing tilting pad pivot
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