18,206 research outputs found
Benefits and losses: a qualitative study exploring healthcare staff perceptions of teamworking
ABSTRACT
Objectives: To examine staff perceptions of teamworking
practice in the field of stroke care.
Design: Qualitative interview study.
Setting: Three teams providing care to patients with
stroke across a typical care pathway of acute hospital
ward, specialist stroke unit, and community rehabilitation.
Participants: 37 staff members from a range of
professions.
Main outcome measures: Healthcare staff perceptions
of teamworking.
Results: Through detailed coding and analysis of the
transcripts, five perceptions regarding the impact of
teamworking on staff and patients were identified. These
were: (1) mutual staff support, (2) knowledge and skills
sharing, (3) timely intervention/discharge, (4) reduced
individual decision-making and responsibility and (5)
impact on patient contact time.
Conclusions: Teamworking practice may be associated
with a number of perceived benefits for staff and patient
care; however, the potential for losses resulting from
reduced patient contact time and ill-defined responsibility
needs further investigation
Corner transfer matrices in statistical mechanics
Corner transfer matrices are a useful tool in the statistical mechanics of
simple two-dimensinal models. They can be very effective way of obtaining
series expansions of unsolved models, and of calculating the order parameters
of solved ones. Here we review these features and discuss the reason why the
method fails to give the order parameter of the chiral Potts model.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, for Proceedings of Conference on Symmetries and
Integrability of Difference Equations. (SIDE VII), Melbourne, July 200
New Q matrices and their functional equations for the eight vertex model at elliptic roots of unity
The Q matrix invented by Baxter in 1972 to solve the eight vertex model at
roots of unity exists for all values of N, the number of sites in the chain,
but only for a subset of roots of unity. We show in this paper that a new Q
matrix, which has recently been introduced and is non zero only for N even,
exists for all roots of unity. In addition we consider the relations between
all of the known Q matrices of the eight vertex model and conjecture functional
equations for them.Comment: 20 pages, 2 Postscript figure
The order parameter of the chiral Potts model
An outstanding problem in statistical mechanics is the order parameter of the
chiral Potts model. An elegant conjecture for this was made in 1983. It has
since been successfully tested against series expansions, but as far as the
author is aware there is as yet no proof of the conjecture. Here we show that
if one makes a certain analyticity assumption similar to that used to derive
the free energy, then one can indeed verify the conjecture. The method is based
on the ``broken rapidity line'' approach pioneered by Jimbo, Miwa and
Nakayashiki.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures. Citations made more explicit and some typos
correcte
Planar lattice gases with nearest-neighbour exclusion
We discuss the hard-hexagon and hard-square problems, as well as the
corresponding problem on the honeycomb lattice. The case when the activity is
unity is of interest to combinatorialists, being the problem of counting binary
matrices with no two adjacent 1's. For this case we use the powerful corner
transfer matrix method to numerically evaluate the partition function per site,
density and some near-neighbour correlations to high accuracy. In particular
for the square lattice we obtain the partition function per site to 43 decimal
places.Comment: 16 pages, 2 built-in Latex figures, 4 table
Integrability of -oscillator lattice model
A simple formulation of an exactly integrable -oscillator model on two
dimensional lattice (in 2+1 dimensional space-time) is given. Its
interpretation in the terms of 2d quantum inverse scattering method and nested
Bethe Ansatz equations is discussed.Comment: Talk given at the conference ``New frontiers in exactly solved
models'', ANU, July 21-22, 200
Free field constructions for the elliptic algebra and Baxter's eight-vertex model
Three examples of free field constructions for the vertex operators of the
elliptic quantum group are obtained. Two of these
(for ) are based on representation theories
of the deformed Virasoro algebra, which correspond to the level 4 and level 2
-algebra of Lepowsky and Wilson. The third one () is
constructed over a tensor product of a bosonic and a fermionic Fock spaces. The
algebraic structure at , however, is not related to the deformed
Virasoro algebra. Using these free field constructions, an integral formula for
the correlation functions of Baxter's eight-vertex model is obtained. This
formula shows different structure compared with the one obtained by Lashkevich
and Pugai.Comment: 23 pages. Based on talks given at "MATHPHYS ODYSSEY 2001-Integrable
Models and Beyond" at Okayama and Kyoto, February 19-23, 2001, et
A computer solution for the dynamic load, lubricant film thickness, and surface temperatures in spiral-bevel gears
A computer method for determining the dynamic load between spiral bevel pinion and gear teeth contact along the path of contact is described. The dynamic load analysis governs both the surface temperature and film thickness. Computer methods for determining the surface temperature, and film thickness are presented along with results obtained for a pair of typical spiral bevel gears
Water quality monitor
The preprototype water quality monitor (WQM) subsystem was designed based on a breadboard monitor for pH, specific conductance, and total organic carbon (TOC). The breadboard equipment demonstrated the feasibility of continuous on-line analysis of potable water for a spacecraft. The WQM subsystem incorporated these breadboard features and, in addition, measures ammonia and includes a failure detection system. The sample, reagent, and standard solutions are delivered to the WQM sensing manifold where chemical operations and measurements are performed using flow through sensors for conductance, pH, TOC, and NH3. Fault monitoring flow detection is also accomplished in this manifold assembly. The WQM is designed to operate automatically using a hardwired electronic controller. In addition, automatic shutdown is incorporated which is keyed to four flow sensors strategically located within the fluid system
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