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| 2. |
- Aguilar, Antonio, et al.
(författare)
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Positive Patient Identification using RFID and Wireless Networks
- 2006
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the HISI 11th Annual Conference and Scientific Symposium, Dublin, Ireland. - Dublin, Ireland.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The increased focus on patient safety in hospitals has yielded a flood of new technologies and tools seeking to improve the quality of patient care at the point-of-care. Hospitals are complex institutions by nature, and are constantly challenged to improve the quality of healthcare delivered to patients while trying to reduce the rate of medical errors and improve patient safety. Here a simple mistake such as patient misidentification, specimen misidentification, wrong medication, or wrong blood transfusion can cause the loss of a patient's life. The focus of this paper is the implementation and evaluation of a handheld-based patient identification system that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) and 802.11b wireless networks to identify patients. In this approach, each patient is given a RFID wristband which contains demographic information (patient ID number, patient summary, hospital code) of the patient. A handheld device equipped with 802.11b wireless connectivity and a RFID reader is then used by the medical staff to read the patient's wristband and identify the patient. This work was carried out at the Department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at the University College Hospital Galway, Ireland and in co-operation with the National University of Ireland, Galway.
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| 3. |
- Ahlner-Elmqvist, Marianne
(författare)
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The Impact of Advanced Home Care on Health-related Quality of Life. Reports in the end of life from palliative care patients with cancer
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Aim of study - The aim of the present work was to compare patients with advancedcancer receiving specialized palliative home care with those receiving conventional carewith regard to time spent at home and place of death (Paper I), factors associated with thepatients’ choice of palliative care (Paper II), and to describe the health-related quality oflife (HRQL) and the occurrence and changes in symptoms over the last three months ofthe patients’ lives (Paper III). In addition, sociodemographic and clinical differencesbetween participants and dropouts were explored in order to establish whether themissing data could be regarded as missing at random (Paper IV).Background - A hospital-based advanced home care programme was initiated in Malmö,Sweden in December1995, in order to enable patients to remain at home for a longerperiod and to choose to die at home. The allocation to advanced home care (AHC) orconventional care (CC) was performed according to the patients’ preferences. Thisintervention offered an opportunity to investigate the effect of AHC and to describe theHRQL of patients with a progressive, life-threatening disease.Methods - A prospective longitudinal comparative study was performed including 297patients consecutively recruited over 2½ years. The two groups of patients (AHC andCC) were compared and the main outcome variables were place of death, time spent ininstitution or at home, and the patients’ HRQL. The latter was assessed monthly by usingself-reported questionnaires, including the European Organisation for Research andTreatment of Cancer Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30), the Impactof Event Scale (IES), five questions about social support (MA) and two items concerninggeneral well-being (NT). At the same time, in Trondheim, Norway, a similar palliativecare intervention programme was started. The design of the study was slightly different,but patients were evaluated using the same sociodemographic and clinical variables, andquestionnaire data were collected in the same way as in the Swedish study.Results - The AHC patients spent more time outside the hospital and more patients diedat home compared with patients in the CC group (Paper I). However, there was adifference between patients in the two interventions. Compared with the CC patients,patients who chose the AHC programme had lived longer with their cancer diagnosis,had a shorter survival period after study enrolment, and had poorer performance status. Inaddition, although all patients had reduced HRQL at inclusion, the AHC patients reportedpoorer functioning and more symptoms than the CC patients (Paper II). Results from theHRQL questionnaires returned during the last three months of the patients’ lives wereanalysed in order to describe the symptom burden of dying patients. Due to considerableattrition over the study period, data from the Norwegian study were included in order toincrease the study sample to 116 patients. Generally, a marked, but gradual deteriorationwas seen during the patients’ last three months of life. A more rapid increase in problemswas observed between two and one month before death regarding Physical, Cognitiveand Social function, as well as Fatigue. The mean scores for Pain, Nausea/Vomiting,Sleeping problems, Diarrhoea and Financial impact were stable over time (Paper III).Analyses of the characteristics of patients who dropped out of the study after filling in thefirst questionnaire after inclusion confirmed that they had a less favourable prognosis,with regard to both clinical variables and HRQL data. This pattern was not found whenanalysing data from patients dropping out of the study during the last two months beforedeath (Paper IV).Conclusions -The results obtained in this work add knowledge about patients’preferences regarding care at the end of life, and changes in their HRQL during the lastfew months of life. The palliative intervention with AHC proved successful, and enabledmore patients to stay at home for a longer period, and to die at home. Dying at home isstrongly associated with the patients’ preference to do so. Due to the design of the study,the impact of such preferences cannot be separated from the impact of the AHC. Theresults indicate that patients are reluctant to accept home care until necessary due to theseverity of functioning impairments and symptom burden. It is important to be aware ofthe high level of symptoms in the patients’ last three months of life. Symptom assessmentusing standardised questionnaires may enhance the focus on symptom management.Results from HRQL studies must be interpreted with care due to non-random attrition.This is less evident close to death.
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| 4. |
- Ahlner, Felix
(författare)
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Body part terms in Kammu
- 2010
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Ingår i: Mon-Khmer Studies. - 0147-5207. ; 39, s. 29-60
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article is a study of words for body parts in the Mon-Khmer language Kammu. It contains one descriptive part, presenting some 200 thematically ordered entries of words related to the body, with belonging elucidation and illustrations. In a more theoretical and comparative part, the data are used to relate Kammu to a wider debate concerning the semantic domain of body parts. Cross-linguistic studies from the late 1970’s proposed several universals for the hierarchical structure of this semantic domain. These studies have since been criticized for being far too narrow, neglecting the variety of more or less hierarchical relationships that may hold between body parts in a language. Lately, comprehensive cross-linguistic studies has both corroborated this criticism and developed elicitation methods for accessing different relationships and structures in this semantic domain. The results show that Kammu follows most of the proposed universals, save for a few noteworthy exceptions. There are, however, also cases where different elicitation methods reveal slightly different hierarchical structures – a fact which supports many of the ideas put forward in recent studies.
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| 5. |
- Ahlner, Felix, et al.
(författare)
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Cross-modal iconicity: A cognitive semiotic approach to sound symbolism
- 2010
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Ingår i: Sign Systems Studies. - 1406-4243. ; 38:1/4, s. 298-348
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is being increasingly recognized that the Saussurean dictum of "the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign" is in conflict with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon commonly known as "sound symbolism". After first presenting a historical overview of the debate, however, we conclude that both positions have been exaggerated, and that an adequate explanation of sound symbolism is still lacking. How can there, for example, be (perceived) similarity between expressions and contents across different sensory modalities? We offer an answer, based on the Peircian notion of iconic ground, and G. Sonesson's distinction between primary and secondary iconicity. Furthermore, we describe an experimental study, in a paradigm first pioneered by W. Kohler, and recently popularized by V. Ramachandran, in which we varied vowels and consonants in fictive word-forms, and conclude that both types of sounds play a role in perceiving an iconic ground between the word-forms and visual figures. The combination of historical conceptual analysis, semiotic explication and psychological experimentation presented in this article is characteristic of the emerging paradigm of cognitive semiotics.
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| 6. |
- Ahlner, Felicia, 1987, et al.
(författare)
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Increased Alcohol Consumption Among Swedish 70-Year-Olds 1976 to 2016: Analysis of Data from The Gothenburg H70 Birth Cohort Studies, Sweden
- 2018
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Ingår i: Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. - : Wiley. - 0145-6008. ; 42:12, s. 2403-2412
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- © 2018 by the Research Society on Alcoholism Background: The older adult population is increasing worldwide, as is the number of older adults who consume alcohol. Although there is a growing body of research on alcohol consumption among older people, few studies focus on changes in at-risk consumption over time across well-defined birth cohorts of older adults. Methods: This study used a serial cross-sectional design in order to compare alcohol consumption patterns among birth cohorts of Swedish 70-year-olds (total n=2,268) examined in 1976 to 1977 (n=393), 1992 to 1993 (n=248), 2000 to 2002 (n=458), and 2014 to 2016 (n=1,169). Participants took part in a multidisciplinary study on health and aging. Face-to-face interviews were conducted by healthcare professionals. Protocols regarding alcohol consumption were similar for all cohorts. The volume of weekly alcohol consumption was estimated during the past month. At-risk consumption was defined as ≥100g alcohol/wk corresponding roughly to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism definition of heavy consumption. Results: The proportion of at-risk consumers among men increased from 16.1% in 1976 to 1977 to 29.9% in 2000 to 2002 (p=0.001) and 45.3% in 2014 to 2016 (p<0.001). In women, proportions were low in 1976 to 1977 (0.5%) and 1992 to 1993 (2.0%; p=0.134), but increased to 9.5% in 2000 to 2002 (p<0.001) and 24.3% in 2014 to 2016 (p<0.001). The male:female ratio regarding consumption of ≥100g/wk decreased from 32.2:1 in 1976 to 1977 to 3.1:1 in 2000 to 2002 to 1.9:1 in 2014 to 2016. Spirit consumption decreased dramatically among men during the study period, while women reported very low spirit consumption at all examinations. Wine consumption increased in both sexes between 2000 to 2002 and 2014 to 2016. Beer consumption increased among men between 2000 to 2002 and 2014 to 2016. Conclusions: Recent cohorts of 70-year-olds in Sweden report significantly higher levels of alcohol consumption than previous cohorts. There was a dramatic increase in at-risk consumption among 70-year-olds from the 1970s to the mid-2010s, and this was particularly pronounced among women.
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| 8. |
- André, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring sorption coefficients and BET surface areas on intact drillcore and crushed granite samples
- 2008
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Ingår i: Radiochimica Acta. - : Walter de Gruyter GmbH. - 0033-8230 .- 2193-3405. ; 96:9-11, s. 673-677
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In general sorption coefficients, K-d cat ion exchange capacity, CEC, and BET surface areas are measured on crushed rock samples because it is very time consuming to measure K-d and CEC on larger rock pieces as it takes a long time for the sorbing species to penetrate into and equilibrate a large sample. Also conventional sample holders for BET measurements are too small to hold a large sample. We have manufactured large sample holders for BET measurements and modified the equipment so that it is possible to measure BET surface areas on samples with 50 mm diameter and LIP to 100 mm length. Results are presented for intact pieces and compared to results on crushed material from the same drillcore. For K-d and CEC measurements we have developed a technique and equipment by which ions can be made to rapidly intrude into and equilibrate the internal surfaces of the same size samples as mentioned above. The method is based on electro-migration where the sample is placed between two vessels one with an anode and other with a cathode. The electric potential gradient drives the ions into and through the sample very much faster than molecular diffusion does. With Cs as the sorbing ion a few weeks were sufficient to equilibrate the 50 mm long sample. In previous diffusion experiments it took more than a year to equilibrate a 15 mm thick sample. A special mixing technique eliminates the development of low and high PH in the electrode compartments. K-d results from measurements on an intact drillcore are presented and comparison is made with results obtained on crushed material from the same bore core. The results from the sorption experiments are compared with the results from the BET surface area determinations in an attempt to evaluate the use of the BET surface area as a proxy for sorption behaviour.
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| 9. |
- Andrews, David J., et al.
(författare)
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MARSIS Observations of Field-Aligned Irregularities and Ducted Radio Propagation in the Martian Ionosphere
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research - Space Physics. - 2169-9380 .- 2169-9402. ; 123:8, s. 6251-6263
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Knowledge of Mars's ionosphere has been significantly advanced in recent years by observations from Mars Express and lately Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN. A topic of particular interest are the interactions between the planet's ionospheric plasma and its highly structured crustal magnetic fields and how these lead to the redistribution of plasma and affect the propagation of radio waves in the system. In this paper, we elucidate a possible relationship between two anomalous radar signatures previously reported in observations from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding instrument on Mars Express. Relatively uncommon observations of localized, extreme increases in the ionospheric peak density in regions of radial (cusp-like) magnetic fields and spread echo radar signatures are shown to be coincident with ducting of the same radar pulses at higher altitudes on the same field lines. We suggest that these two observations are both caused by a high electric field (perpendicular to B) having distinctly different effects in two altitude regimes. At lower altitudes, where ions are demagnetized and electrons magnetized, and recombination dominantes, a high electric field causes irregularities, plasma turbulence, electron heating, slower recombination, and ultimately enhanced plasma densities. However, at higher altitudes, where both ions and electrons are magnetized and atomic oxygen ions cannot recombine directly, the high electric field instead causes frictional heating, a faster production of molecular ions by charge exchange, and so a density decrease. The latter enables ducting of radar pulses on closed field lines, in an analogous fashion to interhemispheric ducting in the Earth's ionosphere.
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