Predictors of failed attendances in a multi-specialty outpatient centre using electronic databases.

BACKGROUND: Failure to keep outpatient medical appointments results in inefficiencies and costs. The objective of this study is to show the factors in an existing electronic database that affect failed appointments and to develop a predictive probability model to increase the effectiveness of interventions. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on outpatient clinic attendances at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore from 2000 to 2004. 22864 patients were randomly sampled for analysis. The outcome measure was failed outpatient appointments according to each patient's latest appointment. RESULTS: Failures comprised of 21% of all appointments and 39% when using the patients' latest appointment. Using odds ratios from the mutliple logistic regression analysis, age group (0.75 to 0.84 for groups above 40 years compared to below 20 years), race (1.48 for Malays, 1.61 for Indians compared to Chinese), days from scheduling to appointment (2.38 for more than 21 days compared to less than 7 days), previous failed appointments (1.79 for more than 60% failures and 4.38 for no previous appointments, compared with less than 20% failures), provision of cell phone number (0.10 for providing numbers compared to otherwise) and distance from hospital (1.14 for more than 14 km compared to less than 6 km) were significantly associated with failed appointments. The predicted probability model's diagnostic accuracy to predict failures is more than 80%. CONCLUSION: A few key variables have shown to adequately account for and predict failed appointments using existing electronic databases. These can be used to develop integrative technological solutions in the outpatient clinic

Discipline-Specific Compared to Generic Training of Teachers in Higher Education

A recurrent theme arising in the higher education sector is the suitability and effectiveness of generic versus discipline-specific training of university teachers, who are often recruited based on their disciplinary specialties to become teachers in higher education. We compared two groups of participants who had undergone training using a generic post-graduate certificate in higher education (PGCertGeneric) versus a discipline-specific course in veterinary education (PGCertVetEd). The study was conducted using a survey that allowed comparison of participants who completed PGCertGeneric (n=21) with PGCertVetEd (n=22). Results indicated that participants from both PGCertGeneric and PGCertVetEd considered teaching to be satisfying and important to their careers, valued the teaching observation component of the course, and identified similar training needs. However, the participants of the PGCertVetEd felt that the course made them better teachers, valued the relevance of the components taught, understood course design better, were encouraged to do further courses/reading in teaching and learning, changed their teaching as a result of the course, and were less stressed about teaching as compared to the PGCertGeneric participants (p<.05). It is likely that the PGCertVetEd, which was designed and developed by veterinarians with a wider understanding of the veterinary sector, helped the participants perceive the training course as suited to their needs

Parent formulation at the Lagrangian level

The recently proposed first-order parent formalism at the level of equations of motion is specialized to the case of Lagrangian systems. It is shown that for diffeomorphism-invariant theories the parent formulation takes the form of an AKSZ-type sigma model. The proposed formulation can be also seen as a Lagrangian version of the BV-BRST extension of the Vasiliev unfolded approach. We also discuss its possible interpretation as a multidimensional generalization of the Hamiltonian BFV--BRST formalism. The general construction is illustrated by examples of (parametrized) mechanics, relativistic particle, Yang--Mills theory, and gravity.Comment: 26 pages, discussion of the truncation extended, typos corrected, references adde

First order parent formulation for generic gauge field theories

We show how a generic gauge field theory described by a BRST differential can systematically be reformulated as a first order parent system whose spacetime part is determined by the de Rham differential. In the spirit of Vasiliev's unfolded approach, this is done by extending the original space of fields so as to include their derivatives as new independent fields together with associated form fields. Through the inclusion of the antifield dependent part of the BRST differential, the parent formulation can be used both for on and off-shell formulations. For diffeomorphism invariant models, the parent formulation can be reformulated as an AKSZ-type sigma model. Several examples, such as the relativistic particle, parametrized theories, Yang-Mills theory, general relativity and the two dimensional sigma model are worked out in details.Comment: 36 pages, additional sections and minor correction

Diffuse Gamma Rays: Galactic and Extragalactic Diffuse Emission

"Diffuse" gamma rays consist of several components: truly diffuse emission from the interstellar medium, the extragalactic background, whose origin is not firmly established yet, and the contribution from unresolved and faint Galactic point sources. One approach to unravel these components is to study the diffuse emission from the interstellar medium, which traces the interactions of high energy particles with interstellar gas and radiation fields. Because of its origin such emission is potentially able to reveal much about the sources and propagation of cosmic rays. The extragalactic background, if reliably determined, can be used in cosmological and blazar studies. Studying the derived "average" spectrum of faint Galactic sources may be able to give a clue to the nature of the emitting objects.Comment: 32 pages, 28 figures, kapproc.cls. Chapter to the book "Cosmic Gamma-Ray Sources," to be published by Kluwer ASSL Series, Edited by K. S. Cheng and G. E. Romero. More details can be found at http://www.gamma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/~aws/aws.htm

Ecological commonalities among pelagic fishes: comparison of freshwater ciscoes and marine herring and sprat

Systematic comparisons of the ecology between functionally similar fish species from freshwater and marine aquatic systems are surprisingly rare. Here, we discuss commonalities and differences in evolutionary history, population genetics, reproduction and life history, ecological interactions, behavioural ecology and physiological ecology of temperate and Arctic freshwater coregonids (vendace and ciscoes, Coregonus spp.) and marine clupeids (herring, Clupea harengus, and sprat, Sprattus sprattus). We further elucidate potential effects of climate warming on these groups of fish based on the ecological features of coregonids and clupeids documented in the previous parts of the review. These freshwater and marine fishes share a surprisingly high number of similarities. Both groups are relatively short-lived, pelagic planktivorous fishes. The genetic differentiation of local populations is weak and seems to be in part correlated to an astonishing variability of spawning times. The discrete thermal window of each species influences habitat use, diel vertical migrations and supposedly also life history variations. Complex life cycles and preference for cool or cold water make all species vulnerable to the effects of global warming. It is suggested that future research on the functional interdependence between spawning time, life history characteristics, thermal windows and genetic differentiation may profit from a systematic comparison of the patterns found in either coregonids or clupeids

The disruption of proteostasis in neurodegenerative diseases

Cells count on surveillance systems to monitor and protect the cellular proteome which, besides being highly heterogeneous, is constantly being challenged by intrinsic and environmental factors. In this context, the proteostasis network (PN) is essential to achieve a stable and functional proteome. Disruption of the PN is associated with aging and can lead to and/or potentiate the occurrence of many neurodegenerative diseases (ND). This not only emphasizes the importance of the PN in health span and aging but also how its modulation can be a potential target for intervention and treatment of human diseases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Galactic Magneto-ionic Medium Survey: moments of the Faraday spectra

Faraday rotation occurs along every line of sight in the Galaxy; rotation measure (RM) synthesis allows a 3D representation of the interstellar magnetic field. This study uses data from the Global Magneto-Ionic Medium Survey, a combination of single-antenna spectro-polarimetric studies, including northern sky data from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) 26 m telescope (1270-1750 MHz) and southern sky data from the Parkes 64 m telescope (300-480 MHz). From the synthesized Faraday spectral cubes we compute the zeroth, first, and second moments to find the total polarized emission, mean RM, and RM width of the polarized emission. From DRAO first moments we find a weak vertical field directed from Galactic North to South, but Parkes data reveal fields directed toward the Sun at high latitudes in both hemispheres: the two surveys clearly sample different volumes. DRAO second moments show feature widths in Faraday spectra increasing with decreasing positive latitudes, implying that longer lines of sight encounter more Faraday rotating medium, but this is not seen at negative latitudes. Parkes data show the opposite: at positive latitudes the second moment decreases with decreasing latitude, but not at negative latitudes. Comparing first moments with RMs of pulsars and extragalactic sources and a study of depolarization together confirm that the DRAO survey samples to larger distances than the Parkes data. Emission regions in the DRAO survey are typically 700-1000 pc away, slightly beyond the scale height of the magneto-ionic medium; emission detected in the Parkes survey is entirely within the magneto-ionic disk, less than 500 pc away

Geochemical characterization of oceanic basalts using Artificial Neural Network

The geochemical discriminate diagrams help to distinguish the volcanics recovered from different tectonic settings but these diagrams tend to group the ocean floor basalts (OFB) under one class i.e., as mid-oceanic ridge basalts (MORB). Hence, a method is specifically needed to identify the OFB as normal (N-MORB), enriched (E-MORB) and ocean island basalts (OIB)

Through thick or thin: multiple components of the magneto-ionic medium towards the nearby H ɪɪ region Sharpless 2-27 revealed by Faraday tomography

Sharpless 2–27 (Sh2–27) is a nearby H ɪɪ region excited by ζOph. We present observations of polarized radio emission from 300 to 480 MHz towards Sh2–27, made with the Parkes 64 m Radio Telescope as part of the Global Magneto-Ionic Medium Survey. These observations have an angular resolution of 1.35°, and the data are uniquely sensitive to magneto-ionic structure on large angular scales. We demonstrate that background polarized emission towards Sh2–27 is totally depolarized in our observations, allowing us to investigate the foreground. We analyse the results of Faraday tomography, mapping the magnetized interstellar medium along the 165 pc path to Sh2–27. The Faraday dispersion function in this direction has peaks at three Faraday depths. We consider both Faraday thick and thin models for this observation, finding that the thin model is preferred. We further model this as Faraday rotation of diffuse synchrotron emission in the Local Bubble and in two foreground neutral clouds. The Local Bubble extends for 80 pc in this direction, and we find a Faraday depth of −0.8±0.4 rad m-2. This indicates a field directed away from the Sun with a strength of -2.5 ± 1.2 μG. The near and far neutral clouds are each about 30 pc thick, and we find Faraday depths of -6.6 ± 0.6 rad m-2 and +13.7 ± 0.8 rad m-2, respectively. We estimate that the line-of-sight magnetic strengths in the near and far cloud are B∥,near ≈ -15 μG and B∥,far ≈ + 30μG⁠. Our results demonstrate that Faraday tomography can be used to investigate the magneto-ionic properties of foreground features in front of nearby H ɪɪ regions