Diversity and the Undertreatment of Pain

The undertreatment of pain is a major public health problem and has enormous costs -- to the individual, the health care system and society. Undertreatment is complex and many studies have clarified the factors that may contribute. Clinicians who become aware of these factors are better able to assess accurately, treat appropriately, and educate about pain. Among other factors, undertreatmentof pain has been associated with race, sex, ethnicity, and culture

Prediction in Photovoltaic Power by Neural Networks

The ability to forecast the power produced by renewable energy plants in the short and middle term is a key issue to allow a high-level penetration of the distributed generation into the grid infrastructure. Forecasting energy production is mandatory for dispatching and distribution issues, at the transmission system operator level, as well as the electrical distributor and power system operator levels. In this paper, we present three techniques based on neural and fuzzy neural networks, namely the radial basis function, the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system and the higher-order neuro-fuzzy inference system, which are well suited to predict data sequences stemming from real-world applications. The preliminary results concerning the prediction of the power generated by a large-scale photovoltaic plant in Italy confirm the reliability and accuracy of the proposed approaches

Intimate Relationships: Reality and Normativity

Close interpersonal relationships are a part of everyone\u27s life at some point. For most people these relationships are actually prominent parts of their everyday lives. As such, it is important to figure out whether and how they fit into different normative theories of ethics. Relationships like those that exist as romantic couples, close friendships, and parent-child relationships share certain features with other close interpersonal relationships that I define as \u27intimate relationships\u27 in this dissertation. Intimate relationships are those that exist between people when they wish one another well, act for one another, do so mutually, treat one another as ends in themselves, and trust one another. If a normative theory is to account for moral value in intimate relationships then it must meet a set of necessary and sufficient conditions. My purpose in this dissertation is to synthesize these conditions after analyzing four distinct normative theories\u27 accounts of moral value in intimate relationships: Kantianism, G.E. Moore\u27s consequentialism, Aristotle\u27s virtue ethics, and Virginia Held\u27s ethics of care. These four theorists\u27 approaches to normative ethics were selected because each theorist claims to value intimate relationships yet each provides a different account of that value. I first show that each theorist considers intimate relationships to be morally valuable and then analyze their theories\u27 abilities to account for that value using four value terms: intrinsic good, extrinsic good, instrumental good, and final good. I then identify the components of each normative theory that either allow it to capture or prevent it from capturing the moral value of intimate relationships. This leads to the conclusion that a normative theory must allow for value in each of the components of an intimate relationship and appraise the relationships themselves to be more than instrumentally valuable in order to account for any moral value in the relationships. Those people who treat the intimate relationships in their lives as having moral value will be able to gauge the applicability of a particular normative theory to their lives by that theory\u27s ability to meet the aforementioned criteria

A comparison of machine learning classifiers for smartphone-based gait analysis

This paper proposes a reliable monitoring scheme that can assist medical specialists in watching over the patient's condition. Although several technologies are traditionally used to acquire motion data of patients, the high costs as well as the large spaces they require make them difficult to be applied in a home context for rehabilitation. A reliable patient monitoring technique, which can automatically record and classify patient movements, is mandatory for a telemedicine protocol. In this paper, a comparison of several state-of-the-art machine learning classifiers is proposed, where stride data are collected by using a smartphone. The main goal is to identify a robust methodology able to assure a suited classification of gait movements, in order to allow the monitoring of patients in time as well as to discriminate among a pathological and physiological gait. Additionally, the advantages of smartphones of being compact, cost-effective and relatively easy to operate make these devices particularly suited for home-based rehabilitation programs. Graphical Abstract. This paper proposes a reliable monitoring scheme that can assist medical specialists in watching over the patient's condition. Although several technologies are traditionally used to acquire motion data of patients, the high costs as well as the large spaces they require make them difficult to be applied in a home context for rehabilitation. A reliable patient monitoring technique, which can automatically record and classify patient movements, is mandatory for a telemedicine protocol. In this paper, a comparison of several state-of-the-art machine learning classifiers is proposed, where stride data are collected and processed by using a smartphone(see figure). The main goal is to identify a robust methodology able to assure a suited classification of gait movements, in order to allow the monitoring of patients in time as well as to discriminate among a pathological and physiological gait. Additionally, the advantages of smartphones of being compact, cost-effective and relatively easy to operate make these devices particularly suited for home-based rehabilitation programs

Palliative Sedation: A View through the Kaleidoscope

Abstract This textbook on palliative social work is a companion volume to the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine and the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. To that end, this chapter will accomplish the following:</jats:p