Public health in community pharmacy: a systematic review of pharmacist and consumer views

BACKGROUND The increasing involvement of pharmacists in public health will require changes in the behaviour of both pharmacists and the general public. A great deal of research has shown that attitudes and beliefs are important determinants of behaviour. This review aims to examine the beliefs and attitudes of pharmacists and consumers towards pharmaceutical public health in order to inform how best to support and improve this service. METHODS Five electronic databases were searched for articles published in English between 2001 and 2010. Titles and abstracts were screened by one researcher according to the inclusion criteria. Papers were included if they assessed pharmacy staff or consumer attitudes towards pharmaceutical public health. Full papers identified for inclusion were assessed by a second researcher and data were extracted by one researcher. RESULTS From the 5628 papers identified, 63 studies in 67 papers were included. Pharmacy staff: Most pharmacists viewed public health services as important and part of their role but secondary to medicine related roles. Pharmacists' confidence in providing public health services was on the whole average to low. Time was consistently identified as a barrier to providing public health services. Lack of an adequate counselling space, lack of demand and expectation of a negative reaction from customers were also reported by some pharmacists as barriers. A need for further training was identified in relation to a number of public health services. Consumers: Most pharmacy users had never been offered public health services by their pharmacist and did not expect to be offered. Consumers viewed pharmacists as appropriate providers of public health advice but had mixed views on the pharmacists' ability to do this. Satisfaction was found to be high in those that had experienced pharmaceutical public health. CONCLUSIONS There has been little change in customer and pharmacist attitudes since reviews conducted nearly 10 years previously. In order to improve the public health services provided in community pharmacy, training must aim to increase pharmacists' confidence in providing these services. Confident, well trained pharmacists should be able to offer public health service more proactively which is likely to have a positive impact on customer attitudes and health

Novel tilt integral sliding mode controller and observer design for sensorless speed control of a permanent magnet synchronous motor

Purpose This study aims to design and implement a novel tilt integral sliding mode controller and observer for sensorless speed control of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). Design/methodology/approach A control strategy combining the tilt integral derivative (TID) with sliding mode control (SMC) is proposed to determine the tilt integral sliding mode manifold. Using this manifold, tilt integral sliding mode controller (TISMC) and observer (TISMO) are designed. The stabilities are verified by using Lyapunov method. To prove the effectiveness and robustness of proposed methods, sensorless speed control of PMSM is performed for various operating conditions such as constant and variable speed references, load disturbance injection, parameter perturbation, whereas sensor noises are not taken into account. The performance of proposed method is compared with TID controller, proportional integral derivative controller and conventional SMO. Findings Simulation results demonstrate that TISMC and TISMO have better performance in all operating conditions. They are robust against parameter uncertainties and disturbances. TISM based sensorless control of PMSM is well guaranteed with superior performance. Originality/value The proposed method has not been tackled in the literature. By combining TID and SMC, novel tilt integral sliding manifold is presented and used in designing of the controller and observer. It is proven by Lyapunov method that errors converge to zero. </jats:sec

Variable Fractional-Order Dynamics in Dark Matter&ndash;Dark Energy Chaotic System: Discretization, Analysis, Hidden Dynamics, and Image Encryption

Fractional-order chaotic systems have emerged as powerful tools in secure communications and multimedia protection owing to their memory-dependent dynamics, large key spaces, and high sensitivity to initial conditions. However, most existing fractional-order image encryption schemes rely on fixed-order chaos and conventional solvers, which limit their complexity and reduce unpredictability, while also neglecting the potential of variable fractional-order (VFO) dynamics. Although similar phenomena have been reported in some fractional-order systems, the coexistence of hidden attractors and stable equilibria has not been extensively investigated within VFO frameworks. To address these gaps, this paper introduces a novel discrete variable fractional-order dark matter&ndash;dark energy (VFODM-DE) chaotic system. The system is discretized using the piecewise constant argument discretization (PWCAD) method, enabling chaos to emerge at significantly lower fractional orders than previously reported. A comprehensive dynamic analysis is performed, revealing rich behaviors such as multistability, symmetry properties, and hidden attractors coexisting with stable equilibria. Leveraging these enhanced chaotic features, a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) is constructed from the VFODM-DE system and applied to grayscale image encryption through permutation&ndash;diffusion operations. Security evaluations demonstrate that the proposed scheme offers a substantially large key space (approximately 2249) and exceptional key sensitivity. The scheme generates ciphertexts with nearly uniform histograms, extremely low pixel correlation coefficients (less than 0.04), and high information entropy values (close to 8 bits). Moreover, it demonstrates strong resilience against differential attacks, achieving average NPCR and UACI values of about 99.6% and 33.46%, respectively, while maintaining robustness under data loss conditions. In addition, the proposed framework achieves a high encryption throughput, reaching an average speed of 647.56 Mbps. These results confirm that combining VFO dynamics with PWCAD enriches the chaotic complexity and provides a powerful framework for developing efficient and robust chaos-based image encryption algorithms