Application of XRF and correspondence analysis to provenance studies of coastal and inland archaeological pottery from the Mngeni river area, South Africa

XRF spectrometry was applied to provenance studies of Iron Age pottery specimens that originated from the Mngeni river area in South Africa. Ten transition metals (Sc to Zn) mere determined in 107 potsherds, excavated from four different sites. The data were subjected to a computerized mathematical technique (correspondence analysis), which was used to group the samples according to the similarity of their elemental distributions. The groupings were interpreted in terms of social or cultural interaction between the sites. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The use of correspondence analysis to compare major and trace elements for provenance studies of iron-age pottery from the Mngeni river area, South Africa

Provenance studies of iron-age pottery specimens originating from the Mngeni river area in South Africa was carried out by applying XRF spectrometry. A total of sixteen major and trace elements were analysed in a batch of 107 potsherds, excavated from four different archaeological sites in the aforementioned area. A multivariate statistical programme Correspondence Analysis was used in this study to obtain the relevant clustering patterns according to the similarity of the elemental distributions. Differences and similarities in the clusters obtained for the majors and trace elements are discussed.

Modelling the intention to adopt cloud computing services : a transaction cost theory perspective

This paper uses transaction cost theory to study cloud computing adoption. A model is developed and tested with data from an Australian survey. According to the results, perceived vendor opportunism and perceived legislative uncertainty around cloud computing were significantly associated with perceived cloud computing security risk. There was also a significant negative relationship between perceived cloud computing security risk and the intention to adopt cloud services. This study also reports on adoption rates of cloud computing in terms of applications, as well as the types of services used.

Using a theory of planned behaviour framework to explore hand hygiene beliefs at the ‘5 critical moments’ among Australian hospital-based nurses

Background Improving hand hygiene among health care workers (HCWs) is the single most effective intervention to reduce health care associated infections in hospitals. Understanding the cognitive determinants of hand hygiene decisions for HCWs with the greatest patient contact (nurses) is essential to improve compliance. The aim of this study was to explore hospital-based nurses’ beliefs associated with performing hand hygiene guided by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 5 critical moments. Using the belief-base framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour, we examined attitudinal, normative, and control beliefs underpinning nurses’ decisions to perform hand hygiene according to the recently implemented national guidelines. Methods Thematic content analysis of qualitative data from focus group discussions with hospital-based registered nurses from 5 wards across 3 hospitals in Queensland, Australia. Results Important advantages (protection of patient and self), disadvantages (time, hand damage), referents (supportive: patients, colleagues; unsupportive: some doctors), barriers (being too busy, emergency situations), and facilitators (accessibility of sinks/products, training, reminders) were identified. There was some equivocation regarding the relative importance of hand washing following contact with patient surroundings. Conclusions The belief base of the theory of planned behaviour provided a useful framework to explore systematically the underlying beliefs of nurses’ hand hygiene decisions according to the 5 critical moments, allowing comparisons with previous belief studies. A commitment to improve nurses’ hand hygiene practice across the 5 moments should focus on individual strategies to combat distraction from other duties, peer-based initiatives to foster a sense of shared responsibility, and management-driven solutions to tackle staffing and resource issues. Hand hygiene following touching a patient’s surroundings continues to be reported as the most neglected opportunity for compliance.

Palliative care and other physicians’ knowledge, attitudes and practice relating to the law on withholding/withdrawing life-sustaining treatment: Survey results

Background: To effectively care for people who are terminally ill, including those without decision-making capacity, palliative care physicians must know and understand the legal standing of Advance Care Planning (ACP) in their jurisdiction of practice. This includes the use of advance directives/living wills (ADs) and substitute decision-makers (SDMs) who can legally consent to or refuse treatment if there is no valid AD. Aim: The study aimed to investigate the knowledge, attitudes and practices of medical specialists most often involved in end-of-life care in relation to the law on withholding/ withdrawing life-sustaining treatment (WWLST) from adults without decision-making capacity. Design/participants: A pre-piloted survey was posted to specialists in palliative, emergency, geriatric, renal and respiratory medicine, intensive care and medical oncology in three Australian States. Surveys were analysed using SPSS20 and SAS 9.3. Results: The overall response rate was 32% (867/2702); 52% from palliative care specialists. Palliative Care specialists and Geriatricians had significantly more positive attitudes towards the law (χ242 = 94.352; p < 0.001) and higher levels of knowledge about the WWLST law (χ27 = 30.033; p < 0.001), than did the other specialists, while still having critical gaps in their knowledge. Conclusions: A high level of knowledge of the law is essential to ensure that patients’ wishes and decisions, expressed through ACP, are respected to the maximum extent possible within the law, thereby according with the principles and philosophy of palliative care. It is also essential to protect health professionals from legal action resulting from unauthorised provision or removal of treatment.

Independent distractor frequency and age-of-acquisition dffects in picture-word interference: FMRI evidence for post-lexical and lexical accounts according to distractor type

In two fMRI experiments, participants named pictures with superimposed distractors that were high or low in frequency or varied in terms of age of acquisition. Pictures superimposed with low-frequency words were named more slowly than those superimposed with high-frequency words, and late-acquired words interfered with picture naming to a greater extent than early-acquired words. The distractor frequency effect (Experiment 1) was associated with increased activity in left premotor and posterior superior temporal cortices, consistent with the operation of an articulatory response buffer and verbal selfmonitoring system. Conversely, the distractor age-of-acquisition effect (Experiment 2) was associated with increased activity in the left middle and posterior middle temporal cortex, consistent with the operation of lexical level processes such as lemma and phonological word form retrieval. The spatially dissociated patterns of activity across the two experiments indicate that distractor effects in picture-word interference may occur at lexical or postlexical levels of processing in speech production.

No specific role for the manual motor system in processing the meanings of words related to the hand

The present study explored whether semantic and motor systems are functionally interwoven via the use of a dual-task paradigm. According to embodied language accounts that propose an automatic and necessary involvement of the motor system in conceptual processing, concurrent processing of hand-related information should interfere more with hand movements than processing of unrelated body-part (i.e., foot, mouth) information. Across three experiments, 100 right-handed participants performed left- or right-hand tapping movements while repeatedly reading action words related to different body-parts, or different body-part names, in both aloud and silent conditions. Concurrent reading of single words related to specific body-parts, or the same words embedded in sentences differing in syntactic and phonological complexity (to manipulate context-relevant processing), and reading while viewing videos of the actions and body-parts described by the target words (to elicit visuomotor associations) all interfered with right-hand but not left-hand tapping rate. However, this motor interference was not affected differentially by hand-related stimuli. Thus, the results provide no support for proposals that body-part specific resources in cortical motor systems are shared between overt manual movements and meaning-related processing of words related to the hand.

Comparison of the sensitivity of different sensor technologies to imbalance severity in low speed wind turbines

Imbalance is not only a direct major cause of downtime in wind turbines, but also accelerates the degradation of neighbouring and downstream components (e.g. main bearing, generator). Along with detection, the imbalance quantification is also essential as some residual imbalance always exist even in a healthy turbine. Three different commonly used sensor technologies (vibration, acoustic emission and electrical measurements) are investigated in this work to verify their sensitivity to different imbalance grades. This study is based on data obtained by experimental tests performed on a small scale wind turbine drive train test-rig for different shaft speeds and imbalance levels. According to the analysis results, electrical measurements seem to be the most suitable for tracking the development of imbalance.