An accessible method for teaching doctors about death certification

The World Health Organization recommends that data on mortality in its member countries are collected utilising the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death published in the instruction volume of the ICD-10. However, investment in health information processes necessary to promote the use of this certificate and improve mortality information is lacking in many countries. An appeal for support to make improvements has been launched through the Health Metrics Network’s MOVE-IT strategy (Monitoring of Vital Events – Information Technology) [World Health Organization, 2011]. Despite this international spotlight on the need for capture of mortality data and in the use of the ICD-10 to code the data reported on such certificates, there is little cohesion in the way that certifiers of deaths receive instruction in how to complete the death certificate, which is the main source document for mortality statistics. Complete and accurate documentation of the immediate, underlying and contributory causes of death of the decedent on the death certificate is a requirement to produce standardised statistical information and to the ability to produce cause-specific mortality statistics that can be compared between populations and across time. This paper reports on a research project conducted to determine the efficacy and accessibility of the certification module of the WHO’s newly-developed web based training tool for coders and certifiers of deaths. Involving a population of medical students from the Fiji School of Medicine and a pre and post research design, the study entailed completion of death certificates based on vignettes before and after access to the training tool. The ability of the participants to complete the death certificates and analysis of the completeness and specificity of the ICD-10 coding of the reported causes of death were used to measure the effect of the students’ learning from the training tool. The quality of death certificate completion was assessed using a Quality Index before and after the participants accessed the training tool. In addition, the views of the participants about accessibility and use of the training tool were elicited using a supplementary questionnaire. The results of the study demonstrated improvement in the ability of the participants to complete death certificates completely and accurately according to best practice. The training tool was viewed very positively and its implementation in the curriculum for medical students was encouraged. Participants also recommended that interactive discussions to examine the certification exercises would be an advantage.

Raising the voice of dissatisfaction : a qualitative study of the Queensland acute health care consumer and the experience of complaining

Research into complaints handling in the health care system has predominately focused on examining the processes that underpin the organisational systems. An understanding of the cognitive decisions made by patients that influence whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the care they are receiving has had limited attention thus far. This study explored the lived experiences of Queensland acute care patients who complained about some aspect of their inpatient stay. A purposive sample of sixteen participants was recruited and interviewed about their experience of making a complaint. The qualitative data gathered through the interview process was subjected to an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach, guided by the philosophical influences of Heidegger (1889-1976). As part of the interpretive endeavour of this study, Lazarus’ cognitive emotive model with situational challenge was drawn on to provide a contextual understanding of the emotions experienced by the study participants. Analysis of the research data, aided by Leximancer™ software, revealed a series of relational themes that supported the interpretative data analysis process undertaken. The superordinate thematic statements that emerged from the narratives via the hermeneutic process were ineffective communication, standards of care were not consistent, being treated with disrespect, information on how to complain was not clear, and perceptions of negligence. This study’s goal was to provide health services with information about complaints handling that can help them develop service improvements. The study patients articulated the need for health care system reform; they want to be listened to, to be acknowledged, to be believed, for people to take ownership if they had made a mistake, for mistakes not to occur again, and to receive an apology. For these initiatives to be fully realised, the paradigm shift must go beyond regurgitating complaints data metrics in percentages per patient contact, towards a concerted effort to evaluate what the qualitative complaints data is really saying. An opportunity to identify a more positive and proactive approach in encouraging our patients to complain when they are dissatisfied has the potential to influence improvements.

Building engaged, sustainable online communities : a case study of an adventure travel website

This paper will provide an overview of a join research initiative being developed by the Queensland University of Technology in conjunction with the Australian Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre in relation to the development and analysis of online communities. The intention of this project is to initially create an exciting and innovative web space around the concept of adventure travel and then to analyse the level of user engagement to uncover possible patterns and processes that could be used in the future development of other virtual online communities. Travel websites are not a new concept and there are many successful examples currently operating and generating profit. The intention of the QUT/Smart Services CRC project is to analyse the site metrics to determine the following: what specific conditions/parameters are required to foster a growing and engaged virtual community; when does the shift occur from external moderation to a more sustainable system of self-moderation within the online community; when do users begin to take ownership of a site and take an invested interested in the content and growth of an online community; and how to retain active contributors and high-impact power users on a long-term basis. With the travel website rapidly approaching release, this paper begins the process of reflection, outlining the process undertaken and the findings so far aggregated whilst also positioning the project within the greater context of current online user participation and user generated content research.

Feedback information and consumer motivation : the moderation role of positive and negative reference values in self-regulation

Marketers spend considerable resources to motivate people to consume their products and services as a means of goal attainment (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 1999). Why people increase, decrease, or stop consuming some products is based largely on how well they perceive they are doing in pursuit of their goals (Carver and Scheier, 1992). Yet despite the importance for marketers in understanding how current performance influences a consumer’s future efforts, this topic has received little attention in marketing research. Goal researchers generally agree that feedback about how well or how poorly people are doing in achieving their goals affects their motivation (Bandura and Cervone, 1986; Locke and Latham, 1990). Yet there is less agreement about whether positive and negative performance feedback increases or decreases future effort (Locke and Latham, 1990). For instance, while a customer of a gym might cancel his membership after receiving negative feedback about his fitness, the same negative feedback might cause another customer to visit the gym more often to achieve better results. A similar logic can apply to many products and services from the use of cosmetics to investing in mutual funds. The present research offers managers key insights into how to engage customers and keep them motivated. Given that connecting customers with the company is a top research priority for managers (Marketing Science Institute, 2006), this article provides suggestions for performance metrics including four questions that managers can use to apply the findings.

Understanding business process models : the costs and benefits of structuredness

Previous research has put forward a number of properties of business process models that have an impact on their understandability. Two such properties are compactness and(block-)structuredness. What has not been sufficiently appreciated at this point is that these desirable properties may be at odds with one another. This paper presents the results of a two-pronged study aimed at exploring the trade-off between compactness and structuredness of process models. The first prong of the study is a comparative analysis of the complexity of a set of unstructured process models from industrial practice and of their corresponding structured versions. The second prong is an experiment wherein a cohort of students was exposed to semantically equivalent unstructured and structured process models. The key finding is that structuredness is not an absolute desideratum vis-a-vis for process model understandability. Instead, subtle trade-offs between structuredness and other model properties are at play.

#Ausvotes : how Twitter covered the 2010 Australian federal election

While the 2007 Australian federal election was notable for the use of social media by the Australian Labor Party in campaigning, the 2010 election took place in a media landscape in which social media–especially Twitter–had become much more embedded in both political journalism and independent political commentary. This article draws on the computer-aided analysis of election-related Twitter messages, collected under the #ausvotes hashtag, to describe the key patterns of activity and thematic foci of the election’s coverage in this particular social media site. It introduces novel metrics for analysing public communication via Twitter, and describes the related methods. What emerges from this analysis is the role of the #ausvotes hashtag as a means of gathering an ad hoc ‘issue public’– a finding which is likely to be replicated for other hashtag communities.

A task-oriented approach to search engine usability studies

Usability is a multi-dimensional characteristic of a computer system. This paper focuses on usability as a measurement of interaction between the user and the system. The research employs a task-oriented approach to evaluate the usability of a meta search engine. This engine encourages and accepts queries of unlimited size expressed in natural language. A variety of conventional metrics developed by academic and industrial research, including ISO standards,, are applied to the information retrieval process consisting of sequential tasks. Tasks range from formulating (long) queries to interpreting and retaining search results. Results of the evaluation and analysis of the operation log indicate that obtaining advanced search engine results can be accomplished simultaneously with enhancing the usability of the interactive process. In conclusion, we discuss implications for interactive information retrieval system design and directions for future usability research. © 2008 Academy Publisher.

Thresholds for error probability measures of business process models

The quality of conceptual business process models is highly relevant for the design of corresponding information systems. In particular, a precise measurement of model characteristics can be beneficial from a business perspective, helping to save costs thanks to early error detection. This is just as true from a software engineering point of view. In this latter case, models facilitate stakeholder communication and software system design. Research has investigated several proposals as regards measures for business process models, from a rather correlational perspective. This is helpful for understanding, for example size and complexity as general driving forces of error probability. Yet, design decisions usually have to build on thresholds, which can reliably indicate that a certain counter-action has to be taken. This cannot be achieved only by providing measures; it requires a systematic identification of effective and meaningful thresholds. In this paper, we derive thresholds for a set of structural measures for predicting errors in conceptual process models. To this end, we use a collection of 2,000 business process models from practice as a means of determining thresholds, applying an adaptation of the ROC curves method. Furthermore, an extensive validation of the derived thresholds was conducted by using 429 EPC models from an Australian financial institution. Finally, significant thresholds were adapted to refine existing modeling guidelines in a quantitative way.

Applications of medical image processing in the diagnosis and treatment of spinal deformity

In Chapter 10, Adam and Dougherty describe the application of medical image processing to the assessment and treatment of spinal deformity, with a focus on the surgical treatment of idiopathic scoliosis. The natural history of spinal deformity and current approaches to surgical and non-surgical treatment are briefly described, followed by an overview of current clinically used imaging modalities. The key metrics currently used to assess the severity and progression of spinal deformities from medical images are presented, followed by a discussion of the errors and uncertainties involved in manual measurements. This provides the context for an analysis of automated and semi-automated image processing approaches to measure spinal curve shape and severity in two and three dimensions.

Understanding user experience of mobile video : framework, measurement, and optimization

Since users have become the focus of product/service design in last decade, the term User eXperience (UX) has been frequently used in the field of Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). Research on UX facilitates a better understanding of the various aspects of the user’s interaction with the product or service. Mobile video, as a new and promising service and research field, has attracted great attention. Due to the significance of UX in the success of mobile video (Jordan, 2002), many researchers have centered on this area, examining users’ expectations, motivations, requirements, and usage context. As a result, many influencing factors have been explored (Buchinger, Kriglstein, Brandt & Hlavacs, 2011; Buchinger, Kriglstein & Hlavacs, 2009). However, a general framework for specific mobile video service is lacking for structuring such a great number of factors. To measure user experience of multimedia services such as mobile video, quality of experience (QoE) has recently become a prominent concept. In contrast to the traditionally used concept quality of service (QoS), QoE not only involves objectively measuring the delivered service but also takes into account user’s needs and desires when using the service, emphasizing the user’s overall acceptability on the service. Many QoE metrics are able to estimate the user perceived quality or acceptability of mobile video, but may be not enough accurate for the overall UX prediction due to the complexity of UX. Only a few frameworks of QoE have addressed more aspects of UX for mobile multimedia applications but need be transformed into practical measures. The challenge of optimizing UX remains adaptations to the resource constrains (e.g., network conditions, mobile device capabilities, and heterogeneous usage contexts) as well as meeting complicated user requirements (e.g., usage purposes and personal preferences). In this chapter, we investigate the existing important UX frameworks, compare their similarities and discuss some important features that fit in the mobile video service. Based on the previous research, we propose a simple UX framework for mobile video application by mapping a variety of influencing factors of UX upon a typical mobile video delivery system. Each component and its factors are explored with comprehensive literature reviews. The proposed framework may benefit in user-centred design of mobile video through taking a complete consideration of UX influences and in improvement of mobile videoservice quality by adjusting the values of certain factors to produce a positive user experience. It may also facilitate relative research in the way of locating important issues to study, clarifying research scopes, and setting up proper study procedures. We then review a great deal of research on UX measurement, including QoE metrics and QoE frameworks of mobile multimedia. Finally, we discuss how to achieve an optimal quality of user experience by focusing on the issues of various aspects of UX of mobile video. In the conclusion, we suggest some open issues for future study.

Overview of the NTCIR-9 crosslink task : cross-lingual link discovery

This paper presents an overview of NTCIR-9 Cross-lingual Link Discovery (Crosslink) task. The overview includes: the motivation of cross-lingual link discovery; the Crosslink task definition; the run submission specification; the assessment and evaluation framework; the evaluation metrics; and the evaluation results of submitted runs. Cross-lingual link discovery (CLLD) is a way of automatically finding potential links between documents in different languages. The goal of this task is to create a reusable resource for evaluating automated CLLD approaches. The results of this research can be used in building and refining systems for automated link discovery. The task is focused on linking between English source documents and Chinese, Korean, and Japanese target documents.

The effectiveness of cross-lingual link discovery

This paper describes the evaluation in benchmarking the effectiveness of cross-lingual link discovery (CLLD). Cross lingual link discovery is a way of automatically finding prospective links between documents in different languages, which is particularly helpful for knowledge discovery of different language domains. A CLLD evaluation framework is proposed for system performance benchmarking. The framework includes standard document collections, evaluation metrics, and link assessment and evaluation tools. The evaluation methods described in this paper have been utilised to quantify the system performance at NTCIR-9 Crosslink task. It is shown that using the manual assessment for generating gold standard can deliver a more reliable evaluation result.

Geostatistical analysis of adult Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae) in wheat stored at constant temperatures

Insect monitoring and sampling programmes are used in the stored grains industry for the detection and estimation of insect pests. At the low pest densities dictated by economic and commercial requirements, the accuracy of both detection and abundance estimates can be influenced by variations in the spatial structure of pest populations over short distances. Geostatistical analysis of Rhyzopertha dominica populations in 2 dimensions showed that, in both the horizontal and vertical directions and at all temperatures examined, insect numbers were positively correlated over short (0-5cm) distances, and negatively correlated over longer (≥10cm) distances. Analysis in 3 dimensions showed a similar pattern, with positive correlations over short distances and negative correlations at longer distances. At 35°C, insects were located significantly further from the grain surface than at 25 and 30°C. Dispersion metrics showed statistically significant aggregation in all cases. This is the first research using small sample units, high sampling intensities, and a range of temperatures, to show spatial structuring of R. dominica populations over short distances. This research will have significant implications for sampling in the stored grains industry.

Investigating the future of project management : a co-word analysis approach

If Project Management (PM) is a well-accepted mode of managing organizations, more and more organizations are adopting PM in order to satisfy the diversified needs of application areas within a variety of industries and organizations. Concurrently, the number of PM practitioners and people involved at various level of qualification is vigorously rising. Thus the importance to characterize, define and understand this field and its underlying strength, basis and development is paramount. For this purpose we will referee to sociology of actor-networks and qualitative scientometrics leading to the choice of the co-word analysis method in enabling us to capture the project management field and its dynamics. Results of a study based on the analysis of EBSCO Business Source Premier Database will be presented and some future trends and scenarios proposed. The main following trends are confirmed, in alignment with previous studies: continuous interest for the “cost engineering” aspects, on going interest for Economic aspects and contracts, how to deal with various project types (categorizations), the integration with Supply Chain Management and Learning and Knowledge Management. Furthermore besides these continuous trends, we can note new areas of interest: the link between strategy and project, Governance, the importance of maturity (organizational performance and metrics, control) and Change Management. We see the actors (Professional Bodies, Governmental Bodies, Agencies, Universities, Industries, Researchers, and Practitioners) reinforcing their competing/cooperative strategies in the development of standards and certifications and moving to more “business oriented” relationships with their members and main stakeholders (Governments, Institutions like European Community, Industries, Agencies, NGOs…), at least at central level.