Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza in Australia : absenteeism and redeployment of emergency medicine and nursing staff

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine the impact of Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Influenza on the Australian emergency nursing and medicine workforce, specifically absenteeism and deployment.

Methods: Data were collected using an online survey of 618 members of the three professional emergency medicine or emergency nursing colleges.

Results: Despite significant increases in emergency demand during the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Influenza, 56.6% of emergency nursing and medicine staff reported absenteeism of at least 1 day and only 8.5% of staff were redeployed. Staff illness with influenza-like illness was reported by 37% of respondents, and 87% of respondents who became ill were not tested for the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Influenza. Of the respondents who became ill, 43% (n = 79) reported missing no days of work and only 8% of respondents (n = 14) reported being absent for more than 5 days. The mean number of days away from work was 3.73 (standard deviation = 3.63). Factors anecdotally associated with staff absenteeism (caregiver responsibilities, concern about personal illness, concern about exposing family members to illness, school closures, risk of quarantine, stress and increased workload) appeared to be of little or no relevance. Redeployment was reported by 8% of respondents and the majority of redeployment was for operational reasons.

Conclusion: Future research related to absenteeism, redeployment during actual pandemic events is urgently needed. Workforce data collection should be an integral part of organizational pandemic planning.

The use of complementary and alternative medicine among people living with diabetes in Sydney

Background: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is common in patients with chronic disease such as diabetes mellitus. The primary objective of the study was to determine the overall prevalence and type of CAM use in individuals with diabetes mellitus (DM) in Western Sydney and to compare the prevalence and factors associated with CAM use with the literature.

Methods: A multicenter cross-sectional study was undertaken using a self-completed questionnaire distributed to patients with DM attending a public hospital and specialist endocrinology clinics in the region. The type of DM and pattern of CAM utilisation were analyzed.

Results: Sixty nine people responded to the questionnaire: age range of 18-75 years during a twelve week collection period. Overall, 32 respondents with diabetes were using some form of CAM, resulting in a utilisation rate of 46.3%. Twenty of the 32 CAM users used CAM specifically to treat their diabetes accounting for 28.9% of the respondent sample population. Multivitamins (40%), cinnamon, Co-enzyme q10 and prayer were the most frequently used CAM modalities. There was no significant difference between males and females, age range, income or diabetes complications between CAM and non-CAM users. (p values each > 0.05) The factor most significantly associated with CAM usage was being born overseas (p = 0.044).

Conclusions: Almost half the respondents (46.3%) used CAM: 28% used CAM specifically to treat their diabetes. Individuals born overseas were significantly more likely to use CAM than those born in Australia. Other factors such as age, gender, wealth and duration of living with diabetes were not associated with higher rate of CAM usage.

Complementary medicine, exercise, meditation, diet, and lifestyle modification for anxiety disorders : a review of current evidence

Use of complementary medicines and therapies (CAM) and modification of lifestyle factors such as physical activity and exercise, and diet are being increasingly considered as potential therapeutic options for anxiety disorders. The objective of this metareview was to examine evidence across a broad range of CAM and lifestyle interventions in the treatment of anxiety disorders. In early 2012 we conducted a literature search of PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, Web of Science, PsycInfo, and the Cochrane Library, for key studies, systematic reviews, and metaanalyses in the area. Our review found that in respect to treatment of generalized anxiety or specific anxiety disorders, CAM evidence revealed support for the herbal medicine Kava. One isolated study shows benefit for naturopathic medicine, whereas acupuncture, yoga, and Tai chi have tentative supportive evidence, which is hampered by overall poor methodology. The breadth of evidence does not support homeopathy for treating anxiety. Strong support exists for lifestyle modifications including adoption of moderate exercise and mindfulness meditation, whereas dietary improvement, avoidance of caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine offer encouraging preliminary data. In conclusion, certain lifestyle modifications and some CAMs may provide a beneficial role in the management of anxiety disorders.

Automatic rule induction in Arabic to English machine translation framework

This chapter addresses the exploitation of a supervised machine learning technique to automatically induce Arabic-to-English transfer rules from chunks of parallel aligned linguistic resources. The induced structural transfer rules encode the linguistic translation knowledge for converting an Arabic syntactic structure into a target English syntactic structure. These rules are going to be an integral part of an Arabic-English transfer-based machine translation. Nevertheless, a novel morphological rule induction method is employed for learning Arabic morphological rules that are applied in our Arabic morphological analyzer. To demonstrate the capability of the automated rule induction technique, we conducted rule-based translation experiments that use induced rules from a relatively small data set. The translation quality of the hybrid translation experiments achieved good results in terms of WER.

Request mitigating devices in Australian English and Iraqi Arabic : a comparative study

Speech acts realization in everyday interaction is seen as an important field to explore the impact of linguistic and cultural variations on cross-cultural communication and second language acquisition. The reported study investigates the use of request mitigating devices in Australian English and Iraqi Arabic. It explores the internal and external devices that speakers of the two languages use to mitigate the imposition force of requests and the impact of the linguistic and cultural parameters on this use. Request samples were collected from 14 native speakers of Australian English and 14 native speakers of Iraqi Arabic by means of eight role-play interviews. The mitigating devices were identified and classified according to a modified categorization scheme based on Blum-Kulka et al. (1989). Additional categories of mitigating devices were added to this scheme to meet the requirements of data analysis. These include consultative device (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984), questions (Trosborg, 1995), apology (Economidou-Kogetsidis, 2008), alerter (Schauer, 2007), closing (Al-Ali & Alawneh, 2010), and new categories: wish/hope statement and verbal incentive. The results showed that internal mitigating devices were more frequent in Australian English requests than in Iraqi Arabic requests, while external mitigating devices were equally pervasive in both groups. The two groups also used different semantic formulae of some mitigating devices in specific situations. The pervasive occurrence of external mitigators in both groups‟ requests is discussed in terms of volubility as a politeness strategy. It is suggested that the divergence between the two groups in their utilization of request mitigations is related to linguistic and cultural variations between the Australian and Iraqi languages and cultures.

Request mitigating devices in Australian English and Iraqi Arabic : a comparative study

Significant issues, especially miscommunication in a cross-cultural setting and pragmatic failure in second language (L2) acquisition, stem from the linguistic and cultural differences between social groups. The investigation of speech acts realization in everyday situations is deemed as an important field to explore the impact of linguistic and cultural variations on cross-cultural communication and L2 acquisition. This paper examines the internal and external mitigating devices that Australian English native speakers (AENSs) and Iraqi Arabic native speakers (IANSs) use to soften the force of request speech acts in everyday situations. It aims to explore request mitigating devices employed in Australian English and Iraqi Arabic in terms of semantic formulae and frequencies in everyday interaction. Request samples were collected from native speakers of Australian English and Iraqi Arabic by means of role-play interviews. The mitigating devices found in requests were identified and classified. The results showed that internal mitigating devices were more frequent in AENSs’ requests than in IANSs’ requests, while external mitigating devices were pervasive in both groups. The two groups also used different semantic formulae of some mitigating devices in some situations. The pervasive occurrence of external mitigators in both groups’ requests is explained in terms of the notion of volubility as a politeness strategy. It is also suggested that the divergence between the two groups in their utilization of request mitigations is related to linguistic and cultural variations between the Australian and Iraqi cultures.