An audit of diagnostic reference levels in interventional cardiology and radiology: are there differences between academic and non-academic centres?

A wide variation in patient exposure has been observed in interventional radiology and cardiology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the patient dose from fluoroscopy-guided procedures performed in non-academic centres when compared with academic centres. Four procedures (coronary angiography, percutaneous coronary intervention, angiography of the lower limbs and percutaneous transluminal angioplasty of the lower limbs) were evaluated. Data on the dose-area product, fluoroscopy time and number of images for 1000 procedures were obtained from 23 non-academic centres and compared with data from 5 academic centres. No differences were found for cardiology procedures performed in non-academic centres versus academic ones. However, significantly lower doses were delivered to patients for procedures of the lower limbs when they were performed in non-academic centres. This may be due to more complex procedures performed in the academic centres. Comparison between the centres showed a great variation in the patient dose for these lower limb procedures.

The Digital Memory of Catalonia, Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia

The Digital Memory of Catalonia, Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia, contains open-access digitized collections of photographs, drawings, maps, posters, pamphlets, incunabula, ancient Catalan periodicals and many other items with a total of over two million documents related to Catalonia from 18 different institutions (universities, specialized libraries, institutes, archives, etc.).

Patients satisfaction in an academic walk-in centre : a new model of residents training achieved by family doctors

Introduction Walk-in centers may improve access to healthcare for some patients, due to their convenient location and extensive opening hours, with no need for appointment. Herein we describe and assess a new model of walk-in centre, characterized by care provided by residents and supervision achieved by experienced family doctors. Main aim of the study was to assess patients satisfaction about the care they received from residents and the supervision by family doctors. Secondary aim was to describe walk-in patients demographic characteristics and to identify potential associations with satisfaction. Methods The study was conducted in the walk-in centre of Lausanne. Patients who consulted between in April 2011 were automatically included and received a questionnaire in French. We used a five-point Likert scale, from "not at all satisfied" to "very satisfied", converted from 1 to 5. We focused on the satisfaction regarding residents care and supervision by a family doctor. The former was divided in three categories: "Skills", "Treatment" and "Behaviour". Mean satisfaction was calculated for each category and a multivariable logistic model was applied in order to identify associations among patients demographics. Results Response rate was 47% [184/395], Walk-in patients were more likely to be women, young, with a high education level. Patients were very satisfied with residents care, with median satisfaction between 4.5 and 5, for each category. Over than 90% of patients were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" that a family doctor was involved in the consultation. Age showed the major association of satisfaction. Discussion Patients were highly satisfied with care provided by residents and with involvement of a family doctor in the consultation. Older age showed the major association with satisfaction with a positive impact. The high satisfaction reported by walk-in patients supports this new model of walk-in centre.

Projecte Matic : Una eina d' ensenyament assistit per ordinador via internet

El projecte Matic vol crear un entorn d'EAO apte per a treballar qualsevol contingut acadèmic i personalitzat per a cada estudiant, seguint les directrius marcades pel professor, que en podrà fer el seguiment acadèmic.

Treatment with tumor necrosis factor inhibitors in axial spondyloarthritis: comparison between private rheumatology practices and academic centers in a large observational cohort.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the initiation of and response to tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors for axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA) in private rheumatology practices versus academic centers. METHODS: We compared newly initiated TNF inhibition for axSpA in 363 patients enrolled in private practices with 100 patients recruited in 6 university hospitals within the Swiss Clinical Quality Management (SCQM) cohort. RESULTS: All patients had been treated with ≥ 1 nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug and > 70% of patients had a baseline Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) ≥ 4 before anti-TNF agent initiation. The proportion of patients with nonradiographic axSpA (nr-axSpA) treated with TNF inhibitors was higher in hospitals versus private practices (30.4% vs 18.7%, p = 0.02). The burden of disease as assessed by patient-reported outcomes at baseline was slightly higher in the hospital setting. Mean levels (± SD) of the Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score were, however, virtually identical in private practices and academic centers (3.4 ± 1.0 vs 3.4 ± 0.9, p = 0.68). An Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS40) response at 1 year was reached for ankylosing spondylitis in 51.7% in private practices and 52.9% in university hospitals (p = 1.0) and for nr-axSpA in 27.5% versus 25.0%, respectively (p = 1.0). CONCLUSION: With the exception of a lower proportion of patients with nr-axSpA newly treated with anti-TNF agents in private practices in comparison to academic centers, adherence to ASAS treatment recommendations for TNF inhibition was equally high, and similar response rates to TNF blockers were achieved in both clinical settings.

Gestió Acadèmica d'un centre de formació

Aquest treball s'ha desenvolupat sota la plataforma .NET 2.0 i consisteix en l'anàlisi, disseny i implementació d'una aplicació web per a gestionar el servei de gestió acadèmica d'un centre de formació o acadèmia.

Gestió acadèmica d'un centre de formació en .NET

El projecte de Gestió acadèmica d'un centre de formació consisteix en la planificació, l'anàlisi, el disseny i la implementació per oferir un producte final integral vàlid que sigui capaç de gestionar el negoci d'un centre de formació.

What do academic libraries have to do with Open Educational Resources? Theme : Long term sustainability of open education projects first steps to start up

This paper will discuss the possible roles of academic libraries in promoting, supporting, and sustaining institutional Open Educational Resource initiatives. It will note areas in which libraries or librarians have skills and knowledge that intersect with some of the needs of academic staff and students as they use and release OERs. It will also present the results of a brief survey of the views of some OER initiatives on the current and potential role of academic libraries.

E-MOVE project : a case of successfulcooperation of European academic librariesof distance teaching universities

El Library and Learning Support Working Group (LLSWG) és una xarxa europea de professionals de biblioteca i de la informació i educadors dins de l'Associació Europea d'Universitats d'Ensenyament (EADTU). EADTU és l'organització que representa tant les universitats obertes i d'ensenyament a distància com els consorcis nacionals d'institucions d'ensenyament superior actius en els camps d'educació de distància i e-learning. El 2005 l'Associació Europea d'Universitats d'Ensenyament de Distància (EADTU) presentava a la Comissió Europea una proposta de projecte sobre Mobilitat Virtual anomenada E-MOVE. El projecte incloïa, entre d'altres, un paquet de treball referent a biblioteca i suport a l'aprenentatge al context de mobilitat virtual. Aquest fou desenvolupat pel LLSWG de l'EADTU.

Knowledge integration within an applied mobile robot summer course

This paper presents the use of a mobile robot platform as an innovative educational tool in order to promote and integrate different curriculum knowledge. Hence, it is presented the acquired experience within a summer course named ldquoapplied mobile roboticsrdquo. The main aim of the course is to integrate different subjects as electronics, programming, architecture, perception systems, communications, control and trajectory planning by using the educational open mobile robot platform PRIM. The summer course is addressed to a wide range of student profiles. However, it is of special interests to the students of electrical and computer engineering around their final academic year. The summer course consists of the theoretical and laboratory sessions, related to the following topics: design & programming of electronic devices, modelling and control systems, trajectory planning and control, and computer vision systems. Therefore, the clues for achieving a renewed path of progress in robotics are the integration of several knowledgeable fields, such as computing, communications, and control sciences, in order to perform a higher level reasoning and use decision tools with strong theoretical base

A teaching/learning support tool for introductory programming courses

In This work we present a Web-based tool developed with the aim of reinforcing teaching and learning of introductory programming courses. This tool provides support for teaching and learning. From the teacher's perspective the system introduces important gains with respect to the classical teaching methodology. It reinforces lecture and laboratory sessions, makes it possible to give personalized attention to the student, assesses the degree of participation of the students and most importantly, performs a continuous assessment of the student's progress. From the student's perspective it provides a learning framework, consisting in a help environment and a correction environment, which facilitates their personal work. With this tool students are more motivated to do programming

Use and availability of scholarly journals in Catalan academic libraries

This paper presents the results of a survey of academics affiliated to the universities that are members of the Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia (CBUC), and an analysis of the availability in the libraries of these universities, of the references cited in a sample of articles published by these academics. The results reflect the major importance that researchers assign to scholarly journals as the main source of scientific information. Most state that they use electronic journals either exclusively or in any case more than print journals, a preference that is higher among younger scholars. With regard to frequency of reading, four out of ten researchers state that they read journals virtually every day, while nine out of ten report that they do so at least once a week. Scholars claim that the obstacles they face when trying to download an article are related to the lack of subscriptions. However, the availability study showed that most of the articles cited in their publications are available at least at one of the CBUC libraries. Though most researchers keep a copy of the articles they consult, just over a third of them use some kind of reference management software.

Let's talk: public evaluation of large projects: variational inequialities, bilevel programming and complementarity. a survey

Large projects evaluation rises well known difficulties because -by definition- they modify the current price system; their public evaluation presents additional difficulties because they modify too existing shadow prices without the project. This paper analyzes -first- the basic methodologies applied until late 80s., based on the integration of projects in optimization models or, alternatively, based on iterative procedures with information exchange between two organizational levels. New methodologies applied afterwards are based on variational inequalities, bilevel programming and linear or nonlinear complementarity. Their foundations and different applications related with project evaluation are explored. As a matter of fact, these new tools are closely related among them and can treat more complex cases involving -for example- the reaction of agents to policies or the existence of multiple agents in an environment characterized by common functions representing demands or constraints on polluting emissions.