Cross-Cultural Communication in Oncology: Challenges and Training Interests.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To survey oncology nurses and oncologists about difficulties in taking care of culturally and linguistically diverse patients and about interests in cross-cultural training.
. DESIGN: Descriptive, cross-sectional.
. SETTING: Web-based survey.
. SAMPLE: 108 oncology nurses and 44 oncologists. 
. METHODS: 31-item questionnaire derived from preexisting surveys in the United States and Switzerland.
. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES: Self-rated difficulties in taking care of culturally and linguistically diverse patients and self-rated interests in cross-cultural training.
. FINDINGS: All respondents reported communication difficulties in encounters with culturally and linguistically diverse patients. Respondents considered the absence of written materials in other languages, absence of a shared common language with patients, and sensitive subjects (e.g., end of life, sexuality) to be particularly problematic. Respondents also expressed a high level of interest in all aspects of cross-cultural training (task-oriented skills, background knowledge, reflexivity, and attitudes). Nurses perceived several difficulties related to care of migrants as more problematic than physicians did and were more interested in all aspects of cross-cultural training. 
. CONCLUSIONS: The need for cross-cultural training is high among oncology clinicians, particularly among nurses.
. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: The results reported in the current study may help nurses in decision-making positions and educators in introducing elements of cross-cultural education into oncology curricula for nurses. Cross-cultural training should be offered to oncology nurses.

Power line communication in motor cables of variable-speed electric drives − analysis and

Data transmission between an electric motor and a frequency converter is required in variablespeed electric drives because of sensors installed at the motor. Sensor information can be used for various useful applications to improve the system reliability and its properties. Traditionally, the communication medium is implemented by an additional cabling. However, the costs of the traditional method may be an obstacle to the wider application of data transmission between a motor and a frequency converter. In any case, a power cable is always installed between a motor and a frequency converter for power supply, and hence it may be applied as a communication medium for sensor level data. This thesis considers power line communication (PLC) in inverter-fed motor power cables. The motor cable is studied as a communication channel in the frequency band of 100 kHz−30 MHz. The communication channel and noise characteristics are described. All the individual components included in a variable-speed electric drive are presented in detail. A channel model is developed, and it is verified by measurements. A theoretical channel information capacity analysis is carried out to estimate the opportunities of a communication medium. Suitable communication and forward error correction (FEC) methods are suggested. A general method to implement a broadband and Ethernet-based communication medium between a motor and a frequency converter is proposed. A coupling interface is also developed that allows to install the communication device safely to a three-phase inverter-fed motor power cable. Practical tests are carried out, and the results are analyzed. Possible applications for the proposed method are presented. A speed feedback motor control application is verified in detail by simulations and laboratory tests because of restrictions for the delay in the feedback loop caused by PLC. Other possible applications are discussed at a more general level.

“That you too were the I”: Forms of polyphonic communication in John Ashbery’s poetry

Tarkastelen tutkimuksessani amerikkalaisen John Ashberyn (1927–) runoudessa lmenevää moniäänisyyttä. Runoutta pidetään yleensä yksiäänisenä puheena, kun taas omaanin ajatellaan erityisesti Mihail Bahtinin vaikutuksesta olevan luonnostaan oniääninen kirjallisuudenlaji. Ashberyn postmoderni runous haastaa tämän äsityksen. Ashbery tunnetaan vakiintuneita runouskäsityksiä vastaan kirjoittavana avantgarde-runoilijana. Pääasiallisina tutkimuskohteinani ovat Ashberyn pitkä runoelma nimeltä ”Litany” (1979) sekä lyhyiden runojen valikoima Your Name Here (2000). Vertailukohtana tarkastelen Ashberyn yhdessä James Schuylerin kanssa kirjoittamaa romaania A Nest of Ninnies (1969). Teoreettisena pohjana on käytetty Ashberyä käsittelevän muun tutkimuksen lisäksi muun muassa jälkistrukturalistisiin teorioihin liittyviä ajatuksia pronominien vaikutuksesta siihen miten lukija muodostaa käsityksen subjektiivisesta läsnäolosta runossa. Ashbery käyttää persoonapronomineja ilman selkeitä viittaussuhteita. Viittaussuhteiden hämärtymisen ja fragmentaarisuuden vuoksi Ashberyn runoja pidetään usein vaikeina, eikä niistä ole helppo löytää yhtä selkeää aihetta. Hajanaisuus on kuitenkin motivoitua, koska juuri se mahdollistaa moniäänisyyden ja avoimen tekstin, joka voi sisältää monia merkityksiä. Kun runossa ei ole yhden puhujan hallitsevaa ääntä, lukijan rooli merkitysten muodostajana nousee keskeiseksi. ”Litany” on selkeästi metatekstuaalinen runo, jossa fiktiivinen taso sekoittuu runouden, taiteen ja kritiikin mahdollisuuksien pohdintaan. Runo hahmottelee uudenlaista, moniäänistä teorian ja runouden rajoja purkavaa kommunikaation muotoa. Toisen persoonan pronominien voidaan runossa usein ajatella puhuttelevan lukijaa. Your Name Here -kokoelmassa puolestaan toisen persoonan pronominipositiot määrittyvät usein tietyiksi henkilöhahmoiksi runojen maailmassa, ja pronominipositioiden kautta runoissa rakentuu moniäänisiä dialogeja määrittymättömien henkilöhahmojen välille. Näin lukijan huomio suunnataan ensisijaisesti kommunikaation ja arkipäivän kielenkäytön kliseiden sävyihin ja asiayhteyksiin pikemminkin kuin yksittäisten lausumien sisältöön. A Nest of Ninnies -romaani toimii näennäisestä dialogisuudestaan huolimatta ennen kaikkea yksiäänisesti, sillä romaanin yksiulotteisten henkilöhahmojen esittämiä ajatuksia hallitsee parodioimaan pyrkivä kertojanääni. Ashberyn runojen ja romaanin tarkasteleminen osoittaa, että käsitys runoudesta väistämättä yksiäänisenä ja romaanista moniäänisenä ei ole kaikilta osin ongelmaton. Moniääninen, monimerkityksinen runo voi tarjota toiselle itsenäisen aseman.

Utilizing Near Field Communication in Health Care

In this master’s thesis, possibilities to utilize Near Field Communication (NFC) technology in health care applications are examined. NFC is a short-range wireless communication technology that enables the exchange of data between devices. Main components in NFC are tag, which contains data, a NFC reader device, which can be for instance embedded to mobile phone and also act as a tag, and an antennae in both tag and reader. In this work NFC technology is discussed and its utilization in health care information systems that are in use or in trial. Utilization of information technology in health care field is examined superficially. In this thesis, a system utilizing NFC is designed and its requirements and architecture presented. NFC is used in identification of care worker. When care worker arrives at the house of a patient, she brings the NFC-enabled mobile phone near NFC tag. This sends information to the application server. This information contains the time of arrival and patient and location identifier. When care worker leaves the place, she repeats the procedure. Information gathered can be used in reporting and real time tracking.

Proceedings from the conference Visibility and Collaboration of Researchers in Intercultural Communication in Finland - Visibilité et collaboration de la recherche en interculturel en Finlande

This document contains papers that were presented at the conference “Enhancing the Visibility and Collaboration of Researchers in Intercultural Communication in Finland” which took place at the University of Turku (Finland), on October 1st & 2nd 2004. A paper version of some of the following papers as well as articles by specialists in intercultural communication will be published by Peter Lang.

Strategic Change Management Readiness Evaluation in Organizations

The objective of this study and paper was to find out how the strategic change management readiness in organizations can be evaluated. Based on theory and prior CMP model, the framework of strategic change management and issues related to it was constructed. Additionally a synthesis of the most important phases and interventions in strategic change process and project was created. These phases were starting point, planning, implementation and evaluation and securing phases. Qualitative approach was utilized in the empirical part of the study due to the need for in-depth information about the topics surveyed through semi-structured interview. There were 18 responders from the top management of large Finnish companies. In this study interventions, strengths and weaknesses during the various phases of strategic change projects were revealed. Additionally the interviewees’ opinion on the importance of each of the interventions in strategic change project success was asked. According to this study, the most important phases recognized through researching theoretical literature, prior CMP model and empirical information in starting point phase were analysis of current and desired state and need for change accompanied with guiding coalition formulation. In planning phase the most important interventions were project organization formulation, action plan creation, analysis of prior and current strategic change projects and organizational structure analysis. In the change project implementation phase the interventions of importance were launch, quick wins, sense of urgency creation, change resistance management and change communications. In the final evaluation and securing phase project evaluation was the most important intervention. Based on the results a tool for creating change management readiness profile was created.

eWOM communication in social media: A study of its antecedents in higher education context

The aim of this master’s thesis was to examine antecedents of eWOM communication in social media in the higher education context. In order to achieve this goal, eWOM communications of the students’ of international master’s programmes at Lappeenranta University of Technology were studied. The main research question was formulated as follows: What kind of effect do service-, brand-related antecedents, contextual antecedents and moderating factors have on LUT’s international master’s degree students’ eWOM communication in social media regarding their studies? The theory part of the master’s thesis was focused on the discussion of service- and brand related eWOM antecedents, contextual antecedents, as well as moderating relationships between them. The empirical part of the master’s thesis was based on quantitative research method. A web-based survey was carried out among current students of international master’s degree programmes at LUT. Out of 712 e-mail invitations sent, 159 responses were received in total. Thus, response rate was 22%. The results of the study showed that satisfaction, commitment, virtual brand community commitment, need for an advice, positive altruistic concerns, negative altruistic concerns, and attitude towards eWOM communications have an effect on eWOM in higher education context. Several moderating effects on eWOM were determined in the present study as well. On the other hand, it was found that dissatisfaction, loyalty, brand identification, desire to help the organization, need for positive self-enhancement, and social risk perception do not have an effect on eWOM in higher education context.

Sensor communication in Smart cities and regions: An efficient IoT-based remote health monitoring system

Recent advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), especially those related to the Internet of Things (IoT), are facilitating smart regions. Among many services that a smart region can offer, remote health monitoring is a typical application of IoT paradigm. It offers the ability to continuously monitor and collect health-related data from a person, and transmit the data to a remote entity (for example, a healthcare service provider) for further processing and knowledge extraction. An IoT-based remote health monitoring system can be beneficial in rural areas belonging to the smart region where people have limited access to regular healthcare services. The same system can be beneficial in urban areas where hospitals can be overcrowded and where it may take substantial time to avail healthcare. However, this system may generate a large amount of data. In order to realize an efficient IoT-based remote health monitoring system, it is imperative to study the network communication needs of such a system; in particular the bandwidth requirements and the volume of generated data. The thesis studies a commercial product for remote health monitoring in Skellefteå, Sweden. Based on the results obtained via the commercial product, the thesis identified the key network-related requirements of a typical remote health monitoring system in terms of real-time event update, bandwidth requirements and data generation. Furthermore, the thesis has proposed an architecture called IReHMo - an IoT-based remote health monitoring architecture. This architecture allows users to incorporate several types of IoT devices to extend the sensing capabilities of the system. Using IReHMo, several IoT communication protocols such as HTTP, MQTT and CoAP has been evaluated and compared against each other. Results showed that CoAP is the most efficient protocol to transmit small size healthcare data to the remote servers. The combination of IReHMo and CoAP significantly reduced the required bandwidth as well as the volume of generated data (up to 56 percent) compared to the commercial product. Finally, the thesis conducted a scalability analysis, to determine the feasibility of deploying the combination of IReHMo and CoAP in large numbers in regions in north Sweden.