Primera fase del proyecto de creación de una herramienta de ticketing web Ibermática multi-cliente y parametrizable

Primera fase del proyecto de creación de una herramienta de ticketing web Ibermática multi-cliente y parametrizable.

General practitioners can evaluate the material, social and health dimensions of patient social status

OBJECTIVE: To identify which physician and patient characteristics are associated with physicians' estimation of their patient social status.DESIGN: Cross-sectional ulticentric survey. SETTING: Fourty-seven primary care private offices in Western Switzerland. PARTICIPANTS: Random sample of 2030 patients ≥ 16, who encountered a general practitioner (GP) between September 2010 and February 2011. MAIN MEASURES: PRIMARY OUTCOME: patient social status perceived by GPs, using the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status, ranging from the bottom (0) to the top (10) of the social scale.Secondary outcome: Difference between GP's evaluation and patient's own evaluation of their social status. Potential patient correlates: material and social deprivation using the DiPCare-Q, health status using the EQ-5D, sources of income, and level of education. GP characteristics: opinion regarding patients' deprivation and its influence on health and care. RESULTS: To evaluate patient social status, GPs considered the material, social, and health aspects of deprivation, along with education level, and amount and type of income. GPs declaring a frequent reflexive consideration of their own prejudice towards deprived patients, gave a higher estimation of patients' social status (+1.0, p = 0.002). Choosing a less costly treatment for deprived patients was associated with a lower estimation (-0.7, p = 0.002). GP's evaluation of patient social status was 0.5 point higher than the patient's own estimate (p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: GPs can perceive the various dimensions of patient social status, although heterogeneously, according partly to their own characteristics. Compared to patients' own evaluation, GPs overestimate patient social status.

Validação de material informativo a pacientes em tratamento quimioterápico e aos seus familiares

O objetivo deste estudo foi a validação do conteúdo e a compreensibilidade do Material informativo a pacientes em tratamento quimioterápico e aos seus familiares. Para avaliar se as informações do material informativo sobre câncer, quimioterapia, cuidados com paciente, alimentação e medicação eram suficientemente esclarecedoras e claras, foram contatados 23 cuidadores principais de crianças com câncer. Os entrevistados responderam a um questionário contendo nove questões fechadas e uma aberta. A avaliação foi positiva e as informações foram consideradas esclarecedoras pela maioria dos participantes, dos quais alguns contribuíram com sugestões, que foram acrescentadas ao material. Após completa finalização, o material servirá como apoio aos pacientes com câncer e aos familiares. O intuito do material é melhorar a qualidade de assistência de enfermagem, pois acredita-se que, quando os responsáveis estão orientados sobre a maneira mais adequada de cuidar, a adesão do paciente ao tratamento aumenta, a informação os torna mais seguros, e colabora-se para o sucesso do tratamento.

Multi-receptor binding profile of clozapine and olanzapine: a structural study based on the new beta (2) adrenergic receptor template

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that has a largeimpact on the quality of life for those who are afflicted and isvery costly for families and society.[1] Although the etiology ofschizophrenia is still unknown and no cure has yet beenfound, it is treatable, and pharmacological therapy often producessatisfactory results. Among the various antipsychoticdrugs in use, clozapine is widely recognized as one ofthemost clinically effective agents, even if it elicits significant sideeffects such as metabolic disorders and agranulocytosis. Clozapineand the closely related compound olanzapine are goodexamples ofdrug s with a complex multi-receptor profile ;[2]they have affinities toward serotonin, dopamine, a adrenergic,muscarinic, and histamine receptors, among others.

Acidente ocupacional por material perfurocortante entre profissionais de saúde de um Centro Cirúrgico

O acidente ocupacional por material perfurocortante constitui uma preocupação para instituições e trabalhadores de saúde, devido à elevada frequência de procedimentos invasivos, e a dinâmica do trabalho. Objetivou-se identificar a incidência dos acidentes, dos materiais envolvidos, dos fatores contribuintes e das condutas tomadas pós-acidente. Participaram de um estudo transversal 127 funcionários do centro cirúrgico. Registraram-se 23,6% (30/127) acidentes com envolvimento de agulha (73,3%), lâmina de bisturi (6,7%) e eletrocautério (6,7%). Os fatores contribuintes para o acidente foram: falta de atenção (36,7%), más condições de trabalho (20,0%), descuido (13,3%), pressa (10%) e acaso/azar (6,7%). Somente 15,4% dos acidentes foram registrados. A subnotificação deveu-se à irrelevância do acidente, desconhecimento do protocolo de rotina, displicência e sobrecarga de trabalho. Os resultados alertam para a importância de se implementar estratégias para adoção/revisão de protocolos pós-acidentes, visando a redução dos acidentes e de sua subnotificação.

Comparative gene finding in chicken indicates that we are closing in on the set of multi-exonic widely-expressed human genes

The recent availability of the chicken genome sequence poses the question of whether there are human protein-coding genes conserved in chicken that are currently not included in the human gene catalog. Here, we show, using comparative gene finding followed by experimental verification of exon pairs by RT–PCR, that the addition to the multi-exonic subset of this catalog could be as little as 0.2%, suggesting that we may be closing in on the human gene set. Our protocol, however, has two shortcomings: (i) the bioinformatic screening of the predicted genes, applied to filter out false positives, cannot handle intronless genes; and (ii) the experimental verification could fail to identify expression at a specific developmental time. This highlights the importance of developing methods that could provide a reliable estimate of the number of these two types of genes.

Gerenciamento de custos: aplicação do método de Custeio Baseado em Atividades em Centro de Material Esterilizado

Esta pesquisa exploratória descritiva, na modalidade de estudo de caso, teve por objetivo a aplicação do Custeio Baseado em Atividades (ABC) em Centro de Material e Esterilização (CME) de um hospital de ensino de capacidade extra. A coleta de dados ocorreu durante o ano de 2006, utilizando-se as técnicas de análise documental e observação direta não participante. A análise de processos possibilitou o conhecimento dos custos do ciclo/carga de desinfecção química ($9.95) e física ($12.63), e esterilização por vapor saturado sob pressão ($31.37) e por vapor de Baixa Temperatura e Formaldeído Gasoso ($255.28). As informações geradas pelo ABC resultaram na compreensão do processo gerador de custos e forneceram base para a mensuração de desempenho e melhorias de processos do CME.

Analysis of the multi-copy gene family FAM90A as a copy number variant in different ethnic backgrounds

Copy number variants contribute extensively to inter-individual genomic differences, but little is known about their inter-population variability and diversity. In a previous study (Bosch et al., 2007; 16:2572-2582), we reported that the primate-specific gene family FAM90A, which accounts for as many as 25 members in the human reference assembly, has expanded the number of FAM90A clusters across the hominoid lineage. Here we examined the copy number variability of FAM90A genes in 260 HapMap samples of European, African, and Asian ancestry, and showed significant inter-population differences (p<0.0001). Based on the recent study of Stranger et al. (2007; 315:848-853), we also explored the correlation between copy number variability and expression levels of the FAM90A gene family. Despite the high genomic variability, we found a low correlation between FAM90A copy number and expression levels, which could be due to the action of independent trans-acting factors. Our results show that FAM90A is highly variable in copy number between individuals and between populations. However, this variability has little impact on gene expression levels, thus highlighting the importance of genomic variability for genes located in regions containing segmental duplications.

Capacity-approaching rate function for layered multiantenna architectures

The simultaneous use of multiple transmit and receive antennas can unleash very large capacity increases in rich multipath environments. Although such capacities can be approached by layered multi-antenna architectures with per-antenna rate control, the need for short-term feedback arises as a potential impediment, in particular as the number of antennas—and thus the number of rates to be controlled—increases. What we show, however, is that the need for short-term feedback in fact vanishes as the number of antennas and/or the diversity order increases. Specifically, the rate supported by each transmit antenna becomes deterministic and a sole function of the signal-to-noise, the ratio of transmit and receive antennas, and the decoding order, all of which are either fixed or slowly varying. More generally, we illustrate -through this specific derivation— the relevance of some established random CDMA results to the single-user multi-antenna problem.

Guiding students through competence-based educational material

Student guidance is an always desired characteristic in any educational system, butit represents special difficulty if it has to be deployed in an automated way to fulfilsuch needs in a computer supported educational tool. In this paper we explorepossible avenues relying on machine learning techniques, to be included in a nearfuture -in the form of a tutoring navigational tool- in a teleeducation platform -InterMediActor- currently under development. Since no data from that platform isavailable yet, the preliminary experiments presented in this paper are builtinterpreting every subject in the Telecommunications Degree at Universidad CarlosIII de Madrid as an aggregated macro-competence (following the methodologicalconsiderations in InterMediActor), such that marks achieved by students can beused as data for the models, to be replaced in a near future by real data directlymeasured inside InterMediActor. We evaluate the predictability of students qualifications, and we deploy a preventive early detection system -failure alert-, toidentify those students more prone to fail a certain subject such that correctivemeans can be deployed with sufficient anticipation.

Some applications of FISST to wireless communications

This paper aims at illustrating some applications of Finite Random Set (FRS) theory to the design and analysis of wireless communication receivers, and at pointing out similarities and differences between this scenario and that pertaining to multi-target tracking, where the use of FRS has been traditionally advocated. Two case studies are considered, l.e., multiuser detection in a dynamic environment, and multicarrier (OFDM) transmission on a frequency-selective channel. Detector designand performance evaluation are discussed, along with the advantages of importing FRS-based estimation techniques to the context of wireless communications.

Bit loading for MIMO with statistical channel information at the transmitter and ZF receivers

For single-user MIMO communication with uncoded and coded QAM signals, we propose bit and power loading schemes that rely only on channel distribution information at the transmitter. To that end, we develop the relationship between the average bit error probability at the output of a ZF linear receiver and the bit rates and powers allocated at the transmitter. This relationship, and the fact that a ZF receiver decouples the MIMO parallel channels, allow leveraging bit loading algorithms already existing in the literature. We solve dual bit rate maximization and power minimization problems and present performance resultsthat illustrate the gains of the proposed scheme with respect toa non-optimized transmission.

De-hyping transmit diversity in modern MIMO cellular systems

A contemporary perspective on the tradeoff between transmit antenna diversity and spatial multi-plexing is provided. It is argued that, in the context of modern cellular systems and for the operating points of interest, transmission techniques that utilize all available spatial degrees of freedom for multiplexingoutperform techniques that explicitly sacrifice spatialmultiplexing for diversity. Reaching this conclusion, however, requires that the channel and some key system features be adequately modeled; failure to do so may bring about starkly different conclusions. As a specific example, this contrast is illustrated using the 3GPP Long-Term Evolution system design.

Material and Construction Optimization for Prevention of Premature Pavement Distress in PCC Pavements, September 2004

The chemistry of today’s concrete mixture designs is complicated by many variables, including multiple sources of aggregate and cements and a plethora of sometimes incompatible mineral and chemical admixtures. Concrete paving has undergone significant changes in recent years as new materials have been introduced into concrete mixtures. Supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag are now regularly used. In addition, many new admixtures that were not even available a few years ago now have widespread usage. Adding to the complexity are construction variables such as weather, mix delivery times, finishing practices, and pavement opening schedules. Mixture materials, mix design, and pavement construction are not isolated steps in the concrete paving process. Each affects and is affected by the other in ways that determine overall pavement quality and long-term performance. Equipment and procedures commonly used to test concrete materials and concrete pavements have not changed in decades, leaving serious gaps in our ability to understand and control the factors that determine concrete durability. The concrete paving community needs tests that will adequately characterize the materials, predict interactions, and monitor the properties of the concrete.