64623 research outputs found
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Addressing language as a barrier to healthcare access and quality
No full textInternational migration has increased rapidly over the past 20 years, with an estimated 281 million people living outside their country of birth.1 Similarly, migration to the UK has continued to rise over this period; current annual migration is estimated to be >700 000 per year (net migration of >300 000).2 With migration comes linguistic diversity, and in health care this often translates into linguistic discordance between patients and healthcare professionals. This can result in communication difficulties that lead to lower quality of care and poor outcomes.3 COVID-19 has heightened inequalities in relation to language: communication barriers, defined as barriers in understanding or accessing key information on health care and challenges in reporting on health conditions, are known to have compounded risks for migrants in the context of COVID-19.4 Digitalisation of health care has further amplified inequalities in primary care for migrant groups.5</p
Acceptability of a novel device to improve child patient experience during venepuncture for blood sampling: Intervention with ‘MyShield’
Full text linkThis study aimed to explore the acceptability of a novel device (‘MyShield’): a device used for distraction during clinical procedures. It is a cardboard cuff, designed to fit around the arm, either above the elbow or around the wrist and used to hide the procedure from view. This device was tested in practice, to establish acceptability to children, parents and clinical staff. Fifty-eight children tried ‘MyShield’ during a venepuncture procedure. Feedback from 54 children, 58 parents/carers and 16 clinical staff was collected using surveys and interviews. In 24 cases, observational data were also collected. A large majority of children (94%, n = 51) and parents (96%, n = 56) reported a positive experience when using ‘MyShield’; saying they would likely use it again. Potential of ‘MyShield’ in promoting parent/clinician interaction with the child was highlighted. Data suggests that ‘MyShield’ may be a useful device for children undergoing venepuncture, when used in conjunction with standard care, and subject to individual preferences and choice. Further work is required to establish mechanism of action and whether use of ‘MyShield’ has any impact across a range of short- and long-term outcome measures relating to patient experience and effectiveness
Scenographic Storyworlds: World-Building Immersive Environments
Full text link"This thesis explores a design practice of building worlds that tell or evoke “story.” In a time when audiences can be enveloped by a storyworld, this practice-research project examines the ways that designers create (or author) immersive environments for otherworldly worlds. While I draw from my professional career as a designer in the themed entertainment industry, this thesis focuses on my design practice with the theater collective Dank Parish on a variety of immersive, story-based projects in 2018 and 2019, which included theatrical districts at two different weekend music festivals and a participatory, immersive fringe show that filled a warren of tunnels under Waterloo Station. For these projects, I used a practice-research methodology that centers1 doing practice as a method of discovery for collaborative theatre-making. I call this methodology “scenography-as-method.”My PhD thesis undertakes a multidisciplinary approach to creating immersive environments that combines the theories and practices of architecture, expanded scenography and themed entertainment with a foundation in literary theory. The term “storyworld” describes an intentional relationship between environment and story, but I modify the literary-centric word with the design descriptor “scenographic” to specify these types of experiential, spatial environments. Through my design practice, I propose six scenographic world-building strategies that are integral to thinking and developing scenographic storyworlds. These strategies explore a storyworld as both: (1) world-as- whole, a container that can hold many narratives and unique encounters, and (2) world-as- bits, which describes the emergent and potential invitations embedded throughout a storyworld. These six strategies include: architectural place-making, inhabitation, material invitations, narrative fabric, peripheral distraction and sequences of thresholds. Design is integral to the materialization of immersive worlds. Therefore, this research project argues that a scenographic design of an environment can invite an audience to experience immersion similar to how architectural design enables inhabitation; in both instances, the design team provides invitations to step physically and imaginatively into a storyworld.
Next Generation DES Simulation: A Research Agenda for Human Centric Manufacturing Systems
No full textIn this paper we introduce a research agenda to guide the development of the next generation of Discrete Event Simulation (DES) systems. Interfaces to digital twins are projected to go beyond physical representations to become blueprints for the actual “objects” and an active dashboard for their control. The role and importance of real-time interactive animations presented in an Extended Reality (XR) format will be explored. The need for using game engines, particularly their physics engines and AI within interactive simulated Extended Reality is expanded on. Importing and scanning real-world environments is assumed to become more efficient when using AR. Exporting to VR and AR is recommended to be a default feature. A technology framework for the next generation simulators is presented along with a proposed set of implementation guidelines. The need for more human centric technology approaches, nascent in Industry 4.0, are now central to the emerging Industry 5.0 paradigm; an agenda that is discussed in this research as part of a human in the loop future, supported by DES. The potential role of Explainable Artificial Intelligence is also explored along with an audit trail approach to provide a justification of complex and automated decision-making systems with relation to DES. A technology framework is proposed, which brings the above together and can serve as a guide for the next generation of holistic simulators for manufacturing
Suppression of self-stratification in colloidal mixtures with high Péclet numbers
Full text linkThe non-equilibrium assembly of bimodal colloids during evaporative processes is an attractive means to achieve gradient or stratified layers in thick films. Here, we show that the stratification of small colloids on top of large is prevented when the viscosity of the continuous aqueous phase is too high. We propose a model where a too narrow width of the gradient in concentration of small colloids suppresses the stratification
Anxiety and Spatial Navigation in Williams Syndrome and Down Syndrome
No full textIndividuals with Down Syndrome (DS) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) present with poor navigation and elevated anxiety. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between these two characteristics. Parent report questionnaires measured navigation abilities and anxiety in WS (N = 55) and DS (N = 42) as follows. Anxiety: Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale and a novel measure of navigation anxiety. Navigation: Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale (SBSOD) and a novel measure of navigation competence. Most individuals were not permitted to travel independently. A relationship between navigation anxiety and SBSOD scores (but not navigation competence) was observed for both groups
Non-Markovian Dynamics of a Single Excitation within Many-Body Dissipative Systems
No full textWe explore the dynamics of coupled atoms to a generic bosonic reservoirunder specific system symmetries. In the regime of multiple atoms coupled to asingle reservoir with identical couplings, we identify remarkable effects,notably that the initial configuration of the atomic excited state amplitudesstrongly impacts the dynamics of the system and can even fully sever the systemfrom its environment. Additionally, we find that steady state amplitudes of theexcited states become independent of the choice of the reservoir. The frameworkintroduced is applied to a structured photonic reservoir associated with aphotonic crystal, where we show it reproduces previous theoretical andexperimental results and it predicts superradiant behaviour within thesingle-excitation regime
Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
Full text linkAlmost universally, diachronic sound patterns of languages reveal evidence of both regular and irregular sound changes, yet an exception may be the languages of Australia. Here we discuss a long-observed and striking characteristic of diachronic sound patterns in Australian languages, namely the scarcity of evidence they present for regular sound change. Since the regularity assumption is fundamental to the comparative method, Australian languages pose an interesting challenge for linguistic theory. We examine the situation from two different angles. We identify potential explanations for the lack of evidence of regular sound change, reasoning from the nature of synchronic Australian phonologies; and we emphasise how this unusual characteristic of Australian languages may demand new methods of evaluating evidence for diachronic relatedness and new thinking about the nature of intergenerational transmission. We refer the reader also to Bowern (this volume) for additional viewpoints from which the Australian conundrum can be approached
On the Relative Importance of Visual and Spatial Audio Rendering on VR Immersion
No full textA study was performed using a virtual environment to investigate the relative importance of spatial audio fidelity and video resolution on perceived audiovisual quality and immersion. Subjects wore a head-mounted display and headphones and were presented with a virtual environment featuring music and speech stimuli using three levels each of spatial audio quality and video resolution. Spatial audio was rendered monaurally, binaurally with head-tracking, and binaurally with head-tracking and room acoustic rendering. Video was rendered at resolutions of 0.5 megapixels per eye, 1.5 megapixels per eye, and 2.5 megapixels per eye. Results showed that both video resolution and spatial audio rendering had a statistically significant effect on both immersion and audiovisual quality. Most strikingly, the results showed that under the conditions that were tested in the experiment, the addition of room acoustic rendering to head-tracked binaural audio had the same improvement on immersion as increasing the video resolution five-fold, from 0.5 megapixels per eye to 2.5 megapixels per eye
Evolution and Trade-Off Dynamics of Functional Load
Full text linkFunctional load (FL) quantifies the contributions by phonological contrasts to distinctions made across the lexicon. Previous research has linked particularly low values of FL to sound change. Here, we broaden the scope of enquiry into FL to its evolution at higher values also. We apply phylogenetic methods to examine the diachronic evolution of FL across 90 languages of the Pama-Nyungan (PN) family of Australia. We find a high degree of phylogenetic signal in FL, indicating that FL values covary closely with genealogical structure across the family. Though phylogenetic signals have been reported for phonological structures, such as phonotactics, their detection in measures of phonological function is novel. We also find a significant, negative correlation between the FL of vowel length and of the following consonant-that is, a time-depth historical trade-off dynamic, which we relate to known allophony in modern PN languages and compensatory sound changes in their past. The findings reveal a historical dynamic, similar to transphonologization, which we characterize as a flow of contrastiveness between subsystems of the phonology. Recurring across a language family that spans a whole continent and many millennia of time depth, our findings provide one of the most compelling examples yet of Sapir's 'drift' hypothesis of non-accidental parallel development in historically related languages
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