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Recommendations for wider adoption of clinical pharmacy in Central and Eastern Europe in order to optimise pharmacotherapy and improve patient outcomes
Get PDFClinical pharmacy as an area of practice, education and research started developing around the 1960s when pharmacists across the globe gradually identified the need to focus more on ensuring the appropriate use of medicines to improve patient outcomes rather than being engaged in manufacturing and supply. Since that time numerous studies have shown the positive impact of clinical pharmacy services (CPS). The need for wider adoption of CPS worldwide becomes urgent, as the global population ages, and the prevalence of polypharmacy as well as shortage of healthcare professionals is rising. At the same time, there is great pressure to provide both high-quality and cost-effective health services. All these challenges urgently require the adoption of a new paradigm of healthcare system architecture. One of the most appropriate answers to these challenges is to increase the utilization of the potential of highly educated and skilled professionals widely available in these countries, i.e., pharmacists, who are well positioned to prevent and manage drug-related problems together with ensuring safe and effective use of medications with further care relating to medication adherence. Unfortunately, CPS are still underdeveloped and underutilized in some parts of Europe, namely, in most of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. This paper reviews current situation of CPS development in CEE countries and the prospects for the future of CPS in that region
Working Interviews: Blending Fieldwork and Technical Work on Tour with Cirque du Soleil
No full textAbstractFor Cirque du Soleil’s touring arena show Corteo, music is a central feature of every performance. In this article, I focus on Corteo’s touring sound technicians, who play an essential role in the show’s musical presentation. I discuss a methodological approach to my ethnographic research, which provides new insights into large-scale intermedia performance environments like Corteo. I theorize a masculine-gendered, stoic mode of emotional labour that is enacted through voice-to-voice remote communication during performance. Through participant observation, public intercept interviews, and what I call “working interviews”—interviews with the sound technicians that take place during performances or other operational activities—I engage directly with the technical and emotional labour practices of musical production.RésuméPour le spectacle itinérant du Cirque du Soleil, Corteo, la musique est au coeur de chaque représentation. Dans cet article, je me concentre sur les techniciens du son de tournée de Corteo, qui jouent un rôle essentiel dans la présentation musicale du spectacle. Je discute d’une approche méthodologique de ma recherche ethnographique, qui fournit de nouvelles perspectives sur les environnements de performance intermédia à grande échelle comme Corteo. Je théorise un mode masculin et stoïque de travail émotionnel qui est mis en oeuvre par une communication à distance voix à voix pendant la représentation. Grâce à l’observation participante, aux entretiens publics interceptés et à ce que j’appelle des « entretiens de travail » —des entretiens avec les techniciens du son qui ont lieu pendant les performances ou d’autres activités opérationnelles—je m’engage directement dans les pratiques de travail techniques et émotionnelles de la production musicale
Thermomechanical Properties of Virgin and Recycled Polypropylene—High-Density Polyethylene Blends
Get PDFThis paper provides evidence and discusses the variability in the thermomechanical behaviour of virgin and recycled polypropylene/high-density polyethylene blends without the addition of other components, which is sparse in the literature. Understanding the performance variability in recycled polymer blends is of critical importance in order to facilitate the re-entering of recycled materials to the consumer market and, thus, contribute towards a circular economy. This is an area that requires further research due to the inhomogeneity of recycled materials. Therefore, the thermal and mechanical properties of virgin and recycled polypropylene/high-density polyethylene blends were investigated systematically. Differential scanning calorimetry concludes that both the recycled and virgin blends are immiscible. Generally, recycled blends have lower overall crystallinity and melting temperatures compared with virgin blends while, remarkably, their crystallisation temperatures are compared favourably. Dynamical mechanical analysis showed little variation in the storage modulus of recycled and virgin blends. However, the alpha and beta relaxation temperatures are lower in recycled blends due to structural deterioration. Deterioration in the thermal and mechanical properties of recycled blends is thought to be caused by the presence of contaminants and structural degradation during reprocessing, resulting in shorter polymeric chains and the formation of imperfect crystallites. The tensile properties of recycled blends are also affected by the recycling process. The Young’s modulus and yield strength of the recycled blends are inferior to those of virgin blends due to the deterioration during the recycling process. However, the elongation at break of the recycled blends is higher compared with the virgin blends, possibly due to the plasticity effect of the low-molecular-weight chain fragments
A hybrid dependency-based approach for Urdu sentiment analysis
Get PDFIn the digital age, social media has emerged as a significant platform, generating a vast amount of raw data daily. This data reflects the opinions of individuals from diverse backgrounds, races, cultures, and age groups, spanning a wide range of topics. Businesses can leverage this data to extract valuable insights, improve their services, and effectively reach a broader audience based on users’ expressed opinions on social media platforms. To harness the potential of this extensive and unstructured data, a deep understanding of Natural Language Processing (NLP) is crucial. Existing approaches for sentiment analysis (SA) often rely on word co-occurrence frequencies, which prove inefficient in practical scenarios. Identifying this research gap, this paper presents a framework for concept-level sentiment analysis, aiming to enhance the accuracy of sentiment analysis (SA). A comprehensive Urdu language dataset was constructed by collecting data from YouTube, consisting of various talks and reviews on topics such as movies, politics, and commercial products. The dataset was further enriched by incorporating language rules and Deep Neural Networks (DNN) to optimize polarity detection. For sentiment analysis, the proposed framework employs predefined rules to trigger sentiment flow from words to concepts, leveraging the dependency relations among different words in a sentence based on Urdu language grammatical rules. In cases where predefined patterns are not triggered, the framework seamlessly switches to its sub-symbolic counterpart, passing the data to the DNN for sentence classification. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework surpasses state-of-the-art approaches, including LSTM, CNN, SVM, LR, and MLP, achieving an improvement of 6–7% on Urdu dataset. In conclusion, this research paper introduces a novel framework for concept-level sentiment analysis of Urdu language data sourced from social media platforms. By combining language rules and DNN, the proposed framework demonstrates superior performance compared to existing methodologies, showcasing its effectiveness in accurately analyzing sentiment in Urdu text data
Association between menstrual cycle phase and metabolites in healthy, regularly menstruating women in UK Biobank, and effect modification by inflammatory markers and risk factors for metabolic disease
Get PDFBackground: Preliminary evidence demonstrates some parameters of metabolic control, including glycaemic control, lipid control and insulin resistance, vary across the menstrual cycle. However, the literature is inconsistent, and the underlying mechanisms remain uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the association between the menstrual cycle phase and metabolites and to explore potential mediators and moderators of these associations. Methods: We undertook a cross-sectional cohort study using UK Biobank. The outcome variables were glucose; triglyceride; triglyceride to glucose index (TyG index); total, HDL and LDL cholesterol; and total to HDL cholesterol ratio. Generalised additive models (GAM) were used to investigate non-linear associations between the menstrual cycle phase and outcome variables. Anthropometric, lifestyle, fitness and inflammatory markers were explored as potential mediators and moderators of the associations between the menstrual cycle phase and outcome variables. Results: Data from 8694 regularly menstruating women in UK Biobank were analysed. Non-linear associations were observed between the menstrual cycle phase and total (p < 0.001), HDL (p < 0.001), LDL (p = 0.012) and total to HDL cholesterol (p < 0.001), but not glucose (p = 0.072), triglyceride (p = 0.066) or TyG index (p = 0.100). Neither anthropometric, physical fitness, physical activity, nor inflammatory markers mediated the associations between the menstrual cycle phase and metabolites. Moderator analysis demonstrated a greater magnitude of variation for all metabolites across the menstrual cycle in the highest and lowest two quartiles of fat mass and physical activity, respectively. Conclusions: Cholesterol profiles exhibit a non-linear relationship with the menstrual cycle phase. Physical activity, anthropometric and fitness variables moderate the associations between the menstrual cycle phase and metabolite concentration. These findings indicate the potential importance of physical activity and fat mass as modifiable risk factors of the intra-individual variation in metabolic control across the menstrual cycle in pre-menopausal women
Acculturation Processes of International Labour in Switzerland in the Hospitality Organisations
Get PDFThe following research examines the acculturation processes of migrants, working in Switzerland, particularly in the hospitality industry. Due to rapid globalisation and lack of investigation on worker's adaptation, there remains a gap in the research based on the employees' cultural clash occurrence. The study explores potential tools which might simplify cultural adaptation and provide a better understanding of international communication for any future employees coming to live and work in Switzerland. Semi-structured interviews with participants from different nationalities were conducted to identify the importance of effective acculturation, the adaptation issues, and the influence of those on work and life in Switzerland. The results demonstrate that the most efficient way to acculturate in Switzerland is integration to the culture and traditions of the country and its history through understanding their values, norms, practices. Moreover, Switzerland was viewed as a very conservative and strict country where one must work hard to be accepted. Those participants who tried to separate, assimilate, or marginalise tend to experience tougher acculturation. Language, namely Swiss German or German, was highlighted as the most essential to learn or to be provided by the workplace. Lastly, current research identified a link between successful acculturation with job opportunities and development. Since salaries and job opportunities are not the same for the foreign workers in comparison to Swiss employees on the same position there might be a potential recommendation for improvement. Little to no link has been found between acculturation and psychological well-being, financial status, and health conditions
The role of the entrepreneurial leader: A study of Nigerian SMEs
Get PDFGrowing evidence points to the role of entrepreneurial leadership in enhancing positive business outcomes. Yet little is known about the entrepreneurial leadership attributes and skills exploited by entrepreneurial leaders within a developing economy context. This study examines the role of entrepreneurial leadership within fashion SMEs. It exemplifies the entrepreneurial leadership attributes and skills employed by entrepreneurial leaders within Nigerian fashion SMEs. Based on 14 semi- structured interviews of entrepreneurial leaders, we found out that: (1) five broad skills namely; technical, conceptual, interpersonal, entrepreneurial and expectation management skills are employed by entrepreneurial leaders ; (2) entrepreneurial leaders rely on 7 attributes namely; hard work, long term view, passion, length of service, creativity, innovation and vision in the pursuit of their business ventures; (3) creativity and innovation are key attributes within the fashion sector ; (4) vision is described as the most important attribute an entrepreneurial leader should possess. Finally, this study recognises the interaction between attributes and skills, which serves as a foundation for understanding the transition process of entrepreneurial leadership attributes to skills. In addition, it provides new insights on the classification of competencies and it presents an instructive entrepreneurial leadership model for guiding such a categorisation
Can we evidence-base injury prevention and management in women’s football? A scoping review
Get PDFThis review aimed, as part of a larger FIFA project aiming to steer women’s football research, to scope literature on any level of competitive football for women, to understand the current quantity of research on women’s football injuries. The study reviewed all injury-related papers scoped by a recent scoping review mapping all published women's football research with an updated search performed on 23 February 2021. Eligibility criteria assessment followed the recent scoping review with injury-specific research focus. A total of 497 studies were scoped. Most studies contained an epidemiological (N = 226; 45%) or risk factors assessment (N = 105; 21%). Less assessed areas included financial burden (N = 1; <1%) and injury awareness (N = 5; 1%). 159 studies (32%) assessed injuries of the whole body. The most common single location assessed in the literature was the knee (N = 134, 27%), followed by head/face (N =108, 22%). These numbers were, however, substantially lowered, when subdivided by playing level and age-group. The volume of research focuses especially on descriptive research and specific body locations (head/face and knee). Although information can be taken from studies in other sports, more football-specific studies to support management and prevention of injuries are warranted
SDORP: SDN based Opportunistic Routing for Asynchronous Wireless Sensor Networks
Get PDFIn wireless sensor networks (WSNs), it is inappropriate to use conventional unicast routing due to the broadcast storm problem and spatial diversity of communication links. Opportunistic Routing (OR) benefits the low duty-cycled WSNs by prioritizing the multiple candidates for each node instead of selecting one node as in conventional unicast routing. OR reduces the sender waiting time, but it also suffers from the duplicate packets problem due to multiple candidates waking up simultaneously. The number of candidates should be restricted to counterbalance between the sender waiting time and duplicate packets. In this paper, software-defined networking (SDN) is adapted for the flexible management of WSNs by allowing the decoupling of the control plane from the sensor nodes. This study presents an SDN based load balanced opportunistic routing for duty-cycled WSNs that addresses two parts. First, the candidates are computed and controlled in the control plane. Second, the metric used to prioritize the candidates considers the average of three probability distributions, namely transmission distance distribution, expected number of hops distribution and residual energy distribution so that more traffic is guided through the nodes with higher priority. Simulation results show that our proposed protocol can significantly improve the network lifetime, routing efficiency, energy consumption, sender waiting time and duplicate packets as compared with the benchmarks
A Comprehensive Analysis of Eco-Friendly Cs2SnI6 Based Tin Halide Perovskite Solar Cell through Device Modeling
Get PDFThe choice of appropriate materials is of paramount importance in realizing a high efficiency perovskite solar cell. Lead free eco-friendly perovskite solar cell architecture is theoretically investigated using solar cell capacitance simulator (SCAPS) for device performance. Preliminary investigations on Cs2SnI6solar cell architectures have indicated that the presence of hole transport layer is crucial in achieving an open-circuit voltage greater than 0.6 V. The presence of a valence band offset between the Cs2SnI6absorber and hole transport layer has a significant detrimental impact on the short-circuit current density and fill factor of the cell. A novel device architecture employing TiO2as an electron transport material and Cu2Oasahole transport material is proposed to overcome the limitations associated with the current designs. Theoretical investigations are carried out employing1D SCAPS simulation program in order to optimize the structure by varying the perovskite thickness, bandgap, and defect concentration. The proposed solar cell after optimization has a practically realizable power conversion efficiency of 17.77%
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