1,720,956 research outputs found
A IHE-like approach method for quantitative analyis of PACS usage
No full textToday, many hospitals have a running enterprise picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and their administrators should have the tools to measure the system activity and, in particular, how much it is used. The information would be valuable for decision-makers to address asset management and the development of policies for its correct utilization and eventually start training initiatives to get the best in resource utilization and operators’ satisfaction. On the economic side, a quantitative method to measure the usage of the workstations would be desirable to better redistribute existing resources and plan the purchase of new ones. The paper exploits in an unconventional way the potential of the IHE Audit Trail and Node Authentication (ATNA) profile: it uses the data generated in order to safeguard the security of patient data and to retrieve information about the workload of each PACS workstation. The method uses the traces recorded, according to the profile, for each access to image data and to calculate how much each station is used. The results, constituted by measures of the frequency of PACS station usage suitably classified and presented according to a convenient format for decision-makers, are encouraging. In the time of the spending review, the careful management of available resources is the top priority for a healthcare organization. Thanks to our work, a common medium such as the ATNA profile appears a very useful resource for purposes other than those for which it was born. This avoids additional investments in management tools and allows optimization of resources at no cost. © 2016 Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Planning of Maintenance for Medical Devices through a Workload Redistribution in a Clinical Engineering Service
No full textThe common practice of Clinical Engineering Services (CESs) is to manage separately Electric Safety Checks (ESCs), Quality Controls (QCs) and Preventive Maintenance (PM). However, protocols related to these activities are partially overlapped. This results in a redundancy of maintenance
steps producing a waste of time. Furthermore, outsourced CESs are in charge of managing activities in hospitals located in different areas with the same team. Thus the distance to be covered by technicians from an area to another one in order to reach the equipment represents a waste of time.
This problem can be solved by merging ESC, QC and PM into a unique operative protocol we call Single Planned Activity (SPA). This implies the development of new maintenance plans and the human resources redistribution, and clinical engineers are in charge of this task. In order to assess its feasibility, we developed a comprehensive method that consists of the analysis of technician’s workload and of the algorithm able to generate a monthly maintenance plan. The method reprograms the previous planned activities through the available human resources redistribution in a more efficient way, according to their actual workload. The method has been tested in an Italian CES and proved to be useful for clinical engineers
An Innovative Method for Standardizing Lean Management Approach in Hospitals
No full textLean management constitutes an emerging approach in the healthcare context, in order to increase quality of care and reduce costs. Nevertheless, literature shows the lack of a standardized method, especially in healthcare, due to the complexity of the involved processes. This paper proposes an innovative method for standardizing the lean management approach in Healthcare, in order to reduce wastes particularly in Hospitals. The integration of different techniques, such as IDEF0, and GQM, used in the process management is proposed, in order to let the overall method reproducible and repeatable. The application and feasibility of the method has been studied in an Italian Hospital
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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