1,172 research outputs found
Accurate assessment of kidney function in Indigenous Australians: the estimated GFR study
No full textLink to a related website: http://espace.cdu.edu.au/view/cdu:38432/Maple_Brown_38432.pdf, Open Access via UnpaywallAbstract not availableLouise J. Maple-Brown, Jaquelyne T. Hughes, Paul D. Lawton, Graham R.D. Jones, Andrew G. Ellis, Katrina Drabsch, Alex D.H. Brown, Alan Cass, Wendy E. Hoy, Richard J. MacIsaac, Kerin O'Dea and George Jerum
Using and evaluating CASE tools : from software engineering to phenomenology
No full textCASE (Computer-Aided Systems Engineering) is a recent addition to the long line of
"silver bullets" that promise to transform information systems development, delivering
new levels of quality and productivity. CASE is particularly intriguing because
information systems (IS) practitioners spend their working lives applying information
technology (IT) to other people's work, and now they are applying it to themselves.
CASE research to date has been dominated by accounts of tool development,
normative writings (for example practitioner success stories) and surveys recording
IT specialists' perceptions. There have been very few in-depth studies of tool use,
and very few attempts to quantify benefits, therefore the essence of the CASE process
remains largely unexplored, and the views of stakeholders other than the IT specialists
have yet to be heard.
The research presented here addresses these concerns by adopting a hybrid research
approach combining action research, grounded theory and phenoinenology and using
both qualitative and quantitative data in order to tell the story of a system developer's
experience in using CASE tools in three information systems projects for a major UK
car manufacturer over a four year period. The author was the lead developer on all
three projects. Action research is a learning process, the researcher is an explorer.
At the start of this project it was assumed that the tools would be the focus of the
work. As the research progressed it became evident that the tools were but part of
a richer organisational context in which culture, politics, history, external initiatives
and cognitive limitations played important roles. The author continued to record
experiences and impressions of tool use in the project diary together with quality and
productivity metrics. But the diary also became home to a story of organisational
developments that had not originally been foreseen.
The principal contribution made by the work is to identity the narrow positivistic
nature of CASE knowledge, and to show via the research stories the overwhelming
importance of organisational context to systems development success and how the
exploration of context is poorly supported by the tools. Sixteen further contributions
are listed in the Conclusions to the thesis, including a major extension to Wynekoop
and Conger's CASE research taxonomy, an identification of the potentially
misleading nature of quantitative IS assessment and further evidence of the limitations
of the "scientific" approach to systems development.
The thesis is completed by two proposals for further work. The first seeks to
advance IS theory by developing further a number of emerging process models of IS
development. The second seeks to advance IS practice by asking the question "How
can CASE tools be used to stimulate awareness and debate about the effects of
organisational context?", and outlines a programme of research in this area
The role of EQA in harmonization in laboratory medicine – a global effort
No full textThere are many activities currently being undertaken in the field of laboratory medicine under the broad heading of “harmonization”. These include traceability of results to international reference standards, processes to align results from assays where traceability has not been achieved (analytical harmonization) and international or national clinical guidelines based on studies from many parts of the world. Many of these issues are global in nature, with clinical evidence derived from studies performed in all parts of the world and multinational diagnostic companies providing assays worldwide. As with all aspects of medicine, progress can only be assured where these is evidence of effectiveness of the activities. External Quality Assurance (EQA) programs are designed to meet this need. Currently EQA processes have significant limitations in meeting the global needs of the laboratory medicine community. This paper aims to identify the steps that can be taken to allow current and future EQA programs to provide information on global variation in results. It is only by being aware of result differences that steps can be taken to improve performanc
Report formatting in laboratory medicine – a call for harmony
No full textAbstract
The results of medical laboratory testing are only useful if they lead to appropriate actions by medical practitioners and/or patients. An underappreciated component of the medical testing process is the transfer of the information from the laboratory report into the reader’s brain. The format of laboratory reports can be determined by the testing laboratory, which may issue a formatted report, or by electronic systems receiving information from laboratories and controlling the report format. As doctors can receive information from many laboratories, interpreting information from reports in a safe and rapid manner is facilitated by having similar report layouts and formats. Using Australia as an example, there is a wide variation in report formats in spite of a body of work to define standards for reporting. In addition to standardising of report formats, consideration needs to be given to optimisation of report formatting to facilitate rapid and unambiguous reading of the report and also interpretation of the data. Innovative report formats have been developed by some laboratories; however, wide adoption has not followed. The need to balance uniformity of reporting with appropriate innovation is a challenge for safe reporting of laboratory results. This paper discusses the current status and opportunity for improvement in safety and efficiency of the reading of laboratory reports, using current practise and developments in Australia as examples.</jats:p
New approaches to marine conservation through scaling up of ecological data
No full textIn an era of rapid global change, conservation managers urgently need improved tools to track and counter declining ecosystem conditions. This need is particularly acute in the marine realm, where threats are out of sight, inadequately mapped, cumulative, and often poorly understood, thereby generating impacts that are inefficiently managed. Recent advances in macroecology, statistical analysis, and the compilation of global data will play a central role in improving conservation outcomes, provided that global, regional, and local data streams can be integrated to produce locally relevant and interpretable outputs. Progress will be assisted by (a) expanded rollout of systematic surveys that quantify species patterns, including some carried out with help from citizen scientists; (b) coordinated experimental research networks that utilize large-scale manipulations to identify mechanisms underlying these patterns; (c) improved understanding of consequences of threats through the application of recently developed statistical techniques to analyze global species’ distributional data and associated environmental and socioeconomic factors; (d) development of reliable ecological indicators for accurate and comprehensible tracking of threats; and (e) improved data-handling and communication tools.<br/
Direct numerical simulation of the flow around an airfoil with unsteady wake
No full textDirect numerical simulations of a NACA-0012 airfoil at zero degrees incidence are presented for a range of Mach and Reynolds numbers. At Reynolds number 10,000, the flow around the airfoil is found to be dominated by vortex shedding from an unstable wake. Frequencies are found to collapse using a Strouhal number based on trailing edge displacement thickness, while amplitude increases with Mach number. At Reynolds number 50,000, vortex shedding from an unstable wake is again present. At certain Mach numbers an additional low-frequency large-amplitude mode of oscillation is observed. Behaviour of the upper and lower boundary layers, as well as the local fluid properties, is described over the course of the low frequency cycle. The onset of the low frequency oscillation is mapped in terms of Reynolds and Mach numbers
A zonal characteristic boundary condition for numerical simulations of aerodynamic sound
No full textThis paper presents a non-reflecting boundary condition that significantly reduces the spurious pressure oscillations that are produced when vortical structures in a compressible flow cross the computational farfield boundaries. The method is based on commonly used characteristic boundary conditions. Here, incoming characteristics are ramped to zero in a buffer region as opposed to merely setting them to zero at the boundary. One of the key features of the approach is that it is free of coefficients requiring calibration. The equivalence of two formulations of the zonal boundary condition is verified with a model problem. Direct numerical simulations of trailing edges at different Mach numbers are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the novel approach
Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate; Laboratory Implementation and Current Global Status
No full text766 Specialist oncology activity devoted to lung cancer patients compared with breast and colorectal cancer patients
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