516 research outputs found
Dr. Kieran O'Doherty with his book, "Public engagement and emerging technologies"
No full textpermission grantedDr. Kieran O'Doherty (Professor) author of "Public engagement and emerging technologies." Taken at the Campus Author Recognition Program annual reception, November 7, 2013.The University of Guelph Librar
‘It makes life so much easier’—experiences of users of the MicroGuide™ smartphone app for improving antibiotic prescribing behaviour in UK hospitals: an interview study
No full textObjectives: To understand the impact on prescribing behaviour of an antimicrobial therapy guidelines smartphone app, in widespread use in hospitals in the UK.Methods: Twenty-eight doctors and five nurse prescribers from four purposively selected hospitals in the UK participated in behavioural theory-informed semi-structured interviews about their experiences of using the MicroGuide™ smartphone app. Data were analysed using a thematic content analysis.Results: Five themes emerged from the interview data: convenience and accessibility; validation of prescribing decisions; trust in app content; promotion of antimicrobial stewardship; and limitations and concerns. Participants appreciated the perceived convenience, accessibility and timesaving attributes of the app, potentially contributing to more prompt treatment of patients with time-critical illness. The interviewees also reported finding it reassuring to use the app to support decision-making and to validate existing knowledge. They trusted the app content authored by local experts and considered it to be evidence-based and up-to-date. This was believed to result in fewer telephone calls to the microbiology department for advice. Participants recognized the value of the app for supporting the goals of antimicrobial stewardship by promoting the responsible and proportionate use of antimicrobials. Finally, a number of limitations of the app were reported, including the risk of de-skilling trainees, cultural problems with using smartphones in clinical environments and software technical problems.Conclusions: The MicroGuide app was valued as a means of addressing an unmet need for updated, concise, trustworthy specialist information in an accessible format at the bedside to support safe and effective antimicrobial prescribing.</p
What Real Hard Work Means: Excerpts from <i>Linnane in London</i>
No full text Linnane in London is a slightly novelized documentary book studded throughout with the author's own poems. This 120-page hybrid deals with the lives and labors of Irish construction workers in London in the 1970s. To write it, the author, Kieran Furey, worked for four months alongside the men concerned, concealing his own academic background. This is, in other words, a “deep immersion” project, somewhat in the spirit of Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist and book author. The result is sometimes poignant, always interesting, and never less than comic, with the joke—as often as not—being at the author's own expense as he discovers what real hard work means. </jats:p
Measuring Appropriate Antibiotic Prescribing in Acute Hospitals: Development of a National Audit Tool Through a Delphi Consensus
No full textThis study developed a patient-level audit tool to assess the appropriateness of antibiotic prescribing in acute National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in the UK. A modified Delphi process was used to evaluate variables identified from published literature that could be used to support an assessment of appropriateness of antibiotic use. At a national workshop, 22 infection experts reached a consensus to define appropriate prescribing and agree upon an initial draft audit tool. Following this, a national multidisciplinary panel of 19 infection experts, of whom only one was part of the workshop, was convened to evaluate and validate variables using questionnaires to confirm the relevance of each variable in assessing appropriate prescribing. The initial evidence synthesis of published literature identified 25 variables that could be used to support an assessment of appropriateness of antibiotic use. All the panel members reviewed the variables for the first round of the Delphi; the panel accepted 23 out of 25 variables. Following review by the project team, one of the two rejected variables was rephrased, and the second neutral variable was re-scored. The panel accepted both these variables in round two with a 68% response rate. Accepted variables were used to develop an audit tool to determine the extent of appropriateness of antibiotic prescribing at the individual patient level in acute NHS hospitals through infection expert consensus based on the results of a Delphi process
The Association Between Fear of Falling and Fall Prevention Interventions Offered by an Occupational Therapist in a Geriatric Primary Care Setting
No full textAbstract
Date Presented 4/1/2017
This study demonstrates that occupational therapy fall prevention interventions are beneficial for improving quality of care as part of a coordinated care team within a primary care setting and should further be examined in expanded populations, settings, and interventions.
Primary Author and Speaker: Lydia Royeen
Contributing Authors: Kieran J. Fogarty, Brenda Koverman</jats:p
Evaluating ceftriaxone 80 mg/kg administration by rapid intravenous infusion-A clinical service evaluation
No full textIn pediatric ambulatory care, the speed of medication infusion can have major impact on healthcare staff workload and the number of children able to be treated by services designed to reduce inpatient length of stay. In many regions of the world, local and supraregional guidelines allow ceftriaxone infusions of ≥50 mg/kg in infants and children up to 12 years of age to be given over 10 minutes. The generic European summary of product characteristics for ceftriaxone does not state a specific infusion time for this dose range, although 1 manufacturers' summary of product characteristics in the United Kingdom states a 30-minute minimum infusion time. We conducted a formal service evaluation of a change in practice at a large UK pediatric children's hospital and demonstrated the clinical feasibility, safety, and high parent satisfaction of 10-minute ceftriaxone infusions for prescribed doses ≥50 mg/kg. This approach can improve patient flow within hospital-based ambulatory services as well as by community nursing teams administering antibiotics at home.</p
An evidence-based surveillance tool to identify and report catheter/cannula bloodstream infection in patients receiving parenteral nutrition.
No full textOBJECTIVE
Catheter/cannula-bloodstream infection (CBI) has been proposed as a marker of the quality of care provided to patients receiving parenteral nutrition (PN). However, surveillance criteria for CBI are variable, inconsistent, and sometimes confusing and impractical. Surveillance criteria were developed to simply and accurately demonstrate the presence or absence of CBI. The aim of this study was to establish a simple and valid surveillance tool, with consideration of changes in vital signs, to identify CBI in patients receiving PN.
METHODS
Adult (≥18 y) inpatients prescribed PN at a single large teaching hospital were recruited between October 11, 2017 and November 16, 2018. Common clinical and laboratory criteria, including blood culture, associated with 100 consecutive PN episodes associated with suspected CBI were examined for potential predictive markers of CBI. Using binary logistic regression, criteria were incorporated into an instrument that was validated against a reference classification of CBI established by an expert multidisciplinary group.
RESULTS
The reference classification comprised 12 PN episodes with CBI and 88 without. Abnormal vital signs did not significantly predict CBI, but resolution of fever (≥38°C) and low systolic blood pressure (<100 mm Hg) in response to a specific treatment for CBI (line removal/antibiotics) did. Two other criteria were also significant predictors: positive blood culture; and absence of an alternative source that could explain the septic episode other than the catheter/cannula supplying PN. These two criteria together with a positive response to treatment (temperature and/or blood pressure, incorporated into a single binary variable), resulted in 100% correct CBI classification (100% sensitivity, 100% specificity, and 1.000 area under the curve in receiver operating characteristic analysis). All criteria could be retrospectively extracted from the medical records of all PN episodes.
CONCLUSION
A CBI tool shows promise as a surveillance instrument for benchmarking and interinstitutional comparisons of the care received by hospitalized patients given PN
GIT versus Baily-Borel compactification for quartic K3 surfaces
No full textLooijenga has introduced new compactifications of locally symmetric va- rieties that give a complete understanding of the period map from the GIT moduli space of plane sextics to the Baily-Borel compactification of the moduli space po- larized K3’s of degree 2, and also of the period map of cubic fourfolds. On the other hand, the period map of the GIT moduli space of quartic surfaces is significantly more subtle. In our paper [LO16] we introduced a Hassett-Keel–Looijenga program for certain locally symmetric varieties of Type IV. As a consequence, we gave a complete conjectural decomposition into a product of elementary birational modifi- cations of the period map for the GIT moduli spaces of quartic surfaces. The purpose of this note is to provide compelling evidence in favor of our program. Specifically, we propose a matching between the arithmetic strata in the period space and suitable strata of the GIT moduli spaces of quartic surfaces. We then partially verify that the
proposed matching actually holds
The comparability of direct and semi-direct speaking tests: a case study
No full textDeposited with permission of the author. © 1997 Kieran John O'Loughlin.This thesis investigates the equivalence of direct (live) and semi-direct (tape-mediated) versions of a test of oral proficiency which forms part of the access: test, a four-skill English language test for prospective skilled migrants to Australia sponsored by the Commonwealth Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. This is essentially an equity issue since the two versions are used interchangeably in overseas test centres and candidates normally have no choice about the version to which they are assigned. It is important therefore that candidates’ final results should not be adversely affected by the particular method used to test their oral proficiency
Novel lanthanide structures: fluorinated alkoxides, chalcogenido alkoxides, fluorides, and oxychalcogenido clusters
No full textA number of novel lanthanide alkoxide species were synthesized with fluorinated ligands. This includes monomers with pentafluorophenol, (DME)2Ln(OC6F5)3 (Ln = Nd, Er, Tm, Eu, and Yb), (py)4Ln(OC6F5)3 (Ln = Eu, Tb, Er, Tm, Yb), and (THF)3Yb(OC6F5)3. Unique europium species, ((py)3Eu(CF3SO3)2)n, (DME)2Eu(µ-OC6F5)3Eu(µ-OC6F5)3Eu(DME)2, and (DME)( C6F5O)2Eu(µ-OC6F5)3Eu(DME)2, were also produced. Most reactions proceeded by metathesis of lanthanide chalcogenolates, but direct redox reaction of elemental lanthanide with C6F5OH or CF3SO3H catalyzed by Hg also proved to be viable routes. The Eu(II) trimer was only synthesized through direct oxidation of the metal with the alcohol. Photoluminescence of (DME)2Ln(OC6F5)3 (Ln = Nd, Er, Tm) was tested, and they exhibited high quantum efficiency for lanthanide monomers. Two series of dimers, (py)6Ln2(OC6F5)2(µ-η2-SS)2 (Ln = Sm, Eu, and Gd) and (py)6Ln2(CF3SO3)2(Se)x (Ln = Sm, Tm, Yb, and Lu; x = 3 or 4), were synthesized via substitution of EPh-. The europium dimer is the first example of a Eu(III) molecular sulfido species which is extremely dark due to strong, broad LMCT from the sulfido. The selenidos display a conspicuous coordination change resulting from the relatively small difference in Ln ionic radii forming (py)6Ln2(CF3SO3)2(µ-η2-SeSe)( µ-Se) for small late lanthanides and (py)6Ln2(CF3SO3)2(µ-η2-Se)2 for larger early lanthanides. Three fluorido clusters were synthesized without the use of traditional fluoride sources. (DME)6(py)6Nd18(C6F5O)18 F24O3S3 was produced from a reaction of neodymium phenylselenolate with C6F5OH and sulfur. (py)8Yb4F8(CF3SO3)4 and (DME)4Tb4(CF3SO3)6F2S2 were synthesized from lanthanide chalcogenolates, elemental chalcogens, and CF3SO3H. Cleavage of C-F bonds to form these clusters appears to be a slow reaction. Most reactions producing them took several months. Lanthanide oxychalcogenido clusters were produced from reacting lanthanide chalcogenolates with pySO3 or TeO2 and Te. (THF)8Ln8O2S2(SePh)16 (Ln = Ce, Nd) clusters were synthesized from “Ln(SePh)3” and pySO3. Reactions of “Ln(TePh)3”, TeO2 and Te produced [(py)5Ln3O(Te2)3(TePh)][(py)7Ln4Te(Te2)2(Te2Te(Ph)Te2)(TePh)] (Ln = Ho, Er), [(etpy)11Ho6O4Te4TePh] [Hg(TePh)3] and [(4etpy)12Yb6O4Te4][Hg(TePh)3] [(TePh)3].Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Kieran James Norto
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