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Super Divya to the rescue! Exploring Nurse Mentor Supervisor perceptions on a digital tool to support learning and engagement for simulation educators in Bihar, India.
BackgroundSince 2014, the Government of Bihar and CARE India have implemented a nurse mentoring program that utilizes PRONTO International's simulation and team trainings to improve obstetric and neonatal care. Together they trained simulation educators known as Nurse Mentor Supervisors to conduct simulation trainings in rural health facilities across the state. Sustaining the knowledge and engagement of these simulation educators at a large-scale has proven difficult and resource intensive. To address this, the University of Utah with PRONTO International and with input from the University of California San Francisco, created an interactive, virtual education module based on a comic superhero named Super Divya to reinforce simulation educator concepts. This study examined the perceptions of Nurse Mentor Supervisors on Super Divya's accessibility, usefulness, and potential after implementation of Super Divya: Origin Story.MethodsWe conducted qualitative interviews with 17 Nurse Mentor Supervisors in Bihar, India. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, interviews were conducted virtually via Zoom™ using a semi-structured interview guide in Hindi and English. Participants were identified with strict inclusion criteria and convenience sampling methods. Interviews were analyzed using a framework analysis.ResultsNurse Mentor Supervisors found Super Divya to be engaging, innovative, relatable, and useful in teaching tips and tricks for simulation training. Supervisors thought the platform was largely accessible with some concerns around internet connectivity and devices. The majority reacted positively to the idea of distributing Super Divya to other simulation educators in the nurse mentoring program and had suggestions for additional clinical and simulation educator training topics.ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the potential of Super Divya to engage simulation educators in continuous education. At a time when virtual education is increasingly important and in-person training was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Super Divya engaged Supervisors in the nurse mentoring program. We have incorporated suggestions for improvement of Super Divya into future modules. Further research can help understand how knowledge from Super Divya can improve simulation facilitation skills and behaviors, and explore potential for reinforcing clinical skills via this platform.Ethical approvalThis study was approved by the institutional review board at the University of California San Francisco (IRB # 20-29902)
Additional file 3 of Super Divya to the rescue! Exploring Nurse Mentor Supervisor perceptions on a digital tool to support learning and engagement for simulation educators in Bihar, India
Additional file 3: Super Divya Qualitative Interviews Framework Analysis Codebook
Merchants of Virtue
Merchants of Virtue explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in precolonial South Asia. Divya Cherian presents a fine-grained study of everyday life and local politics in the kingdom of Marwar in eighteenth-century western India to uncover how merchants enforced their caste ideals of vegetarianism and bodily austerity as universal markers of Hindu identity. Using legal strategies and alliances with elites, these merchants successfully remade the category of “Hindu,” setting it in contrast to “Untouchable” in a process that reconfigured Hinduism in caste terms. In a history pertinent to understanding India today, Cherian establishes the centrality of caste to the early-modern Hindu self and to its imagination of inadmissible others.
“A refreshingly different perspective on the history of caste and untouchability in India, enlarging the field of scholarship from its focus on the colonial era by telling us how precolonial configurations of power in the locality shaped the everyday experience of caste.” — GOPAL GURU, coauthor of The Cracked Mirror and Experience, Caste, and the Everyday Social
“This provocative and empirically rich study offers a plenitude of fascinating insights into aspects of western Indian history ca. 1800, from kingship and caste hierarchy to abortion and alcohol consumption. Particularly innovative is its focus on the critical role played by merchants in articulating social identities that became widespread in modern times.” — CYNTHIA TALBOT, author of The Last Hindu Emperor
“A pathbreaking book that explodes essentialist views of the construction of Hindu and Muslim identities in precolonial India. Divya Cherian provocatively argues that the category of ‘Hindu’ was the primary locus for a system of radical othering that excluded Untouchables (and Muslims as Untouchables) through mechanisms of state, law, and everyday life.” — CHRISTIAN LEE NOVETZKE, Professor of South Asian and Religious Studies, University of Washingto
Merchants of Virtue
Merchants of Virtue explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in precolonial South Asia. Divya Cherian presents a fine-grained study of everyday life and local politics in the kingdom of Marwar in eighteenth-century western India to uncover how merchants enforced their caste ideals of vegetarianism and bodily austerity as universal markers of Hindu identity. Using legal strategies and alliances with elites, these merchants successfully remade the category of “Hindu,” setting it in contrast to “Untouchable” in a process that reconfigured Hinduism in caste terms. In a history pertinent to understanding India today, Cherian establishes the centrality of caste to the early-modern Hindu self and to its imagination of inadmissible others.
“A refreshingly different perspective on the history of caste and untouchability in India, enlarging the field of scholarship from its focus on the colonial era by telling us how precolonial configurations of power in the locality shaped the everyday experience of caste.” — GOPAL GURU, coauthor of The Cracked Mirror and Experience, Caste, and the Everyday Social
“This provocative and empirically rich study offers a plenitude of fascinating insights into aspects of western Indian history ca. 1800, from kingship and caste hierarchy to abortion and alcohol consumption. Particularly innovative is its focus on the critical role played by merchants in articulating social identities that became widespread in modern times.” — CYNTHIA TALBOT, author of The Last Hindu Emperor
“A pathbreaking book that explodes essentialist views of the construction of Hindu and Muslim identities in precolonial India. Divya Cherian provocatively argues that the category of ‘Hindu’ was the primary locus for a system of radical othering that excluded Untouchables (and Muslims as Untouchables) through mechanisms of state, law, and everyday life.” — CHRISTIAN LEE NOVETZKE, Professor of South Asian and Religious Studies, University of Washingto
Improved collision detection in StarLogo Nova
Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2015.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (page 65).StarLogo Nova is blocks-based educational software that allows students to write and play their own 3D games online. It is the online version of StarLogo TNG. This thesis explores the problem of needing more accurate collision detection in StarLogo Nova while maintaining reasonable performance. Three new collision detection systems for StarLogo Nova are developed and evaluated. Compared to the spheres used to perform collision checks in the current system, the first new system, called the TightestFitCollider, introduces a variety of bounding spheres, bounding boxes, and bounding capsules as bounding structures that may fit the models in StarLogo Nova more closely. The second system, called the HierarchicalCollider, uses hierarchies of bounding boxes to perform even more precise collision detection than the TightestFitCollider. Finally, the third system combines the first two systems, so that the advantages of each can be used as appropriate. The three systems are evaluated for their accuracy and performance within the StarLogo Nova framework.by Divya Bajekal.M. Eng
Super Divya, an Interactive Digital Storytelling Instructional Comic Series to Sustain Facilitation Skills of Labor and Delivery Nurse Mentors in Bihar, India—A Pilot Study
To improve the quality of intrapartum care in public health facilities of Bihar, India, a statewide quality improvement program was implemented. Nurses participated in simulation sessions to improve their clinical, teamwork, and communication skills. Nurse mentors, tasked with facilitating these sessions, received training in best practices. To support the mentors in the on-going facilitation of these trainings, we developed a digital, interactive, comic series starring “Super Divya”, a simulation facilitation superhero. The objective of these modules was to reinforce key concepts of simulation facilitation in a less formal and more engaging way than traditional didactic lessons. This virtual platform offers the flexibility to watch modules frequently and at preferred times. This pilot study involved 205 simulation educators who were sent one module at a time. Shortly before sending the first module, nurses completed a baseline knowledge survey, followed by brief surveys after each module to assess change in knowledge. Significant improvements in knowledge were observed across individual scores from baseline to post-survey. A majority found Super Divya modules to be acceptable and feasible to use as a learning tool. However, a few abstract concepts in the modules were not well-understood, suggesting that more needs to be done to communicate their core meaning of these concepts
Antiepileptic drugs for the primary and secondary prevention of seizures after subarachnoid haemorrhage
Background: subarachnoid haemorrhage may result in seizures both acutely and in the longer term. The use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in the primary and secondary prevention of seizures after subarachnoid haemorrhage is uncertain, and there is currently no consensus on treatment.Objectives: to assess the effects of AEDs for the primary and secondary prevention of seizures after subarachnoid haemorrhage.Search methods: we searched the Cochrane Epilepsy Group Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (2013, Issue 1) in The Cochrane Library, and MEDLINE (1946 to 12th March 2013). We checked the reference lists of articles retrieved from these searches.Selection criteria: we considered all randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials in which patients were assigned to a treatment (one or more AEDs) or placebo.Data collection and analysis: two review authors (RM and JK) independently screened and assessed the methodological quality of the studies. If studies were included, one author extracted the data and the other checked it.Main results: no relevant studies were found.Authors' conclusions: there was no evidence to support or refute the use of antiepileptic drugs for the primary or secondary prevention of seizures related to subarachnoid haemorrhage. Well-designed randomised controlled trials are urgently needed to guide clinical practice
Comparison of Cephalometric Measurements Obtained with Conventional and Digital Methods and their Reproducibility
Aims and objectives: The purpose of the study was to compare the intraobserver reproducibility of cephalometric measurements obtained with digital cephalograms traced with software and equivalent hand-traced conventional cephalograms. Further, the cephalometric measurements obtained with both methods were compared to know any significant differences.
Materials and methods: The sample consisted of pretreatment digital and conventional cephalograms of 40 patients (20 males and 20 females). Eleven cephalometric landmarks were identified and 10 measurements calculated by one operator, both manually and with digital tracing software. Intraobserver reliability was assessed for both methods by duplicating the tracings at two weeks interval and using Pearson′s correlation coefficient. Further paired "t" test was used to compare the conventional and digital methods.
Results: The analysis of error (correlation coefficient) on both methods showed a high correlation of repeated measures. Results indicate that the reliability of repeated measurements appears to be slightly better with conventional radiographs. In the comparison between two methods, statistically significant differences (p < 0.005) were detected for S of the 10 measurements evaluated (Wits. Sn-GoGn, PP-GoGn, U1-L1, L1-GoGn). However, three of these statistically significant results were highly significant (p < 0-001) of Wits, U1-L1, L1-GoGn.
Conclusion: Intraobserver reproducibility was found to be better with conventional cephalometric tracings than with monitor displayed digital image tracings. The differences, however, were clinically insignificant. Therefore, computerized cephalometric measurement using direct digital imaging is inherently preferable for its user-friendly and time saving characteristics
Role of Imaging in Dental Implants
Dental implants have become an accepted form of permanent tooth replacement. Nearly all implants currently being placed are of the osseointegrated type. These typically consist of three parts: a fixture, an abutment and a screw or threaded rod. The fixture, usually composed of titanium, can be placed in either a surgically created site in the alveolar ridge or a fresh extraction socket. Diagnostic imaging can play an important role in evaluating patients with such implants. Useful imaging studies include plain panoramic radiography, computed tomography, and computer-reformatted cross-sectional, panoramic, and three-dimensional imaging. Advanced imaging studies can be used to determine the suitability of implant placement, appropriate sites for implant placement, the size of the implant that can be placed, and the need for preimplantation ridge surgery. Postoperatively, advanced imaging studies can show failure of an endosseous implant to osseointegrate, improper placement of an implant, and violation of important structures. This paper gives a brief insight into the various imaging modalities, which have been applied in implantology
Magnetic resonance imaging of the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO₂)
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2010.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-128).Oxygen consumption is an essential process of the functioning brain. The rate at which the brain consumes oxygen is known as the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO₂). CMRO₂ is intimately related to brain health and function, and will change in settings of disease and functional activation. Accurate CMRO₂ measurement will enable detailed investigation of neuropathology and facilitate our understanding of the brain's underlying functional architecture. Despite the importance of CMRO₂ in both clinical and basic neuroscience settings, a robust CMRO₂ mapping technique amenable to functional and clinical MRI has not been established. To address this issue, a novel method called QUantitative Imaging of eXtraction of Oxygen and TIssue Consumption, or QUIXOTIC, is introduced. The key innovation in QUIXOTIC is the use of velocity-selective spin labeling to isolate MR signal exclusively from post-capillary venular blood on a voxel-by-voxel basis. This isolated signal can be related to venular oxygen saturation, oxygen extraction fraction, and ultimately CMRO₂. This thesis first explores fundamental theory behind the QUIXOTIC technique, including design of a novel MRI pulse sequence, explanation of the principal sequence parameters, and results from initial human experiences. A human trial follows, in which QUIXOTIC is used to measure cortical gray matter CMRO₂ in ten healthy volunteers.(cont.) QUIXOTIC-measured CMRO₂ is found to be within the expected physiological range and is comparable to values reported by other techniques. QUIXOTIC is then applied to evaluate CMRO₂ response to carbon-dioxide-induced hypercapnia in awake humans. In this study, CMRO₂ is observed to decrease in response to mild hypercapnia. Finally, pilot studies that show feasibility of QUIXOTIC-based functional MRI (fMRI) and so-called "turbo" QUIXOTIC are presented and discussed.by Divya Sanam Bolar.Ph.D
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