1,721,714 research outputs found
Improving the multiple myeloma patient pathway: microsampling for remote monitoring of free light chains
No full textMultiple myeloma (MM) is categorised as a relapsing-remitting blood cancer with unpredictable relapse patterns. Due to an inevitable relapse, blood test monitoring is crucial and requires frequent visits to the phlebotomy clinics. The measurement of serum free light chains (FLC) can provide a rapid indication of MM disease progression and therapeutic response.
Microsampling introduces a self-administered, capillary blood sampling technique that has potential to be a promising tool for remote MM monitoring. I begin by presenting the development of a dried blood spot (DBS) method for the quantitation of FLC. Here I show the associated analytical constraints inherent to DBS and the need to explore other microsampling devices for FLC analysis. Following this, I present a volumetric absorptive microsampling (VAMS) FLC method, utilising the Mitra device by Neoteryx, developed by adapting the Binding Site Freelite serum assay on the SPAPLUS.
Method comparison studies between VAMS and conventional venepuncture were performed at the Royal Marsden Hospital MM clinic. VAMS and serum results showed a reasonable agreement for kappa (k) FLC (y = 9.43 +0.85x, R2 = 0.86) and lambda FLC (y = 2.66+1.10x, R2 = 0.91). Precision studies were within an acceptable range for k- and l-FLC (CV<15%). Limit of quantitation (LoQ) was determined to be 1mg/L for both methods. Linearity for the k- and l-FLC VAMS method was confirmed over a measuring range of 12-260 mg/L and 7-221mg/L, respectively.
I also assessed MM patient perspectives on the current monitoring pathway and their satisfaction and preference for VAMS when compared to traditional methods for routine blood tests.
Overall, 63% of patients preferred VAMS; 4% preferred phlebotomy; and 32% had no preference. Additionally, I evaluated a quantitative immunoprecipitation mass spectrometry (QIP-MS) system for the analysis of paraprotein via DBS, which brings together the power of microsampling and mass spectrometry, giving us a glimpse of how MM monitoring may look in the future.
The work presented in this thesis highlights the benefits microsampling provides for the remote monitoring of MM, especially for patients who require frequent monitoring or who may be immunocompromised and vulnerable during travel or at a clinical setting
The design and implementation of serious games for driving and mobility
No full textThe automotive and transportation sectors are showing consistent improvements in trends and standards concerning the safe and convenient travel of the road users. In this growing community of road users, the driver performance is a notable factor as many on-road mishaps emerge out of poor driver performance. In this research work, a case-study and experimental analysis were conducted to improve driver performance through the deployment of serious games. The primary motive of this work is to stimulate the on-road user performance through immediate feedback, driver coaching, and real-time gamification methods. The games exploit the cloud-based architecture to retrieve the driver performance scores based on real-time evaluation of vehicle signals and display the outcomes on game scene by reflecting the game parameters based on real-world user performance (in the context of driving and mobility).
The deployment of games in cars is the topic of interest in current state-of-the-art, as there are more factors associated with it, such as safety, usability, and willingness of the users. These aspects were taken into careful consideration while designing the paradigm of gamification model. The user feedback for the real-time games was extracted through pilot tests and field tests in Genova. The gamification and driver coaching aspects were tested on various occasions (plug-in and field tests conducted at 5 European test sites), and the inputs from these field tests enabled to tune the parameters concerning the evaluation and gamification models. The improvement of user behavior was performed through a virtuous cycle with the integration of virtual sensors to the serious gaming framework. As the culmination, the usability tests for the real-time games were conducted with 18 test users to understand the user acceptance criteria and the parameters (ease of use and safety) that would contribute to the deployment of games. Other salient factors such as the impact of games, large-scale deployment, collaborative gaming and exploitation of gaming framework for 3rd party applications were also investigated in this research activity.
The analysis of the usability tests states that the user acceptance of the implemented games is good. The report from usability study has addressed the user preferences in games such as duration, strategy and gameplay mechanism; these factors contribute a foundation for future research in implementing the games for mobility
World Playback Theatre's "New Beginnings"
No full textOn January 17, 2021, World Playback Theatre (facebook.com/worldplaybacktheatre), an international online troupe emerging from the 2019 Leadership certification program of the Playback Centre, gave a public performance on the theme of “New Beginnings.”
Production Credits:
Conductors｜Heidi Winters Vogel & Para Paranthaman
Actors｜Pia Loriega, Roni Alperin, Radhika Jain, Pek Kuan Tai
Musician | Linda Steuernagel
Duration: 1 hr, 41 min
Forms Used:
Fluid Sculpture｜Transformational Fluid｜Pairs｜Perspectives｜Monologues｜4 Rooms｜Episodes | Talking Windows
This performance in featured in "Storytelling on Screen: An Online Playback Theatre Archive and Guidebook" by Jordan Rosin and Heidi Winters Vogel, which is available at http://hdl.handle.net/10919/104420.University Librarie
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
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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