1,720,956 research outputs found
Diabetic retinopathy screening: Study to determine risk factors for non-attendance
No full textThe study objective was to determine the factors that influenced attendance for routine diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening using data from a large GP practice. In total, 611 people with diabetes were invited to attend DR screening in 2008; attendance rates were higher in older individuals (P<0.001) and were inversely associated with HbA1c (P<0.0001) and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (P=0.014 and 0.005, respectively). A telephone survey was conducted on individuals who had failed to attend DR screening. Of the 198 individuals contacted, reasons for non-attendance included: thinking that attending a hospital eye department or optometrist was adequate (n=44; 22%); not receiving the invitation (n=36; 18%); being unwell (n=24; 12%); being too busy (n=16; 8%); and being on holiday (n=12; 6%). Half of those at highest risk of DR did not attend for screening; the reasons given for non-attendance may be amenable to change with better education and more flexible screening solutions.
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Design of Low-Threshold Comparator for Improved Timing-Resolution Analog/Digital SiPM
No full textCoincidence time resolution (CTR) in time-of-flight (TOF) positron emission tomography (PET) determines the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in iterative image reconstruction algorithms. In PET detectors, the photodetector's single-photon timing resolution (SPTR) influences the CTR by adding uncertainty to the single photoelectron time-of-arrivals. This effect can be modelled as the convolution of the scintillation pulse shape function and the total photodetector jitter at single-photon level, before following an order statistics process. Particularly in Cherenkov-based PET detectors, SPTR has a direct impacton the CTR due to the low number of detected photons. In this thesis, the research is focussed on the design of low thresh-old comparators for two specific purposes in PET. Firstly, the design of in-pixel (SPAD-cell) low-threshold comparator that improves SPAD jitter at the pixel level, since it allows the detection of photo-electron triggered avalanche at the earliest possible time, thus minimizing statistical fluctuations. The design is targeted for Cherenkov-based PET, where improvement in SPTR directly results in improvement of CTR. Secondly, for the integration of analog silicon photomultiplier (A-SiPM) on-chip. Such integration helps in realizing a high Photon Detection Effciency (PDE) and low Dark Count Rate (DCR) A-SiPM with integrated readout electronics. A high speed comparator with a direct connection to the fast terminal of A-SiPM has been realized.Electrical Engineering | Microelectronic
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
Secure data communication over mobile devices in health networks.
Full text linkThe continuous developments in the field of mobile computing have made it possible to use mobile devices for healthcare applications. These devices can be used by healthcare providers to collect and share patients' medical data. However, with increasing adoption of mobile devices that carry confidential data, organizations need to secure the data from unauthorized users and mobile device theft. When unencrypted data is transmitted from one device to another it faces various security threats from malicious code, unsecure networks, unauthorized access, and data theft. The objective of this research is to develop a secure data sharing solution customized for healthcare environments, which would allow authorized users to securely access and share patients' data over mobile devices. We identify the vulnerable locations in mobile communication network that can possibly be exploited by unauthorized users or malicious code to access the confidential data, and develop an efficient security protocol that provides end to end data protection without compromising device's performance. To demonstrate the feasibility of our proposed data sharing architecture, a prototype customized for Point-of-Care-Testing (POCT) scenarios was built in collaboration with Northern Health, Prince George. Simulations were performed to analyze and validate our solution against the pre-defined requirement criteria. --P. ii.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b178382
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
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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