1,187 research outputs found
sj-docx-1-tar-10.1177_17534666221075493 – Supplemental material for Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-tar-10.1177_17534666221075493 for Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research by Alastair Watson and Tom M.A. Wilkinson in Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease</p
Digital healthcare in COPD management: a narrative review on the advantages, pitfalls, and need for further research
No full textChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality despite current treatment strategies which focus on smoking cessation, pulmonary rehabilitation, and symptomatic relief. A focus of COPD care is to encourage self-management, particularly during COVID-19, where much face-to-face care has been reduced or ceased. Digital health solutions may offer affordable and scalable solutions to support COPD patient education and self-management, such solutions could improve clinical outcomes and expand service reach for limited additional cost. However, optimal ways to deliver digital medicine are still in development, and there are a number of important considerations for clinicians, commissioners, and patients to ensure successful implementation of digitally augmented care. In this narrative review, we discuss advantages, pitfalls, and future prospects of digital healthcare, which offer a variety of tools including self-management plans, education videos, inhaler training videos, feedback to patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs), exacerbation monitoring, and pulmonary rehabilitation. We discuss the key issues with sustaining patient and HCP engagement and limiting attrition of use, interoperability with devices, integration into healthcare systems, and ensuring inclusivity and accessibility. We explore the essential areas of research beyond determining safety and efficacy to understand the acceptability of digital healthcare solutions to patients, clinicians, and healthcare systems, and hence ways to improve this and sustain engagement. Finally, we explore the regulatory challenges to ensure quality and engagement and effective integration into current healthcare systems and care pathways, while maintaining patients' autonomy and privacy. Understanding and addressing these issues and successful incorporation of an acceptable, simple, scalable, affordable, and future-proof digital solution into healthcare systems could help remodel global chronic disease management and fractured healthcare systems to provide best patient care and optimisation of healthcare resources to meet the global burden and unmet clinical need of COPD.</p
Insights from life history traits of Risso's dolphins (Grampus griseus) in Taiwanese waters: Shorter body length characterizes northwest Pacific population
No full textSP-A and SP-D: dual functioning immune molecules with antiviral and 1 immunomodulatory properties
No full textSurfactant proteins A (SP-A) and D (SP-D) are soluble innate immune molecules which maintain lung homeostasis through their dual roles as anti-infectious and immunomodulatory agents. SP-A and SP- D bind numerous viruses including influenza A virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), enhancing their clearance from mucosal points of entry and modulating the inflammatory response. They also have diverse roles in mediating innate and adaptive cell functions and in clearing apoptotic cells, allergens and other noxious particles. We summarize here how the properties of these first line defense molecules modulate inflammatory responses, as well as host-mediated immunopathology in response to viral infections. Since SP-A and SP-D are known to offer protection from viral and other infections, if their levels are decreased in some disease states as they are in severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), this may confer an increased risk of viral infection and exacerbations of disease. Recombinant molecules of SP-A and SP-D could be useful in both blocking respiratory viral infection whilst also modulating the immune system to prevent excessive inflammatory responses seen in, for example, RSV or coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). SP-A and SP-D could have therapeutic potential in neutralizing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus and modulating the inflammation-mediated pathology associated with COVID-19. Further work nvestigating the potential therapeutic role of SP-A and SP-D in COVID-19 and other infectious and inflammatory diseases is indicate
Marketing and managing city tourism destinations
No full textCities are critical to tourism in all countries of the world. They are often important transportation hubs and contain extensive arrays of daytime and night-time attractions, activities and experiences. The main purpose of this chapter is to situate the tourism marketing, branding and product development of urban areas within the context of destination marketing and management. A descriptive research approach is followed using literature reviewing and expert opinion on the themes. In so doing, the author acknowledges that two streams of urban tourism research have developed, one stream within tourism journals, books, and association professional development activities; the other stream, one sub-stream of which can be called place marketing and branding, appears in similar venues related to urban studies and planning, city management, sustainable development, transportation, and other. Furthermore, it is recognized that there has been a considerable gap between city marketing practice and related academic scholarship, and both have developed rather separately.
To say that city tourism marketing is something recent is far from the truth. In fact, 1896 saw the establishment of the first city convention promotion bureau in Detroit, Michigan (Gartrell, 1988, p. 4; Travel Michigan, 2016). However, the marketing of cities has changed quite dramatically in the ensuing approximately 125 years, becoming more professional and broad-reaching, and has transformed with Web 1.0 and 2.0, the greater emphasis on destination/place branding, more concern with sustainability, and the advent of smart cities.
This chapter begins with a mini academic literature review on city tourism marketing, branding, and product development. The literature review highlights among other things that city tourism needs to be managed and not just marketed. Second, the chapter provides a short history of destination marketing and management. It demonstrates the transformation from destination marketing to destination management. The third part of the chapter is devoted to best processes and practices in city destination marketing and management. This discourse explains the multiple roles of destination management beyond just marketing and branding. The chapter ends with a short summary drawing together the strands from the previous four parts
Relating Research and Teaching: comparing experiences and beliefs
No full textThe relationship between research and teaching has possible benefits and inherent tensions. It is a recurrent topic of discussion by faculty including engineering educators. Exploring a potentially beneficial relationship and is of interest and possible value to engineering faculty, our students, and our stakeholders. Institutions and departments have developed a range of approaches including research-led, research informed, or just plain scholarly. This paper examines the relationship between research and teaching in the undergraduate curriculum. It compares and contrasts evidence of the beliefs and experiences of the engineering faculty and the engineering student. It presents and analyses the result of surveys which gathered qualitative and qualitative data to explore the inter-relationship of research and teaching; in the curriculum; and as it is delivered and experienced in the lab, seminar room and lecture hall. This research builds on existing work developed in a preliminary study which examined ways in which synergies between research and teaching could be achieved, particularly in the ‘hard/applied’ areas of the curriculum. It analyses data from the ‘research-intensive’ and the ‘teaching-intensive’ perspective
The reliability of pre-deformation to control lateral buckling of pipelines: an evaluation based on observed embedment trends
No full textPre-deformation of a pipeline into a continuous sinusoidal wave-like form has been shown to be effective at controlling lateral buckling of subsea pipelines due to a substantially lower axial stiffness and the limiting of maximum strain at any location. This paper explores the feasibility and reliability of using such an approach, with an existing operating pipeline, which was installed using zero-radius bend (ZRB) initiator structures, used for comparison. Survey data of the pipeline profile and seabed bathymetry are adopted along with the pipe-soil interaction (PSI) inputs from the original design allowing a like-for-like comparison of the two approaches to management of lateral buckling. The comparison shows that, for the assumptions made in the numerical modelling, use of a pre-deformed pipeline results in lower strain than using ZRBs. Furthermore, the performance of the pre-deformed pipeline is robust, and shown to be unaffected by uncertainties in horizontal out-of-straightness, PSI input and seabed features. This study shows that pre-deformed pipelines can be an effective alternative for controlling the lateral buckling of subsea pipelines, which eliminates the need for buckle initiation structures to be installed along the pipeline route. This provides impetus for further work on installation methodologies to create the required level of pre-deformation.</p
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