Search

A systematic review and thematic synthesis were conducted on the motivations, purposes, and influence of pornography use among women who are in committed relationships. Pornography use was identified as having both positive and negative outcomes for women's sexual and relationship lives. Women watched pornography for diverse reasons: to feel sexually empowered, to enhance sexual arousal, and for masturbation purposes. Shared use of pornography with partners provided variety in sexual activities, could aid communication about sexual issues and helped improve intimacy. Pornography use can help some women feel sexually empowered, relaxed and better able to enjoy their sexual lives.

This study describes the identification of specific maxillofacial points triggering the swallowing reflex by finger pressure in a patient with severe amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This method has been named as the "Ishizaki Press Method." The first point was identified in a serendipitous encounter during training sessions to aid communication. This led to the search for such additional points, after obtaining informed consent from the patient and his relatives. Seven effective points were identified: the depressions in front of the left and right tragus (Ting gong points), bilateral points over the parotid and submandibular glands, and a point over the mentum in the midline of the face. The efficacy of these trigger points was noted to be ≥ 70%. The mean time taken for swallowing to occur in response to the stimulation at each of these points was less than 10 s, and the induction of a rapid swallowing reflex was recognized. Alternating left and right stimulations of the Ting gong points and the parotid points triggered the swallowing reflex significantly faster than unilateral stimulations alone. The Ishizaki Press Method may improve the management of dysphagia in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Purpose: Comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) is increasingly used to guide cancer therapy. This study aimed to characterise oncologists’ experiences and needs when utilising genomic results. Materials and Methods: An electronic survey distributed nation-wide to practising medical oncologists in Australia explored oncologists’ experiences with consenting, interpreting and communicating CGP results to patients. Results: The survey was completed by 108 of 333 oncologists (32%) and most respondents (n = 97, 90%) had referred patients for CGP. Using a 100-point visual analogue scale score [VAS], where higher values indicate greater confidence, most oncologists were confident consenting patients for referral [median 75 (Interquartile range, IQR: 53–85), discussing CGP results (median VAS: 70, IQR: 51–80), but significantly less confident discussing secondary germline findings (median VAS: 56, IQR 30–70, p < 0.001). Confidence with pursuing therapies based on CGP results increased with clinical experience (mean VAS increases by 4.8 per 5 years of experience, p < 0.001). Most oncologists (N = 68, 63%) reported wanting assistance with interpretation of CGP and patient-centric resources to aid communication with patients. Conclusions: Oncologists are integrating genomics into clinical care, but only display moderate confidence in communication and changing management accordingly. The development of patient- and clinician- targeted resources may assist with routine utilisation of CGP results in cancer care.

Thoracolumbar spine fractures form a significant portion of any spine surgeon's practice. It is important to classify the injuries, which may vary from minor transverse process fractures to unstable fracture–dislocations in order to aid communication, plan management, anticipated outcome, and prognosis. It is imperative that such a classification must be simple, reliable, comprehensive, and reproducible as well as be validated by multiple observers. In spite of having several classification systems in practice, the ideal one remains elusive. This article reviews the history of classification, evolution of the classifications, the relative merits and demerits of each classification, and highlighting the lacunae which the subsequent line of thought intended to fill. Till date, the AOSpine thoracolumbar spine injury severity system is probably the most comprehensive and management-oriented classification after Magerl and Denis.

Purpose: The current classification of ocular trauma does not incorporate adnexal trauma, injuries that are attributable to a nonmechanical cause and destructive globe injuries. This study proposes a new classification system of ocular trauma which is broader-based to allow for the classification of a wider range of ocular injuries not covered by the current classification. Methods: A clinic-based cross-sectional study to validate the proposed classification. We analyzed 535 cases of ocular injury from January 1, 2012 to February 28, 2012 over a 4-year period in an eye hospital in central India using our proposed classification system and compared it with conventional classification. Results: The new classification system allowed for classification of all 535 cases of ocular injury. The conventional classification was only able to classify 364 of the 535 trauma cases. Injuries involving the adnexa, nonmechanical injuries and destructive globe injuries could not be classified by the conventional classification, thus missing about 33% of cases. Conclusions: Our classification system shows an improvement over existing ocular trauma classification as it allows for the classification of all type of ocular injuries and will allow for better and specific prognostication. This system has the potential to aid communication between physicians and result in better patient care. It can also provide a more authentic, wide spectrum of ocular injuries in correlation with etiology. By including adnexal injuries and nonmechanical injuries, we have been able to classify all 535 cases of trauma. Otherwise, about 30% of cases would have been excluded from the study.

Developing assistive, cost-effective, non-invasive technologies to aid communication of people with hearing impairments is of prime importance in our society, in order to widen accessibility and inclusiveness. For this purpose, we have developed an intelligent vision system embedded on a smartphone and deployed in the wild. In particular, it integrates both computer vision methods involving Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) and machine learning techniques such as multi-class Support Vector Machine (SVM) to detect and recognize British Visual Language (BSL) signs automatically. Our system was successfully tested on a real-world dataset containing 13,066 samples and shown an accuracy of over 99% with an average processing time of 170ms, thus appropriate for real-time visual signing.

Background: Shared decision making (SDM) between families and physicians may facilitate informed, timely decisions to proceed with biologic therapy in children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Our team previously developed an SDM tool to aid communication between physicians and families when considering biologic therapy for children with IBD. Objective: We are conducting a prospective, pre-post pilot trial of a new SDM tool. The primary aim of the study is to assess feasibility of both the intervention and trial procedures for a future large-scale trial. Methods: We are enrolling physicians with experience prescribing biologic therapy in the past year and families of children with IBD. Families in the intervention arm receive a 3-step intervention including a letter sent before trial consent or clinic appointment, an in-clinic decision tool and a follow-up phone call. Our primary trial outcome is a measure of feasibility, with measures of clinical and decision outcomes secondary. We seek to enroll 27 families in each of 2 arms (usual-care and intervention) and plan data collection at the time of the initial visit or hospital stay, and at 1 week, 3 months, and 6 months after the initial visit. Conclusion: This study protocol is designed to demonstrate that integrating novel consent procedures, including timing and multiple versions of written consent, may increase trial feasibility while maintaining scientific rigor and full protection of study participants. Keywords: Pediatrics, Inflammatory bowel disease, Pilot trials, Consent

Western forces went into the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan unprepared for the linguistic and cultural challenges they brought. Only the recruitment of thousands of untrained local civilians to aid communication on the ground saved the day. Since conflict is a constant in human history, it is predictable that it will reoccur and strategic planning for similar interventions in the future must take place. Without offering solutions to the problem, this chapter provides a practitioner’s insight into the creation and development of interpreting and translation professions, their codes of ethics, and best practice. A study of these may help to determine whether and how they can instruct the development of similar guidelines and policy for the work and protection of civilian interpreters serving the military.

This work is supported by the Science of Sensor System Software programme grant, funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), EP/N007565/1. Sensor-driven systems provide data and information that facilitate real-time decision-making and autonomous actuation, as well as enable informed policy choices. However, can we be sure that these systems work as expected? Can we model them in a way that captures all the key issues? We define two concepts: frames of reference and frames of function that help us organise models of sensor-based systems and their purpose. Examples from a smart water distribution network illustrate how frames offer a lens through which to organise and balance multiple views of the system. Frames aid communication between modellers, analysts and stakeholders, and distinguish the purpose of each model, which contributes towards our trust that the system fulfils its purpose. Publisher PDF

WOMEN VISIBILITY AND PLAYFUL ACTS IS AN ANNUAL EVENT ORGANISED BY THE FEMINIST RESEARCH GROUP F=, FOCUSING ON PLAYFUL APPROACHES TO CREATIVE PRACTICES IN PUBLIC SPACES. PLAY IS USED AS A CORE STRATEGY TO INVITE THE PUBLIC/ PARTICIPANTS TO EXPRESS IDEAS, OPINIONS AND SELF AROUND THEMES CONNECTED TO FEMINISM USING INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY AS A PUBLIC PLATFORM FOR THESE EXPRESSIONS. IN CREATING SPACES OF NON-HIERARCHICAL ACTIVITY, PLAY, AS A METHOD OF ESTABLISHING TRUST, IS USED TO AID COMMUNICATION, TO MAKE NEW THINGS HAPPEN AND ENABLE TRANSFORMATION, EMPLOYING STRATEGIES OF HUMOUR AND THE SPECTACLE TO ENGAGE A DIVERSE, INTERGENERATIONAL AUDIENCE. IT IS PRIMARILY THROUGH PLAYFUL MEANS THAT WE EXTEND AN INVITATION TO TAKE PART. THIS PAPER VISUALLY DOCUMENTS WITH A TEXTUAL COMMENTARY THE PROCESS OF THE PROJECT AND THE WAYS WE USE PLAY TO EMPOWER, EDUCATE AND ACT IN PUBLIC SPACES.

Clear language should be used during emergency airway management to aid communication and understand the nature of the emergency. Unfortunately, during emergency airway management, there is no uniform language used for communication. Various difficult airway guidelines use different terminologies. Terminologies like “can't intubate, can't oxygenate” (CICO) and “can't intubate, can't ventilate” (CICV) have certain limitations. Though terminology like “Front of Neck Access” (FONA) is dominant in the literature,”emergency cricothyroidotomy” is used more often in clinical practice, suggesting a disconnect between the dominant terminology in the literature and in clinical practice. Terminology should not be used merely because it is catchy, simple and advocated by a few. It must accurately reflect the nature of the situation, convey a sense of urgency, and suggest an action sequence. An initiative to achieve consensus among existing terminologies is much needed. Leaders in the field should work towards refining airway terminology and replace poor phrases with ones that are more concise, precise and can be used universally in an airway emergency.

For patients with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), treatment guidelines recommend monitoring response to treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) by testing the BCR-ABL1 fusion gene transcript level using reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Despite recent efforts to standardise protocols for BCR-ABL1 testing, some variability remains among laboratories in the UK regarding the techniques used and the approach to reporting results. This increases the risk of misinterpretation of results by both clinicians and patients. An expert panel met to discuss current issues surrounding BCR-ABL1 testing in the UK and to develop guidance for laboratories, with emphasis on the optimal approach to reporting laboratory results. Topics included the minimum required information to include in the laboratory report, units of measurement, test sensitivity, and BCR-ABL1 transcript variants. To aid communication between laboratories and clinics, standard forms were generated that could be used by 1) clinics when submitting samples to laboratories, and 2) laboratories when reporting results to clinics. Standardising the way in which BCR-ABL1 test results are reported from laboratories to clinics should help to improve communication, interpretation of results, and patient care.

Interpreters, whether in person or via telephonic means, are used in healthcare settings to aid communication between clinicians and clients when the same language is not shared. Refugees seeking health and behavioural healthcare often have multiple needs and experiences of trauma that can complicate the provision of services. Little is known about the interpreters' experiences in providing in-person and telephonic interpreting for refugees. This qualitative study sought to understand the subjective experiences of interpreters in providing in-person and telephone interpretations to refugees in healthcare settings in the United States. Constant comparative analysis was used to analyse the transcribed, audio-taped individual, semi-structured interviews of 36 interpreters. These interviews were conducted between July 2013 and July 2014. Two themes were identified: (i) the importance for the interpreter to develop trust with the client; and (ii) working with refugees requires more attention from the interpreter. The interpreters of this study describe experiencing additional challenges in working with refugees versus other clients. Recommendations based on the findings are made.

Pair programming is a software development technique with many cited benefits in learning and teaching. However, it is reported that novice programmers find several barriers to pairing up, typically due to the added communication that is required of this approach. This paper will present a literature review discussing the issue of communication, and through a series of observations with industry-based pairs, will derive a set of guidelines which aim to help novice pairs experience better communication within their pairs. An evaluation of the guidelines with undergraduate students is then reported, showing that exposure to these guidelines improved the self-perceived communication experience of novice pairs.

A common complaint in children, abdominal pain can be clinically challenging for healthcare professionals to diagnose and treat. Accurate assessment and thorough investigations, combined with the measurement and monitoring of vital signs, are essential to eliminate any underlying conditions. Self-reporting tools can be used to aid communication with children, who may have difficulties articulating their thoughts and feelings. This article refers to a case study to discuss the care of children who present to emergency departments (EDs) with abdominal pain. It suggests that children's nursing students can be valuable assets in busy EDs because they have the knowledge and skills required to care for young people.

While there are common design decisions in existing games for teaching Computer Science (single player puzzle based games for the touchpad/keyboard and mouse), recent work has suggested that alternative approaches such as collaborative play and physically embodied designs may also provide important benefits to learners. In order to explore how making interactions with an educational programming game more physically embodied could impact collaborative play, we created an educational programming game called Bots & (Main)Frames. We then conducted a preliminary study to examine if the level designs achieved desired challenge and explore how two versions of the game with different forms of physical embodiment/input (e.g., mouse vs. tangible programming blocks) impacted player interactions underlying collaboration. We found that game levels seem to provide desired increasing challenge, and that players often used the mouse and tangible programming blocks to aid communication/collaboration in distinctly different ways.

This manuscript addresses the gap that exists between modern geoscience and geology, which is caused by the relative isolation in which mainstream geologists have operated and continue to operate. This gap is inevitable, but could be significantly reduced by adopting frontline developments in “Complex System Science” and its geoscience equivalent “Earth System Science”. To aid this process one proposes the use of “Geo-Logic” to express geologic problems explicitly and to impose scientific rigour. This paper is a statement of intent to direct geology into a theoretic direction and demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach with case studies where the theoretic approach was instrumental to the solution of a problem. The use of geo-logic would also serve as common language between geoscientists and aid communication between them.

Al-Jawad and colleagues emphasise the primacy of the patient’s wishes in their Practice paper, which is timely and very important.1 Almost one in five older Irish people report having at least one …

With research in Arabic Sign Language Recognition (ArSLR) still in its infancy, we present a method for recognition of Arabic Sign Language (ArSL) using Microsoft Kinect. A new dataset for ArSL words was collected using Kinect due to the lack of existence of one. With the intention of use in medical hospitals to aid communication between a deaf or hard-of-hearing patient with the doctor, the foremost goal was presenting a robust system, which does not impose any constraints on either the signer or the background. The proposed system combines skeletal data and depth information for hand tracking and segmentation, without relying on any color markers, or skin color detection algorithms. The extracted features describe the four elements of the hand that are used to describe the phonological structure of ArSL: articulation point, hand orientation, hand shape, and hand movement. Hidden Markov Model (HMM) was used for classification using ten-fold cross-validation, achieving an accuracy of 80.47%. Singer-independent experiments resulted in an average recognition accuracy of 64.61%.

The importance of investing in ICT cannot be over emphasised.1 ICT consists of all technical means to handle information and aid communication, including computer and network hardware and software.2 Recent research emphasises the strategic importance of new technology or infrastructure, for example computer systems projects, with 70% of survey respondents having experience of the appraisal of such projects.3 Now, more than ever, effective business strategy centres on aggressive, efficient use of information technology.4 Expenditure on ICT projects has been growing at a rapid pace over the past two decades, while investment in non-ICT projects (other than commercial real estate) has, in comparison, been in decline. Despite the global downturn, ICT is the world’s fastest-growing international industry.5 The appraisal of ICT projects, however, continues to present a problem. ICT projects are multidimensional constructs requiring a multidimensional approach to their appraisal.6

Mark, trace and structure have been in consistently used in ichnology for many years; we wish to clarify the origins and to prescribe correct usage of these terms. The origins of the words are ancient and complex; in the twentieth century they were given clear definitions as ichnologic terms. Seilacher (1953) de fined a mark (German Marke ) as a physical (abiogenic) sedimentary structure, as in the common terms sole mark, flute mark, but not bite mark or scratch mark . Trace has been defined many times; we recommend the consensus definition of Bertling et al. (2006) as “a morphologically recurrent structure resulting from the life activity of an individual organism (or homotypic or ganisms) modifying the substrate”; this in cludes dwelling trace, feeding trace, bite trace . Structure , as implied in another consensus paper (Frey, 1973), is a neutral term for geologic patterns resulting from either biogenic or abiogenic processes. Use of the three terms in a clear consistent manner will aid communication both among ichnologists and between ichnologists and their colleagues in other fields.

Categorization refers to the ability to reduce the potentially unlimited number of objects an animal might encounter to a smaller number of discrete groups, or categories. Animals adaptively form categories to exploit similarities and differences between objects that aid communication, prediction

Background: Cancer patients' preferences for life expectancy disclosure vary between individuals and across cultures. This study aimed to describe Japanese cancer patients': willingness to answer survey questions about life expectancy, preferences for discussing life expectancy with their radiation oncologist, and agreement with their radiation oncologists' regarding whether a life expectancy discussion had occurred. Methods: Adult cancer patients (n = 150) undergoing radiotherapy treatment at a Japanese university hospital during 2012 completed a survey on a touchscreen tablet. This represented 57% of eligible patients. Patients who were aware of their diagnosis were asked to complete additional questions about life expectancy. Responses were linked to a survey completed by participants' radiation oncologist. Results: Of 145 survey respondents who were aware of their cancer diagnosis, 81% answered the optional life expectancy section. The majority of respondents (98%) wanted their radiation oncologist to tell them everything they could when discussing life expectancy. However, 80% of patients wanted their radiation oncologist to ask them before the discussion, and 51% wanted their radiation oncologist to discuss it with their partner or family first. Radiation oncologists reported they had spoken to over two thirds of patients about how cancer may influence their life expectancy, whilst less than one third of patients reported having discussed life expectancy with their radiation oncologist. Conclusions: Life expectancy survey questions appeared to be acceptable to most respondents. There was some variation in patients' preferences for life expectancy discussions with their radiation oncologist. Given the poor concordance between patient and clinician perceptions of whether life expectancy disclosure had occurred, there is a need to identify approaches to prognosis disclosure that will aid communication between Japanese cancer patients and their radiation oncologists.