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Background: Improving patient safety has become a major focus of clinical care and research over the past two decades. An institution's patient safety climate represents an essential component of ensuring a safe environment and thereby can be vital to the prevention of adverse events. Covering six patient safety related factors, the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) is a validated and widely used instrument to measure the patient safety climate in clinical areas. The objective of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the German language version of the SAQ. Methods. A survey was carried out in two University Hospitals in Switzerland in autumn 2009 where the SAQ was distributed to a sample of 406 nurses and physicians in medical and surgical wards. Following the American Educational Research Association guidelines, we tested the questionnaire validity by levels of evidence: content validity, internal structure and relations to other variables. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine factor structure. Cronbach's alphas and inter-item correlations were calculated to examine internal consistency reliability. Results: A total of 319 questionnaires were completed representing an overall response rate of 78.6%. For three items, the item content validity index was <0.75. Confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable model fit (RMSEA = 0.045; CFI = 0.944) for the six-factor model. Additional exploratory factor analysis could not identify a better factor model. SAQ factor scores showed positive correlations with the Safety Organizing Scale (r =.56 -.72). The SAQ German version showed moderate to strong internal consistency reliability indices (Cronbach alpha =.65 -.83). Conclusions: The German language version of the SAQ demonstrated acceptable to good psychometric properties and therefore shows promise to be a sound instrument to measure patient safety climate in Swiss hospital wards. However, the low item content validity and large number of mi

Integrated optical detection is considered to be an important operation in lab-on-a-chips. This paper presents an optical fiber-based micro-sensor that is capable of detecting food substance particles in a lab-on-a-chip. The system consists of a microcontroller and associated circuitry, a laser emitter, a laser receiver, fiber optic cables, a microfluidics chip, and the food substance samples to be tested. When the particles flow through the microfluidic channel in the chip, the receiver’s output voltage varies due to the particles blocking the passage of the laser ray. The changes in the collected signals are analyzed to count the number of particles. Experiments are conducted on several food substance samples including talcum powder, ground ginger, and soy sauce. The experimental results are presented and discussed.

Droplet based microfluidics are promising new tools for biological and chemical assays. In this paper, a high throughput and high sensitivity microfluidic droplet platform is described for in vitro protein expression using crude Escherichia coli S30 extract. A flow-focusing polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) microchip was designed and integrated with different functions involving droplet generation, storage, separation and detection. The material used for the chip is superior to the previously tested polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) due to its mechanical and chemical properties. Droplet formation characteristics such as size and generation rate are investigated systematically. The effect of surfactants Abil EM90 and Span80 in the oil phase on droplet formation and optical detection is also studied. The performance of the system is demonstrated by the high throughput and stable droplet generation and ultralow detection limit. The robustness of the system is also demonstrated by the successful synthesis of a green fluorescent protein (GFP) using E. coli S30 extract as a source of RNA translation reagents.

Droplet-based in vitro compartmentalization (IVC) platform is a powerful tool in protein analysis. Reliable formation of microdroplets is important for the development of the microfluidic chip. In this study, we will examine the effect of surfactants on the formation of microdroplets in the flow focusing microfluidic device which is needed for enzyme evolution. Surfactants of Span 80 and Tween 20 are used in the continuous and dispersed phases, respectively. The droplet formation was affected distinguishably with the presence of Span 80 and Tween 20. The size of droplets decreased as the concentration of Span 80 increased. And the decrease was more pronounced with the combination of Span 80 and Tween 20.

Highway minitunnels, also referred to as limited facility tunnels, are small-diameter structures accessible only to light vehicles and with a typical headroom of 2.6 m. They may be used to segregate road users so as to maximise surface space for pedestrians and cyclists, to alleviate congestion hot-spots, to by-pass complex junctions or to improve interchange facilities for transferring from cars to public transport. Research to develop design guidelines has addressed a range of specific issues: possible construction methods, operational issues such as signs, and safety issues such as access for emergency services. A full-scale vehicle simulator has been used to examine the responses of drivers to a range of virtual minitunnels., Highway minitunnels, also referred to as limited facility tunnels, are small-diameter structures accessible only to light vehicles and with a typical headroom of 2.6 m. They may be used to segregate road users so as to maximise surface space for pedestrians and cyclists, to alleviate congestion hot-spots, to by-pass complex junctions or to improve interchange facilities for transferring from cars to public transport. Research to develop design guidelines has addressed a range of specific issues: possible construction methods, operational issues such as signs, and safety issues such as access for emergency services. A full-scale vehicle simulator has been used to examine the responses of drivers to a range of virtual minitunnels.