Ergonomic risk assessment of nasogastric tube placement and implications for design and training

The placement of nasogastric (NG) tubes is known to be prone to error and may lead to serious issues for patient safety and wellbeing. In some instances these have been catastrophic and resulted in the death of the patient. This study sought to explore the potential risks associated with this procedure through the use of systematic prospective risk assessment. The research team used the Prospective Hazard Analysis (PHA) toolkit developed by Ward et al (2010) . The study has shown a wide number of risks that cover equipment design, work organisation, and training issues. The link between equipment design and training provides an important example of the need for a systematic approach to reducing errors and improving resilience in this aspect of healthcare.     

Perceived Racial Discrimination as a Predictor of Health Behaviors: the Moderating Role of Gender

Perceived racial discrimination (PRD) has been implicated in undermining the mental and physical health of racial/ethnic minorities (e.g., Williams et al. in Am J Public Health 93:200–208, 2003; Wong et al. in J Pers 71:1197–1232, 2003). Researchers have begun to explore the indirect role of health behaviors as one factor in helping to explain this relationship. The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between PRD and a wide range of health behaviors using a prospective, longitudinal design and to explore the role of gender in moderating these relationships. Using data from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study, we examined the relationship between adolescent PRD (accumulated across ages 14–21) and health behaviors (i.e., diet, substance use, exercise) at age 30 in a sample of middle-class black men and women. Using structural equation modeling, results revealed that more cumulative PRD during adolescence was associated with less healthy eating, more substance use (among men), and more exercise (among women) in young adulthood. Implications of these findings for understanding the role of health behaviors in explaining the link between PRD and health outcomes are considered.     

THE DUALITY DIAGRAM IN DATA ANALYSIS: EXAMPLES OF MODERN APPLICATIONS

Today's data-heavy research environment requires the integration of different sources of information into structured datasets that can not be analyzed as simple matrices. We introduce an old technique, known in the European data analyses circles as the Duality Diagram Approach, put to new uses through the use of a variety of metrics and ways of combining different diagrams together. This issue of the Annals of Applied Statistics contains contemporary examples of how this approach provides solutions to hard problems in data integration. We present here the genesis of the technique and how it can be seen as a precursor of the modern kernel based approaches.     

约鲁巴人的社会经济思想对尼日利亚扶贫工作的启示

引言 “贫困”（poverty）一词没有一个被人们普遍接受的定义，它是一个复杂的、多维度的概念。人们对贫困的具体内容有不同的认识。     

调味架上的防病处方

肉桂 健康＂红包＂：给糖尿病的你 发表于《糖尿病保健》杂志上的文章表明,轻摇几下你的肉桂粉罐,就可以使血液中的胆固醇、甘油三酯和葡萄糖的水平显著下降。肉桂能增强胰岛素的敏感性,同时提高抗氧化剂水平,这两个作用能协同帮助维持血糖的正常稳定,所以它对于糖尿病患者大有益处。而各种普通降糖药物,只具有其中一项的作用。     

Bayesian Nonparametric Hidden Markov Models with application to the analysis of copy-number-variation in mammalian genomes

We consider the development of Bayesian Nonparametric methods for product partition models such as Hidden Markov Models and change point models. Our approach uses a Mixture of Dirichlet Process (MDP) model for the unknown sampling distribution (likelihood) for the observations arising in each state and a computationally efficient data augmentation scheme to aid inference. The method uses novel MCMC methodology which combines recent retrospective sampling methods with the use of slice sampler variables. The methodology is computationally efficient, both in terms of MCMC mixing properties, and robustness to the length of the time series being investigated. Moreover, the method is easy to implement requiring little or no user-interaction. We apply our methodology to the analysis of genomic copy number variation.     

Control centers design for ergonomics and safety

This paper shows the general design conditions about ergonomics and safety for control centers in the petrochemical process industry. Some of the topics include guidelines for the optimized workstation design, control room layout, building layout, and lighting, acoustical and environmental design. Also takes into account the safety parameters in the control rooms and centers design. The conditions and parameters shown in this paper come from the standards and global advances on this topic on the most recent publications. And also the work was supplemented by field visits of our team to the control center operations in a petrochemical company, and technical literature search efforts. This guideline will be useful to increase the productivity and improve the working conditions at the control rooms.     

Screening of risk from patient manual handling with MAPO method

International standards highlight the steps required by risk assessment and involving first hazard identification, then risk evaluation and finally, if necessary, risk assessment. To check approach appropriateness to "risk evaluation" from manual patient handling through MAPO, a cross study was carried out in view of checking relationship between this new risk assessment model and occurrence of acute low back pain. After proper training the MAPO screening method was assessed in 31 wards, 411 exposed subjects of geriatric hospitals. At the same time health data were collected on occurrence of low back pain episodes during the last year both in the exposed subjects' group and the external reference group (n?237). Risk and clinical assessment data were tutored and checked by EPM research unit. The logistic analysis was used as a method to evaluate the relationship between risk index and acute low back pain. Investigating relationship between acute low back pain episodes and levels of MAPO screening index, carried out only with the people exposed who claimed to work for at least 30 hours per week (n = 178), showed definitely positive trends. The study results indicate that MAPO screening may represent a useful tool to estimate the risk from manual handling patients.     

陌上花·沧海花凋(上)

[序]这天,极暗。这地,极黑。这极暗极黑之中,窥不到尽头,看不到未来。一道光自混蒙深处亮起,如烟花般刹那间照亮了整个夜空!我猛然睁开双眼,一道刺眼的阳光措不及防地落入眼眸,然后是片刻的眩晕。四周的景物落入我的双眼,我好奇地打量,这天地万物对我而言如此之新,连名字都叫不上来。空气中传来成腥的气息,我四处张望才发觉自己身处一片漫无边际的汪洋之中。我的身体随着海水的潮汐,上下起伏,除了遥远的一座孤