Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Discussing Prognosis With Terminally Ill Cancer Patients And Relatives: A Survey Of Physicians' Intentions In Seven Countries, Jennifer Voorhee, Judith Rietjens, Bregje Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Luc Deliens, Colleen Cartwright, Karin Faisst, Michael Norup, Guido Miccinesi, Agnes Van Der Heide

Professor Colleen M Cartwright

Objective To determine the extent to which physicians in different countries intend to inform terminal patients and relatives about prognosis, and to identify physician characteristics associated with an active approach to such discussions. Methods In the context of a European research project, a study on disclosing prognosis was conducted in seven countries. A written questionnaire with questions regarding hypothetical cases and actual practices was sent to physicians from specialties involved in the care of dying patients. Results 10,139 questionnaires were studied. The response rate was greater than 50% in all countries except Italy (39%). The percentage of physicians who indicated …

A Detailed Case Study Of Unusual Routines, Stephen Cooper

Stephen D. Cooper

Everyone working in organizations will, from time to time, experience frustrations and problems when trying to accomplish tasks that are a required part of their role. In such cases it is normal for people to find ways of completing their work in such a way that hey can get around, or just simply avoid, the procedure or system that has caused the problem. This is an unusual routine – a recurrent interaction pattern in which someone encounters a problem when trying to accomplish normal activities by following standard organizational procedures and then becomes enmeshed in wasteful and even harmful subroutines …

Order-4 Orthogonal Cooperative Communication In Space-Time-Frequency Coded Mb-Ofdm Uwb, Zixuan Lin, Le C. Tran, Farzad Safaei

Professor Farzad Safaei

The combination of cooperative communication and Space-Time-Frequency-Codes (STFCs) has been recently proposed in the literature for Multiband OFDM Ultra-Wideband (MB-OFDM UWB) to improve the bit error performance, system capacity, data rate and wireless communications range. This paper proposes a cooperative communication design using Order-4 Orthogonal STFCs in MB-OFDM UWB systems, which is referred to as Order-4 Orthogonal Cooperative Communication Scheme (4-OCCS). It will be shown that 4-OCCS improves significantly the diversity and error performance of the MB-OFDM UWB system, compared to the conventional MB-OFDM UWB (without STFCs) as well as our Order-2 Orthogonal Cooperative Communication Scheme using Alamouti STFCs (2-OCCS) …

Order-4 Quasi-Orthogonal Cooperative Communication In Stfc Mb-Ofdm Uwb, Zixuan Lin, Le Chung Tran, Farzad Safaei, Tadeusz A. Wysocki

Professor Farzad Safaei

Recently, cooperative communication and Space-Time-Frequency-Codes (STFCs) have been introduced into the Multiband OFDM Ultra-Wideband (MB-OFDM UWB) to improve the reliability, data rate and system capacity. This paper proposes a cooperative communication scheme for a four source node MB-OFDM UWB system using Quasi-Orthogonal STFCs, which is referred to as order-4 Quasi-Orthogonal Cooperative Communication Scheme (4-QOCCS). Simulation results show that the proposed 4-QOCCS provides significantly better error performance over the conventional MB-OFDM UWB and our order-2 Orthogonal Cooperative Communication Scheme (2-OCCS) using the Alamouti STFCs, and even better than the order-4 Orthogonal Cooperative Communication Scheme (4-OCCS), which we have been recently proposed, …

A Librarian By Any Other Name: The Role Of The Informationist On A Clinical Research Team, Sally A. Gore

Sally A. Gore

In 2012, the Lamar Soutter Library (LSL), University of Massachusetts Medical School, successfully collaborated with two principal investigators at UMMS, as well as their research team, to receive a supplemental grant from the National Library of Medicine. The award, an “NLM Administrative Supplements for Informationist Services in NIH-funded Research Projects”, was one of eight awarded nationally. It provides funding to support an informationist, or in-context information specialist, who serves the research team by offering expertise in the areas of data and information management. For 18 months, the informationist is serving as a member of the research team on the grant, …

Communication: New Insight Into The Barrier Governing Co2 Formation From Oh + Co, Christopher Johnson, Berwyck Poad, Ben Shen, Robert Continetti

Berwyck L. J. Poad

Despite its relative simplicity, the role of tunneling in the reaction OH + CO → H + CO(2) has eluded the quantitative predictive powers of theoretical reaction dynamics. In this study a one-dimensional effective barrier to the formation of H + CO(2) from the HOCO intermediate is directly extracted from dissociative photodetachment experiments on HOCO and DOCO. Comparison of this barrier to a computed minimum-energy barrier shows that tunneling deviates significantly from the calculated minimum-energy pathway, predicting product internal energy distributions that match those found in the experiment and tunneling lifetimes short enough to contribute significantly to the overall reaction. …

Novos Serviços De Informação E Comunicação: Um Quadro De Referência Estratégico, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Norbert Mundorf, Ruby Roy Dholakia

Nikhilesh Dholakia

From the late 1960s onwards, the range of information and communication services available to residential consumers and business users in the technologically advanced nations has been growing. The future of information services will depend on the strategic and structural interactions of firms specializing in content, conduits and components.

Web-Mediated Communication (Wmc) And Social Interaction: A Social Psychological Approach, Koo Won Suh, Helen Hasan, Paul K. Couchman

Helen Hasan

It can be argued that social interaction is a critical factor in understanding Web-mediated communication. While the concept and domain of social interaction has been studied in several disciplines they are underdeveloped in the current Web-enabled environment. This paper adopts a social psychological point of view of conceptual and operational issues in relation to social interaction. Through a review of the literature, two domains of social interaction are identified: task and socio-emotional interaction. The literature review also addresses some problems in defmition related to socio-emotional interaction. In an attempt to fill the gap between conceptual and operational defmitions of social …

Yes, But What Is It That You Do?, Amanda Rinehart

Amanda Rinehart

Despite carefully crafted job descriptions, e-science or data librarians find that there is little consensus on position responsibilities and required competencies. Consequently, these librarians tend to customize their positions around what their clientele require. Indeed, data “Curation Service Models [are] driven by user requirements”. Therefore, it’s not just about the data – it’s about the people. Specifically, it’s about the different cultures of user groups and librarians and how to communicate effectively across these groups. The “elevator speech” for a scientist might be quite different from the one for your librarian colleague. It’s no wonder that a recent survey of …

Weekly Column, Patricia Lamberti

Patricia Lamberti