Micro- and macroergonomic changes in mental workload and medication safety following the implementation of new health IT

Health information technology (IT) is a promising way to achieve safer medication management in the delivery of healthcare. However, human factors/ergonomics dictates that in order to make the complex, cognitive work of healthcare delivery safer, health IT must properly support human cognition. This means, for example, that new health IT must reduce, not increase, workload during safety-critical tasks. The present study was the first to quantitatively assess the short- and long-term impact of bar coded medication administration (BCMA) IT on nurses' mental workload as well as on perceived medication safety. One-hundred seventy registered nurses across 3 dissimilar clinical units at an academic, freestanding pediatric hospital in the Midwest US participated in surveys administered before, 3 months after, and 12 months after the hospital implemented BCMA. Nurses rated their external mental workload (interruptions, divided attention, being rushed) and internal mental workload (concentration, mental effort) during medication administration tasks as well as the likelihood of each of three medication safety events: medication administration errors, medication errors on the clinical unit, and clinical unit-level adverse drug events. Clinical unit differences were assessed. Findings generally confirmed the hypothesis that external but not internal mental workload was associated with the perceived likelihood of a medication safety event. Comparisons of mental workload from pre- to post-BCMA revealed statistically significant changes in the critical care unit only. Medication safety appeared to improve over the long term in the hematology/oncology unit only. In the critical care and medical/surgical units, medication safety exhibited short-term improvements that were eliminated over time. Changes in mental workload and medication safety, two classically microergonomic constructs, were deeply embedded in macroergonomic phenomena. These included the fit between the BCMA system and the nature of nursing work, the process of BCMA implementation, and BCMA interactions with concurrent changes occurring in the hospital. Findings raise questions about achieving sustainable performance improvement with health IT as well as the balance between micro- and macroergonomic approaches to studying technology change.Relevance to industryDesigners must consider how technology changes cognitive work, including mental workload. Hospitals and other implementers of technology must ensure that new technology fits its users, their tasks, and the context of use, which may entail tailoring implementation, for example, to specific clinical units. Evaluators must look over time to assess both changes in cognitive work and implementation issues. Healthcare practitioners must also recognize that new technology means a complex transformation to an already complex sociotechnical system, which calls for a macroergonomic approach to design and analysis.     

Simulation studies on a rotating ring disk electrode: Effects of ionic migration with kinetic complication-disk results

In continuation to my previous work (Guha S. AIChE J. 2013;59(4):1390-1399), in this work, effects of ionic migration are evaluated for disk region of a rotating ring disk electrode system by numerically solving complex differential equations, developed for mass transfer along with kinetic complication in presence of ionic migration under limiting current condition. The system for simulation is 0.01 M Fe₂(SO₄)₃ solution with H₂SO₄ as supporting electrolyte. Simulation cases are presence and absence of ionic migration with kinetic complication (oxidation of Fe²⁺ to Fe³⁺ under O₂ pressure). Results show that concentration boundary layer thickness of reactant Fe³⁺ reduces appreciably and steady-state disk current reduces substantially in presence of migration. Simulated steady-state disk current in absence of migration case agrees well with published data. Results indicate higher Fe²⁺ concentration in presence of migration and thereby higher rate of oxidation of Fe²⁺ to Fe³⁺ at all rate constant values.     

分组空时块码系统中的排序最大信噪比检测算法

提出并比较了应用于分组空时块码（G—STBC）系统中两种不同信道模型的排序最大信噪比（MaxSNR）检测算法。该系统在发端对发射天线分组，每组进行独立的空时块码编码；在收端应用排序最大信噪比算法进行检测。由于空时块码提供了额外的时域约束，所以可以利用这个约束对信道模型进行变换，得到一个等效信道模型，然后再使用排序MaxSNR检测；当然也可以直接利用原有的信道模型，即非等效信道模型进行检测。仿真结果表明：当接收天线数不少于发射天线数的一半时，采用等效信道模型下的排序MaxSNR算法，系统的误码曲线就能保持陡降性；并且在收发天线数相同时，其性能总是优于非等效信道模型。     

磁盘阵列校验信息的放置策略

廉价磁盘冗余阵列（ＲＡＩＤ）采用许多小的廉价磁盘来代替大容量昂贵的磁盘，以取得更高的性能和更低的功耗。本文介绍了ＲＡＩＤ－５级磁盘阵列中校验信息的八种不同的分布策略，即奇偶校验信息的放置策略，并从几个不同的应用情况对不同的放置策略进行了研究，结论是不同的奇偶校验信息放置策略对磁盘阵列的Ｉ／Ｏ读写性能有很大的影响。     

Feasibility study of absolute activity measurement with metallic magnetic microcalorimeters

We report on a feasibility study on precise determination of mass-specific activity of low-energy emitting radioisotopes. Conventional methods of activity measurement suffer from source self-absorption and a strong decrease in detection efficiency for low-energy electrons and photons. We propose a new method based on metallic magnetic microcalorimeters with the source embedded in the detector target in a 4π geometry. First results with a ⁵⁵Fe source show that electrons and photons are detected with a detection efficiency close to unity and with little loss of energy for electrons. The aim of this study is to provide standards of activity with very low uncertainties in the framework of radiation metrology.     

Electrochemical mass transfer between an impinging jet and a rotating disk in a confined system

This paper presents the mass transfer results from an impinging liquid jet to a rotating disk. The mass transfer coefficients were measured using the electrochemical limiting diffusion current technique (ELDCT). Rotational Reynolds number (Re_r) in the range of 3.4 × 10⁴–1.2 × 10⁵, jet Reynolds number (Re_j) 1.7 × 10⁴–5.3 × 10⁴ and non-dimensional jet-to-disk spacing (H/d) 2–8 were taken into consideration as parameters. It was found that the jet impingement resulted in a substantial enhancement in the mass transfer compared to the case of the rotating disk without jet.     

Midplane-symmetry breaking in the flow between two counter-rotating disks

This paper considers the axisymmetric steady flow driven by exact counter rotation of two co-axial disks of finite radius. At the edges of the rotating disks one of three conditions is (typically) imposed: (i) zero velocity, corresponding to a stationary, impermeable, cylindrical shroud (ii) zero normal velocity and zero tangential fluid traction, corresponding to a (confined) free surface and (iii) an edge constraint that is consistent with a similarity solution of von Kármán form. The similarity solution is valid in an infinite geometry and possesses a pitchfork bifurcation that breaks the midplane symmetry at a critical Reynolds number. In this paper, similar bifurcations of the global (finite-domain) flow are sought and comparisons are made between the resulting bifurcation structure and that found for the similarity solution. The aim is to assess the validity of the nonlinear similarity solutions in finite domains and to explore the sensitivity of the solution structure to edge conditions that are implicitly neglected when assuming a self-similar flow. It is found that, whilst the symmetric similarity solution can be quantitatively useful for a range of boundary conditions, the bifurcated structure of the finite-domain flow is rather different for each boundary condition and bears little resemblance to the self-similar flow.     

改善磁盘阵列性能的方法

磁盘阵列是解决计算机Ｉ／Ｏ瓶颈问题的有效方法之一，通过对现有磁盘阵列结构的研究，提出了４种改善磁盘阵列性能的方法，即良分利用磁盘带宽，平衡多盘的负载，减少奇偶检验数据存取时间和磁盘阵列Ｃａｃｈｅ技术等，分析结果表明：在事务处理应用领域，利用Ｃａｃｈｅ来把小写转化为大写可大大改善目前一般情况下，以一道数据大小来作为磁盘的基本存取大小是合适的选择，磁盘阵列负载平衡设计不足是指正常模式下系统请求在多盘间     

基于小波变换的医学图象压缩编码

本文研究了医学图象小波变换系数的统计特征。根据医学图象的特点，提出了基于小波变换的医学图象编码方法。实验表明，这种方法具有较好的压缩编码性能，优于JPEG标准。同时，它支持逐次浮现式传输，从而能满足医学图象存储、通信、检索的需要。     

凸轮机构基圆半径的确定方法及其分析

基圆半径的确定方法，除了用图解法和试算法外，还可用解析法和图解分析法求解。４种方法各有优缺点，设计时要根据具体情况选择。