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This dissertation presents, discusses, and advances findings and contributions from an investigation into how professional orchestral musicians learn as they engage in their work together. Understanding the processes, demands, and consequences of orchestral work is important for informing the practices of professional and aspiring orchestral musicians, orchestral organisations, and educational institutions. Musicians’ well-being and the longevity of their working lives are of particular concern for this community. Learning and development are identified as important factors in understanding individuals’ vocational practices and how they work together. It follows that the conceptual framework of this investigation focuses on microgenetic learning and ontogenetic development to elaborate how intersubjectivity arises as musicians engage together in and learn through orchestral practices. Intersubjectivity refers here to the shared understandings of self and activity that arise from interaction with others, changing and developing with continued participation. From a sociocultural perspective, learning refers to microgenetic changes in individuals’ understanding and practice, while development lies within ontogenetic changes in their knowledge and abilities. As individuals engage together in activities, their learning and developmental processes contribute to a gradually emerging intersubjectivity, that is, shared understandings of what they know, can do, and value. To address the concerns raised regarding musicians’ ongoing practices, this investigation aims to describe and explain what intersubjectivity and engagement look like in orchestral performance. It also aims to comprehend how learning and development occur within this engagement. To investigate learning and development in orchestral performance, an ethnographic inquiry was conducted to generate an account of how a small sample population of orchestral musicians engaged with and experienced their working environment. The study involved observations and interactions with 6 members of an Australian professional symphony orchestra over a 12-month period. The participants’ selection targeted a range of ages, gender, instrument type, and level of seniority in the orchestra. Within the findings, five processes of engagement were identified through which intersubjectivity was constituted. These comprise (a) awareness, (b) communication, (c) evaluation of performance, (d) acting like a professional orchestral musician, and (e) the formation of playing intentions. These processes are advanced to contribute to a metaprocess of rehearsal, that is, the personal and interpersonal process of progressively reconstituting musical performance towards a shared ideal. New descriptions and evidence of how the musicians in this study engaged in orchestral performance are contributed, including descriptions and explanations of how trust and humour facilitated communication about performance. Through these processes of engagement, the participants’ daily interactions in orchestral performance became sites of microgenetic learning processes in three distinct ways. First, the temporal conditions of rehearsals and performances imposed a nonlinear but directional pattern on how performance knowledge changed. Second, spatial awareness was a highly important organising factor in the musicians’ knowledge of performance within the orchestra. It is proposed here that the sensory ethnography term “emplacement” might be useful for describing the connections between musicians’ activity, perceptions, and environments. Third, these temporal and spatial aspects of the musicians’ knowledge combined as they co-created a performance environment together, within which they progressively advanced their performance practices. Patterns and possibilities in the musicians’ ontogenetic development were identified through how they presented and construed their personal histories relating to performance. They selected past instances of microgenetic learning to illuminate and explain their current abilities, attitudes, and approaches to orchestral performance. The musicians were also capable of presenting positive or negative narratives of their development, frequently corresponding with their level of satisfaction with current environments or appraisals of performance. Positive developmental narratives used experiences of injury, difficulties in gaining membership in the orchestra, and the stresses associated with surveillance and critique to explain a growing ability to cope with challenges and to perform effectively with colleagues. Conversely, negative developmental narratives explained these experiences as being injurious to their ability to meet challenges or to perform at their best. It is advanced that how musicians engage with positive and negative developmental narratives may impact on their perception of their ability to sustain their working practices into the future.

Additional file 2: Supplemental Figure 2. Prevalence of non-PE related mechanical ventilation requirement and shock among patients among (A) pre-PERT and PERT-era patients and (B) Pert activated and non-PERT activated subjects in the PERT era; MV, mechanical ventilation, shock is defined as hypotension requiring vasopressor medication. * p

Additional file 3: Supplementary Table 1 Performed risk assessment and severity of PE. Abbreviations: PP; pre-PERT; PA, PERT alerted; NPA, Non-PERT alerted; BNP, Brain natriuretic peptide; TTE, transthoracic echocardiogram; RV, right ventricle; CT, computer tomography. a) assessment within 12 h of pulmonary embolism diagnosis, b) positive RV strain by biomarkers was determined as troponin> 0.02 ng/mL, and/or BNP > 155 pg/mL; c) RV strain on CT imaging was determined as RV/LV ration (ratio of right ventricular to left ventricular diameter ration of > 0.9). P value calculated by Chi Square test.

Additional file 1: Supplemental Figure 1. Distribution of 2019 ESC risk categories among the 3 groups. ESC, European Society of Cardiology.

Supplemental material, Supplemental_Materials_Figures for Improving Heart Failure Readmission Costs and Outcomes With a Hospital-to-Home Readmission Intervention Program by Kenneth Bilchick, Travis Moss, Timothy Welch, Wayne Levy, George Stukenborg, Bryan T. Lawlor, Juanita Reigle, S. Craig Thomas, Carolyn Brady, James D. Bergin, Jamie L. W. Kennedy, Mohammed Abuannadi, Kenneth Scully and Sula Mazimba in American Journal of Medical Quality

In 2008, a Surgeon General's Call to Action was published on how to prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis, DVT, and Pulmonary Embolism, PE. These two diseases are the main cause blood clots and hold high death counts. With the only prevention devices being two extremes, a static compression garment and a pneumatic compression boot with a non-movable air pump, hospital-level care is not available in a transportable, comfortable and cost-effective system. If a textile soft-robotic device could be introduced to the employment of blood clot prevention, a medium ground could be accomplished where a patient can obtain hospital-level quality care anywhere with higher comfort. To achieve this goal, textile-based robotics have been considered with the implementation of smart materials into knitted and woven fabrics. This thesis studies and utilizes shape memory alloys, SMAs, as a smart material inside of a woven textile for an outcome of a robotically-controllable fabric. SMAs are a unique material that can transform into a trained or ``memorized'' shape when a thermal condition is met. This, along with many super-elastic material properties, including high power and force-to-weight ratios, makes SMAs remarkable for actuation in robotics. SMA integration into fabrics brings a new outcome of functioning fabric-structures through thermal control. However, most SMA research is within the linear scope of actuation due to a hysteresis in the material, as well as the lack of natural recovery and control over the actuation path. This work characterizes bending-force outcomes of SMA actuators within woven structures to develop a massaging sleeve or sock to prevent DVT and PE. Currently, the field of SMA-fabric integration is limited with the research focused on aesthetic and commercial needs. This work will strive to focus on the robotic, medical, and industrial aspects of the integration through the development of a woven SMA-fabric massaging structure. Specific SMA working parameters are experimentally researched and modeled for both linear and bending actuators. These parameters include transformation temperature, power consumption, acceleration, torque and angular displacement. These parameters are controlled through material properties, the annealing process and the actuation parameters of the SMA wire segments. The main outcomes of this research are a bending force study of 60 mm SMA wire segments by themselves and within a woven textile. Proof of concepts of the textile-based robot and compression garment applications are carried out and compared with current implementations and SMA actuators in this field. The progression has the potential to be implemented in the development of a fully woven massaging sock or sleeve to prevent blood clots.