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Integrating disparate and distributed vegetation data is critical for consistent and informed national policy development and management. Australia's National Vegetation Information System (NVIS) under the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) is the only nationally consistent vegetation database and hierarchical typology of vegetation types in different locations. Currently, this database employs manual approaches for integrating disparate state and territory datasets which is labour intensive and can be prone to human errors. To cope with the ever-increasing need for up to date vegetation data derived from heterogeneous data sources, a Semi-Automated Hybrid Matcher (SAHM) is proposed in this paper. SAHM utilizes both schema level and instance level matching following a two-tier matching framework. A key novel technique in SAHM called Multivariate Statistical Matching is proposed for automated schema scoring which takes advantage of domain knowledge and correlations between attributes to enhance the matching. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed framework, the performance of the individual as well as combined components of SAHM have been evaluated. The empirical evaluation shows the effectiveness of the proposed framework which outperforms existing state of the art methods like Cupid, Coma, Similarity Flooding, Jaccard Leven Matcher, Distribution Based Matcher, and EmbDI. In particular, SAHM achieves between 88% and 100% accuracy with significantly better F1 scores in comparison with state-of-the-art techniques. SAHM is also shown to be several orders of magnitude more efficient than existing techniques.

Background Critical care survivors face physical, psychological and socio-economic burdens. Peer support is acknowledged as a way individuals can face, accept and overcome the challenges arising from a stressful event. We sought to examine the provision and benefits of peer support to critical care survivors in the UK. Method We distributed a survey, devised by the patients and relatives committee of the Intensive Care Society and ICUsteps, to contacts in 163 UK Trusts/hospitals with critical care departments. The benefit to individuals was assessed by seeking the views of attendees of two support groups. Results A response was received from 91 (56%) of the critical care departments. Of these, 46 (48% of respondents) have patient support groups. Our analysis of comments from 30 people is that support groups greatly benefit service users and staff. Conclusions Attendees of patient support groups gave highly positive comments about the service yet provision of patient support groups in the UK is not universal. Recommendations We make a series of recommendations for consideration by UK health care providers.

This paper investigates the correlation of socioeconomic characteristics of communities close to Superfund sites with the duration of cleanup using spatial survival analysis with frailty effects. Census-tract-level data is used to achieve a more accurate representation of affected areas. We find evidence of slower cleanup in areas with higher minority population, particularly when controlling for EPA Region. Additionally, sites that are more costly, have high assessed hazards, and have a Community Action Group are associated with longer cleanup times, while sites which are federally owned and have low assessed hazards are associated with shorter cleanup times.

Purpose: Examiner training has an inconsistent impact on subsequent performance. To understand this variation, we explored how examiners think about changing the way they assess. Method: We provided comparative data to 17 experienced examiners about their assessments, captured their sense-making processes using a modified think-aloud protocol, and identified patterns by inductive thematic analysis. Results: We observed five sense-making processes: (1) testing personal relevance (2) interpretation (3) attribution (4) considering the need for change, and (5) considering the nature of change. Three observed meta-themes describe the manner of examiners' thinking: Guarded curiosity - where examiners expressed curiosity over how their judgments compared with others', but they also expressed guardedness about the relevance of the comparisons; Dysfunctional assimilation - where examiners' interpretation and attribution exhibited cognitive anchoring, personalization, and affective bias; Moderated conservatism - where examiners expressed openness to change, but also loyalty to their judgment-framing values and aphorisms. Conclusions: Our examiners engaged in complex processes as they considered changing their assessments. The 'stabilising' mechanisms some used resembled learners assimilating educational feedback. If these are typical examiner responses, they may well explain the variable impact of examiner training, and have significant implications for the pursuit of meaningful and defensible judgment-based assessment.

The car parks at the study hospital are accessed using re-usable, machine-read tickets. In the initial phase of this study, 598 staff members were observed entering the car park, and 21.6% of them put their parking ticket in their mouth. Ultraviolet dye was used to demonstrate card-to-card cross-contamination. Swabs of the ticket machine yielded commensal bacteria: coagulase-negative staphylococci and a Bacillus sp. After placing a poster on the ticket-reading machine highlighting the potential risk of infection, a further 1366 observations demonstrated a significant and persistent decline in the proportion of staff who put their ticket in their mouth (P

Payment by Results (PbR) is a system of paying for health care. It is linked to activity and adjusted for case-mix. This article explores the background to PbR for critical care, explains some of the terminology and looks at the implications of its planned introduction in 2011/12.

Patients undergoing major orthopaedic surgery are at risk of developing postoperative hypotension. In the majority of cases this is secondary to hypovolaemia. In an attempt to ensure prompt treatment of such hypotension, a multidisciplinary group from the Chesterfield Royal Hospital worked together to produce a patient group direction (PGD), that would allow nurses to administer fluid boluses. This was piloted for 3 months on three orthopaedic wards. During the pilot period, the PGD was used 14 times. The average increase in systolic blood pressure following a fluid bolus was 18.7 mm Hg. Only one patient did not respond. None of the patients suffered complications as a result of the fluid bolus(es). Early indications are that this initiative appears to be a safe and effective way of empowering nurses to treat early signs of physiological deterioration. This PGD could be easily adapted for use in other surgical specialities.

Cities imply commuting, and the best commute is by bicycle. Can you cut your commuting time with an expensive, low-weight bike, or will a heavy bone-shaker do just as well? Jeremy Groves tested the difference.

The Coase theorem presents two criteria for evaluating regulation. The first is how successful the regulation is at reaching the efficient outcome relative to private solutions. The second and less discussed criterion is how the regulation affects the distribution of wealth. Previous studies of the impact of municipal zoning have focused on Coase's first criteria: whether zoning raises land values overall. There has been less focus on distributional aspects of zoning. How does municipal zoning affect the wealth of participants in the property market? Most of the existing studies focus on the transfer of rents between those who have developed property and those with undeveloped property. This study estimates the transfer of wealth between owners of existing homes that results from the creation of a municipal zoning ordinance. We find that property best suited to residential use gains in value while property with relatively higher potential as commercial property experiences a decline in the value. Our results support the contention that zoning is distributive.