Remote Participants Research Articles

Consumer perspectives of expanded practice in rural community pharmacy

People living in rural and remote regions have mortality and morbidity rates worse than their counterparts in metropolitan cities. Distance to access healthcare and limited access to health professionals highlights the need for expanded pharmacy services to address the health disparity facing rural and remote Australia. Examining consumers' perspective of expanded pharmacy services with a view to improving the health of their local community is a focus of the study. A questionnaire was provided to 20 rural and remote community pharmacies across Australia, to be administered to pharmacy consumers during July-September 2019. The questionnaire involved consumers choosing expanded services that they would like to see provided by their local pharmacy. The data were manually entered, exported into IBM SPSS Statistic 25 and summarised using descriptive statistics. 406 consumers from rural and remote locations completed the questionnaire. Vaccinations, chronic disease management and mental health services represented eight out of the ten most frequently chosen services. Over 95% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they would support the expanded services and that pharmacists have the required skills and knowledge to deliver these services. Findings indicated that the remote and very remote participants chose all of the 26 services more frequently than those in large and medium towns. Age also significantly influenced the frequency of choosing particular services, including osteoporosis testing, vision and eye checks, counselling services, swallowing checks, diet checks and breastfeeding advice and support. This study demonstrates that consumers believe that the health of the people in their community will improve with the provision of expanded services. These preliminary findings provide useful baseline information suggesting the development of expanded pharmacy services in rural and remote communities is likely to be well accepted by consumers.

Ethical Issues Posed by Field Research Using Highly Portable and Cloud-Enabled Neuroimaging

Highly portable, cloud-enabled neuroimaging technologies will fundamentally change neuroimaging research. Instead of participants traveling to the scanner, the scanner will now come to them. Field-based brain imaging research, including populations underrepresented in neuroscience research to date, will enlarge and diversify databases and pave the way for clinical and direct-to-consumer (DTC) applications. Yet these technological developments urgently require analysis of their ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI). No consensus ethical frameworks for mobile neuroimaging exist, and existing policies for traditional MRI research are inadequate. Based on literature review and ethics analysis of neurotechnology development efforts, Shen etal. identify seven foundational, yet unresolved, ELSI issues posed by portable neuroimaging: (1) informed consent; (2) privacy; (3) capacity to accurately communicate neuroimaging results to remote participants; (4) extensive reliance on cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) for data analysis; (5) potential bias of interpretive algorithms in diverse populations; (6) return of research results and incidental (or secondary) findings to research participants; and (7) responding to participant requests for access to their data. The article proposes a path forward to address these urgent issues.

Patient knowledge, experiences and preferences regarding retinoblastoma and research: A qualitative study.

BackgroundWe launched a patient engagement strategy to facilitate research involvement of the retinoblastoma (childhood eye cancer) community in Canada. To inform our strategy, we aimed to uncover the experiences with retinoblastoma, knowledge of retinoblastoma and research engagement among retinoblastoma survivors and parents.MethodsFocus groups were held in Toronto and Calgary, including both in‐person and remote participants (via videoconference). Discussions centred on experience with retinoblastoma, knowledge of the disease and engagement with research. Focus group transcripts were evaluated by inductive thematic analysis.ResultsFour focus groups (3 in Toronto, 1 in Calgary) were held with a collective total of 34 participants. Retinoblastoma had a substantial impact on the life of participants, but overall, patients reported being able to adapt and persevere. Experiential knowledge of retinoblastoma was identified as distinct from the theoretical knowledge held by their clinicians. Participants indicated they often acted as a knowledge broker, communicating information about the cancer to their social networks. Participants were willing to engage in research as partners, but recognized barriers such as time and appropriate training.ConclusionsPatients view their experiential knowledge of retinoblastoma as valuable to improving care and directing research. There is a unique role for research engagement in meeting the educational needs of patients.

Remote experiment with WEST from ITER Remote Experimentation Centre

Abstract Remote experiment with WEST tokamak in CEA Cadarache from ITER Remote Experimentation Centre (REC) in Rokkasho had been successfully carried out under the agreement between the Government of Japan and the European Atomic Energy Community for the joint implementation of the Broader Approach (BA) activities in the field of fusion energy research. The WEST and the REC sites were connected with the international broadband network for science and education of SINET, GEANT and RENATER. Due to a long distance over 10,000 km of two sites, the latency was about 200 ms (round trip time) in total via the direct line between EU and Japan of SINET5. Based on the communication between local and remote participants, plasma discharges were successfully executed repeatedly according to the pulse schedule produced by remote Session Leader after the approval by Engineer in Charge on WEST site. Intershot analyses were successfully executed during the pulse interval on an analysis server prepared in Partners network in the WEST for external collaborator. Full function required for the remote experiments were successfully demonstrated in the large size tokamak facility, WEST. For remote participation of ITER, however, it is expected that the amount of experimental data and the number of remote participations will become very large. Distributed database system based on data replication using high-speed data transferring method and distributed computing resources in local and remote sites are proposed as a possible solution in ITER.

The Scholarship Circle: an introduction to writing for publication for nursing faculty

BackgroundThis case report describes a collaborative effort between a health sciences librarian and an instructional designer to create and implement a writing professional development experience called the Scholarship Circle. It was aimed at increasing scholarly productivity by junior and nontenure-track faculty in a college of nursing.Case PresentationThe Scholarship Circle activities were carried out in a synchronous and an asynchronous online environment over ten weeks and included weekly lectures from nurse-scholars, discussions and peer reviews, and writing support from the librarian. The Scholarship Circle designers surveyed participants before and after the course to explore faculty perceptions and conducted a bibliographic analysis to gauge increases in scholarly productivity.ConclusionsWhile both tenure-track and nontenure-track faculty perceived lack of time as a significant barrier to publication, only nontenure-track faculty perceived lack of writing experience and getting started as significant obstacles. In the two years following the Scholarship Circle, faculty with doctor of philosophy and doctor of education degrees produced the greatest number of scholarly publications, whereas faculty with other degrees demonstrated a modest increase in scholarship. Online writing support programs have the potential to positively impact scholarly productivity for junior and nontenure-track faculty, especially if they emphasize time management for writing, confidence-building strategies, and a flexible format that allows peer review and collaboration as well as participation by seasoned scholars and remote participants. Partnership between health sciences librarians and instructional designers is key to the successful design and implementation of writing support programs.

Global collaboration to deliver a live pharmacy teaching and learning curriculum

Background and purposeThe Indiana Pharmacy Teaching Certificate Program (IPTeC) offered a live, two-day conference to pharmacy residents, fellows, and preceptors in Indiana, while simultaneously live-streaming to participants in Doha, Qatar. Participants engaged in longitudinal activities for a one-year period. The purpose is to evaluate this pilot extension of a teaching and learning curriculum (TLC) to experienced preceptors in a global partnership and determine whether global and local participants perceive similar quality of programming. Educational activity and settingUpon completion of the two-day conference, all pharmacists from two years of the program were encouraged to complete the standard course evaluations, consisting of nine items, in order to obtain continuing education (CE) credit. Evaluations of the program were analyzed by location cohort. FindingsA total of 206 eligible pharmacists attended the program, with 154 completing the course evaluations (response rate 75%). “Good” or “outstanding” median ratings were given to each learning objective by both location cohorts, with domestic participants more likely to give “outstanding” ratings (6/9 items versus 0/9 items). SummaryThis pilot extension was successful in providing educational content satisfying learning objectives from the perspective of domestic participants and remote participants in Qatar. This type of global collaboration can meet the needs of trainees and experienced preceptors to advance pharmacy education and training.

USING ECHO TO SUPPORT DEMENTIA DIAGNOSIS IN THE PRIMARY CARE NETWORK

Approximately 60% of those with dementia do not carry a diagnosis, undermining patient participation in clinical trials and family access to support. Under-diagnosis is driven by lack of knowledge about dementia, stigma, clinician inexperience and therapeutic nihilism. To address clinician-based contributors to under-diagnosis, we developed and implemented “Dementia 360,” a telementoring program modeled on the ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outreach) framework. Remote participants (n=67) learned about the diagnostic process, pharmacological management, family support and dementia-related resources. The video-conference-based one-hour sessions occurred weekly over 2 months. Instruction was provided by a multi-disciplinary faculty team with extensive clinical experience. Didactic presentations were followed by case studies offered by participants. Physicians, nurses, psychologists and social workers from 40 organizations participated, of which 62% were from medically underserved rural clinics. Participants were administered pre- and post-program questionnaires about their level of confidence in assessing and treating individuals with memory loss and dementia-related behavioral symptoms. Of the 54 clinicians who completed pre-intervention confidence assessments, 30 completed post-assessment. The clinicians had significantly increased confidence in diagnosing and treating dementia and managing behavioral symptoms of dementia (p ranging from .0002 to .003). Qualitative feedback from focus groups was generally positive, for example, “Knowing the diagnosis criteria and steps to take to rule out other diagnoses will help me more accurately diagnose and rule out dementia for my patients.” Our findings suggest that delivering case-based education via ECHO has potential to increase clinician workforce confidence in diagnosing and managing dementia.

MP Remix

to create an integrated space. We consider an MR configuration in which collocated collaborators work around a tabletop display, while remote collaborators wear an HMD to interact with a connected virtual environment that gives a 3D perspective, and consider the impact of varying degrees of view congruence with their collaborators. In a within-subjects study with 18 groups of 3, groups completed task scenarios involving 3D object manipulation around a physical-virtual mapped tabletop. We compare a synchronized Tabletop display baseline and two MR conditions with different levels of view congruence: Fishtank and Hover. Fishtank has a high degree of congruence as it shares a top-down perspective of the 3D objects with the tabletop collaborators. The Hover condition has less view congruence since 3D content hovers front of the remote collaborator above the table. The MR conditions yielded higher self-reported awareness and co-presence than the Tabletop condition for both collocated and remote participants. Remote collaborators significantly preferred the MR conditions for manipulating shared 3D models and communicating with their collaborators. Our findings illustrate strengths and weaknesses of both MR techniques but show that more participants preferred the less-congruent Hover condition overall. Reasons include that it facilitated interaction and viewing 3D objects.

Rapid, Efficient Crowdsourcing Using Social Media for the Surgical Management of Nephrolithiasis.

Introduction: The surgical management of nephrolithiasis can be challenging due to multiple appropriate and feasible approaches. One advantage of urologists' increasing social media use is the opportunity for crowdsourcing or aggregating feedback from remote participants. This study assesses the purposes and extent of online crowdsourcing by urologists for surgical stone disease. Methods: Twitter was queried with 22 stone-related keywords during a 60-day study period. All public posts were reviewed to identify crowdsourcing requests by urologists seeking clinical advice or feedback about surgical stone management. Content analysis of the crowdsourcing posts was performed by two reviewers to assess the purposes of and responses to the requests. Results: A total of 399 posts linked to 29 crowdsourcing requests were analyzed. Crowdsourcing requests were answered rapidly; the median time from initial post to final reply by participants was 2 days. In the majority of requests, the author of the initial request posted a follow-up question or clarification, underscoring a bidirectional exchange of ideas. Most crowdsourcing engaged an international audience; requests originated from 27 urologists in 12 countries, and all but one of the 29 requests (97%) received replies from users outside the origin country. Four purposes for crowdsourcing were observed: patient-specific surgical planning (206 posts, 52%); colleagues' experiences with a device or technique (86 posts, 22%); general advice about stone-related concerns (57 posts, 14%); and solutions to complications or quality improvement challenges (50 posts, 12%). Finally, protection of patient privacy appeared to be a concern; among the 17 (59%) crowdsourcing requests that were about individual patients or cases, all included patient-specific images or radiography, but none noted whether patient permission had been obtained. Conclusions: Social media crowdsourcing facilitates a range of general, patient-specific, and quality improvement challenges in surgical stone management. Participants should consider privacy concerns when publicly sharing imaging or patient data.

EP27.27: Research of the questionnaire's survey to a North Japan fetal echocardiography remote seminar participant

EP27.27: Research of the questionnaire's survey to a North Japan fetal echocardiography remote seminar participant

Learning and instruction in the hybrid virtual classroom: An investigation of students’ engagement and the effect of quizzes

To deal with the current need for flexible learning trajectories giving access to a more diverse group of learners, synchronous hybrid virtual classrooms have been designed to connect both on-site students and remote students during synchronous teaching. Given synchronous blended learning is relatively new, there are only few studies that have investigated its use and effectiveness. Furthermore, the existing literature is mostly exploratory and qualitative in nature. This present study meets the need for empirical, theory-driven research. More specific, this study has set up an experiment to investigate how different learning settings can affect students' relatedness, intrinsic motivation and learning achievement in the context of a synchronous learning space. The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) namely stresses that relatedness is a contributing factor for intrinsic motivation and indirectly also predicts learning achievement. Although there are numerous studies using SDT in various contexts, only limited studies used this theory to examine learning in the hybrid virtual classroom comparing different learning settings and its effects on relatedness, intrinsic motivation and learning achievement. The educational setting depends on whether students are physically present and thus attend the lecture face-to-face (F2F) or remotely (virtual), and on whether the setting is the same for all students (pure) or mixed (hybrid). This study presents the results of an experimental within-subjects design study comparing the students' learning experiences as F2F versus virtual student in the pure or hybrid setting. A mixed-methods approach is used including real-time measurements of intrinsic motivation next to retrospective self-report surveys and interviews. Also the effect of quizzes has been consistently investigated. The results show that although the hybrid virtual classroom is promising regarding flexibility in education as it gives students the choice where to attend the course, it is also the most challenging one to teach in and to learn in as a remote participant. It has been found that both the relatedness to peers and the intrinsic motivation is the lowest in the hybrid-virtual setting. Yet, our results show that launching quizzes is positively related to all students’ motivation. Further research that implements different kinds of quizzes and at different time intervals is necessary to validate this finding in the context of the hybrid virtual classroom. Future research should also investigate how relatedness between the remote students and their on-campus counterparts can be improved by means of instructional interventions.

Delivering allied health services to regional and remote participants on the autism spectrum via video-conferencing technology: lessons learned.

Context and issues: The introduction of individualised funding under the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia aimed to increase individual choice and control over how people received disability supports. An increase in the allied health disability workforce was anticipated; however, disability workforce sector reports have consistently indicated difficulties in attracting and retaining sufficient allied health staff to satisfy current and future demand. Autism spectrum disorder is the most prevalent primary diagnosis of participants receiving individualised funding to date and requires support staff to have specialised skills and experience. Given that overall staff attraction and retention issues are reported to be exacerbated in regional and remote areas of Australia, it is important to seek innovative ways of supporting individuals on the autism spectrum in their local communities. Technology has the potential to provide a timely and low-cost alternative that extends access to specialist services for people in remote locations. The current project aimed to identify the feasibility, essential requirements and potential barriers in delivering therapy support to regional and remote participants on the autism spectrum via video-conferencing technology. Lessons learned: A multidisciplinary team (speech pathologist, occupational therapist, psychologist and a special educator) were recruited and trained to deliver tele-therapy services to 16 participants on the autism spectrum, in collaboration with their families and local support teams. Participants resided in two northern, nine western and one southern regional area in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. There were three sets of siblings. One participant resided on remote Lord Howe Island off the coast of northern NSW. Researchers used semi-structured telephone interviews to gain insight into the program from key stakeholder groups including parents, education staff, allied health professionals and tele-therapists. A general inductive approach to data analysis was used under five project evaluation areas. The evaluation focused on five areas including: development of the tele-health delivery team, understanding the role of collaboration, examining the need for autism-specific support, establishing the need for in-person contact and identifying barriers to success. The project evaluation found that investment in staff training and support was key to building a competent tele-therapy team and delivering successful tele-therapy services under a sustainable model. For many families and support team members, collaboration was reported as an important part of the tele-therapy program, with families and teachers finding it helpful to work together with the same information. The evaluation confirmed that access to autism-specific knowledge and support was novel and regarded as beneficial for families and support teams living in regional and remote areas. There were mixed responses to the inclusion of in-person support as part of a tele-therapy service. While some families felt a tele-therapy service was no different to in-person services, other families and tele-therapists indicated that the addition of at least one in-person session would help to increase rapport. Barriers within the tele-therapy model included scheduling and local staff changes, as well as the delivery of intervention requiring physical support. Technology was not seen as a barrier in the current study. This research adds to the growing body of information supporting the use of tele-practice for geographically isolated regions. Ideally, tele-therapy should not replace in-person services; however, it is necessary when no other comparable service option is available locally. Larger scale research is needed to compare blended, online and in-person models so that an optimal ratio can be established.

USAGE OF GEODATA AND VIRTUAL REALITY IN THE MODERN SITUATION VISUALIZATION

Abstract. When a crisis arises, geographically referenced data is helpful in dealing with the situation. A map can provide a link between available data and stakeholders. It allows all participants to obtain an understandable model of the situation. For crisis management, hawse have developed an integrated system with an emphasis on ergonomics and data fusion. Visualization and interaction are tailored towards specific responsibilities as well as towards different devices such as smartphones, desktops and large displays. In addition to commonly available 2D geodata, highly accurate and up-to-date 3D geodata becomes more readily available. 3D geodata displayed on normal display devices, however, naturally lacks the third dimension. In order to gain a better understanding of the situation, we have added a virtual reality variant to its crisis management system. The VR environment allows meeting as a team, connecting local and remote participants, in the VR environment for a more efficient and natural discussion. In this VR meeting, all participants can work with the same geodata and annotations, providing a consistent view of the situation. To assess the additional value of 3D geodata and virtual reality visualization in this context, a user study was conducted comparing the performance using 2D geodata, 3D geodata and visualization in VR. The study provides insights into the task-specific value of 3D geodata and VR visualization.

Intermediated Reality: A Framework for Communication Through Tele-Puppetry.

We introduce Intermediated Reality (IR), a framework for intermediated communication enabling collaboration through remote possession of entities (e.g., toys) that come to life in mobile Mediated Reality (MR). As part of a two-way conversation, each person communicates through a toy figurine that is remotely located in front of the other participant. Each person's face is tracked through the front camera of their mobile devices and the tracking pose information is transmitted to the remote participant's device along with the synchronized captured voice audio, allowing a turn-based interactive avatar chat session, which we have called ToyMeet. By altering the camera video feed with a reconstructed appearance of the object in a deformed pose, we perform the illusion of movement in real-world objects to realize collaborative tele-present augmented reality (AR). In this turn based interaction, each participant first sees their own captured puppetry message locally with their device's front facing camera. Next, they receive a view of their counterpart's captured response locally (in AR) with seamless visual deformation of their local 3D toy seen through their device's rear facing camera. We detail optimization of the animation transmission and switching between devices with minimized latency for coherent smooth chat interaction. An evaluation of rendering performance and system latency is included. As an additional demonstration of our framework, we generate facial animation frames for 3D printed stop motion in collaborative mixed reality. This allows a reduction in printing costs since the in-between frames of key poses can be generated digitally with shared remote review.

A Multi-party Quantum Key Agreement Protocol Based on Shamir’s Secret Sharing

Quantum networks can extend the advantages of quantum key distribution protocols to more than two remote participants. Based on Shamir threshold secret sharing scheme, a new quantum key agreement protocol on a quantum network with any number of participants is proposed. First, each participant and distributor negotiate a sub-secret key using a kind of quantum key distribution protocol, and then each of these participants, as distributor, shares these sub-secret keys with other participants using Shamir threshold secret sharing scheme. Furthermore, each participant combines all these shared sub-secret keys and his own sub-secret key in sequence to form secret key, and sends the hash function values of this secret key to the master distributor to authenticate, finally they obtain the security key. Our scheme is practical and secure, and it can also prevent fraudulent from participants.

Intentionally Equitable Hospitality in Hybrid Video Dialogue: The context of Virtually Connecting

What special considerations do practitioners need in order to host equitable, hospitable, synchronous hybrid video conversations, where some participants are together in a room while others join remotely? Presented are intentionally equitable hospitality practices of onsite and virtual facilitators (buddies) that have emerged from experiences in Virtually Connecting, a grassroots movement that holds conversations at education conferences that include remote participants who cannot attend due to financial, social, logistical, health, or other reasons.

A Cultural and Sociolinguistic Analysis of English and Iraqi Arabic Certain Animal Proverbs

This study deals with some dog proverbs with the aim of showing the way in which the English and the Iraqi Arabs interpret and use animal proverbs. Some dog proverbs have been. picked out and worked with Leech's (1981) connotations and Holmes' (2013) social factors. Among the findings, it is found out that English and Iraqi Arabs have different attitudes towards. their animal proverbs which give the proverbs different connotations, and in turn, influence the way they interact with social factors. It is also figured out that both cultures associate the frequent use of dog proverbs with the lower prestigious occupations (e.g., farmers). Moreover, the English are more flexible in using animal proverbs with socially remote participants more than the Iraqi Arabs do. Finally, it is concluded that the only variable that coincides in the two cultures is the informality variables. This means the inappropriate use of dog proverbs in the formal type of interactions in England and Iraqi Arabic speech communities.

Visible objects of concern: Issues and challenges for workplace ethnographies in complex environments

Over the past few decades, we have witnessed the widespread deployment of technologies that enable real-time interaction between co-located and remote participants. These technologies and their accompanying organisational arrangements have created new forms of cooperation and collaboration. They also present challenges for ethnographers seeking to understand the practices, the ‘lived work’ of the participants. In particular, they demand a concern with the physical, the material and the embodied, in other words with what has been termed multimodality. We argue that it is through detailed analysis of specific instances, the circumstances of their use, that we can begin to discover the competencies, skills, the ‘know-how’ that enable practice. In this article, we consider one particular setting that is both distinctive because of its scale but also characteristic of many technology-saturated contemporary workplaces. We aim to show how in this case, as in others, the interactional and the sequential is an inextricable aspect of practice. To uncover these practices requires particular attention to the multimodal but that this presents challenges for ethnographies, even those that draw on complex arrays of resources such as video-recordings. We suggest that this resonates with recent debates regarding how we conceive of materiality, the roles of technologies and practice.

Nutritional dual burden in Indigenous young adults: The geographical differential.

Nutritional dual burden is defined as the coexistence of underweight and overweight in the same population. We report the rates of nutritional dual burden in Indigenous young men and women in the Northern Territory. Additionally, we examine the impact geographical area has on these rates. Cross-sectional data obtained from the longitudinal Aboriginal Birth Cohort Study. Participants residing in over 40 urban and remote communities across the Top End of the Northern Territory. Young adults aged 23-28 years; urban (n = 99) and remote (n = 316). Anthropometric data was directly collected using standardised methods. Underweight was defined as BMI ≤ 18.5 kg/m2 and overweight/obese as body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m2 . Remote residency was categorised by established shires/regions (Vic/Daly, Arnhem and Tiwi). Significantly higher levels of underweight were seen in remote participants, compared to urban participants, irrespective of sex. Further differences were seen by regions, with the highest rates seen in Vic/Daly, compared to Arnhem and Tiwi. Higher rates of overweight/obesity were found in urban participants, compared to remote. The levels of overweight/obesity varied, depending on region of residence. Underweight and overweight patterns coexist in Indigenous young adults, with variation across geographical regions. Health programs need to take this dual nutritional burden into consideration to avoid worsening the severity of underweight, whilst reducing levels of overweight.

Multiparty gaze preservation through perspective switching for interactive elearning environments

Existing live tele-teaching systems enable eye-contact between interacting participants, however, they are often incomplete as they neglect finer levels of adherence to gaze such as gaze awareness and gaze following. A multilocation eLearning classroom setting often does not preserve relative neighborhood i.e., displays showing videos of remote participants at each location might not be congruent with their actual seating positions. This leads to incoherent gaze patterns during interactions. We present a media-rich distributed classroom architecture with multiple cameras and displays in each classroom. During interaction changes, cameras capturing appropriate perspectives of participants are streamed to displays in other classrooms. Hence for all interactions, the physical participants of a classroom are presented with appropriate perspectives of remote participants resembling gaze patterns during conventional-classroom interactions. We also present a framework to systematically analyze gaze patterns with its dependencies. The framework dictates optimal placement of media devices ensuring minimal deviation in capturing appropriate perspectives for a given set of resources. Evaluation results on a three classroom test-bed indicates a marked reduction in viewer cognitive load in discerning the entity-at-focus in an eLearning classroom environment.