Visual Artefacts Research Articles

Using observational simulation teaching methods in professional development to address patient safety

BackgroundFramed within the National Quality Health Service Standards and using immersive simulation approaches, a series of videos responding to accreditation audit findings were created and used as teaching artefacts for mandatory professional development at a regional hospital in Australia. The scenarios captured a patient's hospital journey and targeted quality standards for medication administration, infection control, patient identification, documentation and preventing falls. AimTo improve patient safety and quality health outcomes. MethodsMixed methods comprising of quality audit data, surveys and interviews were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the simulation video artefacts and to measure the impact of the professional development initiative using simulation artefacts on patient outcomes. FindingsFindings showed high levels of satisfaction with the new education programme, improved understanding of documentation, improved risk management and a significant reduction in the incidence of falls with injury (73%), medication incidents (34%), and infection (61%). ConclusionThis project promoted a culture of safety and learning and demonstrated that using simulation videos in mandatory professional development can positively impact safety and health outcomes.

Developing design literacy through brand-based artefacts

The brand is a powerful representational and identification-led asset that can be used to engage staff in creative, sustainable and developmental activities. Being a brand the result of, foremost, a design exercise, it is fair to suppose that it can be a relevant resource for the advancement of design literacy within organisational contexts. The main objective of this paper was to test and validate an interaction structure for an informed co-design process on visual brand artefacts. To carry on the empirical study, a university was chosen as case study as these contexts are generally rich in employee diversity. A non-functional prototype was designed, and walkthroughs were performed in five focus groups held with staff. The latter evidenced a need/wish to engage with basic design principles and high willingness to participate in the creation of brand design artefacts, mostly with the purposeof increasing its consistent use and innovate in its representation possibilities, whilst augmenting the brand’s socially responsible values.

Visual Infotainment in the political news

This article introduces the concept of visual infotainment, the aspects of infotainment found in visual artefacts employed in the news. Using a case study, we examine the photographs published in the digital media to report on the negotiations between the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities, which took place in 2016 and 2017. A four-level visual framing analysis is used to identify a consistent set of frames. It aims to identify the political ideologies that appear to be behind the visual infotainment in these pictorial reports, and the specific ways in which hard news can be transformed into soft news. Our research confirms the presence of visual infotainment elements of personalisation, emotion, morbidity and sensationalism. Overall, the study shows that visual infotainment serves to establish visual frames produced by and for contradictory propagandas, one of which favours ethnic nationalism while the other promotes confl ict resolution.

Pleural Cryobiopsy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Pleural biopsy using either video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery or medical pleuroscopy is the current diagnostic criterion standard for pleural pathology with a high, yet imperfect, diagnostic yield. Cryobiopsy may provide greater tissue, increase depth of sampled tissue, and/or reduce crush artifact. However, its impact on diagnostic yield remains uncertain, and there are potential concerns regarding its safety too. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the same. We performed a systematic search of MEDLINE, Embase, and Google Scholar for studies evaluating the performance of pleural cryobiopsy, assessing the quality of each study using the Quality Assessment, Data Abstraction and Synthesis-2 tool. Using inverse variance weighting, we performed a meta-analysis of diagnostic yield estimations. We also reviewed specimen characteristics and complications related to the procedure. Seven observational studies involving 586 pleural biopsies (311 cryobiopsies and 275 flexible forceps biopsies) were evaluated. All but one study used a semi-rigid thoracoscope. Meta-analysis generated a diagnostic yield of 96.5%for cryobiopsy and 93.1%for forceps biopsy with an inverse variance-weighted OR of 1.61 (95%CI, 0.71-3.66) and an I2 of 16%. No instances of moderate to severe bleeding were reported with cryobiopsy. A funnel plot illustrated no major publication bias. Based on analysis of relatively homogenous observational data, pleural cryobiopsy is safe but does not increase diagnostic yield over flexible forceps biopsy. Adequately powered multicenter randomized trials are needed for further investigation.

Suppression of in vivo flow artifacts in power Doppler through spatial and angular coherence beamforming

Power Doppler imaging is traditionally the flow imaging technique utilized clinically in the task of flow detection. Due to the relatively low pulse repetition frequencies used, power Doppler ensemble sizes are small to allow real-time imaging. The small ensemble size, however, makes power Doppler imaging subject to the so-called flash artifact due to limited stationary clutter filtering capabilities. In addition, with the increasing population of overweight and obese individuals, power Doppler imaging is subject to higher amounts of thermal noise and reverberation artifact that pass through the stationary clutter filters. We present coherence beamforming techniques, applied to in vivo human imaging, to demonstrate their ability to reduce flow artifacts and noise in power Doppler imaging. Using coherence beamforming techniques in Coherent Flow Power Doppler (CFPD), we show that artifacts due to reverberation and thermal noise are reduced, corresponding to an increase of 7.5 dB in signal-to-noise ratio, in liver imaging of overweight and obese individuals. Similarly, we demonstrate coherence beamforming techniques in CFPD to reduce flash artifacts in videos of the neonatal brain.

ES04.02 Pathology Overview for Carcinoid and NE Spectrum

ES04.02 Pathology Overview for Carcinoid and NE Spectrum

The ideal technique for processing SpyBite tissue specimens: a prospective, single-blinded, pilot-study of histology and cytology techniques.

Background and study aims Diagnostic sensitivity for indeterminate biliary lesions remains suboptimal. Cytology techniques may mitigate the impediment of small cholangioscopic specimens. Our primary aim was to compare cell block cytology (CB) with standard histology for foregut SpyBite (SB) specimens. Our secondary aim was to assess CB in biliary SB biopsies. Patients and methods This was a two-phase prospective pilot study. In phase one, a prospective pilot study, foregut SB specimens from three sites (4 per site per patient per processing technique) were allocated to CB or histology, and assessed by a single, blinded pathologist. The gold standard comprised two standard forceps (CFB) histological specimens per site per patient. Specimen ease of processing, size and number, adequacy for diagnosis and artefact were evaluated. In phase two, CB was used for consecutive patients with indeterminate biliary lesions, and compared with phase one CB results. Results In phase one, 240 SB foregut biopsies were performed in 10 patients, 227 specimens recorded by pathologist. Specimen origin was identified in 100 % and 97 % of histology and CB batches respectively. Specimens were significantly larger in the histology group (2.02 mm vs 1.49 mm, P < 0.05). There was a trend to less crush artifact with CB, and no difference in processing difficulty. In phase two, 11 patients (63.0 ±12.7 years, 91 % female) underwent SpyGlass (SG) assessment of suspected indeterminate stricture (n = 8) or mass (n = 3), and six underwent SB. All CB specimens were adequate for diagnosis. Specimen parameters were not significantly different from luminal CB outcomes. Conclusions In this pilot study, cell block cytology showed similar results as histological analysis of SpyBite specimens in the analysis of biliary stricture.

Novel technique to prevent central airway blood flooding during transbronchial cryobiopsy.

Transbronchial cryobiopsy is useful for diagnosing diffuse parenchymal lung diseases, as well as localized lung lesions (1-5). It provides larger and higher quality specimens without crush artifacts compared to those obtained by conventional biopsy forceps (6). As transbronchial cryobiopsy samples tend to be larger, the risk of bleeding from the biopsy site is higher than that associated with forceps biopsy.

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Constitutional abnormality of nuclear membrane proteins in small cell lung carcinoma.

Nuclear membrane proteins reportedly play important roles in maintaining nuclear structures and coordinating cell activities. Studying profiles of nuclear membrane proteins may help us evaluate the biological and/or clinical nature of malignant tumors. Using immunohistochemistry with antibodies for emerin, lamin A/C, lamin B, and LAP2, we examined 105 lung cancer tissues from 33 small cell lung carcinomas (SCLCs) and 72 non-SCLCs (34 adenocarcinomas, 30 squamous cell carcinomas, and 8 large cell carcinomas). Emerin had negative or local/weak positivity in 79% of SCLCs and 1% of non-SCLCs, and lamin A/C had similar positivity in 91% of SCLCs and 3% of non-SCLCs. LAP2's expression was similar between SCLCs and non-SCLCs. RT-PCR analyses for these four nuclear membrane proteins over 7 cell lines showed that mRNA of emerin and lamin A/C were distinctly downregulated in the SCLC cell lines, supporting the immunohistochemical results. In conclusion, we suggest that downregulation of the nuclear membrane proteins emerin and lamin A/C is characteristic of SCLC cells, and this constitutional abnormality of the nuclear membrane may be related to the biological and/or clinical nature of SCLC. In addition, knowing the nuclear protein profile in SCLC cells may contribute to our understanding of nuclear fragility known as the crush artifact in pulmonary biopsy specimens.

Single image dehazing using gradient channel prior

The dehazing techniques designed so far are not so-effective at preserving texture details, especially in case of a complex background and large haze gradient image. Therefore, the exploration of new alternatives for designing an effective prior is desirable. Thus, in this research work, Gradient profile prior (GPP) is designed to evaluate depth map from hazy images. The transmission map is also improved by utilizing Guided anisotropic diffusion and iterative learning based image filter (GADILF). The restoration model is also improved to reduce the effect of pixels saturation and color distortion from restored images. Performance analysis demonstrates that GPP can naturally restore the hazy image especially at the edges of sudden changes in the obtained depth map. Through extensive analysis, it has been found that GPP based dehazing can effectively suppress visual artefacts for hazy images and yield high-quality results as compared to the competitive dehazing techniques both quantitatively and qualitatively. Moreover, the relatively high computational speed of the proposed technique will facilitate it in real-time applications.

Online conferencing for focus group discussions with teenage girls

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the use of online conferencing platforms for focus group discussions with teenage girls.Design/methodology/approachThe paper discusses the use of online conferencing for focus group discussions with Australian teenage girls aged 12–14 years who were participating in a study about their online interaction with friends. It examines both the practical application of online conferencing as a qualitative method as well as the inherent challenges of this context for youth research. Design decisions are explained and methods for ensuring rich contribution are detailed.FindingsOnline conferencing offers three distinct advantages for focus group work. First, the environment consciously engages participants in spontaneous interaction with other participants by using communication tools familiar to them. Second, elaborated discussion can be stimulated by introducing ideas and trends through visual mediums and artefacts. Third, the virtual setting provides remote access by the researcher which shifts power relationships so discussions flow more naturally between participants.Practical implicationsOutcomes indicate that online conferencing is an effective method for encouraging participants to share ideas and experiences about aspects of their lives that are often private and/or sensitive.Originality/valueTechnological advances in online collaboration tools have resulted in an increased use of online conferencing platforms across disciplines especially for teaching and learning contexts. However, application of online conferencing for focus group discussions with young people has not received much attention. Research presented here demonstrates that it is a useful tool for engaging teenage girls in focus group discussions.

PB2272 A COMPARISON OF 8G AND 11G TREPHINE NEEDLE SIZE ON SAMPLE QUALITY, SUFFICIENCY AND EASE OF PROCEDURE

Background:Haematohistopathologists require a sample of sufficient volume and quality to be both sensitive to recognising the presence of pathology and to make a specific diagnosis. An 8G trephine needle has a 3.43 mm internal diameter, larger than the 11G at 2.39 mm, which translantes to a 2x larger area. Not only can this provide substantially more material, it may allow for a more robust sample, less likely to suffer a crush artefact. However, the 8G needle can be intimidating, and there are concerns for patient tolerance and bleeding risk. There is no study comparing trephine gauge, so we performed a prospective observational study comparing these two sizes.Aims:A prospective study comparing use of 11G and 8G trephine needles on resultant sample quantity and quality, crush artefact, procedure ease, ease of sample extraction, haemostasis and diagnostic yield.Methods:Practitioners performing bone marrow biopsies at a large teaching hospital selected either 11G or 8G trephine needles for the procedure. They completed a questionnaire on the ease of performing the biopsy, whether several attempts were taken, if there was any prolonged bleeding, the ease of sample extraction and the approximate length. A haemato‐histopathologist completed a questionnaire commenting on whether the sample was crushed, diagnostic, sufficient and the overall quality. These results were compared using the R numerical language.Results:Data was collected on 14 11G and 20 8G biopsy attempts, all using a 4“ needle. The length of samples obtained were comparable (mean 2.04 vs 2.07 cm, 11G vs 8G). Ease of procedure appeared to be higher in 11G (86%) vs 8G (75%). However, ease of sample extraction was lower in 11G (79%) vs 8G (95%). A further attempt was required in 21% of 11G and 15% of 8G. Regular haemostasis was achieved less in 11G (86%) than in 8G (95%).Haemato‐histopathologist assessment revealed slightly less diagnostic samples from the 11G (85%) than from 8G needles (90%), not including failed attempts. Crush artefact was seen in 23% of 11G vs 25% of 8G. Overall quality was comparable between 11G (mean 3.9 of max score of 5) and 8G (mean 4.0). Sufficient tissue quality was lower in 11G (79%) vs 8G (90%). Haemorrhage artefact was lower in 11G (8%) vs 8G (20%).Summary/Conclusion:Our continued study comparing 11G and 8G trephine needle suggests a similar overall sample quality between the needle sizes. With around double the area of sample, theoretically only half the length is needed to obtain the same volume of tissue. Despite this, operators were obtaining similar lengths with both biopsies. Some differences were seen, with the 11G needle holding advantages in the ease of taking the sample, and having less haemorrhage artefact. The 8G needle was easier to extract the sample from, had less repeated attempts, was diagnostic in more cases and more often provided sufficient tissue quantity. Haemostasis appeared to be slightly higher in the 8G biopsies, though this may be due to operator selection based on patient characteristics. Overall quality, as judged by the haemato‐histopathologist, were similar. We believe this is the first comparison of bone marrow trephine needle sizes. There may be operator reasons for selecting the 11G needle, especially in frailer or anticoagulated patients, however this study confirmed our suspicion that the 8G needle provided samples which were more often sufficient and had a higher diagnostic yield, without a decrease in haemostasis. This information may of use for departments wishing to select between these two needle sizes.

Bi-dimensional Empirical Mode Decomposition Based Contrast Enhancement Technique for UAV Thermal Images

In this paper, a new contrast enhancement technique based on bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition (BEMD) is proposed to enhance the target details in low contrast thermal images captured by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Initially, thermal image acquired from UAV is separated into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and residue using BEMD. Then, local standard deviation based method is employed to the IMFs to improve the details of the image and histogram modification function is employed to the residue to enhance the contrast. The processed IMFs and residue are reconstructed to obtain the enhanced image using inverse BEMD. The performance of the proposed technique is analysed using quantitative and visual quality measures with the well-known histogram equalization, dynamic range partitioning and wavelet-based enhancement methods. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique effectively enhances the contrast and details in the image with less noise and visual artefacts than other methods.

Hybrid bi-dimensional empirical mode decomposition based enhancement technique for extreme low contrast UAV thermal images

The performance of automatic target detection and classification systems are typically affected by reduced contrast quality introduced by external interferences. In particular for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) captured thermal surveillance images, the effect is more evident. This advises the use of contrast enhancement technique as a solution to enhance the reduced contrast of hot regions for efficient target detection. In this paper, a simple and novel enhancement technique based on singular value decomposition (SVD) using Bi-Dimensional Empirical Mode Decomposition (BEMD) is proposed to enhance the hot regions in extreme low contrast thermal images captured by UAV. In the first step, the technique decomposes the thermal image into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) and residue by using BEMD. In the second step, it applies Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) in the residue for local contrast enhancement and then calculates the singular value matrix. In the third step, residue component is rescaled for further improvement of hot regions using scaling factor. In the fourth step, a detail enhanced IMF components are generated using gray scale transformation. Finally, the contrast enhanced residue undergoes Inverse BEMD (IBEMD) together with the detailed enhanced IMFs for enhanced image generation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique effectively enhances the contrast and details in the image with less visual artefacts than other state-of-the-art techniques.

After Isolation: Mirrors between Parallel Worlds and New Conceptual Spaces of Activism in Post-Revolutionary Iran

In this article, we theoretically conceptualise the renegotiation of participatory action and activism through the formation of intellectual space that is self-reflective and upheld by what we metaphorically describe as mirrors between parallel worlds. Rethinking what activism is and how an individual relates to their social group is dependent on different levels of self-reflection, self-criticism and competing scales of insertion of other people’s struggles into one’s own political vision in an effort to intellectually rectify the local tensions that emerge in a post-revolutionary context where people are disconnected from global-level activism. A significant aspect of this analysis is our interlocutors’ imaginative capacity to draw from other people’s experiences through cultural and visual artefacts and integrate them into their own life history with the intention to address national or group-specific dilemmas. While some have drawn attention to the importance of noting how spaces for activism are remade in the post-revolutionary context due to such sentiments as disappointment, we instead examine the formation of conceptual spaces of activism within the context of isolation in contemporary Iran. Empirically, we bring together a political analysis of the novel Bevatan by Reza AmirKhani, and interviews conducted with English literature students in Shiraz.

Students’ use of digital video effects in multimodal compositions: an exploratory study

While multimodal composing has been systematically explored, there is hardly any research on how undergraduates use video and audio effects to communicate meanings. Effects are important because they facilitate the semiotic sculpting of the source visual and aural elements, making accessible an extra layer of semiotic potential. The present study examined how a cohort of student teachers appropriated and used effects in crafting multimodal messages. Seventy undergraduate students attended an introductory course on digital media and were assigned to create a short digital video. The analysis of the video artefacts that were submitted indicated that there was large variation in the number of semiotic resources used. The students employed a wide range of effects but video and audio transitions accounted for approximately half of all effects used. The focus on content rather than form indicates that the semiotic potential of effects was largely untapped. While the number of effects used was not correlated with the quality of the video projects, the qualitative analysis indicated that the effects used in the high-rated video projects had a substantial impact on the source visuals. The paper is concluded with a discussion of these findings and directions for future research.

Blackgirl face: racialized and gendered performativity in mathematical contexts

While race, class, and gender are often treated as well-defined and static identities within mathematics education research, we explore gender, race and class as performances through the case of a middle school Black girl, Cameryn. Scenes from video artifacts are deconstructed using a hermeneutic process to reveal how Cameryn positions herself as a seemingly disinterested, resistant mathematics student through a facade we call blackgirl face. Blackgirl face not only reflects the particularities of Black girlhood for Cameryn but provides a new conceptual lens for understanding mathematics learning as a performance, requiring and enabling children to simultaneously negotiate race, class, and gender.

Signs of development: photographic futurism and the politics of affect in Uganda

AbstractThis article contributes to recent scholarship on an emergent public political visual culture in Africa. Through an ethnographic study of political billboards and other government-sponsored public political imagery in Uganda, it argues that this new visual culture is primarily characterized by African states’ extensive use of post-photographic techniques as a means for projecting fantastic visions of their future development goals. However, drawing on recent insights from the ‘material turn’ in visual theory, it finds that – in Uganda's case at least – the potency of these new public visual artefacts may stem less from what theyshowthan from how they invoke in their citizen-viewers an embodied sense of future possibilities. Once generated, this affective response can be mobilized by the state and its agents in the ‘here and now’, for political gain. The article looks at how this worked in the run-up to Uganda's 2016 presidential elections, when, in the context of major new spending on national infrastructure projects, the images and artefacts of this new visual culture served to greatly amplify the sense that all citizens would benefit from an emergent global capitalism. This inflated aspiration was mobilized in turn by the National Resistance Movement government as an integral part of its election campaign, and played a key role in returning the government to power.

Tamar Yoseloff as Ekphrasist, and Her Hidden Sweetheart: ‘I Took His Heart, Placed It/in an Ivory Case’ †

This article investigates Tamar Yoseloff’s different engagements with the visual arts in her ekphrastic poems by focusing on her first collection Sweetheart (1998). There are many critical studies about the poetic ekphrastic tradition, but there is rarely an in-depth investigation into a poet’s dedication to ekphrasis. This article suggests that Tamar Yoseloff’s dedication to ekphrasis is traceable to her earliest work. With a close analysis of three poems from Sweetheart—‘The Two Fridas’, ‘The Arnolfini Marriage’ and ‘The Visible Man’, I argue that the book is a sustained exploration of the autobiographical and biographical enigmas represented in visual artworks and artefacts, as well as our identification with these enigmas. It is hoped that this article could initiate a discussion about the tradition of poets dedicated to ekphrasis being as long as the tradition of modern ekphrasis.