CPD: Improving practice communication: part 3

Background:Addressing social needs, health behaviors, and mental health may help patients more than traditional medical care. However, these root causes of poor health are difficult to address and the role of primary care is unclear. This qualitative study assesses patient’s willingness and motivations to discuss and accept assistance for these needs from their primary care team.Methods:In July and August of 2020, semi-structured virtual interviews were conducted with family medicine patients (n = 6) and residents of low resource neighborhoods (n = 11) in Richmond, Virginia. Interviews were conducted over Zoom. We conducted a qualitative analysis of patient and resident interview transcripts. A rapid qualitative analysis approach and immersion-crystallization processes were used to identify themes and categories.Results:Interviewees reported varying degrees of comfort discussing topics with their health care team. They were less comfortable discussing needs they considered outside the realm of “traditional primary care” including finances, transportation, and housing, but interviewees expressed willingness to discuss these needs under certain conditions. Important factors were a strong patient-clinician relationship to create a trusted and safe space for discussion, adequate time for discussion during visits, communication of practices’ ability to provide resources to help patients, and ensuring appropriate high quality referrals.Conclusions:Primary care provides opportunity for identifying and addressing needs that adversely impact health. Some needs are more sensitive for patients to work with their care team on, though, there was willingness to work on any need when a strong provider relationship and clinic structure for providing support were in place. This study highlights critical care delivery factors which may be used to enhance patient comfort accepting support for their needs and ultimately improve clinical care and chronic disease management.

PurposeGiven the popularity of online video recipes, the purpose of this study was to explore the potential communication of food safety malpractices in YouTube video recipes.Design/methodology/approachContent analysis of purposively sampled, high-risk chicken salad video recipes (n = 38) using an observational checklist was undertaken. The checklist was based upon the requirements of the Partnership for Food Safety Education “Safe Recipe Style Guide”, which was annotated with visual and verbal communication of food safety practices being “best practice”, “inadequate” or “absent”.FindingsNone of the observed video recipes showed visual handwashing at the start of the recipe. Furthermore, there was a distinct lack of visual communication of handwashing during the video recipes.Research limitations/implicationsThe lack of visual and verbal food safety communications within video recipes indicates a failure to adequately inform consumers of risks and safeguarding practices.Originality/valuePrevious research has focussed on communication of food safety practices in broadcasted television cookery programmes and published recipe books; this research extends consumer foods safety research to include resources commonly used by consumers to obtain meal inspiration. To date, this is the first study that has utilised the “Safe recipe style guide” as a tool to assess inclusion of food safety messages.

This issue has many manuscripts dealing with PLACE, GENTRIFICATION PROCESSES, HOME OWNERSHIP, VERTICAL GREENERY SYSTEMS, SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE OF BUILDINGS AND COMMUNICATION IN PRACTICES.

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communications have attracted considerable interest due to the massive available spectrum. However, to establish communication links, a beam training procedure is indispensable. How to accelerate the beam training process is one of the key challenges towards realizing mmWave communications in practice. In this study, we first propose a novel low-cost digital beamforming (DBF) module assisted hybrid (DAhybrid) architecture, by exploiting both the capabilities of analog and digital modules. To make this topology practical, we deploy coarse radio frequency (RF) chains and low-resolution analog-to-digital converters in the low-cost DBF module to reduce cost and power consumption. Second, we design a fast beam training method (named DAH-BT) by utilizing the proposed DA-hybrid architecture and leveraging the sparse nature of mmWave channels, in which an internal calibration method is adapted to obtain the parameters of the RF impairments and the orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm is utilized to estimate beams. We also prove that the developed measurement matrices satisfy the restricted isometry property. Extensive simulation results show that the DA-hybrid architecture can not only provide close to 100% beam matching accuracy, but also dramatically reduce the system power consumption and cost. In addition, the proposed DAH-BT scheme consumes the shortest time for beam training over the state-of-art methods with comparable spectral efficiency.

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is the most mature method for implementing commercial quantum communications in practice. As part of the miniaturization of practical QKD devices, an integrated electronic system in the 130 nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor process is presented for the QKD sender device. The electronics provide driving signals for the optics at the sender terminal of the quantum channel in QKD and consist mainly of three key modules, namely, a laser diode driver with a high slew rate, a high-speed physical random number generator, and a pre-driver for the electro-optic modulator. The electronic system is designed to operate at frequencies as high as 625-MHz to accommodate the frequency of the QKD system. The high degree of integration is advantageous for miniaturizing QKD sender devices.

This paper proposes the design of enabling technologies for practical wireless communication systems operating in the TV white space (TVWS). The main objective of this paper is to cover a macro perspective on the system design blocks including: (a) targeted use case applications and governing regulations, (b) channelization, physical (PHY) layer and medium access control (MAC) layer designs, and (c) achievable throughput and range. It is the intention of this paper to serve as a general guideline for designing wireless communication systems operating in TVWS. The core system design addresses both PHY and MAC layer issues with realistic system considerations. In the PHY layer, a channelization design that fits into the area-specific TV channels and a transceiver that enables data exchange in the TV bands are designed. In the MAC layer, a cognitive engine that manages access to vacant TV channels and MAC functionalities that facilitate effective medium access are also proposed. As a result, the system is capable of supporting up to a typical throughput of 80 Mbps, and a maximum number of 40 users, assuming all users performing the most bandwidth-hungry application in the use case scenario. The corresponding operating range is found reach up to 400 m.

To better meet the needs of economic restructuring and industrial development in China, educators in vocational colleges have to find new approaches to narrow the gaps between the updated requirements from the employers for business English majors and the vocational college education reality. Under this circumstance, a tentative study was carried out with the aids of multimedia to help the educators remove obstacles blocking achieving their educational aim, which is cultivating the graduates who are qualified for the social requirement. This study mainly discussed how effective the multimedia networks can help the business English majors in vocational colleges to enrich their work experience and enhance their practical English ability, computer skills, communication skills, and cooperation skills comprehensively. It aimed at exploring the ways of helping the business English majors in vocational colleges to gain work experience and improve their practical English skills, computer skills, communication skills, and cooperation skills with the aid of multimedia networks. An experimental teaching program was designed under the guidelines of a task-based teaching approach and constructive learning theory. The program includes four teaching models, which are in-class learning and field preparation, mock practice, in-field learning and field education, and learning reflection. All learning and field practices are delivered online facilitated by multimedia networks. One hundred and forty sophomores majoring in business English are selected as participants of the program. Data of students' confidence in all five monitored essential abilities are collected before and after the learning procedure through questionnaires, and students' feedbacks are collected through interviews. The statistical results show that multimedia networks can help students improve their overall competence, especially in gaining work experience and practical English skills. Moreover, adopting multimedia networks in teaching can provide more internship opportunities, enrich teaching scenarios, and prolong net teaching hours, which forms a preferred learning environment and provides better learning outcomes. It could also be used to assist communication and cooperation trainings.

It is well known that the performance of the wireless communication systems can be enhanced by using multiple transmit and receive antennas, which is generally referred to as the MIMO technique, and has been incorporated into the IEEE 802.11n standard, i.e. one of the Wi-Fi systems. The MIMO technique has also been adopted by the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) and the 3GPP2 Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) standards. The space-time coding is a promising way to realize the gain in the wireless communications system using MIMO. The space time block code, and the orthogonal space time block code in particular have been proposed in research and implemented in practical wireless communication systems due to their low computational complexity in maximum likelihood decoding implementation. However, the code rates of the orthogonal space time block codes are usually lower than $3/4$ when the number of transmit antennas is greater than two, which limit their throughput. To increase the code rate and the throughput of the orthogonal space time block code for more than two transmit antennas, a family of new space-time block codes (STBC) for 3 and 4 transmit antennas in a MIMO wireless communication system have been proposed in this Ph.D. research. These new codes are orthogonal and achieve full diversity, full rate using Triple QPSK'' modulation, which is proposed in this research. We investigated the performance of these STBCs when the channel state information (CSI) is perfectly known at the receiver. The CSI is not known to the transmitter in all of the studies in this dissertation. An analytical bound of the probability of bit error is developed and the Monte Carlo simulation is used when investigating these new STBC codes. In practical wireless communication system, the CSI is generally not available at the receiver and it is usually estimated by the receiver through the pilot signals or training signals known to the receiver. No matter what channel estimation method is used, the estimate of CSI will not match the CSI exactly and is noisy. The performance of these new STBCs using theTriple QPSK'' modulation when the estimate of the CSI is employed to detect the symbol is investigated in this dissertation. An upper bound of the bit error probability is developed when the noisy CSI is used to detect the symbols. The performance of the new STBCs using the Triple QPSK'' modulation is also evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation. When the CSI is not available to either the receiver or the transmitter, the differential encoding and decoding algorithm is applied to these new STBCs, which use theTriple QPSK'' modulation. The results showed that these orthogonal STBCs achieve full diversity full rate using ""Triple-QPSK"" modulation with differential detection. This provides a means of achieving space diversity and multiplexing gain without the CSI. A new differential encoding and decoding algorithm is proposed and analyzed for STBCs with 3 transmit antennas, whose transmission matrix is not square matrix, as part of this Ph.D. research. The STBCs using this algorithm achieve full diversity the MIMO system can possibly provide.

LPD communication has recently emerged as a new transmission technology to address privacy and security in wireless networks. Recent studies have established the fundamental limits of LPD communication in terms of the amount of information that can be conveyed from a transmitter to a receiver subject to a constraint on a warden's detection error probability. The established information- theoretic metric enables analytical studies on the design and performance of LPD communication under various channel conditions. In this article, we present the key features of LPD communication and discuss various important design considerations. First, we clarify the differences between LPD communication and well-known physical-layer security. Then, from an information-theoretic point of view, we discuss the optimal signaling strategies for transmitting the message-carrying signal and artificial noise signal for LPD communication. Finally, we identify the key challenges in the design of practical LPD communication systems and point out future research directions in this context. This article provides guidelines for designing practical LPD communication strategies in wireless systems and networks.

Ensuring confidentiality of communication is fundamental to securing the operation of a wireless system, where eavesdropping is easily facilitated by the broadcast nature of the wireless medium. By applying distributed beamforming among a coalition, we show that a new approach for assuring physical layer secrecy, without requiring any knowledge about the eavesdropper or injecting any additional cover noise, is possible if the transmitters frequently perturb their phases around the proper alignment phase while transmitting messages. This approach is readily applied to amplitude-based modulation schemes, such as PAM or QAM. We present our secrecy mechanisms, prove several important secrecy properties, and develop a practical secret communication system design. We further implement and deploy a prototype that consists of 16 distributed transmitters using USRP N210s in a 20×20×3m3 area. By sending more than 160M bits over our system to the receiver, depending on system parameter settings, we measure that the eavesdroppers failed to decode 30%–60% of the bits cross multiple locations while the intended receiver has an estimated bit error ratio of 3×10−6.

This study evaluates the current English language curriculum taught in public vocational schools across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The research identifies deficiencies and gaps in the English curriculum and examines how well it meets students’ needs and modern labor market demands. Employing a mixed-methods approach, data were collected through three tools: a questionnaire for students and stakeholders (400 participants), a questionnaire for vocational English teachers (43 participants from 43 public vocational schools), and semi-structured interviews with seven English supervisors and policymakers from the Ministry of Education. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS, whereas qualitative data were analyzed with thematic analysis to elucidate the perceptions of key stakeholders. The findings indicate several weaknesses in the curriculum’s content, structure, and practical application. Teachers, students, and policymakers all indicated that the current curriculum lacks sufficient alignment with students’ professional needs (particularly regarding speaking, listening, and writing skills, as well as the incorporation of technology) and job market demands. The study advocates for the urgent revision of the curriculum through a needs-based, negotiated syllabus that focuses on job-orientated language skills and practical communication. The findings support educational reform efforts and help vocational education in the KRI respond more effectively to evolving Kurdish market needs.

While urban parents possess a foundational awareness of adolescent depression and anxiety, a significant gap between their conceptual knowledge and practical communication skills creates confusion and inconsistent support. The research aims to assess the level of parents' knowledge about adolescent mental health disorders, identify the extent of their confusion regarding sudden behavioral changes, and evaluate the supportive practices they employ to help their children cope. Based on a survey of 320 parents in Dhaka, the study found a moderate-to-high level of conceptual knowledge (M = 3.66) but significant gaps in practical help-seeking and communication confidence. Parents reported moderate levels of confusion (M = 3.42), particularly in distinguishing normal adolescent development from clinical distress. While overall support was moderate (M = 3.58), a meaningful minority of parents admitted to maladaptive responses, such as shouting, criticizing, or avoiding emotional discussions. The findings suggest a "practice-action discrepancy" where conceptual awareness does not translate into effective support. There is an urgent need for parenting counselors to shift focus from general awareness to applied skills training, including emotional first aid, role-playing for difficult conversations, and providing clear pathways for professional mental health resources.

This study explores the prevalence and integration of Anglicisms in French and Quebec IT terminology, analysing the tension between global linguistic influences and local preservation efforts. Through a two-phase survey involving 68 French-speaking computer science students, the research assesses participants’ familiarity with official French IT terms recommended by FranceTerme and their preferences compared to English alternatives. Key terms, including courriel (email), hameçonnage (phishing), and vignette active (widget), are examined alongside their Quebec-coined counterparts to highlight regional linguistic variations. The findings reveal significant challenges in the adoption of French equivalents, largely stemming from the comparative appeal and communicative efficiency of English terms. However, successful integration of terms like télécharger (download) and pare-feu (firewall) underscores the importance of conceptual clarity and cultural resonance. This study provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of linguistic policies in maintaining linguistic identity within a rapidly evolving field. It calls for collaborative approaches to terminology standardisation across Francophone regions to balance linguistic preservation and practical communication, ensuring that official policies are evaluated not only in terms of linguistic outcomes but also their practical relevance in rapidly evolving fields.

This dissertation deals with institutional communication by official statement on social media as brand positioning seeking to analyze these are reinforcing what is described in the corporate identity of a public education institution. As an object of analysis, Instagram posts from the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU) were used during the first academic semester of 2021/2, which corresponds to the months of May to August 2022. The study was divided into 4 parts. The first use was concepts relating to the internet and digital media. The second focused on discussion, concepts and criteria of organizations and communication, the third discusses and categorizes brand and branding principles. The fourth part of this work creates a matrix for brand positioning analysis based on the concepts discussed in the previous chapters that can be used by university managers and other researchers who aim to investigate whether practical communication, through official notes, is aligned with corporate identity. within the situations and reaches a conclusion about the object, the posts of UFU's official notes on Instagram. The results clearly indicate that the UFU brand follows its brand identity when writing its official notes, but that this identity needs to be revisited by managers for an update to align with organizational dimensions in the contemporary context. Adapting to new trends through rebranding.

In practical communication and computation systems, errors occur predominantly in adjacent positions rather than in a random manner. In this paper, we develop a stabilizer formalism for quantum burst error correction codes (QBECC) to combat such error patterns in the quantum regime. Our contributions are as follows. Firstly, we derive an upper bound for the correctable burst errors of QBECCs, the quantum Reiger bound (QRB). Secondly, we propose two constructions of QBECCs: one by heuristic computer search and the other by concatenating two quantum tensor product codes (QTPCs). We obtain several new QBECCs with better parameters than existing codes with the same coding length. Moreover, some of the constructed codes can saturate the quantum Reiger bounds. Finally, we perform numerical experiments for our constructed codes over Markovian correlated depolarizing quantum memory channels, and show that QBECCs indeed outperform standard QECCs in this scenario.