Northampton Community College

About: Northampton Community College is a education organization based out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3410 authors who have published 4582 publications receiving 130398 citations. The organization is also known as: Northampton County Area Community College.

Telemedicine screening for retinopathy of prematurity in developing countries using digital retinal images: a feasibility project.

Abstract: Purpose To determine the feasibility in a middle-level human development country of onsite training, image collection, Internet transfer, and remote grading of digital retinal images from babies screened for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods Two experienced nurses in a neonatal nursery in Lima, Peru, were trained to take posterior pole (30°) digital retinal images. Nurses obtained posterior pole retinal images from babies undergoing routine ROP screening and selected images for uploading via Internet for remote evaluation by five masked ROP experts. Results of gradings were compared with same-day clinical diagnostic examinations by an experienced ophthalmologist. Success rates for image acquisition and transfer for grading by expert readers were calculated. Results Serial image sets from 26 of the 28 babies enrolled in this study were obtained; two babies were too unstable for imaging. Fifty-six of 58 (96.6%) imaging sessions were successful in obtaining retinal images. Three hundred thirty of 336 (98.2%) images obtained were successfully uploaded to an interactive database. Remote graders judged 93.6% to 97.3% of image sets suitable for ROP grading. Preliminary results indicate sensitivities for detection of serious ROP from 45.5% to 95.2% among individual readers, with specificities of 61.7% to 96.2% when images were gradable. Conclusions A telemedicine approach for ROP screening using digital retinal images obtained by nonophthalmologists is feasible in rapidly developing countries that lack ROP-trained ophthalmologists. If remote grading of digital images is validated as an effective method for identifying referral-warranted ROP (RW-ROP), images obtained by nonphysicians may provide a means of identifying babies who require a diagnostic examination by an ophthalmologist.

PRiM: An i * -based process reengineering method for information systems specification

Abstract: Information system development can often be addressed as a business process reengineering practice, either because it automates some human-based processes or because it replaces an existing legacy system. Therefore, observing and analysing current processes can enable analysts to converge on the specification of the new system, generating and evaluating new system alternatives throughout. In this paper, we propose a method to support this reengineering process that analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the current process; considers the strategic needs of the organization; provides guidelines for the prescriptive construction of i^* models; and drives the systematic generation and evaluation of alternative technological and organizational solutions for the new system.

On the compatibility between defuzzification and fuzzy arithmetic operations

Abstract: Since the introduction of the extension principle by Zadeh, the arithmetic of fuzzy numbers has gained importance both from the theoretical and the practical points of view. For the former, many works were accomplished on the topological level as well as on the parametrization level in order to improve the foundation of the theory and to simplify the performance of different combination operations. For the latter, in many practical applications, the need for a permanent switch from a fuzzy representation to a numerical representation is patent. This transformation is usually carried out by the defuzzification process. This paper addresses some theoretical results about some invariance properties concerning the relationships between the defuzzification outcomes and the arithmetic of fuzzy numbers. One of the benefits of such analysis is the fact that when the matter is the determination of the defuzzified value pertaining to the result of some manipulation of fuzzy quantities, the explicit determination of the resulting fuzzy set (or distribution) can be obviated, while the process may be restricted to a standard computation over single values corresponding to defuzzified initial inputs.

The Racialised Somatic Norm and the Senior Civil Service

Abstract: One of the central ways in which institutional racism is perpetuated is through the designation of the somatic norm. However, although the classed and gendered nature of the somatic norm underlying somataphobic representations of the universal `individual' have been both theoretically and substantially explored, the racial character of this embodied being has received scant attention. This paper introduces race to the wider debates on the embodied nature of the political `individual', before analysing the specific ways in which an institution that is deemed to be at the absolute apex of disembodied, neutral professionalism - the British senior civil service - is naturalised as the domain for white men. The somatic norm underlying the representation of the impartial senior civil service is brought to the fore in this paper by discussing the location of black senior civil servants, whose presence helps us to highlight the synchronic relationship between racialised bodies and elite spaces in the body politic. These `Space Invaders' disturb the racialised nature of these spaces whilst at the same time adhering to the assimilative pressure of the somatic norm. An engagement with the interview accounts of black senior civil servants allows us to grasp some idea of what it is like for them to coexist in a place that is built on a `racial contract' which has demarcated spaces in accordance with racialised corporealities. As matter out of place these `different' bodies generate disorientation, undergo the burden of invisibility and abide by the racialised and classed informal rules of behaviour, particularly those of the legitimate language. All of which problematises the notion of `difference' in organisations as entailing much more than the mere existence of `different' bodies, on the basis of race or gender.