University of Massachusetts Boston

About: University of Massachusetts Boston is a education organization based out in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 6541 authors who have published 12918 publications receiving 411731 citations. The organization is also known as: UMass Boston.

The Colonialism of the English Only Movement

Abstract: As we enter the new millennium, one of the most pressing challenges facing educators in the United States is the specter of an "ethnic and cultural war," which constitutes, in my view, a code phrase that engenders our society's licentiousness toward racism. Central to the idea of an "ethnic and cultural war" is the creation of an ideologically coded language that serves at least two fundamental functions: On the one hand, this language veils the racism that characterizes U.S. society, and on the other hand, it insidiously perpetuates both ethnic and racial stereotypes that devalue identities of resistance and struggle. I posit that, although the present idea of "an ethnic and cultural war" is characterized by a form of racism at the level of language, it is important to differentiate between language as racism and the experience of racism. For example, the presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan's call for the end of illegal immigration constitutes a form of racism at the level of language. This language-based racism has had the effect of licensing institutional discrimination, whereby both documented and undocumented immigrants materially experience the loss of their dignity, the denial of their humanity, and, in many cases, outright violence, as witnessed by the brutal beatings of a Mexican man and woman by the border patrol. This incident was captured on videotape, and outraged the Mexican communities in the United States, as well as in Mexico, leading to a number of demonstrations in Los Angeles. Language such as "border rats," "wetbacks," "aliens," "illegals," welfare queens," and "nonWhite hordes," used by the popular press not only dehumanizes other cultural beings, but also serves to justify the violence perpetrated against subordinated groups.

When doctors share visit notes with patients: a study of patient and doctor perceptions of documentation errors, safety opportunities and the patient–doctor relationship

Abstract: Background Patient advocates and safety experts encourage adoption of transparent health records, but sceptics worry that shared notes may offend patients, erode trust or promote defensive medicine. As electronic health records disseminate, such disparate views fuel policy debates about risks and benefits of sharing visit notes with patients through portals. Methods Presurveys and postsurveys from 99 volunteer doctors at three US sites who participated in OpenNotes and postsurveys from 4592 patients who read at least one note and submitted a survey. Results Patients read notes to be better informed and because they were curious; about a third read them to check accuracy. In total, 7% (331) of patients reported contacting their doctor9s office about their note. Of these, 29% perceived an error, and 85% were satisfied with its resolution. Nearly all patients reported feeling better (37%) or the same (62%) about their doctor. Patients who were older (>63), male, non-white, had fair/poor self-reported health or had less formal education were more likely to report feeling better about their doctor. Among doctors, 26% anticipated documentation errors, and 44% thought patients would disagree with notes. After a year, 53% believed patient satisfaction increased, and 51% thought patients trusted them more. None reported ordering more tests or referrals. Conclusions Despite concerns about errors, offending language or defensive practice, transparent notes overall did not harm the patient–doctor relationship. Rather, doctors and patients perceived relational benefits. Traditionally more vulnerable populations—non-white, those with poorer self-reported health and those with fewer years of formal education—may be particularly likely to feel better about their doctor after reading their notes. Further informing debate about OpenNotes, the findings suggest transparent records may improve patient satisfaction, trust and safety.

Cross-layer-based modeling for quality of service guarantees in mobile wireless networks

Abstract: In this article we propose a cross-layer approach to investigate the impact of the physical-layer infrastructure on the data-link-layer QoS performance in mobile wireless networks. At the physical layer, we take the MIMO diversity schemes as well its AMC into account. At the data-link layer, our focus is on how this physical-layer infrastructure influences the real-time multimedia QoS provisioning performance such as delay-bound violation and buffer-overflow probabilities. To achieve this goal, we first model the physical-layer service process as a finite state Markov chain. Based on this FSMC model, we then characterize the QoS performance at the data-link layer using the effective capacity approach, which turns out to be critically important for the statistical QoS guarantees in mobile wireless networks. The numerical and simulation results obtained demonstrate that the proposed cross-layer model can efficiently characterize the interaction between the physical layer infrastructure and upper layer protocols' QoS provisioning performance.

Universal Work Fluctuations During Shortcuts to Adiabaticity by Counterdiabatic Driving.

Abstract: Counterdiabatic driving (CD) exploits auxiliary control fields to tailor the nonequilibrium dynamics of a quantum system, making possible the suppression of dissipated work in finite-time thermodynamics and the engineering of optimal thermal machines with no friction. We show that while the mean work done by the auxiliary controls vanishes, CD leads to a broadening of the work distribution. We derive a fundamental inequality that relates nonequilibrium work fluctuations to the operation time and quantifies the thermodynamic cost of CD in both critical and noncritical systems.