Introduction: Medical imaging is the main source of artificial radiation exposure. Evidence, however, suggests that patients are poorly informed about radiation exposure when attending diagnostic scans. This review provides an overview of published literature with a focus on nuclear medicine patients on the level of awareness of radiation exposure from diagnostic imaging. Methods: A review of available literature on awareness, knowledge and perception of ionising radiation in medical imaging was conducted. Articles that met the inclusion criteria were subjected to critical appraisal using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool. Results: 140 articles identified and screened for eligibility, 24 critically assessed and 4 studies included in synthesis. All studies demonstrated that patients were generally lacking awareness about radiation exposure and highlighted a lack of communication between healthcare professionals and patients with respect to radiation exposure. Conclusion: Studies demonstrate a need to better inform patients about their radiation exposure, and further studies focusing on nuclear medicine patients are particularly warranted. Implications for practice: Adequate and accurate information is crucial to ensure the principle of informed consent is present.

The full reference for the published version of this article is: May, K., Strauss, C., Coyle, A., & Hayward, M. (2014). Person-based cognitive therapy groups for distressing voices: A thematic analysis of participant experiences of the therapy. Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches, 6(1), 16-26. DOI:10.1080/17522439.2012.708775 2 ABSTRACT Objectives: This study set out to develop an understanding of participants' experiences of person-based cognitive therapy groups for distressing voices.Design: Qualitative data was gathered during 10 interviews with participants of PBCT groups for people distressed by hearing voices. Methods:A semi-structured interview was used to guide the interviews and data were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Results:Three themes unique to PBCT emerged: relating to voices, relating to self and relating to others. The value of a mindfulness approach and the importance of changed beliefs about voice strength and power emerged as sub-themes in the 'relating to voices' theme. A sense of self separate to voices and a developing positive view of self emerged as sub-themes in the 'relating to self' theme. The 'relating to others' theme referred to changed social relationships during and following the group.

No abstract

Abstract:This work studies how the notion of accountability can play a key role in the design and realization of distributed systems that are open and that involve autonomous agents that should harmonize their own goals with the organizational goals. The socio-technical systems that support the work inside human companies and organizations are examples of such systems. The approach that is proposed in order to pursue this purpose is set in the context of multiagent systems organizations, and relies on an explicit specification of relationships among the involved agents for capturing who is accountable to whom and for what. Such accountability relationships are created along with the agents' operations and interactions in a shared environment. In order to guarantee accountability as a design property of the system, a specific interaction protocol is suggested. Properties of this protocol are verified, and a case study is provided consisting of an actual implementation. Finally, we discuss the impact on real-world application domains and trace possible evolutions of the proposal.