There is a close relationship between word unification and second-order unification. This similarity has been exploited for instance for proving decidability of monadic second-order unification. Word unification can be easily decided by transformation rules (similar to the ones applied in higher-order unification procedures) when variables are restricted to occur at most twice. Hence a well-kno...

We present a completion-based method for handling a new version of E-unification, called “mixed” E-unification, that is a combination of the classical “universal” E-unification and “rigid” E-unification. Rigid E-unification is an important method for handling equality in Gentzen-type first-order calculi, such as free-variable semantic tableaux or matings. The performance of provers using E-unif...

BACKGROUND Communication gaps impact the quality of patient care. Previous research has focused on communication barriers rather than seeking solutions. Our aim was to identify strategies for effective communication and decision-making about goals of care for medical interventions in serious illness, from the perspectives of hospital-based healthcare providers. METHODS A cross-sectional surve...

BACKGROUND Patient-centered care requires knowledge of patients' goals of care (GoC) on the part of health care providers (HCPs). Whether HCPs caring for in-center hemodialysis patients meet this criterion is uncertain. OBJECTIVE We designed and conducted a GoC survey among patients and HCPs within a single in-center hemodialysis (ICHD) program to determine whether HCPs have an understanding ...

BACKGROUND Postgraduate medical trainees are not well prepared difficult conversations about goals of care with patients and families in the acute care clinical setting. While contextual nuances within the workplace can impact communication, research to date has largely focused on individual communication skills. Our objective was to explore contextual factors that influence conversations betwe...

BACKGROUND Pediatric subspecialists can participate in the care of obese children. OBJECTIVE To describe steps to help subspecialty providers initiate quality improvement efforts in obesity care. METHODS An anonymous patient data download, provider surveys and interviews assessed subspecialty providers' identification and perspectives of childhood obesity and gathered information on perceiv...

To achieve the diverse health care goals of the United States, health care value must increase. The capacity to create value through innovation is facilitated by an integrated delivery system focused on creating value, measuring innovation returns, and receiving market rewards. This paper describes the Geisinger Health System's innovation strategy for care model redesign. Geisinger's clinical l...

BACKGROUND Pain is common in older people, particularly those in residential aged care facilities (RACF) and those with dementia. However, despite 20 years of discourse on pain and dementia, pain is still undetected or misinterpreted in people with dementia in residential aged care facilities, particularly those with communication difficulties. METHODS A topical survey typology with semistruc...

In this thesis we present several results about Second-Order Unification. It is well known that the Second-Order Unification Problem is in general undecidable; the frontier between its decidable and undecidable subclasses is thin and it still has not been completely defined. Our purpose is to shed some light on the Second-Order Unification problem and study some of its variants. We have mainly ...

AIMS Good end-of-life communication and decision-making are important to patients with advanced heart failure (HF) and their families, but their needs remain unmet. In this pilot study, we describe the feasibility and performance of a novel questionnaire aimed at identifying barriers and solutions to improve communication and decision-making about goals of care for hospitalized patients with ad...