PROLIFERATE: An adaptable framework to evaluate participatory research products

Background: Participatory research (PR) – the practice of involving stakeholders in research processes – is growing in prominence in health research because it can enhance the impact of research and the translation of research-based knowledge. Yet, the literature indicates that the products of PR studies are rarely evaluated empirically to track, demonstrate, and expand their claimed effectiveness and impact. This lack of measurement tools and frameworks can limit the effectiveness of knowledge translation (KT). Methods: We introduce a framework for evaluating the products of PR called PROLIFERATE. We use an inductive combination of formative and summative evaluation methods to pilot test the framework on a Frailty PR communication product (a video) to determine the methods’ functionality.Results: PROLIFERATE demonstrates adeptness for evaluating barriers and enablers of PR product uptake, effectiveness, and impact. It can identify ways to address barriers by assessing knowledge user perspectives on the comprehensibility of the product, emotional resonance, motivation to change, and future accessibility. Conclusions: PROLIFERATE can enable longitudinal and cross-sectional measurement of PR products in implementation and integrated KT efforts. It can evaluate and track the effectiveness and impact of different types of PR products in a situational responsive manner which compares users, platforms, and other factors in a replicable way.

PROLIFERATE: An adaptable framework to evaluate participatory research products

Background: Participatory research (PR) – the practice of involving stakeholders in research processes – is growing in prominence in health research because it can enhance the impact of research and the translation of research-based knowledge. Yet, the literature indicates that the products of PR studies are rarely evaluated empirically to track, demonstrate, and expand their claimed effectiveness and impact. This lack of measurement tools and frameworks can limit the effectiveness of knowledge translation (KT). Methods: We introduce a framework for evaluating the products of PR called PROLIFERATE. We use an inductive combination of formative and summative evaluation methods to pilot test the framework on a Frailty PR communication product (a video) to determine the methods’ functionality.Results: PROLIFERATE demonstrates adeptness for evaluating barriers and enablers of PR product uptake, effectiveness, and impact. It can identify ways to address barriers by assessing knowledge user perspectives on the comprehensibility of the product, emotional resonance, motivation to change, and future accessibility. Conclusions: PROLIFERATE can enable longitudinal and cross-sectional measurement of PR products in implementation and integrated KT efforts. It can evaluate and track the effectiveness and impact of different types of PR products in a situational responsive manner which compares users, platforms, and other factors in a replicable way.

PROLIFERATE: An Adaptable Framework to Evaluate Participatory Research Products

BackgroundParticipatory research (PR) – the practice of involving stakeholders in research processes – is growing in prominence in health research because it can enhance the impact of research and the translation of research-based knowledge. Yet, the literature indicates that the products of PR studies are rarely evaluated empirically to track, demonstrate, and expand their claimed effectiveness and impact. This lack of measurement tools and frameworks can limit the effectiveness of knowledge translation (KT). MethodsWe introduce a framework for evaluating the products of PR called PROLIFERATE. We use an inductive combination of formative and summative evaluation methods to pilot test the framework on a Frailty PR communication product (a video) to determine the methods’ functionality.ResultsPROLIFERATE demonstrates adeptness for evaluating barriers and enablers of PR product uptake, effectiveness, and impact. It can identify ways to address barriers by assessing knowledge user perspectives on the comprehensibility of the product, emotional resonance, motivation to change, and future accessibility. ConclusionsPROLIFERATE can enable longitudinal and cross-sectional measurement of PR products in implementation and integrated KT efforts. It can evaluate and track the effectiveness and impact of different types of PR products in a situational responsive manner which compares users, platforms, and other factors in a replicable way.

A novel data processing method for sectional rail measurements to detect track irregularities in high-speed railways

Static track inspection methods record the position and direction data through track surveys completed by trolleys that survey a track based on a track control network. The track inspection points must be measured in sections to decrease the likelihood of measurement errors. Certain track inspection points will be measured twice by adjacent stations, and different results will be obtained because of the measurement errors. To improve the regularity of the track, inspection point data from the sectional measurements must be processed, and differences in the results for the same inspection points must be eliminated. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel method referred to as the regularity for processing sectional measurement data (RPSMD) method, which overcomes the disadvantages of the currently available methods of processing inspection points via track-surveying trolleys and also improves the processing of nonoverlapping and overlapping inspection points. The adjustment criterion states that the difference value for the same adjusted overlapping points should be zero, and this criterion can be used to obtain the adjustment equation for each station. Using the adjustment equation, all station points can be corrected and the total regularity of the track points can be guaranteed. According to precisely measured ballastless tracks and their calculated three-dimensional coordinates, the RPSMD method and other available methods are verified by an experimentally designed precise mechanical device. The experimental results show that the accuracy of the nonoverlapping points adjusted by the RPSMD method is improved, and the accuracy is obviously higher than that obtained by the other available methods. Also, the accuracy of the RPSMD-adjusted overlapping points is much higher than that of the nonadjusted points.

Spark Plasma Sintering of Multilayer Ceramics – Case Study of Al2O3-Mg(Ca)TiO3 Sandwich

Spark plasma sintering enables very rapid fabrication of bulk ceramic materials. Suitability of this technique for preparing of multilayer ceramic discs is up to now relatively seldom reported. Our work is focused on a bi-layered disc consisting of thick Al2O3 layer and comparably thick Mg (Ca)TiO3 (MCT) layer sintered in one run. Al2O3 powder was nanometric (less than 40 nm) and composed of the hexagonal α-phase whereas MCT is a solid solution of two orthorombic perovskites. Pre-sintered and crushed MCT powder was coarser than alumina, up to 125 μm. The purpose of this material combination was creating of dielectric sandwich consisting of capacitor MCT material and resistor nanoalumina material. Spark plasma sintering run was done at 1200 °C, using pressure 80 MPa and dwell time only 2 min. Resulting sandwich was subjected to microstructural observations and cross sectional measurement of microhardness. On the border between Al2O3 and MCT the microhardness was higher than in MCT but has markedly higher dispersion than in the individual components. The MCT material exhibits birefringence in the polarized light [1]. We attempted to correlate the microhardness of individual MCT grains to their orientation indicated by birefringence.