Exam Code: I40-420 Practice test 2023 by Killexams.com team Certified Function Point Specialist IFPUG Specialist information search Killexams : IFPUG Specialist information search - BingNews
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https://killexams.com/exam_list/IFPUGKillexams : Drug Information Specialists
All pharmacists provide some level of drug information, whether to other clinicians or to patients. In fact, a accurate survey found that 96.4% of 491 hospitals have staff pharmacists who routinely answer drug information questions,[1] and a separate survey of colleges of pharmacy showed that 89% of first professional pharmacy degree programs require at least one didactic course in drug information.[2] While most pharmacists are equipped with knowledge regarding the practice of drug information, the ever-expanding list of pharmaceuticals, as well as the overwhelming amount of clinical data, makes it difficult for practitioners to stay current with accurate developments. This also results in the need for more advanced problem-solving skills in order to answer the more complex questions that challenge practitioners today.
Training in Drug Information Practice
Drug information certified are pharmacists whose primary responsibility is the provision of drug information. As with any specialty, formalized training beyond that received in pharmacy school is not required; however, this focused training does Strengthen the practitioner's clinical credibility and ability to compete with others for employment opportunities. These two intangible attributes may also be obtained with time and experience.
The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) provides residency accreditation in drug information. There are currently 31 ASHP-accredited drug information specialty residencies located throughout the United States. These residency programs are housed in community, academic, and industrial settings and offer a variety of learning opportunities. Although there are additional drug information residency programs that are not ASHP accredited, the standards and objectives for such accreditation may be used to describe the clinical skills set of the drug information specialist which go beyond the minimum standards required of all pharmacists.[3]
Most drug information residency programs provide the resident with 12 months of directed, postgraduate practical experience in the provision of comprehensive drug information. During this 12-month period, the resident is exposed to various aspects of drug information practice that range in scope and complexity, with the ultimate goal of training the resident to become a competent drug information specialist. Many of the competencies required of a drug information resident are specific to executive issues, such as the development and management of a drug information center, but there are many more competencies that construct the foundation of a drug information specialist's clinical practice. Drug information certified must be up-to-date with relevant drug-related literature in order to provide the most current information. They are often tasked as a pharmacy representative to pharmacy and therapeutics (P&T) committees. Responsibilities may include preparing medication-use policies and procedures, improving a health system's adverse-drug-reaction reporting and medication-use evaluation programs, and creating and distributing newsletters containing pertinent medication-use information. The drug information specialist must have advanced literature search and assessment skills to develop drug monographs. Additional responsibilities often include developing patient safety initiatives, ensuring compliance with Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations's standards, and appropriately utilizing drug-contracting opportunities to decrease drug expenditures. Drug information certified may also work in pharmacy informatics.
Career Opportunities in Drug Information
As previously mentioned, drug information certified work in a variety of settings, each with its own unique scope of practice. Academic drug information centers staffed by drug information certified offer pharmacy students practical experience in utilizing available medical media and developing literature-search strategies. Of 88 colleges of pharmacy surveyed, 20% require a drug information practice experience and 70% offer the experience as an elective.[2] These centers are often located within colleges of pharmacy or university hospitals. Most offer their services to a limited range of health care professionals, such as those within certain facilities or within the region or state. Others offer their services to community pharmacists and patients. Many health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) have contractual relationships with academic drug information centers, which in turn offer their services to the respective members of the organizations. In addition, HMOs, GPOs, and pharmacy benefit management companies (PBMs) have internal drug information departments that assist their members on a grander scale by providing many of the items utilized by P&T committees in making medication-use decisions. Many PBMs also provide consumer-based drug information via the Internet that is prepared by drug information specialists.
Proprietary and generic drug manufacturers are staffed with pharmacists who provide drug information specifically for the drugs manufactured by the respective companies. Although there is some information they cannot legally share and all information received should be critically evaluated, they do maintain a database of clinical studies, both published and unpublished, that provides hard-to-find information. These drug information certified are available to health care professionals and the public and should be contacted if a patient has an unexpected adverse drug reaction. In addition, drug information certified have practical knowledge of clinical trial design and often provide valuable insight as medical writers and in governmental agencies analyzing drug efficacy and safety claims.
An Underutilized Resource
Drug information certified are trained to provide clear, concise, and accurate drug information in a variety of settings. Not only do they provide quality service, but pharmacist-provided drug information, adverse-drug-reaction monitoring, and formulary management have been associated with significant reductions in the total cost of care in hospital settings, as well as reductions in patient deaths.[4] The presence of a drug information center providing these services in 232 hospitals reduced total cost of care per hospital by $5,226,128.22 (p = 0.003), including a $391,604.94 reduction in drug costs per hospital, and was associated with a total of 10,463 fewer deaths.[4] Disappointingly, an online survey of health care professionals showed that only 1% of respondents contact a drug information center when the need arises.[5] Another accurate survey found that only 5.9% of 491 hospitals have a staff position dedicated to the provision of drug information and 4.1% have a formal drug information center.[1] Granted, contacting a drug information specialist may not be the fastest way to obtain drug information in an emergency situation; nonetheless, this underutilization raises several questions.
Today, the Internet provides a plethora of information for both health care professionals and their patients. Many practitioners probably use the Internet when seeking answers to questions. However, at least one study judged significantly more responses obtained from a drug information center as accurate when compared with those received from a Usenet newsgroup (p = 0.001).[6] Also, there is no quality control for these types of newsgroup services and other similar medical information sources housed on the Internet, and practitioners may be jeopardizing their own credibility when using these resources. Another source of information is facility-housed references, including print and electronic products. Electronic drug information products are becoming increasingly popular. A accurate survey showed that 60.4% of 491 hospitals subscribed to some sort of electronic product.[1] Two interesting surveys on drug information references have been conducted.[7,8] In one survey, 40.9% of 22 respondents said they were not satisfied with the drug information resources to which their pharmacy currently subscribed.[7] In another survey, 38% of 71 respondents said they used a drug information reference at least 10 times a day, and another 35.2% used such a reference 3-5 times daily.[8] This discrepancy shows that practitioners regularly use some sort of drug information reference, even though they are not always satisfied with the information obtained.
With so many pharmacists retrieving information from drug information references, the underutilization of drug information certified as a resource cannot be attributed to a lack in the number of questions that need to be answered. Perhaps practitioners do not know how to find drug information specialists. Industry-based certified can be contacted via the manufacturer's Web site, and the Physicians' Desk Reference provides a listing of contact information for drug manufacturers.[9] Drug Topics's Red Book contains a list of academic drug information centers, and many colleges of pharmacy provide these services to the pharmacies in their respective states.[10] It is also worth contacting HMOs or GPOs, where applicable, to learn about the services they provide.
Drug information certified are a valuable resource available to support appropriate drug use and Strengthen quality of patient care. New practitioners are urged to take advantage of the expertise of drug information specialists, either within or outside of their own institutions.
Wed, 15 Feb 2023 09:59:00 -0600entext/htmlhttps://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/530769Killexams : The way we search for information online is about to change
This week, the companies behind the two biggest US search engines teased radical changes to the way their services operate, powered by new AI technology that allows for more conversational and complex responses. In the process, however, the companies may test both the accuracy of these tools and the willingness of everyday users to embrace and find utility in a very different search experience.
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a revamped Bing search engine using the abilities of ChatGPT, the viral AI tool created by OpenAI, a company in which Microsoft recently invested billions of dollars. Bing will not only provide a list of search results, but will also answer questions, chat with users and generate content in response to user queries.
The next day, Google, the dominant player in the market, held an event to detail how it plans to use similar AI technology to allow its search engine to offer more complex and conversational responses to queries, including providing bullet points ticking off the best times of year to see various constellations and also offering pros and cons for buying an electric vehicle. (Chinese tech giant Baidu also said this week that it would be launching its own ChatGPT-style service, though it did not provide details on whether it will appear as a feature in its search engine.)
The updates come as the success of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which can generate shockingly convincing essays and responses to user prompts, has sparked a wave of interest in AI chatbot tools. Multiple tech giants are now racing to deploy similar tools that could transform the way we draft e-mails, write essays and handle other tasks. But the most immediate impact may be on a foundational element of our internet experience: search.
"Although we are 25 years into search, I dare say that our story has just begun," said Prabhakar Raghavan, an SVP at Google, at the event Wednesday teasing the new AI features. "We have even more exciting, AI-enabled innovations in the works that will change the way people search, work and play. We're reinventing what it means to search and the best is yet to come."
For those who may not be sure what exactly to do with the new tools, the companies offered some examples, ranging from writing a rhyming poem to helping plan an itinerary for a trip.
Lian Jye Su, a research director at tech intelligence firm ABI Research, believes consumers and businesses would be happy to embrace a new way to search as long as "it is intuitive, removes more friction, and offers the path of least resistance — akin to the success of smart home voice assistants, like Alexa and Google Assistant."
But there is at least one wild card: how much users will be able to trust the AI-powered results.
A new search experience, and new problems
According to Google, Bard can be used to plan a friend's baby shower, compare two Oscar-nominated movies or get lunch ideas based on what's in your fridge. But the tool, which has yet to be released to the public, is already being called out for a factual error it made during a Google demo: it incorrectly stated that the James Webb Telescope took the first pictures of a planet outside of our solar system. A Google spokesperson said the error "highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process."
Bard and ChatGPT, which was released publicly in late November OpenAI, are built on large language models. These models are trained on vast troves of online data in order to generate compelling responses to user prompts. Experts warn these tools can be unreliable — spreading misinformation, making up responses and giving different answers to the same questions, or presenting sexist and racist biases.
There is clearly strong interest in this type of AI. The public version of ChatGPT attracted a million users in its first five days last fall and is estimated to have hit 100 million users since. But the trust factor may decide whether that interest will stay, according to Jason Wong, an analyst at market research firm Gartner.
"Consumers, and even business users, may have fun exploring the new Bing and Bard interfaces for a while, but as the novelty wears off and similar tools appear, then it really comes down to ease of access and accuracy and trust in the responses that will win out," he said.
Generative AI systems, which are algorithms that can create new content, are notoriously unreliable. Laura Edelson, a computer scientist and misinformation researcher at New York University, said, "there's a big difference between an AI sounding authoritative and it actually producing accurate results."
While general search optimizes for relevance, according to Edelson, large language models try to achieve a particular style in their response without regard to factual accuracy. "One of those styles is, 'I am a trustworthy, authoritative source,'" she said.
On a very basic level, she said, AI systems analyze which words are next to each other, determine how they get associated and identify the patterns that lead them to appear together. But much of the onus remains on the user to fact check the answers, a process that could prove just as time consuming for people as the current model of scrolling through links on a page — if not more so.
Microsoft and Google executives have acknowledged some of the potential issues with the new AI tools.
"We know we wont be able to answer every question every single time," said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's vice president and consumer chief marketing officer. "We also know we'll make our share of mistakes, so we've added a quick feedback button at the top of every search, so you can supply us feedback and we can learn."
Raghavan, at Google, also emphasized the importance of feedback from internal and external testing to make sure the tool "meets the high bar, our high bar for quality, safety, and groundedness, before we launch more broadly."
But even with the concerns, the companies are betting that these tools offer the answer to the future of search.
-- CNN's Clare Duffy, Catherine Thorbecke and Brian Fung contributed to this story.
Thu, 09 Feb 2023 01:03:00 -0600text/htmlhttps://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/tech/ai-search/index.htmlKillexams : The future of the information economy is in flux as internet search industry enters new areaMicrosoft Bing announcement, Redmond, Wash., Feb. 7, 2023. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)
Editor’s note: This is a guest commentary from Oren Etzioni, former CEO of the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), a Seattle-based organization at the forefront of natural language processing research. Etzioni is now a technical director at the AI2 Incubator, an AI-focused startup incubator.
The integration of ChatGPT into Microsoft’s Bing search engine heralds a tectonic shift for consumers, publishers, and advertisers on the web.
In accurate weeks, Bing has gotten a lot of buzz, and Google has lost $100 billion-plus in market capitalization. But changes over the next five years will be far more profound.
What seemed like a staid and steady web search industry, largely monopolized by Google, has been thrown into disarray by the fact that content generation is now instantaneous, fully automated, and its cost is rapidly dropping toward zero.
This shift means that authoritative sources and genuine experts will be more important than ever.
For consumers, more efficient search has a long history which includes Google’s knowledge panels (2012), featured snippets at the top of the search result page (2014), voice assistants such as Alexa (2014), and now ChatGPT.
Over time, a concierge experience will emerge where a consumer can ask a question, receive an answer from a chatbot, and engage in a dialogue to further refine the response.
This could be good news for consumers, but it also raises a thorny question: who is the concierge working for?
As a consumer, I hope for an objective and informative answer but the chatbot will not necessarily oblige.
A chatbot’s answers depend on its training text which contains myriad biases.
The chatbot might be manipulated through its training process (similar to the practice of Google bombing).
Different chatbots will emerge that represent particular perspectives (the GOP bot), commercial interests (the ExxonMobil bot), and specific individuals (would you like to converse with Biden bot? The Kim Kardashian bot?).
And of course, chatbots could be influenced by advertisers.
Historically, search engines distinguished between search results and sponsored or “featured” results (i.e., ads) but product placement may surface inside chatbot responses, undermining their credibility.
In response, consumer advocate chatbots will emerge, charging a subscription fee instead of being ad-supported. As chatbots proliferate, search engines will emerge that help the consumer find the “right” bot for a conversation. Meta-bots could collate multiple responses to a question, each originating from a different chatbot.
Consumers will be inundated with an unprecedented amount of automatically generated “noise” in the form of websites and messages — emails, posts, responses in social media, and more.
The minimal cost of generating seemingly authentic text (along with pictures, audio, and even video) will result in unprecedented information pollution and even AI-based forgery.
In response, I have argued for a stronger role for digital authentication of identity (who actually wrote that message?) and for rules that require bots to identify themselves. Consumers have a right to know if we are interacting with a person or a bot.
As the volume of content increases, publishers will face unprecedented pressure to remain relevant, discoverable, and valuable. Certainly, clickbait websites with titles like “top 10 things to do in Seattle” will be replaced by more personalized and up-to-date chatbot responses. Collections of reviews found at Amazon or on Google Maps will remain informative only if the reviews are appropriately authenticated — otherwise, it will be all-too-easy to create volumes of fake reviews.
Likewise, the information on social media (popular posts, for example) will only be meaningful if popularity isn’t manipulated by bots. Authoritative sources will become even more essential as people clamor for reliable facts in a maelstrom of misinformation. Brands and reputations will be built on providing genuine, authentic answers.
In a world where “what” is said is so easily manipulated, “who” said it becomes increasingly important.
Mon, 13 Feb 2023 14:55:00 -0600Oren Etzionien-UStext/htmlhttps://www.geekwire.com/2023/the-future-of-the-information-economy-is-in-flux-as-internet-search-industry-enters-new-area/Killexams : certified say more Americans need to get their eyes dilated
New information shows a lot of people over 40 aren't doing everything they should to keep their eyesight as they get older.
A survey by the American Society of Retina certified found that 27 percent of people 40 and up say they haven't had a dilated eye test in more than five years. That includes 13 percent who have never had one.
Retinal certified say there could be a few reasons why.
A dilated eye test is one where the pupil is dilated with drops so the doctor can see all the way to the retina at the back of the eye.
It can help diagnose issues early, like age-related macular degeneration, which can lead to blindness.
“If people have a problem with their vision, they again just attribute it most commonly to needing glasses or having a cataract right. I think that's one thing,” said Philip Ferrone, a retina specialist. “The second is there's no pain with retinal disease, no pain, no discomfort.”
What are some of the signs you might need to have your eyes dilated?
“One is distortion of lines or distortion of images. So a line that you know, should be straight appears wavy. That's a problem,” Ferrone said. “You can have little blind spots in your vision.”
If you're having these symptoms, or if you're over age 40 and it's been a while since your last dilated eye exam, he says it's time to make an appointment with your eye doctor.
Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Mon, 13 Feb 2023 06:01:00 -0600entext/htmlhttps://www.wtkr.com/news/national/specialists-say-more-americans-need-to-get-their-eyes-dilatedKillexams : Nicola Bulley cops call in specialist divers with sonar today ‘after initially declining their help’
COPS have called in a specialist team of divers who have specialist sonar equipment to help search the river near where Nicola Bulley vanished.
And now a private specialist diving group revealed they are on the way to search the water.
Specialist Group International (SGI) offered to help Lancashire Police days ago but the force refused, they claim.
Now, cops announced the group WILL help in the hunt for Nicola.
A post on SGI's Facebook page read: “I have just had a long call with the Lancashire Police search adviser to discuss the search for Nicola.
“We will work closely with the police search teams who are working long hours to find Nicola.
“The team are leaving shortly from our base in Dorking on route to Lancashire to start tomorrow morning.”
The team will be using a high-spec sonar "which can see every stick and stone lying on the riverbed".
CGI boss Mr Faulding said the company's £55,000 side-scan sonar has a high frequency of 1,800 kilohertz - meaning it will be able to examine every area.
Earlier this week, SGI claimed they contacted the police and offered to help, but their offer was denied.
SGI blasted at the time: “Unfortunately, Lancashire police have responded via the family declining my offer saying they will continue with their own river searches using their current resources.”
But in a statement last night, Lancashire Police announced a U-turn.
The force said: "SGI have reached out to the family and offered to assist in the search for Nicola. Lancashire Police have already liaised with them.
"They will deploy under the direction of Lancashire Police and will join an already large, multi-agency search operation involving a wide variety of search assets and resources.
"Their capability will overlay what has already been, and continues to be completed, in order to supply extra search coverage along what is an extremely challenging environment to search."
Yesterday, Mr Faulding branded the Nicola probe "a mess" as crucial evidence may have been missed.
He also slammed the cops for not closing off the area where Nicola vanished, saying they were too quick to assume there were no suspicious circumstances.
It comes after the first CCTV images of missing mum Nicola Bulley on the day she vanished were released.
Snaps from Nicola's own Ring Doorbell show her loading her car outside her home just hours before she went missing on a riverside walk.
She is seen on security footage wearing a long dark coat, leggings and ankle boots with her hair tied in a ponytail.
She then hops into her Mercedes 4x4 before taking off on the school run to drop off her two daughters.
A friend of Nicola released the CCTV footage in a bid to find her.
It comes as another friend begged the public to keep their minds open about the cause of her disappearance.
Leanne Grace wrote on Facebook: “I’m about to watch the sunset on another day.
“The hours are passing so slowly yet have somehow turned to days and now over week. Every day is getting harder for your friends and family and our hearts break a little more.
“Trying to carry on with everyday life just doesn’t feel right.
"We will not supply up on you Nicola. Please keep searching everyone.
“Despite the police hypothesis that Nicola may have fallen into the water, please be aware that there is no evidence to back this up.
“There are still other avenues that have not yet been explored.
"If anyone has any information please contact the police immediately, no matter how small or insignificant you may think it is.
"Nikki has to be out there. Please help to get her home to her family. We love you Nik.”
On the day she went missing the mum-of-two was wearing an ankle-length black quilted gilet jacket, a black Engelbert Strauss waist-length coat which was worn underneath the gilet, tight-fitting black jeans, long green walking socks tucked into her jeans, ankle-length green Next wellies, a necklace and a pale blue Fitbit.
Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:45:00 -0600en-gbtext/htmlhttps://www.thesun.co.uk/news/21284835/nicola-bulley-specialist-divers-search-river/Killexams : Specialist Surrey divers to help search for missing Nicola Bulley
Divers from a Surrey company are helping in the search for missing woman Nicola Bulley. A team from Dorking-based Specialist Group International (SGI) has travelled to Lancashire to help with efforts to locate mother-of-two Nicola, 45, who vanished on a riverside walk with her dog on January 27.
In a post on SGI's Facebook page, the company's founder Peter Faulding said: "I am offering our services to Lancashire Police free of charge to assist in the search for Nicola Bulley. This offer includes our dive team and wide variety of underwater search equipment, in particular our 1800 kHz Side Scan Sonar. This piece of equipment is the best on the market."
A subsequent post on Sunday evening (February 5) said: "I have just had a long call with the Lancashire Police search adviser to discuss the search for Nicola. We will work closely with the police search teams who are working long hours to find Nicola.
"The team are leaving shortly from our base in Dorking on route to Lancashire to start tomorrow morning."
SGI was formed in 1995. It has the only private underwater forensic search team which is approved for police operations in the UK.
Nicola Bulley, 45, who was last seen on the morning of Friday, January 27(Image: Family handout/PA Wire)
Police have been working on the theory Nicola fell in the River Wyre but her family and friends have questioned that, saying there is still no evidence. Speaking to broadcasters on Monday, Ms Bulley’s friend Emma White said the family asked Mr Faulding and his company for help.
She told BBC Breakfast: “Following the hypothesis of the police that Nicola was in the river, we need some evidence to back that up either way and I feel Peter and his amazing bit of kit … is going to come and sweep the river bed and supply us answers.”
Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ms White added: “We hope they uncover nothing, like the police have done for the last 10 days, and we hope Nicola is not in that river.”
Mr Faulding said his team will use high-tech sonar, which can see “every stick and stone lying on the riverbed”.
He told Sky News: “Let’s get this water searched so it can be either confirmed or denied if Nicola is actually in this river.”
He added: “This is a particularly long stretch of river for them (police) to do because they’re doubling up as a dive team as well, so this is a huge task for the police.”
Lancashire Police believe Ms Bulley went missing in “a 10-minute window” while walking her dog, Willow, in the village of St Michael’s on Wyre after dropping off her daughters – aged six and nine – at school. She logged in to a Microsoft Teams call at 9.01am. The remote meeting ended at 9.30am with her phone still connected.
She was seen by another dog walker at 9.10am – the last known sighting – and police traced telephony records of her mobile phone as it remained on a bench overlooking the river at 9.20am. The device was found by a dog walker at around 9.35am, with Willow nearby.
New images, taken from her home’s doorbell camera on the day she disappeared and released by her family, show Ms Bulley loading her car before driving her children to school. She was wearing a long black coat and her blonde hair was in a ponytail.
Read Next:
Mon, 06 Feb 2023 19:02:00 -0600entext/htmlhttps://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/specialist-surrey-divers-help-search-26166141Killexams : Underwater certified assisting search for missing Nicola Bulley
Underwater search experts have arrived to help search for missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley who vanished on a dog walk at a riverside beauty spot.
Peter Faulding, the head of private diving team Specialist Group International, said he had spoken to Paul Ansell, the partner of Miss Bulley, 45, who went missing 10 days ago in St Michael’s on Wyre, Lancashire.
“I’ve just spoken to him just now where we’re staying.
“And you know, my thoughts go out to the family and friends.
“It’s a very difficult time.
“I’m used to dealing with, you know, families of drowning victims.
“It’s a horrible thing to be going through not knowing where your loved one is.”
Ms Bulley’s family have asked for help after a police search of the River Wyre in Lancashire near where she went missing failed to turn up any trace.
Peter Faulding (centre) of private underwater search and recovery company Specialist Group International (SGI), speaks to the media (Danny Lawson/PA)
She had dropped her two daughters, aged six and nine, off at school a week last Friday then went on her usual dog walk alongside the river.
Her phone, still connected to a Teams call for her job as a mortgage adviser, was found on a bench on a steep riverbank overlooking the water, along with the dog lead, with the dog harness on the ground.
Police say they think she fell into the river possibly while dealing with an issue with her springer spaniel Willow.
Mr Faulding, said his team of experts and divers, based in Dorking, Surrey, which assists police forces in the south of England, would search a stretch of the river using specialist underwater sonar equipment, which he said has a “very high hit rate”.
Friends of Ms Bulley have questioned the police “theory” that she fell into the river, but Mr Faulding said Lancashire Police were “doing the right thing” and his job was to help them search.
He said: “The clear evidence is the phone was by the river, the harness, dog harness was by the river.
Nicola Bulley (Family/PA)
“So, I think that’s their only clue at the moment and we’ve got to be able to eliminate this river, so we can either confirm or deny what’s in here today.”
Mr Faulding said his team would use high-tech sonar equipment to send images from underwater to a screen on a search boat.
He would first make a “rapid” search of a section of the river downstream from where Ms Bulley went missing.
He added: “So divers are here, divers will only go in the water if there is a target that needs, I mean, sometimes you can have a target.
“If a person is laying on their side, it can look like something else.
“So, you have to check everything and the beauty of this sonar allows us to actually measure the length of the target.”
The search under way (Danny Lawson/PA)
Ms Bulley’s friend Emma White told BBC Breakfast: “Following the hypothesis of the police that Nicola was in the river, we need some evidence to back that up either way, and I feel Peter and his amazing bit of kit … is going to come and sweep the river bed and supply us answers.”
Mr Faulding added: “If Nicola is in the river, I’m confident that we’ll find her.
“If she’s not in the river, then obviously we won’t find anything but we’re going to work our hardest, we’ll probably be working under darkness tonight for a while, and that’s my intention to help the family.”
Sun, 05 Feb 2023 23:53:00 -0600en-UStext/htmlhttps://www.aol.com/underwater-specialists-assisting-search-missing-133931852.htmlKillexams : Nicola Bulley: Specialist team pulls out of search as expert says she's 'categorically not' in section of river
An underwater search expert looking for missing mother Nicola Bulley has said his team is pulling out of the hunt as she is "categorically not" in the area of the river where detectives believe she fell in.
Peter Faulding, a specialist called in by the family who is assisting police with the search, said his team have been unable to locate the 45-year-old.
He said: "We've done very thorough searches all the way down to the weir. Police divers have dived it three times, extremely thoroughly.
"That area is completely negative - there is no sign of Nicola in that area. The main focus will be the police investigation down the river, which leads out to the estuary.
"If Nicola was in that river I would have found her - I ensure you that - and she's not in that section of the river."
Mr Faulding, who said he was now pulling his team out of the search, added: "I'm totally baffled by this one to be honest."
The mother-of-two went missing near to the village of St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire, on 27 January, while walking her dog after dropping her daughters off at school.
Detectives say their "main working hypothesis" is that she fell into the river and Superintendent Sally Riley, from Lancashire Police, reiterated at a news conference on Tuesday that this remained the force's belief at this time.
But Ms Bulley's family and friends have previously claimed there is "no evidence whatsoever" behind this.
Officers are searching the River Wyre, with the help of Mr Faulding's company Specialist Group International (SGI), who joined the search for Ms Bulley on Monday.
However, his team, equipped with a £55,000 side-scan sonar able to pick up objects underwater, have not been able to find any trace of Ms Bulley.
On Wednesday, he told reporters that he believes it is "unlikely" that she has been swept out to sea, adding: "My personal view is that I think it is a long way to go in a tidal river."
It comes as Ms Bulley's partner visited the place where police believe she fell into the River Wyre.
Paul Ansell spent 10 minutes on Wednesday along the riverbank near the bench where the 45-year-old's phone was found, still connected to a work Teams call.
Image:Paul Ansell (centre in sunglasses) shakes hands with Peter Faulding
The lead and harness for Willow, her springer spaniel dog, were found on or close to the bench.
Mr Ansell spoke with Mr Faulding at the scene, and he appeared to take him through aspects of his search, which is now into its third day.
Police divers have also been conducting searches on sections of the river close to the bench.
Mr Ansell was accompanied by a police officer and Emma White, a family friend of Ms Bulley.
Two police dinghies with divers were seen setting off from the riverbank and going upstream to continue the search.
Earlier this week, in a statement released through Lancashire Police, Mr Ansell said their girls "miss their mummy desperately" and "need her back".
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0:53
Paul Ansell's voicenote: 'We need her back'
In a voicenote sent to Sky News, Mr Ansell added: "We have to find her safe and well. I can't put those girls to bed again tonight with no answers."
Supt Riley said detectives had looked at "every single" potential suspicion or criminal suggestion that had come in and discounted them.
Image:A private underwater search company has been using sonar equipment on the River Wyre
She spoke after suggestions Ms Bulley's phone could be a "decoy" and about gaps in CCTV coverage of the area from where she vanished.
Police said it was still a "possibility" she left the area by one path not covered by cameras which is crossed by the main road through the village.
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4:20
Police 'remain fully open to any information' in search for Ms Bulley
Officers were trying to trace dashcam footage from 700 drivers who passed along the road at the time she disappeared, which was around 9.20am.
Wed, 08 Feb 2023 05:53:00 -0600entext/htmlhttps://news.sky.com/story/nicola-bulley-specialist-team-pull-out-of-search-as-expert-says-shes-categorically-not-in-section-of-river-12806058Killexams : Smithsonian Visitor Information Specialist: Museum Information Desk Program
As a Visitor Information Specialist Volunteer, you will engage with visitors and inspire them to plan memorable and exciting experiences across the Smithsonian. Volunteers provide essential services to the Smithsonian by providing a warm welcome and useful information to our visitors about Smithsonian exhibitions, activities, services, and more. If you’re looking for a volunteer role that allows you to meet people from around the world, learn about new and exciting things happening at the Smithsonian, and be at the center of the action, this position is for you!
Qualifications
Dynamic and friendly individuals 18 years or older who have a desire to talk with visitors and share their enthusiasm for the Smithsonian and all that it has to offer. Also looking for people who...
show excellent customer service skills
are approachable and outgoing
enjoy working with diverse people
have strong computer skills
Foreign-language skills are a plus.
Applicants must be able to volunteer for a minimum of one year, once a week or once every other weekend. Regular shift times are 4 hours in length.
Locations
Visitor Information certified serve at Information Desks across the Smithsonian, including:
Training
Training is provided for all Visitor Information certified through the Office of Visitor Services and is a prerequisite to service. Training for the next class of Visitor Information certified will begin in March 2023.
Placement Process
We are now accepting applications for this assignment!
Please contact Abbey Earich at EarichA@si.edu with questions about this volunteer assignment.
Mon, 08 Jun 2020 05:15:00 -0500entext/htmlhttps://www.si.edu/Volunteer/Museum-Information-DeskKillexams : Dive specialist says knowing Nicola Bulley was 'high risk' would have 'changed our whole search'
The dive specialist who has been helping police in the hunt for Nicola Bulley says knowing the missing mum was "high risk" would have "changed our whole search".
Peter Faulding, chief executive of search team Specialist Group International, told Sky News police in Lancashire never made him aware that Ms Bulley had issues with her mental health.
Asked if having that information would have impacted his search, he said: "It would certainly change my search because, from day one, I've said this case is so baffling because water at the bottom of the bank at the point where Nicola's phone and the dog's harness were found was only two feet deep.
"If she'd have fallen in she would have landed on rocks, she would not have drowned. That's what has baffled me."
"If somebody tries to drown themselves or if they are in a strange state of mind they might just wander off somewhere. She might be lying in a ditch, she could have wandered into the woods.
"So that's the point with a vulnerable person, you don't know where they're going to go. It would have changed our whole search."
Image:Specialist Group International searching for missing woman Nicola Bulley
Image:Police officers near the River Wyre in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire
Explaining further, he added: "If she had slipped, even if she had gone into deep water she would have been found.
"She would have gone in roughly where she drowned. That is what we find on average with the drownings and suicides we deal with each year - they're normally found within a couple of metres of where they go down.
"If she was trying to drown herself she may have drifted and potentially gone over the weir, but the police divers searched that area very thoroughly on the day she went missing and there was no sign of her. And that's why I said this was a baffling case."
'A very cruel thing to do'
Asked what he thought about the police releasing personal information about Ms Bulley's mental state, he said he'd never before seen such information disclosed.
Mr Faulding said that even as a person involved in the search he would normally just be told the individual was "high risk" and not be told specifics of what troubles the missing person was struggling with.
He added: "Normally when you're searching for a high risk person you just get the information that they're high risk and that's it. That's enough to tell us that someone may harm themselves or come to some harm.
"That's as a searcher.
"The way it has been released to the media should not have been done. I've been getting calls from senior police officers asking what is going on."
He added that, in his view, the family would be "devastated" that information about the missing mum's struggles with alcohol had been made public, calling it "a very cruel thing to do".
However, in a statement released through the police on Thursday, Ms Bulley's family said they were aware of the police's plans to release her personal information.
Speaking before the family released the statement, former detective Martyn Underhill said that Lancashire Police have "completely destroyed" Ms Bulley's reputation by revealing her struggles with alcohol.
He told Sky News that he had never "seen such a level of detail" released in a missing persons case and added that one had to ask why officers were releasing it now.
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Speaking to Sky's Kay Burley, Mr Underhill, who was a detective involved in the Sarah Payne case in 2000, said he was "confused" by Lancashire Police's strategy.
"You can understand why some people are saying it's victim blaming to protect their own reputation, " he said.
"I can't see how it progresses the case any further forward now we're three weeks in, to be frank."
Image:Assistant Chief Constable Peter Lawson (left) and Detective Superintendent Rebecca Smith of Lancashire Police update the media in St Michael's on Wyre
Having apparently found no trace of the mother-of-two for more than 20 days, police yesterday revealed that they had classified Ms Bulley as "high risk" owing to "a number of specific vulnerabilities".
After initially refusing to elaborate on what those vulnerabilities were at a press conference, Lancashire Police subsequently released a statement saying: "Nicola had in the past suffered with some significant issues with alcohol which were brought on by her ongoing struggles with the menopause and that these struggles had resurfaced over accurate months."
"This caused some real challenges for Paul and the family," it added in a reference to Ms Bulley's partner, Paul Ansell.
'Unprecedented' search fails to solve baffling case
Detectives also revealed that they had been at Ms Bulley's house the week before she disappeared to check her welfare.
Ms Bulley has been missing since 27 January after vanishing when she took her dog Willow for a walk by the River Wyre in Lancashire.
She was last seen at 9.10am that day, after taking her usual route with her springer spaniel, alongside the river.
Her phone, still connected to a work call for her job as a mortgage adviser, was found just over 20 minutes later on a bench overlooking the riverbank, with her dog running loose.
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5:45
Missing Nicola 'had alcohol issues'
Since she vanished, huge public and media interest has resulted in what police described as "false information, accusations and rumours".
Police insist an "unprecedented" search - of both the River Wyre, downstream to Morecambe Bay and miles of neighbouring farmland - has taken place to find her.
