Using an Exposure Call Center to Help Mitigate Outbreaks, Such as COVID-19, on a University Campus.

Rapid identification and management of close contacts is an important component of an effective university mitigation strategy for highly contagious infectious diseases such as measles and coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Institutions of higher education must plan for an associated large influx of calls that can overwhelm standard student health and local public health operations. In fall 2020, a large state public university's Department of Student Health and Wellness created a dedicated exposure call center (ECC), in close collaboration with the local public health department, to quickly assess students who learned of a COVID-19 exposure outside of the formal contact tracing process.

Putting life on ice: bacteria that bind to frozen water.

Ice-binding proteins (IBPs) are typically small, soluble proteins produced by cold-adapted organisms to help them avoid ice damage by either resisting or tolerating freezing. By contrast, the IBP of the Antarctic bacterium Marinomonas primoryensis is an extremely long, 1.5 MDa protein consisting of five different regions.

Public health accreditation and metrics for ethics: a case study on environmental health and community engagement.

As public health departments around the country undergo accreditation using the Public Health Accreditation Board standards, the process provides a new opportunity to integrate ethics metrics into day-to-day public health practice. While the accreditation standards do not explicitly address ethics, ethical tools and considerations can enrich the accreditation process by helping health departments and their communities understand what ethical principles underlie the accreditation standards and how to use metrics based on these ethical principles to support decision making in public health practice. We provide a crosswalk between a public health essential service, Public Health Accreditation Board community engagement domain standards, and the relevant ethical principles in the Public Health Code of Ethics (Code).

Human papillomavirus vaccination recommendation may be linked to reimbursement: a survey of Virginia family practitioners and gynecologists.

Objective: Concerns have been raised about gynecologists as vaccinators. This survey evaluated use of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, attitudes, and barriers among gynecologists and family practitioners for differences between the 2 specialties.

Design: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a 50-item, self-administered questionnaire mailed to participants.

Transfer-PCR (TPCR): a highway for DNA cloning and protein engineering.

DNA cloning and protein engineering are basic methodologies employed for various applications in all life-science disciplines. Manipulations of DNA however, could be a lengthy process that slows down subsequent experiments. To facilitate both DNA cloning and protein engineering, we present Transfer-PCR (TPCR), a novel approach that integrates in a single tube, PCR amplification of the target DNA from an origin vector and its subsequent integration into the destination vector.

Applications of the Restriction Free (RF) cloning procedure for molecular manipulations and protein expression.

Molecular manipulations, including DNA cloning and mutagenesis are basic tools used on a routine basis in all life-science disciplines. Over the last decade new methodologies have emerged that facilitated and expanded the applications for DNA cloning and mutagenesis. Ligation-Independent Cloning (LIC) techniques were developed and replaced the classical Ligation Dependent Cloning (LDC) platform.

Principled leadership in public health: integrating ethics into practice and management.

Public health officials frequently face ethical tensions and conflicting obligations when making decisions and managing health departments. Leadership requires an ongoing approach to ethics that focuses on two dimensions of practice: the professional relationships of officials developed over time with their communities and the ethical aspects of day-to-day public health activities. Education and competencies in ethics may be helpful in practice, by providing, at a minimum, frameworks and ethical principles to help structure analysis, discussion, and decision making in health departments and with community stakeholders.

Public health ethics. Public justification and public trust.

Viewing public health as a political and social undertaking as well as a goal of this activity, the authors develop some key elements in a framework for public health ethics, with particular attention to the formation of public health policies and to decisions by public health officials that are not fully determined by established public policies. They concentrate on ways to approach ethical conflicts about public health interventions. These conflicts arise because, in addition to the value of public health, societies have a wide range of other values that sometimes constrain the selection of means to achieve public health goals.

Public health ethics: the voices of practitioners.

Public health ethics is emerging as a new field of inquiry, distinct not only from public health law, but also from traditional medical ethics and research ethics. Public health professional and scholarly attention is focusing on ways that ethical analysis and a new public health code of ethics can be a resource for health professionals working in the field. This article provides a preliminary exploration of the ethical issues faced by public health professionals in day-to-day practice and of the type of ethics education and support they believe may be helpful.

Methyl Isocyanide Hot Bands in the Region 1300-1560 cm-1.

The hot bands accompanying the fundamentals nu6 and nu3 of CH3NC in the region 1300-1560 cm-1 observed in high-resolution Fourier transform recordings complemented by diode laser spectra have been analyzed. The observed transitions comprise 16 subbands of the pair of perpendicular E-E bands nu6± + nu8± - nu8± and nu7-/+ + 2nu80 - nu8± whose upper states form a Fermi dyad, 18 subbands of the A1,2-E perpendicular bands nu6-/+ + nu8± - nu8±/nu7± + 2nu8±2 - nu8± with upper states forming another Fermi dyad, and 8 subbands of the bi-parallel E-E band nu3 + nu8± - nu8±. The anharmonic, Coriolis, and l-type interactions which couple these upper states with each other and with the states nu7-/+ + 2nu8±2, nu4 + 3nu8±1, and nu4 + 3nu8±3 have been included in an 18 x 18 Hamiltonian matrix whose eigenvalues model the upper levels of the observed transitions.

[Idiopathic lung fibrosis].

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), also called interstitial pneumonia or fibrosing alveolitis, is a progressive interstitial lung disease of unknown origin. Two distinct forms are known which differ in course, morphologic features and cytological findings in bronchoalveolar lavage: a cellular "desquamative interstitial pneumonia" and a hypocellular and more fibrotic "usual interstitial pneumonia". The two types appear to represent different stages of the same disease.

[Insulinoma: diagnostic elements. 13 cases].

The mean age of the 13 patients studied (9 women, 7 men) was 50.5 +/- 15.7 years.

[Current aspect of Sheehan's syndrome. 20 cases].

The 20 women investigated were 22 to 59 years old (average 35.9 +/- 2.3 years) when the diagnosis of Sheehan's syndrome was confirmed.

[Results of surgical treatment of Basedow's disease].

Diffuse hyperthyroidism occurred in 88 patients (82 women and 6 men), aged 14 to 74 years, and was due to Graves disease in 65 cases and heteromultinodular goiter in 23 cases. After medical preparation, the surgical procedure was subtotal thyroidectomy for Graves disease and total unilateral with partial controlateral lobectomy for heteromultinodular goiter. The immediate postoperative course was uneventful except for two transient acute episodes of thyrotoxicosis.

[Late diagnosis hyperandrogenism due to adrenal enzyme deficiency (author's transl)].

Six women aged from 17 to 30 years (mean: 21 years) were referred on account disorders which had begun at puberty and had been present for 3 to 15 years. The reasons for consulting were hirsutism in 5 cases and sterility in one. The patients' height (1.

[Value of high dosage propranolol and per-operative hypothermia in thyroidectomy when conventional preparatory treatment is unsuitable (author's transl)].

Five hyperthyroid patients could be prepared for surgery wit propranolol alone in daily doses of 240 to 400 mg. The drug administered for 3 to 5 days before, and 5 to 15 days after the operation. Following premedication with levopromazine, almost total thyroidectomy was performed under neuroleptanalgesia and moderate hypothermia.

[Study of blood glucose regulation in 103 cases of adult acquired hypothyroïdism (author's transl)].

Systematic studies of blood glucose regulation have been performed in 103 cases of adult acquired hypothyroïdism. The results were the following: 11 cases of overt diabetes were discovered. The diagnostic was made when fasting blood glucose was superior to 120 mg/100 ml and glucosuria was present.