Lookup-table method for imaging optical properties with structured illumination beyond the diffusion theory regime.

Sinusoidally structured illumination is used in concert with a phantom-based lookup-table (LUT) to map wide-field optical properties in turbid media with reduced albedos as low as 0.44. A key advantage of the lookup-table approach is the ability to measure the absorption (mu(a)) and reduced scattering coefficients (mu(s) (')) over a much broader range of values than permitted by current diffusion theory methods.

Breast-feeding attitudes and behavior among WIC mothers in Texas.

Objective: This study explored the influence of demographic characteristics on attitudes toward the benefits of breast-feeding, approval of public breast-feeding, and the use of infant formula. Additionally, the study examined whether attitudes were related to infant feeding practices among mothers enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in Texas.

Design: This study used a cross-sectional design.

Men's attitudes toward breastfeeding: findings from the 2007 Texas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Past research on breastfeeding demonstrates that male partners' support is a significant factor in mothers' decisions to breastfeed. This study explored the diversity of men's opinions about breastfeeding, for the purpose of increasing breastfeeding support among men. This study used the Texas sample of the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to examine whether men's attitudes toward breastfeeding varied by their demographic characteristics and whether fathers' breastfeeding attitudes were related to couples' choice of infant feeding method.

The Hox cofactors Meis1 and Pbx act upstream of gata1 to regulate primitive hematopoiesis.

During vertebrate development, the initial wave of hematopoiesis produces cells that help to shape the developing circulatory system and oxygenate the early embryo. The differentiation of primitive erythroid and myeloid cells occurs within a short transitory period, and is subject to precise molecular regulation by a hierarchical cascade of transcription factors. The TALE-class homeodomain transcription factors Meis and Pbx function to regulate embryonic hematopoiesis, but it is not known where Meis and Pbx proteins participate in the hematopoietic transcription factor cascade.

Executive summary of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Presidential Task Force on Patient Safety in the Office Setting: reinvigorating safety in office-based gynecologic surgery.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Presidential Task Force on Patient Safety in the Office Setting was convened to identify patient safety concerns, develop tools, and provide guidance for physicians performing invasive surgical procedures in the office setting. Physicians who serve as office medical directors have a myriad of responsibilities related to clinical and patient safety, including evaluating staff competency, encouraging office team communication, promoting patient partnership, and ensuring safety in the use of analgesia or anesthesia. Activities and tools used in the inpatient setting, such as multidisciplinary team meetings, checklists, time-outs, mock emergency drills, and measurement and reporting systems, can easily be tailored and applied to any office practice.

Predicting unpredictability: do measures of interpersonal rigidity/flexibility and distress predict intraindividual variability in social perceptions and behavior?

Maladjusted individuals have been theorized to exhibit problematic intraindividual variability of social behavior across situations. This variability is either excessively high (i.e.

Self-reported emergency medicine residency applicant attitudes towards a procedural cadaver laboratory curriculum.

Objective: Residency applicants consider a variety of factors when ranking emergency medicine (EM) programs for their NRMP match list. A human cadaver emergency procedure lab curriculum is uncommon. We hypothesized that the presence this curriculum would positively impact the ranking of an EM residency program.

Development and evaluation of a simulation-based pediatric emergency medicine curriculum.

Purpose: The infrequency of severe childhood illness limits opportunities for emergency medicine (EM) providers to learn from real-world experience. Simulation offers an evidence-based educational approach to develop and practice clinical skills.

Method: This was a two-phase, randomized trial with a wait-list control condition.

Gdf6a is required for the initiation of dorsal-ventral retinal patterning and lens development.

Dorsal-ventral patterning of the vertebrate retina is essential for accurate topographic mapping of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons to visual processing centers. Bone morphogenetic protein (Bmp) growth factors regulate dorsal retinal identity in vertebrate models, but the developmental timing of this signaling and the relative roles of individual Bmps remain unclear. In this study, we investigate the functions of two zebrafish Bmps, Gdf6a and Bmp4, during initiation of dorsal retinal identity, and subsequently during lens differentiation.

More than "using research": the real challenges in promoting evidence-informed decision-making.

Objectives And Methods: Seventeen focus groups and 53 semi-structured individual interviews involving 205 planners and decision-makers were conducted in all 11 Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Objectives were to explore perspectives on the nature and use of "evidence," and barriers to evidence-informed decision-making (EIDM).

Results: In spite of almost universal support in principle for using evidence in decision-making, there was little consensus among participants on what evidence is, what kind of evidence is most appropriate and how "using evidence" can best be demonstrated.

Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma presenting as chronic progressive pulmonary infiltrates in a woman with HIV: a diagnosis worth making.

A 52-year-old woman with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) developed weight loss, cough, and breathing difficulties, accompanied by extensive bilateral pulmonary infiltrates. A lengthy infectious disease and autoimmune workup failed to reveal the etiology or produce benefit. Expert pathology review raised the possibility of pure bronchioloalveolar carcinoma.

Attempted breastfeeding before hospital discharge on both sides of the US-Mexico border, 2005: the Brownsville-Matamoros Sister City Project for Women's Health.

Introduction: The US-Mexico border region has a growing population and limited health care infrastructure. Preventive health behaviors such as breastfeeding ease the burden on this region's health care system by reducing morbidity and health care costs. We examined correlates of attempted breastfeeding before hospital discharge on each side of the US-Mexico border and within the border region.

Fentanyl epidemic in Chicago, Illinois and surrounding Cook County.

Introduction: Epidemics related to illicit fentanyl abuse have been reported and the potential exists for a national epidemic associated with high mortality. This report describes emergency department visits for opioid toxicity and a recent outbreak of illicit fentanyl fatalities in Chicago, Illinois and surrounding Cook County.

Methods: Retrospective chart review of opioid-related overdoses seen in our emergency department and a retrospective review of data from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office Fentanyl Fatality Database from April 2005 through December 2006.

Effects of perceived control and cognitive coping on endocrine stress responses to pharmacological activation.

Background: The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis may mediate negative health effects of stress. It is sensitive to cognitive/emotional factors like novelty, perceived control, and coping. Psychological intervention that reduces novelty and enhances cognitive coping and sense of control can reduce cortisol responses to pentagastrin, a pharmacological HPA activator.

Computational methods for predicting drug transport in anisotropic and heterogeneous brain tissue.

Effective drug delivery for many neurodegenerative diseases or tumors of the central nervous system is challenging. Targeted invasive delivery of large macromolecules such as trophic factors to desired locations inside the brain is difficult due to anisotropy and heterogeneity of the brain tissue. Despite much experimental research, prediction of bio-transport phenomena inside the brain remains unreliable.

Determining the optical constants of read-write sliders during flying-height testing.

Flying-height testers for rigid disk drives employ a transparent glass substrate in place of the magnetic disk and use optical interferometry to measure the flight properties of the read-write slider. Because of the material phase change on reflection, the effective optical constants n and k of the slider play an important role in the measurement. We describe an instrument that determines the optical constants simultaneously with flying height, using polarization interferometry.

8 ways to build collaborative teams.

Executing complex initiatives like acquisitions or an IT overhaul requires a breadth of knowledge that can be provided only by teams that are large, diverse, virtual, and composed of highly educated specialists. The irony is, those same characteristics have an alarming tendency to decrease collaboration on a team. What's a company to do? Gratton, a London Business School professor, and Erickson, president of the Concours Institute, studied 55 large teams and identified those with strong collaboration despite their complexity.

Factitious lithium toxicity secondary to lithium heparin-containing blood tubes.

Introduction: Lithium concentrations analyzed from blood collected in inappropriate tubes may lead to misdiagnosis and lead to unnecessary hospitalization and intervention. We sought to assess the magnitude of falsely elevated lithium levels in green top lithium heparin-containing blood tubes.

Methods: Serum lithium concentrations from two types of commonly used standard green top tubes were evaluated against a control tube.

The impact of a rural emergency department rotation on applicant ranking of a US emergency medicine residency program.

Introduction: Few US emergency medicine (EM) residency programs have been located in rural states due to program requirements for emergency department (ED) patient volume. Recent revision to the program requirements now permits 'educationally justifiable exceptions' to the patient population requirement, 'such as clinical sites in a rural setting', and some EM residency programs now plan to offer rural ED clinical experiences as a required curricular component. The impact of a required rural EM rotation on the ranking decisions of applicants is important to residency programs seeking to attract the most desirable applicants.

Interpersonal and emotional processes in generalized anxiety disorder analogues during social interaction tasks.

Persons with chronic worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) report maladaptive social cognitions, interpersonal behaviors, and emotional regulation. Because research has neither investigated these processes in actual social situations nor explored whether they take heterogeneous forms, the present study provides the first attempt to do so in a laboratory investigation. GAD analogue participants and nonanxious controls interacted with confederates in an unstructured collaborative story construction task and an emotional disclosure task with standardized confederate behavior.

Pbx homeodomain proteins pattern both the zebrafish retina and tectum.

Background: Pbx genes encode TALE class homeodomain transcription factors that pattern the developing neural tube, pancreas, and blood. Within the hindbrain, Pbx cooperates with Hox proteins to regulate rhombomere segment identity. Pbx cooperates with Eng to regulate midbrain-hindbrain boundary maintenance, and with MyoD to control fast muscle cell differentiation.

A twin study of cognitive function in chronic fatigue syndrome: the effects of sudden illness onset.

Variable reports of neuropsychological deficits in individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) may, in part, be attributable to methodological limitations. In this study, these limitations were addressed by controlling for genetic and environmental influences and by assessing the effects of comorbid depression and mode of illness onset. Specifically, the researchers conducted a co-twin control study of 22 pairs of monozygotic twins, in which 1 twin met strict criteria for CFS and the co-twin was healthy.

The approach to the patient with an unknown overdose.

Toxic overdose can present with various clinical signs and symptoms. These may be the only clues to diagnosis when the cause of toxicity is unknown at the time of initial assessment. The prognosis and clinical course of recovery of a patient poisoned by a specific agent depends largely on the quality of care delivered within the first few hours in the emergency setting.