Alarming and/or Alerting Device Effectiveness in Reducing Falls in Long-Term Care (LTC) Facilities? A Systematic Review.

Perceptions against the use of alarming devices persist in long-term care environments as they are seen as annoying, costly, and a waste of time to the staff involved. Ascertaining whether these perceptions are true or false via the literature was a focus of this study. Proper information to educate staff and to work past these perceptions can be a positive effector for resident safety.

Informatics platform for global proteomic profiling and biomarker discovery using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

We have developed an integrated suite of algorithms, statistical methods, and computer applications to support large-scale LC-MS-based gel-free shotgun profiling of complex protein mixtures using basic experimental procedures. The programs automatically detect and quantify large numbers of peptide peaks in feature-rich ion mass chromatograms, compensate for spurious fluctuations in peptide signal intensities and retention times, and reliably match related peaks across many different datasets. Application of this toolkit markedly facilitates pattern recognition and biomarker discovery in global comparative proteomic studies, simplifying mechanistic investigation of physiological responses and the detection of proteomic signatures of disease.

Evolutionary divergence of platelet-derived growth factor alpha receptor signaling mechanisms.

Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) direct diverse cellular and developmental responses by stimulating a relatively small number of overlapping signaling pathways. Specificity may be determined by RTK expression patterns or by differential activation of individual signaling pathways. To address this issue we generated knock-in mice in which the extracellular domain of the mouse platelet-derived growth factor alpha receptor (PDGFalphaR) is fused to the cytosolic domain of Drosophila Torso (alpha(Tor)) or the mouse fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (alpha(FR)).

An allelic series at the PDGFalphaR locus indicates unequal contributions of distinct signaling pathways during development.

A central issue in signal transduction is the physiological contribution of different growth factor-initiated signaling pathways. We have generated knockin mice harboring mutations in the PDGFalpha receptor (PDGFalphaR) that selectively eliminate its capacity to activate PI3 kinase (alpha(PI3K)) or Src family kinases (alpha(Src)). The alpha(PI3K) mutation leads to neonatal lethality due to impaired signaling in many cell types, but the alpha(Src) mutation only affects oligodendrocyte development.