The Older Persons' Transitions in Care (OPTIC) study: pilot testing of the transition tracking tool.

Background: OPTIC is a mixed method Partnership for Health System Improvement (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.

Integrating patient safety into health professionals' curricula: a qualitative study of medical, nursing and pharmacy faculty perspectives.

Background: As efforts to integrate patient safety into health professional curricula increase, there is growing recognition that the rate of curricular change is very slow, and there is a shortage of research that addresses critical perspectives of faculty who are on the 'front-lines' of curricular innovation. This study reports on medical, nursing and pharmacy teaching faculty perspectives about factors that influence curricular integration and the preparation of safe practitioners.

Methods: Qualitative methods were used to collect data from 20 faculty members (n=6 medical from three universities; n=6 pharmacy from two universities; n=8 nursing from four universities) engaged in medical, nursing and pharmacy education.

Practice sensitive quality indicators in RAI-MDS 2.0 nursing home data.

Background: In recent years, improving the quality of care for nursing home residents has generated a considerable amount of attention. In response, quality indicators (QIs), based on available evidence and expert consensus, have been identified within the Resident Assessment Instrument-Minimum Data Set 2.0 (RAI-MDS 2.

'Not another safety culture survey': using the Canadian patient safety climate survey (Can-PSCS) to measure provider perceptions of PSC across health settings.

Background: The importance of a strong safety culture for enhancing patient safety has been stated for over a decade in healthcare. However, this complex construct continues to face definitional and measurement challenges. Continuing improvements in the measurement of this construct are necessary for enhancing the utility of patient safety climate surveys (PSCS) in research and in practice.

Directing GPCR-transfected cells and neuronal projections with nano-scale resolution.

Surface modification technology has made significant advances in recent years towards the miniaturization and organization of traditional cell culture systems. However, the capability of directing transfected cells and neuronal connections to probe small structures such as spines is still under development. In the current work, interactions of different micropatterned substrates with HEK 293, CF10 cell lines, and primary neuronal cultures are evaluated.

Ten frequently asked questions about MRI evaluation of soft-tissue vascular anomalies.

Objective: The objective of this article was to address 10 frequently asked questions that radiologists face when planning, performing, and interpreting an MRI study in a patient with a soft-tissue vascular anomaly.

Conclusion: MRI permits a comprehensive assessment of vascular anomalies. It is important for radiologists to be familiar with the classification and correct nomenclature of vascular anomalies as well as the MRI protocol and distinct imaging findings of the different vascular malformations and tumors.

Noninvasive vascular imaging in abdominal solid organ transplantation.

Objective: In this article, we focus on the vascular complications related to liver, pancreas, and kidney transplantation.

Conclusion: Long term allograft survival of solid organ transplantation depends on early intervention of complications. Noninvasive imaging with ultrasound, CT, and MRI allows accurate diagnosis of complications and aids in treatment planning.

CT angiography of the upper extremity arterial system: Part 2- Clinical applications beyond trauma patients.

Objective: CT angiography using modern MDCT scanners has evolved into a highly accurate noninvasive diagnostic tool for the evaluation of patients with pathologic abnormalities of the upper extremity arterial system.

Conclusion: Here we focus on the use of this modality in patients with nontraumatic vascular pathologic abnormalities.

CT angiography of the upper extremity arterial system: Part 1-Anatomy, technique, and use in trauma patients.

Objective: In this article, we focus on the arterial anatomy of the upper extremities, the technical aspects of upper extremity CT angiography (CTA), and CTA use in trauma patients.

Conclusion: CTA using modern MDCT scanners has evolved into a highly accurate noninvasive diagnostic tool for the evaluation of patients with abnormalities of the upper extremity arterial system.

Refocused turbo spin-echo for noncontrast peripheral MR angiography.

Purpose: To develop and assess a three-dimensional refocused turbo spin-echo (rTSE) sequence for generating peripheral angiograms. This sequence combines the rapid T2 -weighting of TSE and the better flow performance of the fully-refocused gradients of balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP), along with bSSFP-style phase alternation of refocusing radiofrequency (RF) pulses.

Materials And Methods: The signal behavior generated by such a sequence was explored through Bloch equation simulations.

Validation of the ANSR Salmonella method for detection of Salmonella spp. in selected foods and environmental samples.

ANSR Salmonella is a new molecular diagnostic assay for detection of Salmonella spp. in foods and environmental samples. The test is based on the nicking enzyme amplification reaction (NEAR) isothermal nucleic acid amplification technology.

Repeat post-op voiding trials: an inconvenient correlate with success.

Aims: This study examined the association between the need for a repeat voiding trial after midurethral sling (MUS) surgery and 1-year success rates.

Methods: We conducted this secondary analysis of the participants in the Urinary Incontinence Treatment Network trial of midurethral sling (TOMUS) study which compared retropubic versus transobturator MUS. A standard voiding trial was attempted on all subjects.

A profile of residents in prairie nursing homes.

Nursing homes have become complex care environments where residents have significant needs and most have age-related dementia. Building on research by Hirdes et al. (2011), we describe a resident profile in a representative sample of 30 urban nursing homes in the prairie provinces using Resident Assessment Instrument – Minimum Data Set 2.

Surgical preparation: are patients "ready" for stress urinary incontinence surgery?

Introduction And Hypothesis: Patient preparedness for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) surgery is associated with improvements in post-operative satisfaction, symptoms and quality of life (QoL). This planned secondary analysis examined the association of patient preparedness with surgical outcomes, treatment satisfaction and quality of life.

Methods: The ValUE trial compared the effect of pre-operative urodynamic studies with a standardized office evaluation of outcomes of SUI surgery at 1 year.

Wall-motion based analysis of global and regional left atrial mechanics.

Atrial fibrillation is an increasingly prevalent cardiovascular disease; changes in atrial structure and function induced by atrial fibrillation and its treatments are often spatially heterogeneous. However, spatial heterogeneity of function is difficult to assess with standard imaging techniques. This paper describes a method to assess global and regional mechanical function by combining cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and finite-element surface fitting.

Photolysis and thermolysis of pyridyl carbonyl azide monolayers on single-crystal platinum.

The photochemical and thermal reactivity of a number of acyl azide-substituted pyridine compounds, namely nicotinyl azide, isonicotinyl azide, picolinyl azide and dinicotinyl azide with investigated as saturated monolayers on a single-crystal Pt(111) surface in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber. Multilayers of the substrates exhibited a maximum rate of desorption at 270 K, above which, stable saturated monolayers formed as characterized by reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy by observation of C=O and N3 bands at 1700 cm(-1), and 2100 and 1300 cm(-1) respectively. The monolayers were stable up to 400 K.

Pre-operative urodynamics in women with stress urinary incontinence increases physician confidence, but does not improve outcomes.

Aims: To determine if pre-operative urodynamic testing (UDS) affects physicians' diagnostic confidence and if physician confidence affects treatment outcomes at 1 year.

Methods: The Value of Urodynamic Evaluation (ValUE) trial randomized 630 women with predominant stress urinary incontinence (SUI) to office evaluation (OE) or OE plus UDS prior to surgery. After OE, physicians completed a checklist of five clinical diagnoses: SUI, overactive bladder (OAB) wet and dry, voiding dysfunction (VD), and intrinsic sphincter deficiency (ISD), and reported their confidence in each.

Dermoscopic evaluation of nodular melanoma.

Importance: Nodular melanoma (NM) is a rapidly progressing potentially lethal skin tumor for which early diagnosis is critical.

Objective: To determine the dermoscopy features of NM.

Design: Eighty-three cases of NM, 134 of invasive non-NM, 115 of nodular benign melanocytic tumors, and 135 of nodular nonmelanocytic tumors were scored for dermoscopy features using modified and previously described methods.

Relating centromeric topography in fixed human chromosomes to α-satellite DNA and CENP-B distribution.

Despite extensive analyses on the centromere and its associated proteins, detailed studies of centromeric DNA structure have provided limited information about its topography in condensed chromatin. We have developed a method with correlative fluorescence light microscopy and atomic force microscopy that investigates the physical and structural organization of α-satellite DNA sequences in the context of its associated protein, CENP-B, on human metaphase chromosome topography. Comparison of centromeric DNA and protein distribution patterns in fixed homologous chromosomes indicates that CENP-B and α-satellite DNA are distributed distinctly from one another and relative to observed centromeric ridge topography.

Diagnosis and treatment planning of acute aortic emergencies using a handheld DICOM viewer.

Acute aortic syndromes and traumatic aortic injury are often diagnosed on CT angiography, possibly requiring emergent intervention. Advances in handheld computing have created the possibility of viewing full DICOM datasets from a remote location. We evaluated the ability to diagnose and characterize acute aortic pathologies on CT angiograms of the thorax using an iPhone-based DICOM viewer.

Affective trajectories before and after a quit attempt among smokers with current depressive disorders.

Background: Smoking cessation for individuals with depressive disorders represents an important clinical issue. It often has been hypothesized that smoking cessation worsens negative affect as part of the withdrawal process in this population. However, studies examining the impact of smoking cessation on changes in affect in smokers with depression are limited and equivocal.

An evaluation of the effects of diagnostic composition on individual treatment outcome within transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioral group therapy for anxiety.

Recently, studies have supported the efficacy of treating anxiety disorders utilizing a transdiagnostic, or non-diagnosis-specific, framework (Erickson, D. H. (2003).

A protocol for advanced psychometric assessment of surveys.

Background and Purpose. In this paper, we present a protocol for advanced psychometric assessments of surveys based on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. We use the Alberta Context Tool (ACT) as an exemplar survey to which this protocol can be applied.

Measurement of Z boson production in Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt[s(NN)]=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector.

The ATLAS experiment has observed 1995 Z boson candidates in data corresponding to 0.15  nb(-1) of integrated luminosity obtained in the 2011 LHC Pb+Pb run at sqrt[s(NN)]=2.76  TeV.

Search for dark matter candidates and large extra dimensions in events with a photon and missing transverse momentum in pp collision data at sqrt[s]=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector.

Results of a search for new phenomena in events with an energetic photon and large missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s] = 7 TeV are reported. Data collected by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1) are used.