Data Object Exchange (DOEx) as a Method to Facilitate Intraorganizational Collaboration by Managed Data Sharing: Viewpoint.

Background: To help reduce expenses, shorten timelines, and improve the quality of final deliverables, the Veterans Health Administration (VA) and other health care systems promote sharing of expertise among informatics user groups. Traditional barriers to time-efficient sharing of expertise include difficulties in finding potential collaborators and availability of a mechanism to share expertise.

Objective: We aim to describe how the VA shares expertise among its informatics groups by describing a custom-built tool, the Data Object Exchange (DOEx), along with statistics on its usage.

Diversity in laboratory animal science: issues and initiatives.

Since diversity in the workplace began receiving scholarly attention in the late 1980s, many corporations and institutions have invested in programs to address and manage diversity. We encourage laboratory animal science to address the challenges and to build on the strengths that personal diversity brings to our field and workplaces. Diversity is already becoming increasingly relevant in the workplace and the laboratory animal science field.

The concentration of free calcium in plasma is set by the extracellular action of noncollagenous proteins and hydroxyapatite.

The late Wm. F. Neuman frequently included the following statement in his speeches: "Plasma calcium is undersaturated in respect to itself, but supersaturated in respect to bone".

Calcium homeostasis: reassessment of the actions of parathyroid hormone.

The purpose of this report is to adjust our interpretation of the actions of parathyroid hormone (PTH) to include its action on the bone mineral-noncollagenous protein interactions at all bone surfaces. The three primary areas that respond to PTH are: (1) all bone surface areas in contact with the extracellular fluid (ECF), (2) the kidney, and indirectly the intestinal tract, and (3) the bone remodeling sequence. The primary rapid action of the hormone is to set and maintain the free calcium concentration of the ECF.

Calcium homeostasis: how bone solubility relates to all aspects of bone physiology.

This perspective challenges the bone research community to study a new concept of calcium homeostasis and determine how it affects all aspects of bone physiology and disease. The concept started with Neuman's discovery that the apparent supersaturation of calcium in the extracellular fluid (ECF) could be explained by the presence of non-collagenous proteins on the surfaces of bone. His discovery opens the door to a new field of bone research and raises the question of how his result affects other aspects of bone physiology and pathology? The purpose of this perspective is to challenge the bone field to determine the significance of these findings.