IRQN award paper: Operational rounds: a practical administrative process to improve safety and clinical services in radiology.

As part of a patient safety program in the authors' department of radiology, operational rounds have been instituted. This process consists of radiology leaders' visiting imaging divisions at the site of imaging and discussing frontline employees' concerns about patient safety, the quality of care, and patient and family satisfaction. Operational rounds are executed at a time to optimize the number of attendees.

New insights into the nature of the wool fibre surface.

Wool fibres have been treated to remove the covalently bound lipid and characterised using lipid analysis, wettability and scanning probe microscopy. A model substrate consisting of alternating stripes of hydrophobic (predominantly CH(3) terminated molecules) and hydrophilic (COOH terminated molecules) surfaces, micro-printed onto a gold-coated mica surface was assessed using the SPM techniques of adhesion, friction and phase imaging and showed that SPM can easily distinguish these surfaces. When KOH/methanol treated wool fibres were examined, SPM showed an increase in coefficient of friction and a decrease in adhesion as the lipid is removed.

Diabetes complications in youth: qualitative analysis of parents' perspectives of family learning and knowledge.

Objective: Youth with type 1 diabetes face long-term risks of health complications of the disease. Little is known about patients' and parents' knowledge, acquisition of information, and family communication regarding these complications. This paper reports qualitative analyses of parental focus-group discussions of this topic.

N6-substituted C5'-modified adenosines as A1 adenosine receptor agonists.

Adenosines bearing 5'-modification in conjunction with an N6-substituent have previously been shown to act as partial agonists at the A1 adenosine receptor. Our current work investigates the effect of modifying the 5'-position in conjunction with efficacious bicyclic and tricyclic N6-substituents. Several highly potent agonists for the A1 adenosine receptor were identified; however, all of these compounds behaved as full agonists.

New potent and selective A1 adenosine receptor agonists.

Thiirane analogs of ENAdo have been synthesised and found to be extremely potent and selective A(1) adenosine receptor agonists.

Lucky girls: unintentional avoidance of adolescent pregnancy among low-income African-American females.

Purpose: To describe lucky adolescents who unintentionally avoid pregnancy.

Design And Methods: The second phase of a descriptive qualitative study in which 17 low-income African-American females ages 19 to 26 participated in open-ended interviews on how they avoided pregnancy as adolescents.

Results: Constant comparative analysis revealed that five of the girls avoided pregnancy because they were "lucky" that others insisted they use contraceptives.

Reconciling incompatibilities: a grounded theory of HIV medication adherence and symptom management.

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explain how ethnically diverse men and women living with HIV manage their interacting illness symptoms, medication side effects, and treatment adherence choices. The authors used the constant comparative method to analyze textual data from in-depth interviews with 66 HIV-infected people representing the changing HIV demographic profile in the San Francisco Bay area and generate a theory of Reconciling Incompatibilities. Adherence options of complying, not complying, or self-tailoring occurred in a context of attributional uncertainty as to whether distress was illness- or treatment-related, a sometimes silent virus, and perceived fickle medical markers.

New 2,N6-disubstituted adenosines: potent and selective A1 adenosine receptor agonists.

A number of adenosine analogues substituted in the 2- and N6-positions were synthesized and evaluated for affinity, functional potency and intrinsic activity at the A1 and A2A adenosine receptors (AR). Three classes of N6-substituents were tested; norbornen-2-yl (series 1), norborn-2-yl (series 2) and 5,6-epoxynorborn-2-yl (series 3). The halogens; fluoro, bromo, and iodo were evaluated as C-2 substituents.

Interviewing young men about sex and procreation: methodological issues.

Because clear instructions for interviewing men about their developing procreative identities do not exist, the authors discuss a variety of methodological issues that surfaced during in-depth interviews with young men about relationships, sex, contraception, pregnancy, and fatherhood. The authors interviewed a diverse sample of 50 single male participants, ages 16 to 30, who had dated at least one woman in the past 3 years (or had been married). The purpose of the reflexive analysis was to sensitize researchers, social service providers, and the authors to the challenges of conducting qualitative interviews with young men.