A gesture-based tool for sterile browsing of radiology images.

The use of doctor-computer interaction devices in the operation room (OR) requires new modalities that support medical imaging manipulation while allowing doctors' hands to remain sterile, supporting their focus of attention, and providing fast response times. This paper presents "Gestix," a vision-based hand gesture capture and recognition system that interprets in real-time the user's gestures for navigation and manipulation of images in an electronic medical record (EMR) database. Navigation and other gestures are translated to commands based on their temporal trajectories, through video capture.

Development of communities of practice to facilitate quality improvement initiatives in surgical oncology.

Background: The process of developing clinical guidelines and standards for cancer treatment and screening is well established in the Ontario health care system; however, the dissemination and implementation of such guidelines and standards are more recent undertakings. Traditional implementation strategies to improve surgical practice and the delivery of cancer care have not been consistently effective. There is a recognized need to develop integrated models that offer direct support for implementation strategies.

Chronic smoking and the BOLD response to a visual activation task and a breath hold task in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls.

Many psychiatric patient groups smoke heavily, but little is known regarding the effects of this habit on functional brain imaging results. The present report assesses the effect of chronic smoking on the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response to a simple visual activation (VA) task and a breath hold (BH) task in patients with schizophrenia. Eight healthy controls and twelve patients with schizophrenia were studied.

Protocols associated with no mortality in 100 consecutive Fontan procedures.

Objectives: Results of Fontan's procedure have improved considerably, but perioperative mortality still occurs, attributed to ventricular dysfunction, stroke, arrhythmia, thromboembolism, and multi-organ dysfunction. Our protocols of operative and intensive care unit management address these potential issues, and have been associated with zero mortality, even with many high-risk candidates.

Methods: From 1996 to 2006, all Fontan patients were managed as follows: operative strategy based on aortic and single atrial cannulation, cooling on full-flow bypass, and hypothermic circulatory arrest to create the Fontan pathway.

P50 sensory gating ratios in schizophrenics and controls: a review and data analysis.

Many studies have found that the P50 sensory gating ratio in a paired click task is smaller in normal control subjects than in patients with schizophrenia, indicating more effective sensory gating. However, a wide range of gating ratios has been reported in the literature for both groups. The purpose of this study was to compile these findings and to compare reported P50 gating ratios in controls and patients with schizophrenia.

Pulmonary blood flow patterns in patients with Fontan circulation.

Background: After Fontan surgery there is no subpulmonary ventricle to modify pulmonary blood flow. The influence of the cardiac cycle on pulmonary blood flow patterns in various types of Fontan patients is unknown.

Methods: Blood flow patterns were investigated using phase-velocity cine magnetic resonance imaging in the pulmonary artery of 17 patients (21.

Capturing your charity care: 5 recommendations.

To identify all charity care patients, hospitals should: Communicate with patients at the point of service. Make qualification for charity care as simple as possible. Use electronic databases to check patient ability to pay.

Highly efficient somatic-mutation identification using Escherichia coli mismatch-repair detection.

The discovery of somatic mutations in cancer tissue is extremely laborious, time-consuming and costly. In an evaluation comparing mismatch repair detection (MRD) against Sanger sequencing for somatic-mutation detection, we found that MRD had a specificity of 96% and a sensitivity of 92%. Our results showed that MRD is a robust and cost-effective alternative to Sanger sequencing for identifying somatic mutations in human tumors.

Time trends of methylmercury in walleye in northern Wisconsin: a hierarchical Bayesian analysis.

Methylmercury data from walleye fillets collected by multiple agencies from northern Wisconsin lakes from 1982 to 2005 were examined for regional time trends. Hierarchical Bayesian methods were used to model dependencies and provide probability statements for parameters pertaining to individual lakes and the region as a whole. A missing data mechanism allowed the sex of the fish to be included as a predictor since the sexes grow at different rates.

Increasing abundance of bowhead whales in West Greenland.

In April 2006, a dedicated survey of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) was conducted on the former whaling ground in West Greenland to determine the current wintering population abundance. This effort included a double platform aerial survey design, satellite tracking of the movements of nine whales, and estimation of high-resolution surface time from 14 whales instrumented with time-depth recorders. Bowhead whales were estimated to spend an average of 24% (cv=0.

Standards for thoracic surgical oncology in a single-payer healthcare system.

Through systematic literature review and a consensus-based approach from an expert panel, standards on the organization for delivering thoracic cancer surgery in a single-payer healthcare environment were developed. Thirty-two studies and six organizational reports were identified. Results from 32 studies showed a trend toward higher volumes and improved patient outcomes, and six consensus reports provided recommendations on thoracic care standards.

Test-retest and between-site reliability in a multicenter fMRI study.

In the present report, estimates of test-retest and between-site reliability of fMRI assessments were produced in the context of a multicenter fMRI reliability study (FBIRN Phase 1, www.nbirn.net).

Molecular simulation with variable protonation states at constant pH.

A new method is presented for performing molecular simulations at constant pH. The method is a Monte Carlo procedure where trial moves consist of relatively short molecular dynamics trajectories, using a time-dependent potential energy that interpolates between the old and new protonation states. Conformations and protonation states are sampled from the correct statistical ensemble independent of the trial-move trajectory length, which may be adjusted to optimize efficiency.

Scoring function accuracy for membrane protein structure prediction.

We perform a systematic examination of the ability of several different high-resolution, atomic-detail scoring functions to discriminate native conformations of loops in membrane proteins from non-native but physically reasonable, or "decoy," conformations. Decoys constructed from changing a loop conformation while keeping the remainder of the protein fixed are a challenging test of energy function accuracy. Nevertheless, the best of the energy functions we examined recognized the native structure as lowest in energy around half the time, and consistently chose it as a low-energy structure.

A nonparametric bayesian approach to detecting spatial activation patterns in fMRI data.

Traditional techniques for statistical fMRI analysis are often based on thresholding of individual voxel values or averaging voxel values over a region of interest. In this paper we present a mixture-based response-surface technique for extracting and characterizing spatial clusters of activation patterns from fMRI data. Each mixture component models a local cluster of activated voxels with a parametric surface function.

Use of medical robotics in biothreat situations.

SARS, Avian Flu and other infectious and potentially highly transmissible diseases are threats to the entire healthcare workforce. Complete bio-isolation or the use of biohazard suits are not practical solutions for routine day-to-day patient-doctor interactions with highly infectious patients. The authors share their initial research experiences with utilizing medical robots for teleconferencing and other clinical activities to overcome these hurdles.

A real-time gesture interface for hands-free control of electronic medical records.

Whether attempting to review digital radiologic images during a procedure or reviewing labs on a clinical ward, computer keyboards and mice are potential sources for contamination of clinicians during sterile and non-sterile activities related to clinical care. The authors describe and demonstrate a live system prototype for hands-free, gesture-based control of an electronic medical record (EMR) system.

A mutation in separase causes genome instability and increased susceptibility to epithelial cancer.

Proper chromosome segregation is essential for maintenance of genomic integrity and instability resulting from failure of this process may contribute to cancer. Here, we demonstrate that a mutation in the mitotic regulator separase is responsible for the cell cycle defects seen in the zebrafish mutant, cease&desist (cds). Analysis of cds homozygous mutant embryos reveals high levels of polyploidy and aneuploidy, spindle defects, and a mitotic exit delay.

A chemical genetic screen for cell cycle inhibitors in zebrafish embryos.

Chemical genetic screening is an effective strategy to identify compounds that alter a specific biological phenotype. As a complement to cell line screens, multicellular organism screens may reveal additional compounds. The zebrafish embryo is ideal for small molecule studies because of its small size and the ease of waterborne treatment.