Evaluation of a Pharmacist-Led Methicillin-Resistant Nasal PCR Testing Protocol.

Methicillin-resistant (MRSA) can cause cases of community-acquired pneumonia, hospital-acquired pneumonia, and ventilator-associated pneumonia, and nasal colonization with this pathogen increases the risk of infection. Due to its high negative predictive value, multiple studies support using the MRSA nasal polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test to discontinue antimicrobials that target MRSA in the setting of a negative test result. The purpose of this project was to assess the utility of a protocol to allow pharmacists the ability to order MRSA nasal PCR screenings in hospitalized patients with pneumonia.

Trauma-Informed Professional Development: An Intervention Mapping Study.

Background And Significance: Nurses are disproportionately affected by mental and physical health problems that are a result of exposure to traumatic events in the workplace.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to use intervention mapping strategies to construct interventions to address traumatic stress in nurses through trauma-informed professional development (TIPD) in a rehabilitation hospital.

Design: This study used a community-based participatory research design with an intervention mapping approach.

Head-to-head comparison of multi-dose oritavancin and dalbavancin for complicated infections: A propensity score-matched analysis.

Background: Oritavancin and dalbavancin are long-acting lipoglycopeptide antibiotics approved for the treatment of skin and skin structure infections. Recently, they have been used for outpatient antimicrobial therapy for complicated infections. No head-to-head studies exist for this purpose.

Investigation of mechanisms of an upflow-downflow siliceous sand filtration system for surfactants bathroom grey water treatment.

Sustainable decentralized wastewater treatment systems (DEWATS) at the local level are considered as a smart alternative for small communities particularly in arid areas. The present study examines the mechanisms of an upflow-downflow Siliceous Sand (SS) filtration system involved in surfactants bathroom grey water treatment. In order to get a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in surfactants removal, particle size distribution and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy of the SS particles were performed.

Impact of Discharge Medication Reconciliation Across a Five-Hospital Health System.

Purpose: Hospital readmission of a primary diagnosis can have a substantial financial impact via reductions in reimbursement rates up to 3%, and have a negative impact on the lives of patients. Discharge medication reconciliation (DMR) can reduce medication errors that play a role in readmission. The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of expanding pharmacist-led DMR across a four hospital health system on 30-day readmission rate for high risk of readmission disease groups.

Air Toxics in Relation to Autism Diagnosis, Phenotype, and Severity in a U.S. Family-Based Study.

Background: Previous studies have reported associations of perinatal exposure to air toxics, including some metals and volatile organic compounds, with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Objectives: Our goal was to further explore associations of perinatal air toxics with ASD and associated quantitative traits in high-risk multiplex families.

Methods: We included participants of a U.

Suitability assessment of grey water quality treated with an upflow-downflow siliceous sand/marble waste filtration system for agricultural and industrial purposes.

The present study examines the suitability assessment of an upflow-downflow siliceous sand/marble waste filtration system for treatment and reuse of grey water collected from bathrooms of the student residential complex at the Higher Institute of Engineering Medjez El Bab (Tunisia). Once the optimization of grey water pre-treatment system has been determined, the filtration system was operated at different hydraulic loading rate and media filter proportions in order to assess the suitability of treated grey water for irrigational purpose according to salinity hazard, sodium hazard, magnesium hazard, permeability index, water infiltration rate, and widely used graphical methods. Suitability of the treated grey water for industrial purpose was evaluated in terms of foaming, corrosion, and scaling.

The evolution of offensive realism.

Offensive realism, a theory of international relations, holds that states are disposed to competition and conflict because they are self-interested, power maximizing, and fearful of other states. Moreover, it argues that states are obliged to behave this way because doing so favors survival in the international system. Debate continues as to whether modern states actually do, or should, behave in this way, but we are struck by a different question.

Particulate matter exposure, prenatal and postnatal windows of susceptibility, and autism spectrum disorders.

Background: Recent studies suggest that exposure to traffic-related air pollutants, including particulate matter (PM), is associated with autism spectrum disorder (autism).

Methods: Children with autism were identified by records-based surveillance (n = 645 born in North Carolina in 1994, 1996, 1998, or 2000, and n = 334 born in the San Francisco Bay Area in California in 1996). They were compared with randomly sampled children born in the same counties and years identified from birth records (n = 12,434 in North Carolina and n = 2,232 in California).

A pilot for understanding interdisciplinary teams in rehabilitation practice.

Interdisciplinary teams in rehabilitation are effective for positive patient outcomes. They require skills in team building and interprofessional collaboration. The Institute of Medicine has interdisciplinary teams as one of the five core competencies for healthcare workers.

Increasing parvovirus filter throughput of monoclonal antibodies using ion exchange membrane adsorptive pre-filtration.

Pre-filtration using ion exchange membrane adsorbers can improve parvovirus filter throughput of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). The membranes work by binding trace foulants, and although some antibody product also binds, yields > or =99% are easily achieved by overloading. Results show that foulant adsorption is dependent on pH and conductivity, but independent of scale and adsorber brand.

Considering population and war: a critical and neglected aspect of conflict studies.

This study analyses the relationship between war and population. The impact of the growth and decline of population on important types of warfare--great power, small power, civil war as well as terrorism--is illustrated, with the objective in each case to be descriptive of risk. I find that population change has a significant impact on each, with the greatest causal impact on small power conflicts, civil war and upon terrorism.

Biosorption characteristics of phosphates from aqueous solution onto Phoenix dactylifera L. date palm fibers.

Phosphates are very important basic materials in agricultural and other industrial applications. The removal of phosphates from surface waters is generally necessary to avoid problems, such as eutrophication, particularly near urban areas. This paper is focused on the sorption of PO4(3-) ions from aqueous solution onto date palm fibers as a raw, natural and abundantly materials.

Date-palm fibers media filters as a potential technology for tertiary domestic wastewater treatment.

A number of municipal wastewater treatment systems were developed to improve effluent water quality, however economic aspects should be considered. This study was thus carried out to investigate the application of date-palm fibers filtration as an efficient method to economically remove turbidity, phosphorus, organics in term of COD and helminth eggs of secondary domestic wastewater from an activated sludge treatment process. Column experiments were investigated to study the efficiency of date-palm fibers filters media used in this work for the removal of targeted matter under operational conditions (flow rate, filter depth, and diameter of the fibers).

Evolution and the American social sciences: An evolutionary social scientist's view.

American social scientists rarely ever use evolutionary concepts to explain behavior, despite the potential of such concepts to elucidate major social problems. I argue that this observation can be understood as the product of three influences: an ideologically narrowed political liberalism; a fear of ''Social Darwinism'' as a scientific idea, rather than a scientific apostasy; and a widely believed criticism of evolutionary thinking as deterministic, reductionistic, and Panglossian. I ask what is to be done to encourage social scientists to learn and to apply evolutionary lessons.

The ability to self-tickle following Rapid Eye Movement sleep dreaming.

Self-produced tactile stimulation usually feels less tickly--is perceptually attenuated--relative to the same stimulation produced externally. This is not true, however, for individuals with schizophrenia. Here, we investigate whether the lack of attenuation to self-produced stimuli seen in schizophrenia also occurs for normal participants following REM dreams.

Best practice recommendations for surgical care in weight loss surgery.

Objective: To establish evidence-based guidelines for best practices for surgical care in weight loss surgery (WLS).

Research Methods And Procedures: We carried out a systematic search of English-language literature on WLS in MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library. Key words were used to narrow the field for a selective review of abstracts.

Men deny and women cry, but who dies? Do the wages of "denial" include early ischemic coronary heart disease?

Objectives: In this study patients with documented ischemic coronary heart disease (ICHD; prior MI or CAD per catheterization) were tested for the association of various measures of emotional distress with Age at Initial Diagnosis.

Methods: The measures were chosen because of a published track record at predicting mortality in this population. Females were oversampled to achieve equivalent numbers of each sex (n=50), and thus equivalent statistical power.

The big mush: psychometric measures are confounded and non-independent in their association with age at initial diagnosis of Ischaemic Coronary Heart Disease.

The present study uses early diagnosis of ischaemic coronary heart disease (ICHD) as a proxy for disease malignancy in testing the statistical strength of association, and uniqueness/confounding, of several psychometric scales that have previously been found to prospectively predict death in cardiac samples (Beck Depression Inventory, Crown-Crisp Phobic Anxiety Scale, Type D Scale & Ketterer Stress Symptom Frequency Checklist). Eighty-three patients (no. of females = 35) with documented ICHD were assessed for traditional and psychometric risk factors.

Lifestyle treatments in randomized clinical trials of pharmacotherapies for obesity.

Objective: This meta-analysis evaluated the types of lifestyle treatments used in published obesity drug studies and assessed their contribution to weight losses associated with pharmacological interventions.

Research Methods And Procedures: Randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trials of anti-obesity agents that are/were Food and Drug Administration-approved for the treatment of obesity (both prescription and over-the-counter), and drugs that are Food and Drug Administration-approved and are used off-label for obesity were included. Studies were located by computer searches of databases (e.

Psychosocial and traditional risk factors in early ischaemic heart disease: cross-sectional correlates.

Background: Psychosocial/emotional distress has been repeatedly found to be a correlate of the onset/aggravation of ischaemic heart disease.

Methods: Eighty-three patients (63 men and 20 women) with known coronary artery disease who entered an aggressive lifestyle modification programme were administered a clinical/demographic history and the Symptom Checklist 90--Revised at baseline. Several measures of social isolation/alienation (shyness/self-consciousness, feeling lonely, feeling abused and overall) were derived from the the Symptom Checklist 90--Revised.

Chest pain and the treatment of psychosocial/emotional distress in CAD patients.

Treatment of psychosocial/emotional distress as a strategy for diminishing chest pain in such patients remains entirely unutilized in standard care. Sixty-three patients with known or suspected CAD were entered in an aggressive lifestyle modification program. Patients completed the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised (SCL90R) at the diagnostic interview session, at 3 and at 12 months.