Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Histological Pattern Of Central Nervous System Neoplasms, Z. Ahmed, S. Muzaffar, Naila Kayani, Shahid Pervez, A. S. Husainy, S. H. Hasan

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Objective:

To see in a large series of patients the histological pattern of CNS neoplasms and to provide a comprehensive data about the frequency of CNS neoplasms in Pakistani patients and to give a clearer idea about their prevalence.

Method:

Retrospective study of all consecutive cases of CNS neoplasms diagnosed at The Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) between 1st January 1994 and 31st December, 1999.

Setting:

The section of Histopathology, AKUH, Karachi.

Observation:

Our series included a large number of cases i.e., 1110 . There are very few local studies on CNS tumours and none so large . Our data …

Increased Mrna Expression For The Α1 Subunit Of The GabaA Receptor Following Nitrous Oxide Exposure In Mice, Lisa M. Johanek, William E. Cullinan, Linda K. Vaughn

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

The mechanisms by which nitrous oxide (N₂O) produces physical dependence and withdrawal seizures are not well understood, but both N₂O and ethanol exert some of their effects via the GABA_A receptor and several lines of evidence indicate that withdrawal from N₂O and ethanol may be produced through similar mechanisms. Expression levels of mRNA transcripts encoding several GABA_A receptor subunits change with chronic ethanol exposure and, therefore, we hypothesized that N₂O exposure would produce changes in mRNA expression for the α₁ subunit. Male, Swiss–Webster mice, 10–12 weeks of age, were …

Sars, A Sara Homolog Repressible By Agr, Is An Activator Of Protein A Synthesis In Staphylococcus Aureus, Ambrose L. Cheung, Katherine Schmidt, Brian Bateman, Adhar C. Manna

Dartmouth Scholarship

The expression of protein A (spa) is repressed by global regulatory loci sarA and agr. Although SarA may directly bind to the spa promoter to downregulate spa expression, the mechanism by which agr represses spa expression is not clearly understood. In searching for SarA homologs in the partially released genome, we found a SarA homolog, encoding a 250-amino-acid protein designated SarS, upstream of the spa gene. The expression of sarS was almost undetectable in parental strain RN6390 but was highly expressed in agr and sarA mutants, strains normally expressing high level of protein A. Interestingly, protein A …

Circadian Clock-Specific Roles For The Light Response Protein White Collar-2, Michael A. Collett, Jay C. Dunlap, Jennifer J. Loros

Dartmouth Scholarship

To understand the role of white collar-2 in theNeurospora circadian clock, we examined alleles ofwc-2 thought to encode partially functional proteins. We found that wc-2 allele ER24 contained a conservative mutation in the zinc finger. This mutation results in reduced levels of circadian rhythm-critical clock gene products, frq mRNA and FRQ protein, and in a lengthened period of the circadian clock. In addition, this mutation altered a second canonical property of the clock, temperature compensation: as temperature increased, period length decreased substantially. This temperature compensation defect correlated with a temperature-dependent increase in overall FRQ protein levels, with the …

Diagnostic Issues In Abdominal Tuberculosis, M R. Khan, I R. Khan, K M. Pal

Department of Surgery Docs

Objective: To analyze the modes of presentation and diagnostic issues in the management of abdominal tuberculosis at a tertiary care hospital in a developing country, where most of the established diagnostic modalities are available.SETTING: The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi.Methods: This study is a retrospective review of medical records of all inpatients, diagnosed to have abdominal tuberculosis, from January 1991 to December 1997. The data was collected and particularly analyzed for spectrum of presentation and role of various diagnostic modalities. Of special interest was the sub-group of patients, who after all investigations did not have a firm diagnosis. Following a …

Effect Of Setup Configurations Of Split Computer Keyboards On Wrist Angle, Richard W. Marklin, Guy G. Simoneau

Physical Therapy Faculty Research and Publications

Alternative computer keyboards whose halves can be slanted toward each other can reduce a risk factor (ulnar deviation) for work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) affecting the upper limbs. Two questions that computer keyboard operators face when using keyboards that can be separated into halves (split keyboards) are: (1) At what angle should the keyboard halves be opened? and (2) At what distance apart should the keyboard halves be placed? The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the opening angle and separation distance between halves of a split keyboard on wrist ulnar deviation and typing efficiency. Methods. Eleven …

Integrating Research Into Practice: How Nurses In Wisconsin Use Research To Ensure Best Practice, Chris Van Mullem, Laura Burke, Kari Dohmeyer, Marie Farrell, Sue Harvey, Laura John, Carolyn Kraly, Fran Rowley, Margaret Sebern, Kerry Twite, Roberta Zapp

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

State Mental Hospital Continuity Of Care Study: Preliminary Report, Timothy Boaz, Keith Vossberg

Mental Health Law & Policy Faculty Publications

This study reports on the analysis of several existing administrative data sets to examine issues related to the continuity of care in the community for persons discharged from the Florida state mental health hospitals. The validity of conclusions based on such analysis is dependent on the adequacy of the existing data. While certain types of reporting errors can be identified and remediated (to a degree), other types of errors, particularly omission of reporting, often cannot be identified or remediated. Thus, the conclusions of this report need to be taken somewhat tentatively.

I Have Seen The Future Of Sports, And It's Sitting On A Sofa, Rick Burton

Sport Management - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Welfare Reform And The Well-Being Of Families: Successes To Date And Challenges Ahead, Jane Koppelman

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief discusses a key issue in evaluating the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA): the status of families after the implementation of this landmark welfare reform program. The new block grant program to states to administer the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families(TANF) program has been extremely effective when measured by lower welfare rolls and higher work rates and earnings for recipients. However, an equally important dimension described by the paper is what is known about longer-term effects and the status of people who have left welfare, with special emphasis on how children have …

Ada News - 03/19/2001, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

ADA News

Established in 1970 as the official newspaper of the American Dental Association, the ADA News serves practicing dentists and others allied to the dental profession in the U.S. and internationally. It is the No. 1 source of news and information about the many benefits and services the ADA delivers to members daily as well as timely information on scientific, social, political and economic developments affecting dentistry and health care.

Patient Choice Modules For Summaries Of Clinical Effectiveness: A Proposal, Margaret Holmes-Rovner, Hilary Llewellyn-Thomas, Vikki Entwistle, Angela Coulter

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Individual Differences In Rat Locomotor Activity Are Diminished By Nicotine Through Stimulation Of Central Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors, Rick A. Bevins, Joyce Besheer

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

An increasing body of research has focused on isolating factors that predict or alter individual differences in the behavioral and neural processes mediating the effects of abused drugs. Within this framework, the current report assessed individual differences and the locomotor effect of nicotine. Rats were screened for activity induced by a novel environment. Rats, which were more active to initial environment exposure, remained more active even after seven additional 30-min exposures to the same environment. Treatment with nicotine-di-D tartrate (1 mg/kg, sc) disrupted this effect. This nicotine disruption of individual differences occurred whether nicotine suppressed locomotor activity (initial administration) or …

An Exploration Of Factors Related To Deviant Sexual Arousal Among Juvenile Sex Offenders, William D. Murphy, Mary R. Haynes, David Dilillo, Elaine Steere

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

To date, there has been limited literature on the measurement of sexual arousal in adolescent sex offenders. The data that exist have been somewhat mixed in terms of factors related to deviant sexual arousal in this group. The present study, with 71 adolescent sex offenders, investigates the relationship between offender and offense characteristics, including gender of victim, history of sexual abuse, history of physical abuse, race, and interactions between these factors in the prediction of physiologically measured sexual arousal to deviant and nondeviant stimulus categories. A number of variables significantly predicted sexual arousal. The most consistent predictors were gender of …

Environmental Familiarization In Rats: Differential Effects Of Acute And Chronic Nicotine, Rick A. Bevins, Jana Koznarova, Tracy J. Armiger

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

If an environment is familiar, rats will interact more with a novel object than if the environment is unfamiliar. In two experiments we used this behavioral tendency to assess the effects of nicotine on environmental familiarization (i.e., an elevated platform). As expected, rats given 2 min of exposure to the platform on 2 consecutive days (familiarization phase) interacted more with a novel object in a subsequent test than rats that had not experienced the platform until the test day. During the familiarization phase acute pretreatment with nicotine (0.6 and 1.8 mg/kg, subcutaneous) 10 min before platform exposure interfered with familiarization …

Welfare Reform And Substance Abuse: Innovative State Strategies, Ginger P. Parra

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief highlights key facts about the impact of substance abuse on welfare reform and recipients of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, or TANF. After outlining some of the data on the incidence of substance abuse as well as its costs and treatment, it concludes by describing innovative state welfare programs attempting to lower barriers to employment and self-sufficiency.

Ada News - 03/05/2001, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

ADA News

Established in 1970 as the official newspaper of the American Dental Association, the ADA News serves practicing dentists and others allied to the dental profession in the U.S. and internationally. It is the No. 1 source of news and information about the many benefits and services the ADA delivers to members daily as well as timely information on scientific, social, political and economic developments affecting dentistry and health care.

Estrogen Protects Against The Synergistic Toxicity By Hiv Proteins, Methamphetamine And Cocaine, Jadwiga Turchan, Caroline Anderson, Kurt F. Hauser, Qinmiao Sun, Jiayou Zhang, Ying Liu, Phyllis M. Wise, Inna Kruman, William Maragos, Mark P. Mattson, Rosemarie Booze, Avindra Nath

Neurology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection continues to increase at alarming rates in drug abusers, especially in women. Drugs of abuse can cause long-lasting damage to the brain and HIV infection frequently leads to a dementing illness. To determine how these drugs interact with HIV to cause CNS damage, we used an in vitro human neuronal culture characterized for the presence of dopaminergic receptors, transporters and estrogen receptors. We determined the combined effects of dopaminergic drugs, methamphetamine, or cocaine with neurotoxic HIV proteins, gp120 and Tat.

RESULTS: Acute exposure to these substances resulted in synergistic neurotoxic responses as measured by …

Assessing The Body Composition Of 6-17 Year-Old Black And White Girls In Field Studies, John A. Morrison, Shumei S. Guo, Bonny L. Specker, Wm. Cameron Chumlea, Susan Z. Yanovski, Jack A. Yanovski

Ethel Austin Martin Program Publications

The purpose of the study was to develop ethnic-specific equations for fat-free mass (FFM) from selected anthropometric dimensions and bioelectrical impedance measures of resistance (R) and reactance (Xc) for use in the NHLBI Growth and Heath Study. Using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry measures of body composition as the dependent variable and field measures of body composition by anthropometry and bioelectrical impedance as the explanatory variables, ethnic-specific prediction equations were developed on a sample of girls representing a wide range of ages and BMI. The equations were cross-validated using (1) the Prediction of Sum of Squares (PRESS) statistic and (2) an independent …

Expression Of Pthrp And Pthr (Pth/Pthrp-R) Mrnas And Polypeptides In Bovine Ovary And Stimulation Of Bovine Blastocyst Development In Vitro Following Pthrp Treatment During Oocyte Maturation., P H Watson, M E Westhusin, A J Watson

Obstetrics & Gynaecology Publications

Parathyroid hormone related protein (PTHrP) and its receptor have well-established roles in the development and regulation of many tissues, including bone and mammary gland. The objectives of this study were: (1) to characterize the distribution of mRNAs encoding parathyroid hormone (PTH)-related protein (PTHrP) and receptor (PTHR) in bovine ovary; (2) to characterize the distribution of PTHrP and PTHR polypeptides in bovine ovary; (3) to examine the influences of PTHrP (1-141) treatment during bovine oocyte maturation in vitro on blastocyst development. mRNAs encoding PTHrP and PTHR were detected by in situ hybridization methods in oocytes, and granulosa cells in all follicles …

Information Interface - Volume 29, Issue 2 - March/April 2001, George Washington University, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Information Interface (1976 - 2009)

News and information about Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library of interest to users.

State Schip Design And The Right To Coverage, Sara J. Rosenbaum, Barbara Smith

Health Policy and Management Issue Briefs

No abstract provided.

Intergenerational Labor Market And Welfare Consequences Of Poor Health, Thomas J. Kniesner, Anthony T. Losasso

Center for Policy Research

Our research provides new econometric evidence concerning partial economic risk sharing between a frail elderly parent and an adult child. We estimate a jointly determined limited dependent variables system explaining the parent’s entry into a nursing home, the adult child’s visits to the parent, and the adult child’s labor supplied. The time allocation of adult sons is unaffected by a parent’s frail health. Adult daughters who visit a frail elderly parent daily decrease their annual labor supplied by about 1,000 hours annually, largely through labor force non-participation. The implied welfare loss to the daughter from a frail elderly parent in …

Association Of Ace Polymorphism And Diabetic Nephropathy In South Indian Patients, Vijay Viswanathan, Yanqing Zhu, Karthik Bala, Stephen Dunn, Chamukuttan Snehalatha, Ambady Ramachandran, Muthu Jayaraman, Kumar Sharma

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Objective: To study the association of ACE gene polymorphism and diabetic nephropathy in South Indian subjects.

Setting: Outpatient clinic of a specialized hospital.

Patients: The study included 109 South Indian type 2 diabetic patients (72 males and 37 females; age 56.7±9.0 years, mean±SD). The patients were subdivided into two groups: nephropathic (n=86) and normoalbuminuric patients (n=23).

Interventions: Genomic DNA was isolated from the peripheral blood leukocytes. To determine the ACE genotype, genomic DNA was amplified by PCR initially using a flanking primer pair and, subsequently when necessary, with a primer pair that recognizes the insertion specific sequence for confirmation of …

Chief Medical Officers' Perceptions Of Disease Management Programs, Gang Xu, Lisa E. Paddock, John P. O'Connor, David B. Nash, Mark Zitter

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

The purpose of this article is to examine chief medical officers' (CMOs) perception of disease management programs. Five open-ended questions, each addressing a major issue in the development of disease management programs, were given to 31 CMOs who attended a series of invitation-only conferences on disease management in the fall of 1999. Qualitative data analysis was conducted using the transcripts on each of the issues. Overall, the CMOs viewed the emergence of capitated disease management programs positively. They considered the population of a program to be the contractual patients and/or those at risk for the target disease. On the issue …

Measurement Of The Impact Of Winona Health Online, David B. Nash, David Shulkin, Florence Comite, Ron Loeppke, Bruce Van Cleave, Robert Kane, Jon Christianson, Douglas Pousma

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

The purpose of this article is to present the methodology to study the clinical and financial outcomes associated with the use of Winona Health Online, a novel community-wide interactive healthcare Website in Winona, Minnesota. Outcome methodology was developed by the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and the Carlson School of Management in cooperation with nationally recognized outcomes and disease state management experts, healthcare practitioners in Winona, statisticians, and health economists. The main areas of measurement include health status, satisfaction, cost and utilization of services, and clinical quality.

“Tears In My Eyes ’Cause Somebody Finally Understood”: Client Perceptions Of Practitioners Following Brain Injury, Amy R. Darragh, Pat L. Sample, Stephanie R. Krieger

Occupational Therapy Faculty Publications

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify practitioner qualities and traits that clients with brain injury see as important. Method: An opportunistic sample of 51 participants with brain injury was interviewed about perceptions of service access and effectiveness. An interview guide was used to gather data for this phenomenological qualitative study. Four interviewers individually conducted audiotaped interviews, which were then transcribed. Coding and theme development were completed using HyperRESEARCH™ software. Results: Three themes regarding practitioner qualities emerged from the data: (a) roles of the provider, (b) perceived helpfulness of services, and (c) personal characteristics of the providers. Beneficial …

Unfinished Business: Inadequate Health Coverage For Privately Insured, Seriously Ill Children, Nancy Swigonski, Eleanor D. Kinney, Deborah A. Freund, Thomas J. Kniesner

Center for Policy Research

During the 1980s and 1990s there were great increases of health insurance coverage for poor children through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and extended Medicaid eligibility. Problems remain for the small number of children with serious medical conditions whose care is a high proportion of total health care expenditures on children. We report on the adequacy of health insurance coverage for a sample of children with serious and rare illnesses treated at the single tertiary care pediatric hospital in Indiana. One-third of privately insured children in our data had inadequate insurance. Compared to families with inadequate health insurance families …

Determinants Of Medical Costs Following A Diagnosis Of Depression, Regina H. Powers, Thomas J. Kniesner, Thomas W. Croghan

Center for Policy Research

Objective: Assess the determinants of medical costs for depressed individuals.

Method: Using medical insurance claims for a population of depressed individuals with employer provided insurance, we estimated multivariate models of the costs for general medical care, exclusive of costs for mental health services, following diagnosis. Explanatory variables included provider choice (psychiatrist or non-physician mental health specialist), treatment choice (medication, psychotherapy, or combination treatment); treatment adequacy as defined by APA guidelines; characteristics of depression symptoms and severity; and other demographic characteristics.

Results: On average, there were increases in the costs for general medical services in the year following diagnosis of a …

Maternal Deaths In A Developing Country: A Study From The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan 1988-1999, R N. Qureshi, S Jaleel, R Hamid, S F. Lakha

Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Objective: The maternal deaths occurring over a twelve-year period (1988-1999) in a tertiary referral center were reviewed. The purpose of the study was to assess the causes of these maternal deaths.
Setting: The Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) Karachi, Pakistan.
Methods: The medical records of maternal deaths were reviewed. These were women who had either registered for delivery at the hospital; or were referred from another hospital or from home, when an emergency developed. They were either admitted to the Medicine, Surgery and the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Departments at the hospital.Results: A total of 81 maternal deaths were identified, of …