Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Pemanfaatan Air Sungai Dan Infeksi Schistosoma Japonicum Di Napu Poso Sulawesi Tengah Tahun 2006, M. Edy Hariyanto

Kesmas

Penyakit schistosomiasis menempati rengking ke dua setelah malaria sebagai masalah sosial ekonomi dan kesehatan masyarakat di daerah tropis dan sub tropis. Prevalensi Schistosomiasis di Napu pada tahun 2004 (1,71%) masih tinggi dan cenderung meningkat. Hal tersebut didukung oleh infection rate pada keong sebagai host intermediet yang tinggi (16.3%) yang menunjukkan bahwa penularan masih terus terjadi. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah mengetahui hubungan pemanfaatan air sungai/parit dengan infeksi Schistosoma japonicum di Napu Poso Sulawesi Tengah. Penelitian dengan disain studi kasus kontrol ini menggunakan sumber data sekunder hasil survey tinja dan pengamatan dengan metode Katto Katz di Napu tahun 2006. Kasus adalah responden …

Blood-Lead Monitoring Exposure To Leaded-Gasoline Among School Children In Jakarta, Indonesia 2005, Budi Haryanto

Kesmas

Bensin dengan kandungan logam berat timbal digunakan sebagai bahan bakar utama kendaraan bermotor di Indonesia sejak beberapa dekade. Jakarta, Batam dan Bali yang secara berurutan sudah tidak menggunakannya sejak 2001, 2003 dan 2004. Pengaruh negatif logam berat timbal meliputi penurunan tingkat IQ, gangguan pendengaran, gangguan pertumbuhan, dan menurunkan kadar hemoglobin, masih akan terus berlangsung dan mengancam anak-anak. Studi kadar logam berat timbal dalam darah di Jakarta, tahun 2001, menemukan 5% anak sekolah dasar dengan kadar timbal darah (BLLs) >10 µg/dl, dan 2,4% mempunyai BLL > 20 µg/dl (CDC-USAEP 2001). Penelitian ini bertujuan menilai kadar timbal darah anak sekolah dasar di Jakarta, …

The Development Of A Gc/Ms Protocol For The Analysis Of Polysaccharides In Echinacea Purpurea, Michaela Knapp

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Echinacea purpurea is an herbal supplement used to reduce symptoms of common colds and flu-like illnesses. As of right now, it is not well understood what chemical components in the plant are immunologically active. The four main potentially immunologically active chemical components in E. purpurea are caffeic acid derivatives, alkamides, polyacetylenes, and polysaccharides. In this investigation, a protocol was developed in an attempt to identify polysaccharides present in Puritan’s Pride E. purpurea (aerial) “non-irradiated” herbal supplement First, an estimate of the crude total polysaccharide content in Puritan’s Pride and in a ChromaDex certified botanical standard (E. purpurea -powdered root) was …

Building A Better Bypass Graft

Jefferson Surgical Solutions

Jefferson vascular surgeon obtains three research grants. Vascular surgeon Paul DiMuzio, MD, FACS,Assistant Professor of Surgery and Radiology,Jefferson Medical College (JMC) of ThomasJefferson University, has been awarded grantsfrom the National Institutes of Health (NIH),American Vascular Association and AmericanHeart Association totaling $975,000. Thesefunds will further his team's research to usetissue engineering and stem cell technologyto develop a novel bypass graft for patientswho lack autogenous tissues for vascularprocedures such as coronary and peripheralartery bypass and hemodialysis access. "Today, the gold standard for creatingthese grafts is using the patient's saphenousvein or another artery," Dr. DiMuzio says."When those are unavailable because theyare diseased, too …

2007 - The Twelfth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twelfth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 23, 2007. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

The Fundamentals Of Health Savings Accounts And High-Deductible Health Plans, Beth Fuchs, Lisa Potetz

National Health Policy Forum

This background paper updates and expands on a previous NHPF document that looked at the fundamentals of health savings accounts (HSAs) and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), their intellectual and legislative origins, and the ways they work. In addition to updating information on the HDHP/HSA marketplace, this paper presents a description of how the HDHP combined with the HSA works for enrollees. Using a question and-answer format, it then addresses some of the more complicated details of these arrangements, looking first at the HDHPs and then the HSAs. This closer examination suggests some potential policy challenges for lawmakers, the focus of …

Cpg Hypomethylation In A Large Domain Encompassing The Embryonic Β-Like Globin Genes In Primitive Erythrocytes, Mei Hsu, Rodwell R. Mabaera, Christopher H. Lowrey, David I. K. Martin, Steven Fiering

Dartmouth Scholarship

There is little evidence addressing the role of CpG methylation in transcriptional control of genes that do not contain CpG islands. This is reflected in the ongoing debate about whether CpG methylation merely suppresses retroelements or if it also plays a role in developmental and tissue-specific gene regulation. The genes of the β-globin locus are an important model of mammalian developmental gene regulation and do not contain CpG islands. We have analyzed the methylation status of regions in the murine β-like globin locus in uncultured primitive and definitive erythroblasts and other cultured primary and transformed cell types. A large (∼20-kb) …

Psychometrically Equivalent Trisyllabic Words For Speech Reception Threshold Testing In Cantonese, Misty Noelani Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop, digitally record, evaluate, and equate Cantonese trisyllabic words which could then be used in the measurement of the speech reception threshold. A selection of 90 frequently utilized trisyllabic words were selected and then digitally recorded by male and female talkers of Standard Cantonese and presented to 20 subjects with normal hearing beginning at 6 dB below their pure-tone average (PTA) and ascending in 2 dB increments until one of the following criteria had been met: (a) the participant responded correctly to 100% of the test items, or (b) the presentation level reached …

Na/K-Atpase Beta1 Subunit Expression Is Required For Blastocyst Formation And Normal Assembly Of Trophectoderm Tight Junction-Associated Proteins., Pavneesh Madan, Keeley Rose, Andrew J Watson

Obstetrics & Gynaecology Publications

Na/K-ATPase plays an important role in mediating blastocyst formation. Despite the expression of multiple Na/K-ATPase alpha and beta isoforms during mouse preimplantation development, only the alpha1 and beta1 isoforms have been localized to the basolateral membrane regions of the trophectoderm. The aim of the present study was to selectively down-regulate the Na/K-ATPase beta1 subunit employing microinjection of mouse 1 cell zygotes with small interfering RNA (siRNA) oligos. Experiments comprised of non-injected controls and two groups microinjected with either Stealthtrade mark Na/K-ATPase beta1 subunit oligos or nonspecific Stealthtrade mark siRNA as control. Development to the 2-, 4-, 8-, and 16-cell and …

The Notch Regulator Maml1 Interacts With P53 And Functions As A Coactivator., Yongtong Zhao, Rebecca B. Katzman, Laurie M. Delmolino, Ishfaq Bhat, Ying Zhang, Channabasavaiah B. Gurumurthy, Aleksandra Germaniuk-Kurowska, Honey V. Reddi, Aharon Solomon, Mu-Sheng Zeng, Aisha Kung, Hui Ma, Qingshen Gao, Goberdhan Dimri, Adina Stanculescu, Lucio Miele, Lizi Wu, James D. Griffin, David E. Wazer, Hamid Band, Vimla Band

Journal Articles: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Members of the evolutionarily conserved Mastermind (MAM) protein family, including the three related mammalian Mastermind-like (MAML) proteins MAML1-3, function as crucial coactivators of Notch-mediated transcriptional activation. Given the recent evidence of cross-talk between the p53 and Notch signal transduction pathways, we have investigated whether MAML1 may also be a transcriptional coactivator of p53. Indeed, we show here that MAML1 is able to interact with p53. We show that MAML1-p53 interaction involves the N-terminal region of MAML1 and the DNA-binding domain of p53, and we use a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay to show that MAML1 is part of the activator complex that …

The Role Of The Clinical Educator In Evaluating Nursing Competency, Linda A. Schoene Msn, Rn, Carole A. Kanusky Rn, Msn, Cns

Advances in Teaching and Learning Day Abstracts

INTRODUCTION: Evaluation of nursing competency is critical to assuring patient safety and maintaining high professional standards in the practice of nursing. All nurses must graduate from an approved nursing program and successfully pass the national board exam before receiving initial licensure. State boards of nursing fulfill the role of gatekeeper, seeking to assure the public that nurses provide safe, competent care. In turn, high public awareness and patient advocacy initiatives require close monitoring of nursing competency. [See PDF for complete abstract]

What Have You Done For Me Lately? Assessing Hospital Community Benefit, Eileen Salinsky

National Health Policy Forum

This issue brief reviews key aspects of the ongoing policy debate related to not-for-profit hospitals, the advantages they derive from tax exemption, and the benefits they provide to communities served. It provides a historical context for how federal standards for assessing hospitals’ tax-exempt status have evolved and describes recent activities to explore additional policy changes. Legislative and regulatory actions at the state and local level are also examined. Evidence on the performance of not-for-profit hospitals in comparison to their for-profit competitors on measures of cost, quality, and access is summarized, and perspectives on the need to preserve a not-for-profit presence …

Weighted Likelihood Method For Grouped Survival Data In Case-Cohort Studies With Application To Hiv Vaccine Trials, Zhiguo Li, Peter B. Gilbert, Bin Nan

The University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Grouped failure time data arise often in HIV studies. In a recent preventive HIV vaccine efficacy trial, immune responses generated by the vaccine were measured from a case-cohort sample of vaccine recipients, who were subsequently evaluated for the study endpoint of HIV infection at pre-specified follow-up visits. Gilbert et al. (2005) and Forthal et al. (2007) analyzed the association between the immune responses and HIV incidence with a Cox proportional hazards model, treating the HIV infection diagnosis time as a right censored random variable. The data, however, are of the form of grouped failure time data with case-cohort covariate sampling, …

Smallpox Subunit Vaccine Produced In Planta Confers Protection In Mice, Maxim Golovkin, Sergei Spitsin, Vyacheslav Andrianov, Yuriy Smirnov, Yuhong Xiao, Natalia Pogrebnyak, Karen Markley, Robert Brodzik, Yuri Gleba, Stuart N Isaacs, Hilary Koprowski

Department of Cancer Biology Faculty Papers

We report here the in planta production of the recombinant vaccinia virus B5 antigenic domain (pB5), an attractive component of a subunit vaccine against smallpox. The antigenic domain was expressed by using efficient transient and constitutive plant expression systems and tested by various immunization routes in two animal models. Whereas oral administration in mice or the minipig with collard-derived insoluble pB5 did not generate an anti-B5 immune response, intranasal administration of soluble pB5 led to a rise of B5-specific immunoglobulins, and parenteral immunization led to a strong anti-B5 immune response in both mice and the minipig. Mice immunized i.m. with …

Ada News - 04/16/2007, 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.

Development Of A Decision Support Tool To Facilitate Primary Care Management Of Patients With Abnormal Liver Function Tests Without Clinically Apparent Liver Disease [Hta03/38/02]. Abnormal Liver Function Investigations Evaluation (Alfie), Peter T. Donnan, David Mclernon, Douglas Steinke, Stephen Ryder, Paul Roderick, Frank M. Sullivan, William Rosenberg, John F. Dillon

Pharmacy Practice and Science Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Liver function tests (LFTs) are routinely performed in primary care, and are often the gateway to further invasive and/or expensive investigations. Little is known of the consequences in people with an initial abnormal liver function (ALF) test in primary care and with no obvious liver disease. Further investigations may be dangerous for the patient and expensive for Health Services. The aims of this study are to determine the natural history of abnormalities in LFTs before overt liver disease presents in the population and identify those who require minimal further investigations with the potential for reduction in NHS costs.

METHODS/DESIGN: …

The Pulse Of Humanitarian Assistance, Kevin M. Cahill, M.D.

Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs

Understanding the complex nature of international humanitarian action—particularly following natural disasters or armed conflicts—has been the mission of this unique series. This book explores the cutting-edge concerns that will affect how assistance is offered in the future.

Featuring twelve original essays by leading practitioners, policymakers, and scholars, the book is a state of the field report on problems, threats, and opportunities facing relief efforts in today’s world.

With contributions from such authorities as Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders, Charles McCormick, CEO of Save the Children, and physicians, military leaders, field workers, and others, the essays confront the most …

Single-Stranded Dna-Binding Proteins Regulate The Abundance Of Lim Domain And Lim Domain-Binding Proteins, Zhixiong Xu, Xianzhang Meng, Ying Cai, Hong Liang, Lalitha Nagarajan, Stephen J Brandt

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The LIM domain-binding protein Ldb1 is an essential cofactor of LIM-homeodomain (LIM-HD) and LIM-only (LMO) proteins in development. The stoichiometry of Ldb1, LIM-HD, and LMO proteins is tightly controlled in the cell and is likely a critical determinant of their biological actions. Single-stranded DNA-binding proteins (SSBPs) were recently shown to interact with Ldb1 and are also important in developmental programs. We establish here that two mammalian SSBPs, SSBP2 and SSBP3, contribute to an erythroid DNA-binding complex that contains the transcription factors Tal1 and GATA-1, the LIM domain protein Lmo2, and Ldb1 and binds a bipartite E-box-GATA DNA sequence motif. In …

Ohio Academy Of Medical History Annual Meeting Program, April 14, 2007, Ohio Academy Of Medical History

Annual Conference Programs

This tri-fold program is from the annual review of the Ohio Academy of Medical History held on April 14, 2007 at the Granville Inn in Granville, Ohio. The program details the events and presentations of the meeting.

Dr. Noah Elliott, African American Pioneer Physician, Carl J. Denbow

Annual Conference Presentations, Papers, and Posters

This presentation highlights some of the fascinating aspects that the author has been able to unearth about the life of Dr. Noah Elliott, the first African American physician to practice in Athens County. Not much about Dr. Elliott's early life is known, other than that he was born a slave in Kentucky. He is listed in the 1860 census in Gallipolis, Ohio, with an occupation of physician. During the War of Rebellion (1861-65) he served as a hospital steward in the 26th United States Colored Infantry. After the war, he practiced in several locations including in the western Athens County …

Scope: A Web Server For Practical De Novo Motif Discovery, Jonathan M. Carlson, Arijit Chakravarty, Charles E. Deziel, Robert H. Gross

Dartmouth Scholarship

SCOPE is a novel parameter-free method for the de novoidentification of potential regulatory motifs in sets of coordinately regulated genes. The SCOPE algorithm combines the output of three component algorithms, each designed to identify a particular class of motifs. Using an ensemble learning approach, SCOPE identifies the best candidate motifs from its component algorithms. In tests on experimentally determined datasets, SCOPE identified motifs with a significantly higher level of accuracy than a number of other web-based motif finders run with their default parameters. Because SCOPE has no adjustable parameters, the web server has an intuitive interface, requiring only a …

Is Mri-Based Volume A Mediator Of The Association Of Cumulative Lead Dose With Cognitive Function?, Brian S. Caffo, Sining Chen, Walter Stewart, Karen Bolla, David Yousem, Christos Davatzikos, Brian S. Schwartz

Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers

This work considers the pathway through which past occupational lead exposure impacts cognitive function using cross-sectional data. It is motivated by studies linking cumulative lead dose with brain volumes, volumes with cognitive function, and lead dose with cognitive function. It is hypothesized that the brain regions associated with lead mediate a portion of the association between lead dose and cognitive function. The data were derived from an ongoing study of 513 former organolead manufacturing workers. Using MRIs, a novel analysis was performed to investigate Mediation. Volumes associated with cognitive function and lead dose were derived using registered images and used …

Membrane Association And Multimerization Of Tcpt, The Cognate Atpase Ortholog Of The Vibrio Cholerae Toxin-Coregulated-Pilus Biogenesis Apparatus, Shital A. Tripathi, Ronald K. Taylor

Dartmouth Scholarship

The toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP) is one of the major virulence factors of Vibrio cholerae. Biogenesis of this type 4 pilus (Tfp) requires a number of structural components encoded by the tcp operon. TcpT, the cognate putative ATPase, is required for TCP biogenesis and all TCP-mediated functions. We studied the stability and localization of TcpT in cells containing in-frame deletions in each of the tcp genes. TcpT was detectable in each of the biogenesis mutants except the ΔtcpT strain. TcpT was localized to the inner membrane (IM) in a TcpR-dependent manner. TcpR is a predicted bitopic inner membrane protein …

Stability Of Eukaryotic Elongation Factor One Alpha Protein In The Cell, Jennifer Watry

Honors Theses

Eukaryotic Elongation Factor One Alpha (eEF1A) is an abundant protein found in every cell of every organism and is involved in functions concerning protein synthesis and degradation, the cytoskeleton, and signaling. How these functions are regulated is not yet understood for this protein. Regulation of the protein may be controlled by transcription of the genes encoding the protein or the stability and modification of the protein. The goal of this project was to determine the stability of eEf1A proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana. Protein stability was determined by treating tissues with cycloheximide, an inhibitor of protein synthesis. Gel electrophoresis and …

Spatial And Temporal Patterns Of Enzootic Raccoon Rabies Adjusted For Multiple Covariates, Sergio Recuenco, Millicent Eidson, Martin Kulldorff, Glen Johnson, Bryan Cherry

Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease: Publications

Background: With the objective of identifying spatial and temporal patterns of enzootic raccoon variant rabies, a spatial scan statistic was utilized to search for significant terrestrial rabies clusters by year in New York State in 1997–2003. Cluster analyses were unadjusted for other factors, adjusted for covariates, and adjusted for covariates and large scale geographic variation (LSGV). Adjustments were intended to identify the unusual aggregations of cases given the expected distribution based on the observed locations.

Results: Statistically significant clusters were identified particularly in the Albany, Finger Lakes, and South Hudson areas. The clusters were generally persistent in the Albany area, …

Haplotype Association Between Haptoglobin (Hp2) And Hp Promoter Snp (A-61c) May Explain Previous Controversy Of Haptoglobin And Malaria Protection, Sharon E. Cox, Conor Doherty, Sarah H. Atkinson, Chidi V. Nweneka, Anthony J.C. Fulford, Hala Ghattas Ph.D., Kirk A. Rockett, Dominic P. Kwiatkowski, Andrew M. Prentice

Faculty Publications

Background.

Malaria is one of the strongest recent selective pressures on the human genome, as evidenced by the high levels of varying haemoglobinopathies in human populations-despite the increased risk of mortality in the homozygous states. Previously, functional polymorphisms of Hp, coded by the co-dominant alleles Hp1 and Hp2, have been variously associated with several infectious diseases, including malaria susceptibility.

Methodology/Principal Findings.

Risk of a clinical malarial episode over the course of a malarial transmission season was assessed using active surveillance in a cohort of Gambian children aged 10-72 months. We report for the first time that the major haplotype for …

Haplotype Association Between Haptoglobin (Hp2) And Hp Promoter Snp (A-61c) May Explain Previous Controversy Of Haptoglobin And Malaria Protection, Sharon E. Cox, Conor Doherty, Sarah H. Atkinson, Chidi V. Nweneka, Anthony J.C. Fulford, Hala Ghattas Ph.D., Kirk A. Rockett, Dominic P. Kwiatkowski, Andrew M. Prentice

Faculty Publications

Background

Malaria is one of the strongest recent selective pressures on the human genome, as evidenced by the high levels of varying haemoglobinopathies in human populations–despite the increased risk of mortality in the homozygous states. Previously, functional polymorphisms of Hp, coded by the co-dominant alleles Hp1 and Hp2, have been variously associated with several infectious diseases, including malaria susceptibility.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Risk of a clinical malarial episode over the course of a malarial transmission season was assessed using active surveillance in a cohort of Gambian children aged 10–72 months. We report for the first time that the major haplotype for …

Relevance To Self: A Brief Review And Framework Of Neural Systems Underlying Appraisal, Taylor W. Schmitz, Sterling C. Johnson

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

We argue that many similar findings observed in cognitive, affective, and social neuroimaging research may compose larger processes central to generating self-relevance. In support of this, recent findings from these research domains were reviewed to identify common systemic activation patterns. Superimposition of these patterns revealed evidence for large-scale supramodal processes, which are argued to mediate appraisal of self-relevant content irrespective of specific stimulus types (e.g. words, pictures) and task domains (e.g. induction of reward, fear, pain, etc.). Furthermore, we distinguish between two top-down sub-systems involved in appraisal of self-relevance, one that orients pre-attentive biasing information (e.g. anticipatory or mnemonic) to …

Comprehension Of Health Plan Language For Denial Of Benefit Claims, E. Kiernan Mcgorty

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

ERISA requires that plan administrators provide consumers with understandable health plan documents. The present study assessed the readability and comprehensibility of medical necessity and claims procedure clauses. For Study 1, I collected 40 summary plan descriptions from a diverse sample of employers and ran readability tests on the medical necessity and claims procedure clauses. Scores on the Flesch Reading Ease, Flesch Grade Level, and Fog Index indicated that the clauses were, in violation of ERISA’s disclosure requirement, written at reading levels beyond those one might expect the average plan participant to possess.

In Studies 2 and 3, employees read either …

Perceptions Of Speech-Language Pathologists, Abby M. Spicko

Honors Theses

According to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, speech-language pathologists practice in a wide variety of work settings including schools, hospitals, clinics, private homes, nursing homes, and more (ASHA, 2007). As a result of the diverse environments in which speech language pathologists are employed, they work in collaboration with people from many other professions, including teachers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, social works. and occupational and physical therapists. It is important to understand the relationships between the speech language pathologist and their co-workers and others' attitudes toward the profession. This paper examines how those working with speech language pathologists across various work settings, …