A study of gentamicin injury mechanisms using cultured mouse cochlear spiral ganglion cells

AbstractObjectiveTo study gentamicin injury mechanisms using postnatal mouse cochlear spiral gangcells (SGC).MethodsSGCs were isolated using a combinatorial approach of enzymatic digestion and mechanical separation from P2 ~ 6 Kunming mouse cochleae. After 4 days, cultured SGCs were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde at room temperature for immunocytochemical examination using the methods of S–P and the monoclonal antibody against mouse neurofilament protein (Neurofilament–68/200Kda, NF–L+H). SGCs were randomly divided into a blank control group and three gentamicin treatment groups (medium gentamicin concentration at 50 mg/L, 100 mg/L and 150 mg/L respectively), SGCs were collected and examined under a transmission electron microscope after being cultured for 48 h.ResultsSGC primary culture was successful. SGC cytoplasm and neurites were dyed brownish yellow by the monoclonal mouse neurofilament protein antibody. SGCs showed classical bipolar neuron appearance. Under the transmission electron microscope,.gentamicin treated SGCs showed morphological features different compared to those in the blank control group, which might indicate apoptosis.ConclusionOur results indicate that gentamicin has direct toxic effects on cochlear SGCs in mice and the injury mechanism is closely related with apoptosis. Damage to mitochondria may play an important role in the process

Supporting Service Management with Service Encounters Analysis: A Case on Call Centre Outsourcing Operations

Background. A service encounter is the moment that a client directly interacts with a service firm. It is a social-oriented activity that an in-depth analysis of how the client behaved can contribute to the service quality. Objective. The primary objective of this study was to cluster the CLT into groups. The secondary objective was to discover the sequence of question types that asked in each group. Method. A real world call centre outsourcing practice and data mining techniques are used to discover client behaviour. Results. A total of 100,703 inbound calls from the call centre operational database are analyzed. 90.4% of the total calls were made by 85% of clients who used up to three business applications. 72.03% of the total calls were made by a group of clients who involved two to five question types. The clients were clustered into four groups by three behaviour variables. The sequences discovered in this study were mainly on two question types. Conclusion. The service encounter is a complex business process that an integrated perspective should be taken to analyze the dynamics among the entities involved. The client behaviour can be discovered and used as the feedback information for turning the operations in different organizational levels

Modeling Medical Summary Sharing Service with Web Services

Enterprises are entering a new Internet era. The Web, initially designed for human use, will now evolve to better support automated use. In this new era, enterprises will have the capability to assemble large-scale systems out of network-bound software components within the reach of mass-market consumers. This study aims to depict the conversations between business processes and Web service technologies, explain what and how can Web services support message sharing between business partners. A Medical Summary Sharing process from IHE is implemented with Web services technologies in a Long-Term Care Management Center setting. In this scenario, one manager in Care Management Center uses a care plan creation application to evaluate care requirements for one patient. The conversations between the application and Web services are explained using Web Service Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) in business process side and Web Services Description Language (WSDL) in technical side. We discovered that basic Web service technologies have matured enough to support enterprises in composition of Web services and further research should be made to identify novelty in using the technologies and to ensure operational quality while the services are consumed