Ready or Not, Here They Come: Acting Interns’ Experience and Perceived Competency Performing Basic Medical Procedures

OBJECTIVE: To assess acting interns’ (AI’s) experience with and perceived level of competency performing 6 basic medical procedures. DESIGN: Fourth-year medical students at the University of Cincinnati (UCCOM) are required to complete 2 AI rotations in Internal Medicine. All AIs in 2003–2004 (n = 150) and 2004–2005 (n = 151) were asked to complete a survey about whether during each of their rotations they had performed and felt competent performing the following procedures: phlebotomy, intravenous (IV) catheter insertion, arterial blood gas (ABG), nasogastric (NG) tube insertion, lumbar puncture (LP), and Foley catheter insertion. RESULTS: Four hundred sixty-seven of 601 possible surveys (across both years and both rotations) were completed (78% response rate). During both rotations, relatively few students performed the procedures, ranging from 9% for Foley catheter insertion (24/208) to 50% for both ABG and NG tube insertion (130/259). The two procedures most often performed were ABG (range 46–50%) and NG tube insertion (range 42–50%). Feelings of competency varied from 12% (LP) to 82% (Foley catheter). Except for LP, if students performed a procedure at least once, they reported feeling more competent (range 85% for ABG to 96% for Foley catheter insertion). Among the students who performed LP during a rotation, many still did not feel competent performing LPs: 23 (74%) in rotation 1 and 20 (40%) in rotation 2. CONCLUSION: Many fourth-year students at UCCOM do not perform basic procedures during their acting internship rotations. Procedural performance correlates with feelings of competency. Lumbar puncture competency may be too ambitious a goal for medical students

Electron-phonon effects and transport in carbon nanotubes

We calculate the electron-phonon scattering and binding in semiconducting carbon nanotubes, within a tight binding model. The mobility is derived using a multi-band Boltzmann treatment. At high fields, the dominant scattering is inter-band scattering by LO phonons corresponding to the corners K of the graphene Brillouin zone. The drift velocity saturates at approximately half the graphene Fermi velocity. The calculated mobility as a function of temperature, electric field, and nanotube chirality are well reproduced by a simple interpolation formula. Polaronic binding give a band-gap renormalization of ~70 meV, an order of magnitude larger than expected. Coherence lengths can be quite long but are strongly energy dependent.Comment: 5 pages and 4 figure

Spin and charge excitations in incommensurate spin density waves

Collective excitations both for spin- and charge-channels are investigated in incommensurate spin density wave (or stripe) states on two-dimensional Hubbard model. By random phase approximation, the dynamical susceptibility \chi(q,\omega) is calculated for full range of (q,\omega) with including all higher harmonics components. An intricate landscape of the spectra in \chi(q,\omega) is obtained. We discuss the anisotropy of the dispersion cones for spin wave excitations, and for the phason excitation related to the motion of the stripe line. Inelastic neutron experiments on Cr and its alloys and stripe states of underdoped cuprates are proposed

Soliton excitations in halogen-bridged mixed-valence binuclear metal complexes

Motivated by recent stimulative observations in halogen (X)-bridged binuclear transition-metal (M) complexes, which are referred to as MMX chains, we study solitons in a one-dimensional three-quarter-filled charge-density-wave system with both intrasite and intersite electron-lattice couplings. Two distinct ground states of MMX chains are reproduced and the soliton excitations on them are compared. In the weak-coupling region, all the solitons are degenerate to each other and are uniquely scaled by the band gap, whereas in the strong-coupling region, they behave differently deviating from the scenario in the continuum limit. The soliton masses are calculated and compared with those for conventional mononuclear MX chains.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures embedded, to be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 71, No. 1 (2002

Genetics and physiology of cell wall polysaccharides in the model C(4) grass, Setaria viridis spp

Published: 2 October 2015BACKGROUND: Setaria viridis has emerged as a model species for the larger C4 grasses. Here the cellulose synthase (CesA) superfamily has been defined, with an emphasis on the amounts and distribution of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan, a cell wall polysaccharide that is characteristic of the grasses and is of considerable value for human health. METHODS: Orthologous relationship of the CesA and Poales-specific cellulose synthase-like (Csl) genes among Setaria italica (Si), Sorghum bicolor (Sb), Oryza sativa (Os), Brachypodium distachyon (Bradi) and Hordeum vulgare (Hv) were compared using bioinformatics analysis. Transcription profiling of Csl gene families, which are involved in (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan synthesis, was performed using real-time quantitative PCR (Q-PCR). The amount of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan was measured using a modified Megazyme assay. The fine structures of the (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan, as denoted by the ratio of cellotriosyl to cellotetraosyl residues (DP3:DP4 ratio) was assessed by chromatography (HPLC and HPAEC-PAD). The distribution and deposition of the MLG was examined using the specific antibody BG-1 and captured using fluorescence and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). RESULTS: The cellulose synthase gene superfamily contains 13 CesA and 35 Csl genes in Setaria. Transcript profiling of CslF, CslH and CslJ gene families across a vegetative tissue series indicated that SvCslF6 transcripts were the most abundant relative to all other Csl transcripts. The amounts of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan in Setaria vegetative tissues ranged from 0.2% to 2.9% w/w with much smaller amounts in developing grain (0.003% to 0.013% w/w). In general, the amount of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan was greater in younger than in older tissues. The DP3:DP4 ratios varied between tissue types and across developmental stages, and ranged from 2.4 to 3.0:1. The DP3:DP4 ratios in developing grain ranged from 2.5 to 2.8:1. Micrographs revealing the distribution of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan in walls of different cell types and the data were consistent with the quantitative (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan assays. CONCLUSION: The characteristics of the cellulose synthase gene superfamily and the accumulation and distribution of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucans in Setaria are similar to those in other C4 grasses, including sorghum. This suggests that Setaria is a suitable model plant for cell wall polysaccharide biology in C4 grasses.Riksfardini A. Ermawar, Helen M. Collins, Caitlin S. Byrt, Marilyn Henderson, Lisa A. O'Donovan, Neil J. Shirley, Julian G. Schwerdt, Jelle Lahnstein, Geoffrey B. Fincher and Rachel A. Burto

Unconventional ferromagnetic and spin-glass states of the reentrant spin glass Fe0.7Al0.3

Spin excitations of single crystal Fe0.7Al0.3 were investigated over a wide range in energy and reciprocal space with inelastic neutron scattering. In the ferromagnetic phase, propagating spin wave modes become paramagnon-like diffusive modes beyond a critical wave vector q0, indicating substantial disorder in the long-range ordered state. In the spin glass phase, spin dynamics is strongly q-dependent, suggesting remnant short-range spin correlations. Quantitative model for S(energy,q) in the ``ferromagnetic'' phase is determined.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

A process model for developing learning design patterns with international scope

This paper investigates the process of identifying design patterns in international collaborative learning environments. In this context, design patterns are referred to as structured descriptions of best practice with pre-defined sections such as problem, solution and consequences. We pay special attention to how the scope of a design pattern is identified and articulated. Based on a review of the seminal design patterns literature and current practice in the area of learning design, the lack of a more specific process description for developing patterns with international scope is identified. The paper suggests a process model for developing patterns with international scope. This model is exemplified in a case study that links the analysis of observation in international learning environments to the articulation of design patterns by identifying culturally independent core values that constitute the foundations of a design pattern with international scope. These core values are linked to recurrent learning behaviors and specific artefacts that support learning in the articulation of a design pattern. The findings contribute to gaining a deeper understanding of the pattern scoping and abstraction process in international learning environments

Mundane objects in the city: Laundry practices and the making and remaking of public/private sociality and space in London and New York

The paper considers how shifting laundry practices and technologies associated with dirty washing have over time summoned different spaces, socialities and socio-spatial assemblages in the city, enrolling different actors and multiple publics and constituting different associations, networks and relations in its wake as it travels from the home and back again. It argues that rather than being an inert object of unpleasant matter, whose encounter with humans has been largely restricted to certain categories of person for its transformation to re-use, and thus passed unnoticed, the paper explores how laundry practices have figured in producing and reproducing gendered (and classed) relations of labour, and enacting multiple socio-spatial, and gendered, relations and assemblages in the city, which have largely gone unnoticed in accounts of everyday urban life

The motivations of external whistleblowers and their impact on the intention to blow the whistle again

The purpose of this study was to inquire into the relative importance of morality, cost‐benefit, and emotion as motivations for the decision to blow the whistle externally, and the effects of such factors as motivations, perceived negative consequences, and preferences for reform on the intention to blow the whistle again. Based on a literature review, we formulated some hypotheses and, to test them, we used the data collected from a survey of 127 external whistleblowers in South Korea. The results revealed that morality was the most important motivation, followed by emotion, and then cost‐benefit, which thus, seemed to be the least important for the whistleblowers. Morality as a motivation and the perceived negative consequences of whistleblowing had a significant effect on the intention to blow the whistle again. This study helps advance the understanding of the motivations behind whistleblowing and the factors that influence the intention to blow the whistle again