Erving Goffman Was a Brilliantly Imaginative, Original Sociologist and a Pathmaking Ethnographer, Who Had a Deep and Lasting Influence on the Students Who He Mentored in his Distinctively Challenging Way, and on the Discipline of Sociology to Whose Development He Was Fervently Committed

This interview with Renée Fox, Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, was recorded over the phone on November 28, 2008. After Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, Dr. Fox edited the transcript and approved posting the present version on the web. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information and additional materials inserted during the editing process appear in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places

The State of the Great Central Valley -- Public Health and Access to Care

Part of a series that provides various quality of life indicators for California's Central Valley. Examines public health and access to health care in the region. Focuses on maternal and child health, senior health, and chronic and communicable diseases

The cross-pathway control system regulates production of the secondary metabolite toxin, sirodesmin PL, in the ascomycete, Leptosphaeria maculans

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Sirodesmin PL is a secondary metabolite toxin made by the ascomycetous plant pathogen, <it>Leptosphaeria maculans</it>. The sirodesmin biosynthetic genes are clustered in the genome. The key genes are a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase, <it>sirP</it>, and a pathway-specific transcription factor, <it>sirZ</it>. Little is known about regulation of sirodesmin production.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Genes involved in regulation of sirodesmin PL in <it>L. maculans </it>have been identified. Two hundred random insertional T-DNA mutants were screened with an antibacterial assay for ones producing low levels of sirodesmin PL. Three such mutants were isolated and each transcribed <it>sirZ </it>at very low levels. One of the affected genes had high sequence similarity to <it>Aspergillus fumigatus cpcA</it>, which regulates the cross-pathway control system in response to amino acid availability. This gene was silenced in <it>L. maculans </it>and the resultant mutant characterised. When amino acid starvation was artificially-induced by addition of 3-aminotriazole for 5 h, transcript levels of <it>sirP </it>and <it>sirZ </it>did not change in the wild type. In contrast, levels of <it>sirP </it>and <it>sirZ </it>transcripts increased in the silenced <it>cpcA </it>mutant. After prolonged amino acid starvation the silenced <it>cpcA </it>mutant produced much higher amounts of sirodesmin PL than the wild type.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Production of sirodesmin PL in <it>L. maculans </it>is regulated by the cross pathway control gene, <it>cpcA</it>, either directly or indirectly via the pathway-specific transcription factor, <it>sirZ</it>.</p

Maryland Infant Mortality Epidemiology Work Group Findings from Data Analysis and Overall Recommendations

The Infant Mortality Epidemiology Workgroup was charged to examine the risk factors associated with infant mortality in Maryland and to identify interventions that were most likely to enhance the state’s ability to achieve the goal of 10% reduction in infant mortality and to reduce the health disparities gap in infant mortality rates. The Workgroup examined linked birth and infant death data from the Maryland Vital Statistics Administration, and data from the Maryland Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System

Effects of Self-Empowered Teams on Rates of Adverse Drug Events in Primary Care

Background. Most safety issues in primary care arise from adverse drug events. Team Resource Management intervention was developed to identify systemic safety issues to design and implement interventions to address prioritized issues. Objectives. Evaluate impact of intervention on rates of events and preventable events in a vulnerable population. Design. Cluster randomized trial. 12 practices randomly assigned to either: (1) Intervention; (2) Intervention with Practice Enhancement Assistants; (3) No intervention. The intervention took 12 months. Main Outcome Measure. Rate and severity of events and preventable events measured using a Trigger Tool chart review method for the 12-month periods before and after the start of the intervention. Results. In the ‘‘intervention with Assistants” group there was a statistically significant decrease in the overall rate of events and in the rate of moderate/severe events. Analysis of Variance with study arm and time as the factors and moderate/severe events as the outcome showed a significant interaction between arm and time supporting the notion that the ‘‘Intervention with Assistants” practices had a greater reduction in moderate/severe preventable events. Conclusions. The intervention had a significant effect on medication safety as estimated using a trigger tool. Further exploration of role of Assistants and trigger tool is warranted

Best Practices for Cataloging Video Games Using RDA and MARC21

While a cataloger with experience handling different formats will find that many concepts extend to video games, there are a few ‘quirks’ to the format that those unfamiliar with video games should know about