Corporate Practices that Inhibit and Drive Innovation for Sustainability

Proposal to the Eastern Academy of Management to conduct a discussion symposium regarding a systematic review of the body of research on innovation for sustainable business

Papillary Renal Carcinoma Presenting as a Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP) and Diagnosed through Gene Expression Profiling

Cancer of unknown primary (CUP) is a clinical syndrome representing many types of cancers and diagnoses are typically made after review of clinical presentation, pathology (including immunohistochemical staining) and imaging studies. Treatment with systemic chemotherapy has been shown to result in fairly reproducible objective response rates. Herein, a case of a patient who was initially diagnosed with a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma of unknown origin is reported. After mRNA gene expression profiling (commercially available CancerTYPE ID), a specific diagnosis of papillary renal cell carcinoma (RCC) was made and then confirmed with additional immunohistochemical staining. The patient was treated with targeted therapy and an objective radiographic response was seen. A literature review suggests this to be the first patient with papillary RCC, identified by molecular profiling, and benefitting from a targeted agent that otherwise would not have been considered in the setting of CUP. This case underscores the importance of considering the use of newer testing technologies in the interest of offering patients more specific, targeted therapy in order to improve efficacy and spare patients toxicities of less specific, empiric chemotherapeutic regimens

Barriers to antigenic escape by pathogens: trade-off between reproductive rate and antigenic mutability

BackgroundA single measles vaccination provides lifelong protection. No antigenic variants that escape immunity have been observed. By contrast, influenza continually evolves new antigenic variants, and the vaccine has to be updated frequently with new strains. Both measles and influenza are RNA viruses with high mutation rates, so the mutation rate alone cannot explain the differences in antigenic variability.ResultsWe develop a new hypothesis to explain antigenic stasis versus change. We first note that the antigenically static viruses tend to have high reproductive rates and to concentrate infection in children, whereas antigenically variable viruses such as influenza tend to spread more widely across age classes. We argue that, for pathogens in a naive host population that spread more rapidly in younger individuals than in older individuals, natural selection weights more heavily a rise in reproductive rate. By contrast, pathogens that spread more readily among older individuals gain more by antigenic escape, so natural selection weights more heavily antigenic mutability.ConclusionThese divergent selective pressures on reproductive rate and antigenic mutability may explain some of the observed differences between pathogens in age-class bias, reproductive rate, and antigenic variation

Spacelab system analysis: A study of the Marshall Avionics System Testbed (MAST)

An analysis of the Marshall Avionics Systems Testbed (MAST) communications requirements is presented. The average offered load for typical nodes is estimated. Suitable local area networks are determined

Hysteroscopy for treating subfertility associated with suspected major uterine cavity abnormalities

Background : Observational studies suggest higher pregnancy rates after the hysteroscopic removal of endometrial polyps, submucous fibroids, uterine septum or intrauterine adhesions, which are detectable in 10% to 15% of women seeking treatment for subfertility. Objectives : To assess the effects of the hysteroscopic removal of endometrial polyps, submucous fibroids, uterine septum or intrauterine adhesions suspected on ultrasound, hysterosalpingography, diagnostic hysteroscopy or any combination of thesemethods inwomenwith otherwise unexplained subfertility or prior to intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Search methods : We searched theCochraneMenstrualDisorders and Subfertility SpecialisedRegister (8 September 2014), theCochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library 2014, Issue 9), MEDLINE (1950 to 12 October 2014), EMBASE (inception to 12 October 2014), CINAHL (inception to 11 October 2014) and other electronic sources of trials including trial registers, sources of unpublished literature and reference lists. We handsearched the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) conference abstracts and proceedings (from January 2013 to October 2014) and we contacted experts in the field. Selection criteria : Randomised comparisons between operative hysteroscopy versus control in women with otherwise unexplained subfertility or undergoing IUI, IVF or ICSI and suspected major uterine cavity abnormalities diagnosed by ultrasonography, saline infusion/ gel instillation sonography, hysterosalpingography, diagnostic hysteroscopy or any combination of these methods. Primary outcomes were live birth and hysteroscopy complications. Secondary outcomes were pregnancy and miscarriage. Data collection and analysis : Two review authors independently assessed studies for inclusion and risk of bias, and extracted data. We contacted study authors for additional information. Main results : We retrieved 12 randomised trials possibly addressing the research questions. Only two studies (309 women) met the inclusion criteria. Neither reported the primary outcomes of live birth or procedure related complications. In women with otherwise unexplained subfertility and submucous fibroids there was no conclusive evidence of a difference between the intervention group treated with hysteroscopic myomectomy and the control group having regular fertility-oriented intercourse during 12 months for the outcome of clinical pregnancy. A large clinical benefit with hysteroscopic myomectomy cannot be excluded: if 21% of women with fibroids achieve a clinical pregnancy having timed intercourse only, the evidence suggests that 39% of women (95% CI 21% to 58%) will achieve a successful outcome following the hysteroscopic removal of the fibroids (odds ratio (OR) 2.44, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.97 to 6.17, P = 0.06, 94 women, very low quality evidence). There is no evidence of a difference between the comparison groups for the outcome of miscarriage (OR 0.58, 95% CI 0.12 to 2.85, P = 0.50, 30 clinical pregnancies in 94 women, very low quality evidence). The hysteroscopic removal of polyps prior to IUI can increase the chance of a clinical pregnancy compared to simple diagnostic hysteroscopy and polyp biopsy: if 28% of women achieve a clinical pregnancy with a simple diagnostic hysteroscopy, the evidence suggests that 63% of women (95% CI 50% to 76%) will achieve a clinical pregnancy after the hysteroscopic removal of the endometrial polyps (OR 4.41, 95% CI 2.45 to 7.96, P < 0.00001, 204 women, moderate quality evidence). Authors' conclusions : A large benefit with the hysteroscopic removal of submucous fibroids for improving the chance of clinical pregnancy in women with otherwise unexplained subfertility cannot be excluded. The hysteroscopic removal of endometrial polyps suspected on ultrasound in women prior to IUI may increase the clinical pregnancy rate. More randomised studies are needed to substantiate the effectiveness of the hysteroscopic removal of suspected endometrial polyps, submucous fibroids, uterine septum or intrauterine adhesions in women with unexplained subfertility or prior to IUI, IVF or ICSI

Providing Care to People with Dementia: An Educational workshop

Informal (family) caregivers providing care to loved ones experiencing symptoms of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease navigate multiple challenges. Caregivers observe and respond to changes in their loved ones related to physical, emotional and social skills. While providing care to their loved ones, caregivers must be aware of their own needs and the importance of maintaining a balance between the responsibilities of being a caregiver and the responsibilities in other areas of their life. Maintenance of positive emotional and physical health is crucial to providing effective and safe care. Identification of methods to promote the positive health of informal caregivers becomes increasingly important as their loved one demonstrates progression towards the next stage of dementia, changing the amount and type of care required. Each individual caregiver has different needs, routines, values and responsibilities which require a personalized approach and adoption of different coping mechanisms. Identifying individual goals, challenges and interests allows for educational programs, such as “Providing Care to People with Dementia: An Educational Workshop”, to be tailored and modified to fit the need for caregiver education within multiple populations and settings. Inclusion of interactive components and peer support is also beneficial to the learning process and implementation in a caregivers’ daily life. Acknowledgement of the amount of care being provided and experience level of each caregiver ensures that the proper information and guidance is being provided with the goal of increasing the quality of life for both the caregiver and individual receiving care.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonesfall2021/1018/thumbnail.jp

Spacelab system analysis: A study of communications systems for advanced launch systems

An analysis of the required performance of internal avionics data bases for future launch vehicles is presented. Suitable local area networks that can service these requirements are determined

Managing Student Distraction: Responding To Problems of Gaming and Pornography in a Western Australian School for Boys

This paper provides some initial findings from a current longitudinal study that examines the implementation of a 1:1 laptop program in a school for boys in Perth, Western Australia. One issue that has emerged from the study is the problem of managing student distraction. The school in this study has taken a proactive approach to managing student conduct on its own network. Two student monitoring initiatives were implemented during the course of the research. The first: parental control software sought to integrate the parental control features of the laptops with the school network. The second initiative: e-safe is a web tracking service that records suspicious searches and URLs that students visit. When used in tandem, these tools were shown to have a marked impact on the conduct of students in using their laptops. This paper describes these initiatives including their effect on the broader school community, and suggests some ways in which student distraction can be best managed in future practice

A Massive Data Parallel Computational Framework for Petascale/Exascale Hybrid Computer Systems

Heterogeneous systems are becoming more common on High Performance Computing (HPC) systems. Even using tools like CUDA and OpenCL it is a non-trivial task to obtain optimal performance on the GPU. Approaches to simplifying this task include Merge (a library based framework for heterogeneous multi-core systems), Zippy (a framework for parallel execution of codes on multiple GPUs), BSGP (a new programming language for general purpose computation on the GPU) and CUDA-lite (an enhancement to CUDA that transforms code based on annotations). In addition, efforts are underway to improve compiler tools for automatic parallelization and optimization of affine loop nests for GPUs and for automatic translation of OpenMP parallelized codes to CUDA. In this paper we present an alternative approach: a new computational framework for the development of massively data parallel scientific codes applications suitable for use on such petascale/exascale hybrid systems built upon the highly scalable Cactus framework. As the first non-trivial demonstration of its usefulness, we successfully developed a new 3D CFD code that achieves improved performance.Comment: Parallel Computing 2011 (ParCo2011), 30 August -- 2 September 2011, Ghent, Belgiu