Supporting Special-Purpose Health Care Models via Web Interfaces

The potential of the Web, via both the Internet and intranets, to facilitate development of clinical information systems has been evident for some time. Most Web-based clinical workstations interfaces, however, provide merely a loose collection of access channels. There are numerous examples of systems for access to either patient data or clinical guidelines, but only isolated cases where clinical decision support is presented integrally with the process of patient care, in particular, in the form of active alerts and reminders based on patient data. Moreover, pressures in the health industry are increasing the need for doctors to practice in accordance with ¿best practice¿ guidelines and often to operate under novel health-care arrangements. We present the Care Plan On-Line (CPOL) system, which provides intranet-based support for the SA HealthPlus Coordinated Care model for chronic disease management. We describe the interface design rationale of CPOL and its implementation framework, which is flexible and broadly applicable to support new health care models over intranets or the Internet

Process Desugb for the Photosynthesis of Ethylene

This project evaluates the feasibility of using cyanobacteria to produce ethylene from CO2. A recent paper published by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) showed that it was possible to produce ethylene continuously in lab scale experiments. The cyanobacteria uses CO2, water, and light to photosynthesize ethylene. We were tasked to design a plan to produce 100MM lb/year of ethylene. It was quickly determined that at the current published production rate the process would not be economically feasible. The rate would need to be significantly increased before the process becomes economically viable. Also, at the current state of technology, no commercially available or patented photobioreactor can support this process. The presence of both a gas feed and effluent pose significant obstacles for reactor design. It was also determined that due to the endothermic nature of the reaction and the inefficiency of photosynthesis, the process must rely predominantly on sunlight. This project includes specifications and pricing for water purification, cell growth, and two separation systems. The present value of the process without the reactor section was calculated to determine the maximum reactor investment and annual operating cost to yield a return on investment of 15%. Location of the plant was also determined. Due to carbon dioxide and seawater needs, this plant will be located along the coast in Santa Rosa, CA, close to an ethanol plant. The plant will operate 340 days per year to allot for any downtime incurred in daily operation. Cells will be initially grown in seed and growth tanks in batch-type process. Warm seawater supplemented with nitric acid, phosphorous acid, and sodium hydroxide will be used as the media for cell growth. Two separation sections were designed for purifying reactor effluent. The two separation systems investigated were pressure swing adsorption using zeolite adsorbent and cryogenic distillation with a custom nitrogen refrigeration system. These two were compared economically and it was shown that the PSA system yielded favorable economics. Without the reactor section, the process using pressure swing adsorption yields an IRR of 67.62% with a net present value of $70MM at 15$70MM to meet project requirements

Dietary Protection Against Free Radicals: A Case for Multiple Testing to Establish Structure-activity Relationships for Antioxidant Potential of Anthocyanic Plant Species

DNA damage by reactive species is associated with susceptibility to chronic human degenerative disorders. Anthocyanins are naturally occurring antioxidants, that may prevent or reverse such damage. There is considerable interest in anthocyanic food plants as good dietary sources, with the potential for reducing susceptibility to chronic disease. While structure-activity relationships have provided guidelines on molecular structure in relation to free hydroxyl-radical scavenging, this may not cover the situation in food plants where the anthocyanins are part of a complex mixture, and may be part of complex structures, including anthocyanic vacuolar inclusions (AVIs). Additionally, new analytical methods have revealed new structures in previously-studied materials. We have compared the antioxidant activities of extracts from six anthocyanin-rich edible plants (red cabbage, red lettuce, blueberries, pansies, purple sweetpotato skin, purple sweetpotato flesh and Maori potato flesh) using three chemical assays (DPPH, TRAP and ORAC), and the in vitro Comet assay. Extracts from the flowering plant, lisianthus, were used for comparison. The extracts showed differential effects in the chemical assays, suggesting that closely related structures have different affinities to scavenge different reactive species. Integration of anthocyanins to an AVI led to more sustained radical scavenging activity as compared with the free anthocyanin. All but the red lettuce extract could reduce endogenous DNA damage in HT-29 colon cancer cells. However, while extracts from purple sweetpotato skin and flesh, Maori potato and pansies, protected cells against subsequent challenge by hydrogen peroxide at 0°C, red cabbage extracts were pro-oxidant, while other extracts had no effect. When the peroxide challenge was at 37°C, all of the extracts appeared pro-oxidant. Maori potato extract, consistently the weakest antioxidant in all the chemical assays, was more effective in the Comet assays. These results highlight the dangers of generalising to potential health benefits, based solely on identification of high anthocyanic content in plants, results of a single antioxidant assay and traditional approaches to structure activity relationships. Subsequent studies might usefully consider complex mixtures and a battery of assays

A phase 1 clinical trial of vorinostat in combination with decitabine in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia or myelodysplastic syndrome

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108599/1/bjh13016.pd

Crop switching for water sustainability in India’s food bowl yields co-benefits for food security and farmers’ profits

Groundwater depletion due to agricultural intensification is a major threat to water and food security in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), a critical food bowl, home to 400 million people and currently producing 135 million metric tonnes of cereals. Among the solutions proposed to address this unsustainable water consumption, crop switching has received growing attention, yet its potential to produce co-benefits or trade-offs for other dimensions of sustainability (for example, food supply and farmers’ profits) remains largely unquantified. In this study, we developed and applied a crop switching optimization model for cereals in the IGP to maximize calorie production and farmers’ profits and minimize water consumption. We found that switching from rice to millets (pearl millet) and sorghum in the Kharif (monsoon) season and from wheat to sorghum in the Rabi (winter) season could potentially reduce water consumption by 32%, improve calorie production by 39% and increase farmers’ profits by 140%. We also found that switching crops offers a larger reduction in groundwater depletion and energy savings than improving irrigation efficiency (that is, from flood to drip irrigation). Our findings demonstrate the potential for crop switching to address the multidimensional sustainability challenges of the IGP, with possible application to other regions facing similar issues

Simultaneous Mapping of T1 and T2 Using Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting in a Cohort of Healthy Subjects at 1.5T

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162735/2/jmri27155.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162735/1/jmri27155_am.pd