Does Organizational Innovation Capability Impact Electronic Medical Records Implementation Success?

Innovation capability involves the bringing to the market and/or successful implementation of a new product or service. It is the ability to mobilize the knowledge of the employees and the organization from past experiences to create new knowledge, and use such new knowledge to bring to the market and/or successfully implement a new product or service. Innovation capability is associated with higher levels of product and process innovation within the organization. EMR is considered a technology innovation per research literature. In this research-in-progress paper, we posit that an organization with a high level of innovation capability based on product and process innovation implementations in the past will successfully implement a technology innovation such as an EMR system. A conceptual model is presented with related hypotheses

A Novel Anthropomorphic Flow Phantom for the Quantitative Evaluation of Prostate DCE-MRI Acquisition Techniques

A novel anthropomorphic flow phantom device has been developed which can be used for quantitatively assessing the ability of MRI scanners to accurately measure signal / concentration time-intensity curves (CTCs) associated with dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI. Modelling of the complex pharmacokinetics of contrast agents as they perfuse through the tumour capillary network has shown great promise for cancer diagnosis and therapy monitoring. However, clinical adoption has been hindered by methodological problems, resulting in a lack of consensus regarding the most appropriate acquisition and modelling methodology to use and a consequent wide discrepancy in published data. A heretofore overlooked source of such discrepancy may arise from measurement errors of tumour CTCs deriving from the imaging pulse sequence itself, while the effects on the fidelity of CTC measurement of using rapidly-accelerated sequences such as parallel imaging and compressed sensing remain unknown. The present work aimed to investigate these features by developing a test device in which „ground truth‟ CTCs were generated and presented to the MRI scanner for measurement, thereby allowing for an assessment of the DCE-MRI protocol to accurately measure this curve-shape. The device comprised of a 4-pump flow system wherein CTCs derived from prior patient prostate data were produced in measurement chambers placed within the imaged volume. The ground truth was determined as the mean of repeat measurements using an MRI-independent, custom-built optical imaging system. In DCE-MRI experiments, significant discrepancies between the ground truth and measured CTCs were found for both tumorous and healthy tissue-mimicking curve shapes. Pharmacokinetic modelling revealed errors in measured Ktrans, ve and kep values of up to 42%, 31%, and 50% respectively, following a simple variation of the parallel imaging factor and number of signal averages in the acquisition protocol The device allows for the quantitative assessment and standardisation of DCE-MRI protocols (both existing and emerging)

A Conceptual Model of the Role of Relative Advantage, Compatibility and Complexity in Electronic Medical Records Implementation Success

Successful Electronic Medical Record (EMR) implementation is expected to help control costs and increase efficiencies in healthcare delivery while also improving the quality of care. EMR is an information technology innovation per research literature. It is therefore important that EMR implementations succeed. A large number of information technology implementations fail resulting in monetary and non-monetary losses. EMR implementations in the United States and around the world have been fraught with problems and delays, resulting in unsuccessful or partially successful implementations. Knowing factors that are associated with successful information technology implementations may help EMR implementations succeed. The goal of this research-in-progress is to investigate whether the factors relative advantage, compatibility and complexity, which have most often been associated with successful information technology implementations in other domains such as e-commerce, are also associated with successful EMR implementations

Shaping and enforcing coordination spheres: probing the ability of tripodal ligands to favour trigonal prismatic geometry

The coordination chemistry of mono(2,2′-bipyrid-6-yl)bis(2-pyridyl)methanol (L1) and bis(2,2′-bipyrid-6-yl)mono(2-pyridyl)methanol (L2) are contrasted to tris(2,2′-bipyrid-6-yl)methanol (L3).L1andL2can produce octahedral complexes compared to the trigonal prismatic preference ofL3.</p

Expectations and Experiences of Short-Term Study Abroad Leadership Teams

This paper explores the expectations and experiences of faculty, academic advisors, and graduate students leading a study abroad experience for first-year engineering students. In the current age of globalization, engineering students require a global understanding of engineering to be competent in the global workforce. In response, undergraduate engineering programs have created various programs to fill this student need. The research surrounding these initiatives focuses on the student experience but is limited when describing that of program leaders. This qualitative study draws from track leader journals that were completed during and shortly after the international program as well as semi-structured interviews in the following semester. The findings suggest that the majority of leaders expected their role to be that of an educator on the study abroad experience, but upon reflection, realized that their definition of what it means to be an educator expanded to encompass facilitation of learning. Many of the student learning instances leaders pointed to had to do with facilitating a learning environment rather than delivering content or answering technical questions. The roles described by leaders varied from troubleshooter to behavioral manager to informer. Leaders reflected that their roles developed as they met students where they were in their learning within the dynamic international context of the program. Overall, leaders saw their roles evolve over the course of the trip. The findings shed light on emergent power dynamics that leadership teams engage in outside of the formal learning environment and provide a unique insight into the types of learning program leaders can experience through leading study abroad programs. The multiple forms of data collection provide deeper insights into the experiences of the leaders while encouraging them to also reflect in real-time. This study has implications for the development of intentionally designed, condensed study-abroad experiences that draws from understanding the program leaders’ experience

Gcn5 and Sirtuins Regulate Acetylation of the Ribosomal Protein Transcription Factor Ifh1

SummaryBackgroundIn eukaryotes, ribosome biosynthesis involves the coordination of ribosomal RNA and ribosomal protein (RP) production. In S. cerevisiae, the regulation of ribosome biosynthesis occurs largely at the level of transcription. The transcription factor Ifh1 binds at RP genes and promotes their transcription when growth conditions are favorable. Although Ifh1 recruitment to RP genes has been characterized, little is known about the regulation of promoter-bound Ifh1.ResultsWe used a novel whole-cell-extract screening approach to identify Spt7, a member of the SAGA transcription complex, and the RP transactivator Ifh1 as highly acetylated nonhistone species. We report that Ifh1 is modified by acetylation specifically in an N-terminal domain. These acetylations require the Gcn5 histone acetyltransferase and are reversed by the sirtuin deacetylases Hst1 and Sir2. Ifh1 acetylation is regulated by rapamycin treatment and stress and limits the ability of Ifh1 to act as a transactivator at RP genes.ConclusionsOur data suggest a novel mechanism of regulation whereby Gcn5 functions to titrate the activity of Ifh1 following its recruitment to RP promoters to provide more than an all-or-nothing mode of transcriptional regulation. We provide insights into how the action of histone acetylation machineries converges with nutrient-sensing pathways to regulate important aspects of cell growth

Linking modern pollen accumulation rates to biomass: Quantitative vegetation reconstruction in the western Klamath Mountains, NW California, USA

Quantitative reconstructions of vegetation abundance from sediment-derived pollen systems provide unique insights into past ecological conditions. Recently, the use of pollen accumulation rates (PAR, grains cm−2 year−1) has shown promise as a bioproxy for plant abundance. However, successfully reconstructing region-specific vegetation dynamics using PAR requires that accurate assessments of pollen deposition processes be quantitatively linked to spatially-explicit measures of plant abundance. Our study addressed these methodological challenges. Modern PAR and vegetation data were obtained from seven lakes in the western Klamath Mountains, California. To determine how to best calibrate our PAR-biomass model, we first calculated the spatial area of vegetation where vegetation composition and patterning is recorded by changes in the pollen signal using two metrics. These metrics were an assemblage-level relevant source area of pollen (aRSAP) derived from extended R-value analysis (sensu Sugita, 1993) and a taxon-specific relevant source area of pollen (tRSAP) derived from PAR regression (sensu Jackson, 1990). To the best of our knowledge, aRSAP and tRSAP have not been directly compared. We found that the tRSAP estimated a smaller area for some taxa (e.g. a circular area with a 225 m radius for Pinus) than the aRSAP (a circular area with a 625 m radius). We fit linear models to relate PAR values from modern lake sediments with empirical, distance-weighted estimates of aboveground live biomass (AGLdw) for both the aRSAP and tRSAP distances. In both cases, we found that the PARs of major tree taxa – Pseudotsuga, Pinus, Notholithocarpus, and TCT (Taxodiaceae, Cupressaceae, and Taxaceae families) – were statistically significant and reasonably precise estimators of contemporary AGLdw. However, predictions weighted by the distance defined by aRSAP tended to be more precise. The relative root-mean squared error for the aRSAP biomass estimates was 9% compared to 12% for tRSAP. Our results demonstrate that calibrated PAR-biomass relationships provide a robust method to infer changes in past plant biomass

Kohler's disease: An unusual cause for a limping child

Kohler's disease: an unusual cause for a limping chil