Pharmacists' expectations of a pharmacy network: a baseline evaluation

This study was carried out to determine community pharmacists' perceived value of a pharmacy network prior to its implementation. A questionnaire was mailed to all 435 community pharmacists practicing in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2002, with 217 completed questionnaires returned (49.9% response rate). Overall, 90.3% of community pharmacists agreed drug utilization review would be an important function of the Pharmacy Network; reducing prescribing problems was found to have the strongest support (91.3%). For eight measures of computerized physician order entry, agreement ranged from 69.6% to 97.2%, with removing problems with illegible hand writing receiving the strongest support. Although suspected adverse reactions appears to be under reported, 87.6% of community pharmacists indicated they would report more if it could be done electronically. Considerable support was found for four measures related to payment for pharmaceutical services (range 82.9% to 89.4%), with a higher proportion of female pharmacists indicating they would expect payment. Younger pharmacists, and/or those working in urban areas, had a higher perceived value of a pharmacy network than older pharmacists and/or those working in rural areas. Differences in perceived value of a pharmacy network was also found between education levels and years practicing and gender

The relationship between the insulin-like growth factor-1 axis, weight loss, an inflammation-based score and survival in patients with inoperable non-small cell lung cancer

<b>Background & aims:</b> The involvement of a systemic inflammatory response, as evidenced by the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), is associated with weight loss and poor outcome in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. There is good evidence that nutritional and functional decline in patients with advanced malignant disease is associated with catabolic changes in metabolism. However, defects in anabolism may also contribute towards nutritional decline in patients with cancer. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between IGF-1 and IGFBP-3, performance status, mGPS and survival in patients with inoperable NSCLC. <b>Methods:</b> 56 patients with inoperable NSCLC were studied. The plasma concentrations of IGF-1, IGFBP-3 and leptin were measured using ELISA and RIA. <b>Results:</b> The patients were predominantly male (61%), over 60 years old (80%), with advanced (stage III or IV) disease (98%), with a BMI≥20 (84%), an ECOG-ps of 0 or 1 (79%), a haemoglobin (59%) and white cell count (79%) in the reference range. On follow-up 43 patients died of their cancer. On univariate analysis, BMI (p<0.05), Stage (p<0.05), ECOG-ps (p<0.05), haemoglobin (p<0.05), white cell count (p<0.05) and mGPS (p<0.05) were associated with cancer specific survival. There was no association between age, sex, treatment, IGF-1, IGFBP-3, IGF-1:IGFBP-3 ratio, or leptin and cancer specific survival. With an increasing mGPS concentrations of haemoglobin (p<0.005) and IGFBP-3 (p<0.05) decreased. mGPS was not associated with either IGF-1(p>0.20), or leptin (p>0.20). <b>Conclusions:</b> In summary, the results of this study suggest that anabolism (IGF-1 axis) does not play a significant role in the relationship between nutritional and functional decline, systemic inflammation and poor survival in patients with inoperable NSCLC

Shape Invariance in the Calogero and Calogero-Sutherland Models

We show that the Calogero and Calogero-Sutherland models possess an N-body generalization of shape invariance. We obtain the operator representation that gives rise to this result, and discuss the implications of this result, including the possibility of solving these models using algebraic methods based on this shape invariance. Our representation gives us a natural way to construct supersymmetric generalizations of these models, which are interesting both in their own right and for the insights they offer in connection with the exact solubility of these models.Comment: Latex file, 23 pages, no picture

Child-stripping in the Victorian City

During the nineteenth century, police, magistrates, reformers and the press noticed a rising tide of juvenile crime. Child-stripping, the crime of stealing young children's clothes by force or deception, was an activity of this type which caused alarm among contemporaries. As the century progressed, improved policing, urbanization and Irish migration, allied to growing social concern, caused more cases of child-stripping to be noticed. Accounts by Dickens, Mayhew and others characterized child-stripping as an activity indulged in by old women who were able to make money by victimizing the weakest strata of society. However, research in the British Library's digitized newspaper collections as well as in parliamentary papers conclusively demonstrates that child-stripping, far from being the domain of Dickensian crones, was actually perpetrated by older children, notably girls, against children even younger than themselves. Despite widespread revulsion, which at times approached a ‘moral panic’ prompted by the nature of the crime, progressive attitudes largely prevailed with most child-stripping children being sent to reformatories or industrial schools in the hope of reforming their behaviour. This article thus conforms with Foucauldian notions of the switch from physical to mental punishments and aligns with the Victorians’ invention of children as a category of humanity that could be saved

Adhesion Molecule Expression in Polymorphic Light Eruption

Endothelial leukocyte adhesion molecule-1 (ELAM-1), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) are cytokine-regulated cell-surface Ieukocyte adhesion molecules. We have investigated the in vivo kinetics and pattern of expression of these adhesion molecules in relation to tissue accumulation of leukocytes in the photodermatosis, polymorphic light eruption (PMLE), which is characterized by dense perivascular leukocytic infiltration. Immunohistology was performed on biopsies taken at varying time points from PMLE lesions induced in 11 subjects by suberythemal solar simulated irradiation. Vascular endothelial ELAM-1 expression was first observed at 5 h, maximal at 24 to 72 h, and remained elevated at 6 d. VCAM-1, minimally expressed in control skin, was induced above background levels on endothelium and some perivascular cells after 24h and maintained at 6 d. Endothelial cell ICAM-1 expression was increased above control levels at 72h and 6 d. Keratinocyte ICAM-1 expression, most marked overlying areas of dermal leukocytic infiltration, began at 5h and was strong at 72h and 6 d. In addition to lymphocytes, significant number of neutrophils of but not eosinophils were detected in the dermal leukocytic infiltrate that appeared at 5h and persisted at 6 d. The pattern of adhesion molecule expression that we have observed is similar to that seen in normal skin during a delayed hypersensitivity reaction: These observations support an immunologic basis for PMLE

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 20

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Scaling behavior of self-avoiding walks on percolation clusters

The scaling behavior of self-avoiding walks (SAWs) on the backbone of percolation clusters in two, three and four dimensions is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. We apply the pruned-enriched Rosenbluth chain-growth method (PERM). Our numerical results bring about the estimates of critical exponents, governing the scaling laws of disorder averages of the end-to-end distance of SAW configurations. The effects of finite-size scaling are discussed as well.Comment: 6 page

Evidence in the Horn of Africa of the resilience of rural water supply to drought

Groundwater is often relied on to provide secure drinking water, particularly in rural Africa, where other options are limited. The increased incidence of drought and its likely escalation due to climate change raise questions as to how resilient groundwater is to drought, and how the performance of different technologies used to access groundwater compares during drought. Here we report the results of three research studies undertaken in Ethiopia to directly address these questions. We first examine hydrographs from 19 wells, springs and boreholes during the 2015/16 El-Niño drought and the years following. Secondly, we report the results of a survey of groundwater recharge for 50 sampled boreholes from 4 woredas (districts) and, lastly, we examine the response of >5,000 different water points from across Ethiopia from January to April 2016 as the drought evolved. The results from the three studies all give a consistent story: groundwater supplies, particularly those accessing groundwater deeper than 15 metres, are resilient to the short-term effects of drought and become increasingly important as other water sources (e.g., springs) fail. Hand-pumpoperated boreholes were often the most reliable sources during drought periods, although motorized boreholes, if accompanied by active monitoring and maintenance, also proved so. Springs and hand-dug wells were generally, but not universally, severely impacted by drought, with those at higher elevations most affected. Recharge studies using environmental tracers suggested that the mean residence time of groundwater (<100 metres deep) is in the order of several decades across the Ethiopian Highlands. This indicates modern recharge is occurring but is not reliant on very recent rainfall; thus, groundwater is both resilient to drought and renewable when managed appropriately. Additional pressures put on groundwater supplies by the drought were shown to be mitigated by an active and sustained campaign of monitoring and maintenance as drought evolved

Permeability of the weathered bedrock aquifers in Uganda: evidence from a large pumping test dataset and its implications for rural water supply

Weathered crystalline-rock aquifers underlie around 40% of sub-Saharan Africa providing water supplies for half of its rural population; they are also prevalent across the tropics. The hydrogeology of these aquifers is complex and better understanding of the controls to aquifer transmissivity, alongside accurate borehole siting and appropriate design, is pivotal to the long-term performance and sustainability of water services in many countries. This study examines a substantial new dataset (n = 655) of aquifer transmissivity values across Uganda derived from previously unanalyzed pumping-test data. These data provide important new insights: weathered crystalline-rock aquifers are distinguished by pervasively low transmissivities (median <2 m2/d) in comparison to other areas in the tropics; highest transmissivities are observed in boreholes <50 m deep, implying that drilling deeper boreholes does not typically improve supply success or sustainability in Uganda; and increased groundwater abstraction through the use of higher-yielding pump technologies will prove challenging in most areas of Uganda and limit their use for piped water supplies. This study highlights the scientific value of data held in drillers’ records, which remain unanalyzed in many countries but may provide useful insight and understanding of aquifer characteristics

Localized Branes and Black Holes

We address the delocalization of low dimensional D-branes and NS-branes when they are a part of a higher dimensional BPS black brane, and the homogeneity of the resulting horizon. We show that the effective delocalization of such branes is a classical effect that occurs when localized branes are brought together. Thus, the fact that the few known solutions with inhomogeneous horizons are highly singular need not indicate a singularity of generic D- and NS-brane states. Rather, these singular solutions are likely to be unphysical as they cannot be constructed from localized branes which are brought together from a finite separation.Comment: 13 pages, RevTex, no figures, few references and comments adde