iCE (Interactive Curricula Experience) Platform & App Adoption, Use & Evaluation Across Thomas Jefferson University

iCE or the Interactive Curricula Experience Platform and App is a content delivery system designed specifically for the iPad but available to any learner with a web-enabled device. Poster presented at 2016 8th Annual Faculty Days at Thomas Jefferson University

Viral Hepatitis And Enzyme Study

The present study was undertaken in sixty patients of viral hepatitis of both sexes ranging 20 to 60 yrs. of age to compare serum levels or 5’Nucleotidase, Alkaline phosphatase, aspartate aminotransferase, and alanine aminotransferase & serum bilirubin. Forty of clinically healthy subjects were taken as control group. These were patient’s attendants without any evidence of liver disease so as to equlibriate the socioeconomic status and age. The study group patients were either admitted to Rajindra Hospital, Patiala, or attending the OPD. A detailed clinical examination was carried out in all as per plan mentioned in materials & methods. Diagnosis of these patients was based on clinical findings. Endeavour was to find out a single enzyme marker which is most specific and sensitive parameter out of all above. It was later concluded that value of 5’ NT was highly significant as compared to ALP. A positive correlation was observed between AST, ALT & serum bilirubin level. But 5’ NT showed no correlation with aminotransferases

Tamsulosin � turn a round

Tamsulosin is a sulfamoylphen-ethylamine derivative, a potent and a selective antagonist of Alpha-1A adrenoceptor. It�s approved in the treatment of LUTS in BPH disease, being a specific Alpha -1A blocker it does not interfere much with the cardiovascular system. Though an age old molecule but still it�s a friendly drug to most of the physicians. Even the recent studies found its as efficacious to some of the newer molecules in the group

An Interactive Curricula Experience (iCE) for Latino Immigrant Health

The Interactive Curricula Experience (iCE) is an educational platform intended for interactive education utilizing multiple forms of media. It is being utilized at Thomas Jefferson University (TJU) in various classes, among them Global Health. One of the pertinent global-health-at-home topics at TJU relates to Latino immigrant health. Latino immigrants number more than 20,000 in Philadelphia. They are located throughout the city, although the highest concentrations are in North and South Philadelphia. With respect to health care, Latino immigrants are less likely to have a regular health care provider than non-immigrant Latinos. Education to provide culturally sensitive care to Latino immigrants is vital to establish longer-lasting patient-doctor partnerships and decrease the number of Latino immigrants without a regular health care provider. iCE is an attempt to provide that education by stepping out of the lecture hall and assigned readings, and instead allowing students to engage with the material at their own pace.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/cwicposters/1021/thumbnail.jp

La théorie de la structuration : Une analyse des formes et des dynamiques organisationnelles

L’objectif de cet article est de présenter les concepts et la démarche de la théorie de la structuration d’Anthony Giddens. L’idée fondamentale du modèle de structuration des systèmes sociaux proposé par cet auteur est que les structures, ensemble de règles et de ressources, organisent les activités tout autant que les activités les organisent et leur donnent du sens et une finalité. Cette dualité de l’organisé et de l’organisant débouche sur une conception pertinente de l’action, de la coordination et du changement organisationnel ; elle permet notamment de « faire le pont » entre les dynamiques de structuration individuelles et les dynamiques de structuration collectives.Anthony Giddens’s theory of structuring lays out a renewed conceptual framework for social systems analysis. One of the essential concepts of this analysis is the duality of the structural. That means, in particular, that the rules and the resources mobilized in the individual’s and community’s action are, at the same time, both result and condition of the action. For Giddens, the study of the structuring of social systems is the study of the modes by which these systems, which are anchored in the activities of qualified actors, located in time and space and which make use of the rules and the resources in a diversity of contexts of action, are produced and reproduced in the interaction of these actors, and by it. Consequently, this idea leads to a reinterpretation of the concept of structure and structural constraint: the structures, because they are produced and reproduced, are simultaneously constituted and constituent.The theory of structuring is based on three fundamental statements. The first begins with the assertion that in any social system, the interactions between actors are structured and structuring. This disjunction between “structuring” and “structured” makes it possible to propose a relevant distinction between “structure” and “system”.The second statement indicates that the structural is comprised of three dimensions: (1) A semantic dimension which allows agents, defined as qualified actors, to give direction to their actions as well as to their relations; (2) A dimension of power and domination which lies in the faculty to deploy continuously, in everyday life, a battery of causal capacities, including the one of influencing the causal capacities deployed by other agents; (3) A legitimation dimension of action which means that human actions are carried out according to rules, and that compliance with the rules legitimates these actions.The third statement takes into account the interaction between the social actors. This interaction between qualified actors is comprised of a structural part and a systemic part. The structural part refers to the development in space and time of regularized models of relations that reproduce individual and collective activities. The systemic part refers to any social system, such as the organized space of recurring relations between individual or collective actors.Thus this approach leads to a structure concept, such as, all the rules and resources mobilized by the interactions between the social actors, while the system indicates all the activities reproduced and organized as regular social practices. Just as they are the condition of the activity, the structures of an organization do not exist independently of the activities of the individuals who invest them. The feedback structures (activities) finality is at the heart of the duality of the structural and the systemic paradigm. It expresses the fact that in an organization, a system of actions, individual and/or collective actors mobilizes rules and resources to produce and reproduce their activities in contexts of special time and space and for shared purposes.According to this meaning, the organizational fact emerges, on the one hand, from the requirement of coordination of the actions and, on the other hand, as a means of reducing the undecidability of intentions, i.e. the uncertainty attached to any form of action. The duality model of Giddens’s structural theory makes the organization a system of finalized and hierarchical activities carried out by collective figures of coordination of the action. Conventions, rules, procedures and routines are the supports of this coordination.This conceptual framework makes it possible to found a concept of rule such as a behaviour framework entitling and constraining, or a resource and form of the action. It also makes it possible to leave to qualified actors a capacity of adaptation, and thus of interpretation, of the rule at the same time as it makes a practicable process of it. A practicable rule is a rule which takes part in the reduction of the complexity of the action contexts. It is selective in the representation of the variables of the environment to consider, it simplifies the field of the possible behaviours. It is precisely the intentionality contained in the rule which realizes it and which determines the concrete methods of its implementation. So the existence of rules saves the mobilization of the cognitive capacities of the participants in the action.The fundamental epistemological concern of the author of “the formation of society” is to go beyond the structure/action cleavage. He tries to bind the ideas of structure and action in an indissociable way, particularly by replacing the concept of structure by one “of structural sets”, these latter being space-time located demonstrations and based on all the rules and the resources engaged in the institutional articulation of the social systems.Consequently, Giddens succeeds in going beyond the dualism between individualist and holist methodological postures by means of a definition of the organization through interindividual relations. Two imperialisms are thus reassessed: the one of the individual subject on the one hand, and the other being that of structural constraints, presented by the structuralist and functionalist approaches. Thus, the theory of structuring conceptualizes a new the opposition between subjectivism and objectivism by proposing a new duality that expresses structured character and structuring interactions.El objetivo de este artículo es de presentar los conceptos y el procedimiento de la teoría de la estructuración de Anthony Giddens. La idea fundamental del modelo de la estructuración de sistemas sociales propuesto por este autor es que las estructuras, conjunto de reglas y recursos, organizan las actividades de la misma manera como las actividades organizan aquellas y aquellos otorgándoles sentido y finalidad. Esta dualidad del organizado y del organisante desemboca en una concepción pertinente de la acción, de la coordinación y del cambio organizacional; esto permite particularmente de «tender el puente» entre las dinámicas individuales de estructuración y las dinámicas colectivas de estructuración

Effect of obesity on autonomic nervous system

The present study was carried out on 100 volunteers of which 50 subjects with BMI > 30kg/m2 were included in study group and 50 subjects with BMI < 30kg/m2 (non obese) were included in control group. The functioning of Autonomic nervous system was evaluated by six non-invasive tests- four of which were based mainly on parasympathetic control (30:15 ratio, standing to lying ratio (S/L ratio), expiration/inspiration ratio (E/I ratio) and valsalva maneuver) and two on sympathetic control (Blood pressure response to standing and cold pressor test). The results of the present study showed significantly low (p=0.001) S/L ratio in study group (1.04 ± 0.12) when compared to controls (1.12 ± 0.11) indicating impaired parasympathetic function. The mean change in sytolic blood pressure before and after cold pressor test (CPT) was less in study group (7.12 ± 5.28) as compared to control group (10.38 ± 6.35) and this was statistically significant (p=0.006) indicating impaired sympatheitc function. Thus ,in obese both division of ANS are affected which may be the cause of various cardiovascular complications

Multi-physics phenomena influencing the performance of the car horn

Usually cars are equipped with disk horns. In these devices electromagnetic energy is converted into mechanical energy of two nuclei that vibrate and impact each other \u2013 the impacts excite the disk that radiates sound. This paper aims at understanding the results of acoustic tests carried out on horns with different excitation voltages and different mounting brackets. Since many non-linear phenomena are inherent in the vibrations of the nuclei, a detailed model of the electromechanical system is developed. Results show the dependence of operating frequency on the input voltage and the role played by the various mechanical and electrical parameters on the dynamics of the horn. Particular nonlinear effects, like sub-harmonic excitation, are presented and discussed. A general agreement between experimental results and numerical simulations is found