Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Infection Prevention and Control Department of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Prospective Payment System-Exempt Cancer Centers, including the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, will eventually be denied payments by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program for certain preventable Hospital Acquired Conditions. This study is a participant-observer case study of the Infection Prevention and Control Department of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects that the CMS’ Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program may have on the Infection Prevention and Control Department of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Data was collected through direct observation over an eight week period, including in-person interviews with department members. This study suggests the primary impact is a perception by the members of the Infection Prevention and Control Department that compliance with the Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program will be hindered due to uncooperativeness by other departments at the RPCI with the implementation of policies, procedures, and programs designed to target infections identified in the regulation

Foods, Moods, and Allergies Too a Handbook for the Human Services

I decided to write this book after my colleague, Dr. Judith Ramaley, and I spent a year giving presentations about diet and behavior to groups of our Omaha-Lincoln, Nebraska, area. These groups included human services agency staffs, abusive parents, psychotherapists, medical students, parents of newborns, social work students, preschool teachers, child development students and faculty, staff in a child assessment facility, and others

Towards Rapid Parameter Estimation on Gravitational Waves from Compact Binaries using Interpolated Waveforms

Accurate parameter estimation of gravitational waves from coalescing compact binary sources is a key requirement for gravitational-wave astronomy. Evaluating the posterior probability density function of the binary's parameters (component masses, sky location, distance, etc.) requires computing millions of waveforms. The computational expense of parameter estimation is dominated by waveform generation and scales linearly with the waveform computational cost. Previous work showed that gravitational waveforms from non-spinning compact binary sources are amenable to a truncated singular value decomposition, which allows them to be reconstructed via interpolation at fixed computational cost. However, the accuracy requirement for parameter estimation is typically higher than for searches, so it is crucial to ascertain that interpolation does not lead to significant errors. Here we provide a proof of principle to show that interpolated waveforms can be used to recover posterior probability density functions with negligible loss in accuracy with respect to non-interpolated waveforms. This technique has the potential to significantly increase the efficiency of parameter estimation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Biophysical evidence for intrinsic disorder in the C-terminal tails of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and HER3 receptor tyrosine kinases

The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)/ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases includes oncogenes important in the progression of breast and other cancers, and they are targets for many drug development strategies. Each member of the ErbB family possesses a unique, structurally uncharacterized C-terminal tail that plays an important role in autophosphorylation and signal propagation. To determine whether these C-terminal tails are intrinsically disordered regions, we conducted a battery of biophysical experiments on the EGFR and HER3 tails. Using hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry, we measured the conformational dynamics of intracellular half constructs and compared the tails with the ordered kinase domains. The C-terminal tails demonstrate more rapid deuterium exchange behavior when compared with the kinase domains. Next, we expressed and purified EGFR and HER3 tail-only constructs. Results from circular dichroism spectroscopy, size exclusion chromatography with multiangle light scattering, dynamic light scattering, analytical ultracentrifugation, and small angle X-ray scattering each provide evidence that the EGFR and HER3 C-terminal tails are intrinsically disordered with extended, non-globular structure in solution. The intrinsic disorder and extended conformation of these tails may be important for their function by increasing the capture radius and reducing the thermodynamic barriers for binding of downstream signaling proteins

The effect of atmospheric sulfate reductions on diffuse radiation and photosynthesis in the United States during 1995â 2013

Aerosol optical depth (AOD) has been shown to influence the global carbon sink by increasing the fraction of diffuse light, which increases photosynthesis over a greater fraction of the vegetated canopy. Between 1995 and 2013, U.S. SO2 emissions declined by over 70%, coinciding with observed AOD reductions of 3.0â ±â 0.6% yrâ 1 over the eastern U.S. In the Community Earth System Model (CESM), these trends cause diffuse light to decrease regionally by almost 0.6% yrâ 1, leading to declines in gross primary production (GPP) of 0.07% yrâ 1. Integrated over the analysis period and domain, this represents 0.5 Pgâ C of omitted GPP. A separate upscaling calculation that used published relationships between GPP and diffuse light agreed with the CESM model results within 20%. The agreement between simulated and dataâ constrained upscaling results strongly suggests that anthropogenic sulfate trends have a small impact on carbon uptake in temperate forests due to scattered light.Key PointsAerosol optical depth has decreased due to reduced sulfur dioxide emissionsReduced diffuse radiation decreased cumulative gross primary productivity by 0.5 Pg C during 1995â 2013CESM trends agree with upscaled flux tower results within 20%Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134448/1/grl55002.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134448/2/grl55002-sup-0001-supinfo.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134448/3/grl55002_am.pd

Uncertainties in determining parton distributions at large x

We critically examine uncertainties in parton distribution functions (PDFs) at large x arising from nuclear effects in deuterium F2 structure function data. Within a global PDF analysis, we assess the impact on the PDFs from uncertainties in the deuteron wave function at short distances and nucleon off-shell effects, the use of relativistic kinematics, as well as the use of less a restrictive parametrization of the d/u ratio. We find that in particular the d-quark and gluon PDFs vary significantly with the choice of nuclear model. We highlight the impact of these uncertainties on the determination of the neutron structure function, and on W boson production and parton luminosity at the Tevatron and the LHC. Finally, we discuss prospects for new measurements sensitive to the d-quark and gluon distributions but insensitive to nuclear corrections.Comment: 37 pages, 13 figures. Final published versio

Detecting transient gravitational waves in non-Gaussian noise with partially redundant analysis methods

There is a broad class of astrophysical sources that produce detectable, transient, gravitational waves. Some searches for transient gravitational waves are tailored to known features of these sources. Other searches make few assumptions about the sources. Typically events are observable with multiple search techniques. This work describes how to combine the results of searches that are not independent, treating each search as a classifier for a given event. This will be shown to improve the overall sensitivity to gravitational-wave events while directly addressing the problem of consistent interpretation of multiple trials.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Q^2 Evolution of Generalized Baldin Sum Rule for the Proton

The generalized Baldin sum rule for virtual photon scattering, the unpolarized analogy of the generalized Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn integral, provides an important way to investigate the transition between perturbative QCD and hadronic descriptions of nucleon structure. This sum rule requires integration of the nucleon structure function F_1, which until recently had not been measured at low Q^2 and large x, i.e. in the nucleon resonance region. This work uses new data from inclusive electron-proton scattering in the resonance region obtained at Jefferson Lab, in combination with SLAC deep inelastic scattering data, to present first precision measurements of the generalized Baldin integral for the proton in the Q^2 range of 0.3 to 4.0 GeV^2.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, one table; text added, one figure replace

Electron- and neutrino-nucleus scattering in the impulse approximation regime

A quantitative understanding of the weak nuclear response is a prerequisite for the analyses of neutrino experiments such as K2K and MiniBOONE, which measure energy and angle of the muons produced in neutrino-nucleus interactions in the energy range $0.5-3$ GeV and reconstruct the incident neutrino energy to determine neutrino oscillations. In this paper we discuss theoretical calculations of electron- and neutrino-nucleus scattering, carried out within the impulse approximation scheme using realistic nuclear spectral functions.Comparison between electron scattering data and the calculated inclusive cross section off oxygen, at beam energies ranging between 700 and 1200 MeV, show that the Fermi gas model, widely used in the analysis of neutrino oscillation experiments,fails to provide a satisfactory description of the measured cross sections,and inclusion of nuclear dynamics is needed.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figure