EFFECT OF AGE, AND SPLEEN AND TREATMENT STATUS ON MALE REPRODUCTIVE HORMONES AND SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL PARAMETER LEVELS IN PATIENTS WITH BETA-THALASSEMIA MAJOR

Objective: This research was conducted to study the relationship between spleen status and chelation treatment status with the male reproductive hormones and some physiological parameter levels. Methods: A total of 35 males with thalassemia major (TM) patients are recruited. Patients are grouped according to (1) their age into two groups; ˂18 years and ≥18 years, (2) their spleen status into two groups; splenectomize and non-splenectomize, and (3) their chelation treatment status into two groups; regulation and irregulation. Body mass index (BMI) was calculated and blood was collected from all patients just before blood transfusion session. Hb, ABO blood groups, ferritin, and hormone (luteinizing hormone [LH], follicle-stimulating hormone [FSH], testosterone, prolactin, and cortisone) levels were determined. Results: The highest frequency of thalassemia was in Group O and the lowest was in AB. BMI was higher in TM patients aged ≥18 years, TM patients with splenectomize, and TM patient who take the treatment irregularly. TM patients aged ≥18 years have high level of LH, FSH, and testosterone. TM patients without splenectomize have higher FSH, prolactin, and testosterone. TM patients take the treatment regularly have significantly higher testosterone levels and non-significantly lower FSH level. Conclusion: The levels of cortisol and prolactin hormones are not disturbed in TM patients and not associated with the rate of transfusion, but the level of Hb and ferritin leads to underweight in BMI and may lead to endocrine dysfunction, especially sexual hormones (FSH, LH, and testosterone). These BMI and sex hormones are related to age, spleen, and treatment status

Practitioner review: Current best practice in the use of parent training and other behavioural interventions in the treatment of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Background: Behavioural interventions are recommended for use with children and young people with ADHD, however specific guidance for their implementation based on the best available evidence is currently lacking. Methods: This review used an explicit question and answer format to address issues of clinical concern, based on expert interpretation of the evidence with precedence given to meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials. Results: On the basis of current evidence that takes into account whether outcomes are blinded, behavioural intervention cannot be supported as a front-line treatment for core ADHD symptoms. There is however, evidence from measures that are probably blinded that these interventions benefit parenting practices and improve conduct problems which commonly co-occur with ADHD, and are often the main reason for referral. Initial positive results have also been found in relation to parental knowledge, children’s emotional, social and academic functioning – although most studies have not used blinded outcomes. Generic as well as specialised ADHD parent training approaches - delivered either individually or in groups – have reported beneficial effects. High quality training, supervision of therapists and practice with the child, may improve outcomes but further evidence is required. Evidence for who benefits the most from behavioural interventions is scant. There is no evidence to limit behavioural treatments to parents with parenting difficulties or children with conduct problems. There are positive effects of additive school based intervention for the inattentive subtype. Targeting parental depression may enhance the effects of behavioural interventions. Conclusion: Parent training is an important part of the multi-modal treatment of children with ADHD which improves parenting, reduces levels of oppositional and non-compliant behaviours and may improve other aspects of functioning. However, blinded evidence does not support it as a specific treatment for core ADHD symptoms. More research is required to understand how to optimise treatment effectiveness either in general or for individual patients and explore potential barriers to treatment uptake and engagement. In terms of selecting which intervention formats to use it seems important to acknowledge and respond to parental treatment preferences

How Language Teacher Identities Conflict in Light of Bourdieu’s Concepts of Habitus, Capital, and Field

Adopting Bourdieu’s (1986, 1977) concepts of habitus, field, and capital as a framework, I reflect on my multiple fluid identities as I study, teach, and live within two socially, culturally, and politically distinct places (Iraq and the United States). I examine my privileged and/or marginalized self throughout my journey and the way this privilege/marginalization influences my language teaching and learning experiences. The narratives used in this paper include poems I wrote, my literacy autobiography, and a few Facebook posts. Through my reflection, I provide an example of identity construction of a scholar and a teacher as he inhabits multiple space and places

How Language Teacher Identities Conflict in Light of Bourdieu’s Concepts of Habitus, Capital, and Field

Adopting Bourdieu’s (1986, 1977) concepts of habitus, field, and capital as a framework, I reflect on my multiple fluid identities as I study, teach, and live within two socially, culturally, and politically distinct places (Iraq and the United States). I examine my privileged and/or marginalized self throughout my journey and the way this privilege/marginalization influences my language teaching and learning experiences. The narratives used in this paper include poems I wrote, my literacy autobiography, and a few Facebook posts. Through my reflection, I provide an example of identity construction of a scholar and a teacher as he inhabits multiple space and places

Visualizing Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI) Outcome Data to Health Care Consumers and Practitioners for Decision Making – Evaluation Study

The purpose of this study was to evaluate information visualization of publicly-reported central line-associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) outcome data for decision making by diverse target audiences—health care consumers and practitioners. We describe the challenges in publicly reporting of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) data and the interpretation of an evaluation metric. Several options for visualization of CLABSI data were designed and evaluated employing exploratory working group, two confirmatory focus groups’ observations, and experts’ committee validation of the final designs. Survey-data collection and evaluation criteria results, collected from the two focus groups, are presented and are used to develop the final recommendations for how to visualize publicly report CLABSI data from Maryland acute care hospitals. Both health care consumer and practitioner’s perspectives are highlighted and categorized based on the visualizations’ dimensions framework. Finally, a recommended format for visualizing CLABSI outcome data based on the evaluation study is summarized

Visualizing Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI) Outcome Data to Health Care Consumers and Practitioners for Decision Making – Evaluation Study

The purpose of this study was to evaluate information visualization of publicly-reported central line-associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) outcome data for decision making by diverse target audiences—health care consumers and practitioners. We describe the challenges in publicly reporting of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) data and the interpretation of an evaluation metric. Several options for visualization of CLABSI data were designed and evaluated employing exploratory working group, two confirmatory focus groups’ observations, and experts’ committee validation of the final designs. Survey-data collection and evaluation criteria results, collected from the two focus groups, are presented and are used to develop the final recommendations for how to visualize publicly report CLABSI data from Maryland acute care hospitals. Both health care consumer and practitioner’s perspectives are highlighted and categorized based on the visualizations’ dimensions framework. Finally, a recommended format for visualizing CLABSI outcome data based on the evaluation study is summarized

The multicast bandwidth advantage in serving a web site

Abstract. Delivering popular web pages to the clients results in high bandwidth and high load on the web servers. A method to overcome this problem is to send these pages, requested by many users, via multicast. In this paper, we provide an analytic criterion to determine which pages to multicast, and analyze the overall saving factor as compared with a unicast delivery. The analysis is based on the well known observation that page popularity follows a Zipf-like distribution. Interestingly, we can obtain closed-form analytical expressions for the saving factor, that show the multicast advantage as a function of the site hit-rate, the allowed latency and the Zipf parameter.

Agents that Anticipate Information/Training/Decision Support Needs in the Health Information Infrastructure

A given organization's health information infrastructure (HII), like the Internet, is filled with distributed, heterogeneous applications and servers. Users must travel towards the information they want, and manually interoperate between diverse information server/decision support/training applications. This paper reviews efforts to design an environment for authoring agents that can proactively interact with remote HII or internet resources, applications, and users. We present the architecture for an integrated environment and show how its informing/training/decision support elements do and don't map into an idealized specification extracted from the agent oriented programming and inter-agent communication literature. This leads to insights on how to extend the agent paradigm to accommodate HII needs. The results also provide insights into how the HII and the Internet might, via agents, use context and domain knowledge to anticipate user information query and decision support/training..

Agent Oriented Programming for Group Performance Support Systems

This paper reviews efforts to design an environment for authoring group performance support system (GPSS) agents that can interact with remote internet resources, applications, and users. We review the architecture of the GPSS environment and show how its tutor/critic elements do and don't map into an idealized specification extracted from the agent oriented programming and inter-agent communication literature. The result provides insights into internet information system architectures for life long training and decision aiding, as well as extensions needed in the agent paradigm to accomodate GPSS's critic/tutor agent needs. An actual health care case study is provided with a video simulating use of the agents. 1) Introduction The advent of the Internet means there are potentially unlimited knowledge and data resources at one's disposal. For example, there are online web-based references, digital gopher libraries, remote applications, news groups, ftp sites, data repositories, and so ..