Go for it: Where IS researchers aren’t researching

This viewpoint article describes two research topics under-researched by Information Systems (IS) researchers: Robotics and IT addiction. These topics offer great potential for IS researchers in terms of business and societal impacts and it would behoove IS researchers to study them more fully. The aspects of the research topics that are related to IS are discussed and potential research areas and questions are suggested

Go for it: Where IS researchers aren’t researching

This viewpoint article describes two research topics under-researched by Information Systems (IS) researchers: Robotics and IT addiction. These topics offer great potential for IS researchers in terms of business and societal impacts and it would behoove IS researchers to study them more fully. The aspects of the research topics that are related to IS are discussed and potential research areas and questions are suggested

Virtual Baby Visit Going Mobile

Applications of Information Technologies (ITs) are increasing in the healthcare domain. ITs have been proven to be a support for the dissemination of knowledge andtraining amongst specialists in the use of computer-aided surgery [2]. The development of new technologies advances care opportunities for patients, e.g., improving patientwell-being by reducing pain through clinical investigation [6]. Recent developments in ITs towards a digital hospital [8] address medical practitioners and patients within thewalls of the hospital. Little attention has been given to crossing these walls, for example, supporting relatives of hospitalized patients. This column presents an example oftraditional boundaries of the hospital disappearing by the use of standard ITs. It explores the potential benefit brought by external system integration in the connecting area of Health Informatics/Telematics

Proficiency From Immersion: A Human-Centered Design in Cross-Cultural Surgical Training

Ensuring surgeons are well-trained in various skills is of paramount importance to patient safety. Surgical simulators were introduced to laparoscopy training during the last 2 decades for basic skills training. The main drawback of current simulation-based laparoscopy training is their lack of true representation of the intro-operative experience. To create a complete surgical surrounding, the required amount of resources is demanding. Moreover, organizing immersive training with surgical teams burdens daily clinical routines. High-end virtual reality (VR) headsets bring an opportunity to generate an immersive virtual OR with accessible and affordable expenses. Pilot studies reveal that personalization and localization are key needs of the virtual operating room (VOR). They are therefore key in this study. The focus of this study was to explore the effect of different human factors, such as domain knowledge, culture, and familiarity of VR technologies, on the perception of VOR experience. A human-centered design approach was applied to investigate the presence and usability of a VOR. Sixty-four surgical practitioners joined the study in the Netherlands and India. The surgeons were referred to as “experts” and surgical trainees as “novices.” The VOR system we used is composed of a laparoscopic simulator, a graphic virtual OR surrounding, and an Oculus Rift VR headset. Participants conducted the “complete Lapchol” task with the VOR. Afterward, four questionnaires were used to collect subjective ratings on presence and usability. Participant’s qualitative feedback was collected using a semi-structural interview as the final stage. Results showed the surgical knowledge only affected perceived mental demand when using a VOR. The cultural difference would alter the rating on the majority of items in these questionnaires. VR experience mainly affected the judgment on presence including “quality of interface” and “reversible actions.” The interaction effects between surgical knowledge either with culture difference or with VR experience were obvious. This study demonstrated the influences of cultural differences on the perception of immersion and usability. Integrating immersive technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality to human-centered design opens a brand new horizon for health care and similar professional training

Do absorption and realistic distraction influence performance of component task surgical procedure?

Background. Surgeons perform complex tasks while exposed to multiple distracting sources that may increase stress in the operating room (e.g., music, conversation, and unadapted use of sophisticated technologies). This study aimed to examine whether such realistic social and technological distracting conditions may influence surgical performance. Methods. Twelve medical interns performed a laparoscopic cholecystectomy task with the Xitact LC 3.0 virtual reality simulator under distracting conditions (exposure to music, conversation, and nonoptimal handling of the laparoscope) versus nondistracting conditions (control condition) as part of a 2 x 2 within-subject experimental design. Results. Under distracting conditions, the medical interns showed a significant decline in task performance (overall task score, task errors, and operating time) and significantly increased levels of irritation toward both the assistant handling the laparoscope in a nonoptimal way and the sources of social distraction. Furthermore, individual differences in cognitive style (i.e., cognitive absorption and need for cognition) significantly influenced the levels of irritation experienced by the medical interns. Conclusion. The results suggest careful evaluation of the social and technological sources of distraction in the operation room to reduce irritation for the surgeon and provision of proper preclinical laparoscope navigation training to increase security for the patient.Industrial DesignIndustrial Design Engineerin

Improved Ribo-seq enables identification of cryptic translation events.

Ribosome profiling has been used to predict thousands of short open reading frames (sORFs) in eukaryotic cells, but it suffers from substantial levels of noise. PRICE (https://github.com/erhard-lab/price) is a computational method that models experimental noise to enable researchers to accurately resolve overlapping sORFs and noncanonical translation initiation. We experimentally validated translation using major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC I) peptidomics and observed that sORF-derived peptides efficiently enter the MHC I presentation pathway and thus constitute a substantial fraction of the antigen repertoire

TERT promoter mutations are highly recurrent in SHH subgroup medulloblastoma

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter mutations were recently shown to drive telomerase activity in various cancer types, including medulloblastoma. However, the clinical and biological implications of TERT mutations in medulloblastoma have not been described. Hence, we sought to describe these mutations and their impact in a subgroup-specific manner. We analyzed the TERT promoter by direct sequencing and genotyping in 466 medulloblastomas. The mutational distributions were determined according to subgroup affiliation, demographics, and clinical, prognostic, and molecular features. Integrated genomics approaches were used to identify specific somatic copy number alterations in TERT promoter-mutated and wild-type tumors. Overall, TERT promoter mutations were identified in 21 % of medulloblastomas. Strikingly, the highest frequencies of TERT mutations were observed in SHH (83 %; 55/66) and WNT (31 %; 4/13) medulloblastomas derived from adult patients. Group 3 and Group 4 harbored this alteration in <5 % of cases and showed no association wit

Targeting Huntington’s disease through histone deacetylases

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative condition with significant burdens on both patient and healthcare costs. Despite extensive research, treatment options for patients with this condition remain limited. Aberrant post-translational modification (PTM) of proteins is emerging as an important element in the pathogenesis of HD. These PTMs include acetylation, phosphorylation, methylation, sumoylation and ubiquitination. Several families of proteins are involved with the regulation of these PTMs. In this review, I discuss the current evidence linking aberrant PTMs and/or aberrant regulation of the cellular machinery regulating these PTMs to HD pathogenesis. Finally, I discuss the evidence suggesting that pharmacologically targeting one of these protein families the histone deacetylases may be of potential therapeutic benefit in the treatment of HD

National trends in total cholesterol obscure heterogeneous changes in HDL and non-HDL cholesterol and total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio : a pooled analysis of 458 population-based studies in Asian and Western countries

Background: Although high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and non-HDL cholesterol have opposite associations with coronary heart disease, multi-country reports of lipid trends only use total cholesterol (TC). Our aim was to compare trends in total, HDL and nonHDL cholesterol and the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio in Asian and Western countries. Methods: We pooled 458 population-based studies with 82.1 million participants in 23 Asian and Western countries. We estimated changes in mean total, HDL and non-HDL cholesterol and mean total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio by country, sex and age group. Results: Since similar to 1980, mean TC increased in Asian countries. In Japan and South Korea, the TC rise was due to rising HDL cholesterol, which increased by up to 0.17 mmol/L per decade in Japanese women; in China, it was due to rising non-HDL cholesterol. TC declined in Western countries, except in Polish men. The decline was largest in Finland and Norway, at similar to 0.4 mmol/L per decade. The decline in TC in most Western countries was the net effect of an increase in HDL cholesterol and a decline in non-HDL cholesterol, with the HDL cholesterol increase largest in New Zealand and Switzerland. Mean total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio declined in Japan, South Korea and most Western countries, by as much as similar to 0.7 per decade in Swiss men (equivalent to similar to 26% decline in coronary heart disease risk per decade). The ratio increased in China. Conclusions: HDL cholesterol has risen and the total-to-HDL cholesterol ratio has declined in many Western countries, Japan and South Korea, with only a weak correlation with changes in TC or non-HDL cholesterol.Peer reviewe

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups