Patient brochure on contact lens options

Patients interested in contact lenses, especially new wearers, find the contact lens industry to be overwhelming and confusing. Many practices are asked, How much are your contact lenses? This leads to a lengthy explanation that often goes misunderstood. This patient brochure was designed to answer the many questions prospective contact lens wearers have in hopes of avoiding patient frustration, and to save optometrists and optometric assistants time in repetitively answering such questions

Integrating Enterprise Decision-Making Modules into Undergraduate Management and Industrial Engineering Curricula

This paper describes a framework we have developed for teaching enterprise decision-making using Enterprise Decision-Making Modules linked together through a common case scenario. Each module is situated in an organizational process, e.g., the supply chain and order fulfillment process, and involves students in hands-on decision-making using an Enterprise System (ES) to provide an integrated, process-oriented, data-rich environment typical of modern organizations. Our framework differs from other approaches to integrating ES into curricula because it is designed to teach students to work in an integrated process-oriented environment without changing to an integrated process-oriented curriculum and because it introduces decision-making modules across management and engineering curricula while minimizing the ES knowledge required of faculty and the classroom time devoted to ES skills. The paper also describes our Oracle-based technical infrastructure, the project plan and management, as well as our methods for assessing student learning. It reports results from our successful pilot study testing the feasibility of this approach with two decision-making modules in two classes, and also describes Phase 2 of the project, currently underway, which involves additional faculty and modules and tests student understanding of working in an integrated, data-rich environment

A Theory of Clinic-EHR Affordance Actualization

To build theory about how to achieve expected benefits from a system implementation, we conducted a longitudinal study of the implementation of an electronic health record (EHR) system at a multi-site clinic using grounded theory methods and a critical realist perspective. We developed a mid-level process theory of how clinics actualize affordances arising from the implementation of an EHR. In so doing we complement the work of Markus and Silver (2008) in their application of Gibson’s Affordance Theory to the understanding of IT effects on organizations. Specifically, we replace the DeSanctis and Poole (1994) concept of appropriation with a new concept, actualization, and show how the individual level journeys of users as they actualize affordances as perceived from their various personal perspectives result in the organizational level outcomes. In building this mid-level theory, we identify the central affordances pertaining to the clinic-EHR relation and in so doing, provide an example of how to define affordances and how to conduct empirical studies using an Affordance Theory lens. Our theory should prove useful to practitioners implementing such systems

\u3ci\u3eIn Vitro\u3c/i\u3e Gene Regulatory Networks Predict In Vivo Function of Liver

Background: Evolution of toxicity testing is predicated upon using in vitro cell based systems to rapidly screen and predict how a chemical might cause toxicity to an organ in vivo. However, the degree to which we can extend in vitro results to in vivo activity and possible mechanisms of action remains to be fully addressed. Results: Here we use the nitroaromatic 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) as a model chemical to compare and determine how we might extrapolate from in vitro data to in vivo effects. We found 341 transcripts differentially expressed in common among in vitro and in vivo assays in response to TNT. The major functional term corresponding to these transcripts was cell cycle. Similarly modulated common pathways were identified between in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, we uncovered the conserved common transcriptional gene regulatory networks between in vitro and in vivo cellular liver systems that responded to TNT exposure, which mainly contain 2 subnetwork modules: PTTG1 and PIR centered networks. Interestingly, all 7 genes in the PTTG1 module were involved in cell cycle and downregulated by TNT both in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions: The results of our investigation of TNT effects on gene expression in liver suggest that gene regulatory networks obtained from an in vitro system can predict in vivo function and mechanisms. Inhibiting PTTG1 and its targeted cell cyle related genes could be key machanism for TNT induced liver toxicity

Authors' Response

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97166/1/jfo12080.pd

Intraluminal measurement of papillary duct urine pH, in vivo: a pilot study in the swine kidney

We describe the in vivo use of an optic-chemo microsensor to measure intraluminal papillary duct urine pH in a large mammal. Fiber-optic pH microsensors have a tip diameter of 140-µm that allows insertion into papillary Bellini ducts to measure tubule urine proton concentration. Anesthetized adult pigs underwent percutaneous nephrolithotomy to access the lower pole of the urinary collecting system. A flexible nephroscope was advanced towards an upper pole papilla with the fiber-optic microsensor contained within the working channel. The microsensor was then carefully inserted into Bellini ducts to measure tubule urine pH in real time. We successfully recorded tubule urine pH values in five papillary ducts from three pigs (1 farm pig and 2 metabolic syndrome Ossabaw pigs). Our results demonstrate that optical microsensor technology can be used to measure intraluminal urine pH in real time in a living large mammal. This opens the possibility for application of this optical pH sensing technology in nephrolithiasis

Neutron Resonance Spectroscopy of 117Sn from1 eV to 1.5 keV

Parity violation has been studied recently for neutron resonances in 117Sn. The neutron resonance spectroscopy is essential for the analysis of the parity violation data. We have measured neutron resonances in 117Sn for neutron energies from 1 to 1500 eV using the time-of-flight method and the (n,γ) reaction. The sample was enriched to 87.6% 117Sn. Neutron scattering and radiative widths were determined, and orbital angular momentum assignments were made with a Bayesian analysis. The s-wave and p-wave strength functions and average level spacings were determined

Parity Violation in Neutron Resonances of 117 Sn

Parity nonconservation (PNC) has been studied in neutron p-wave resonances of 117Sn. The longitudinal asymmetries were measured for 29 p-wave resonances in the neutron energy range 0.8 eV to 1100 eV. Statistically significant PNC effects were observed for four resonances. A statistical analysis determined the rms weak mixing matrix element and the weak spreading width. A weak spreading width of Γw=(0.28-0.15+0.56)×10-7 eV was obtained for117Sn

The Frontier Fields Lens Modeling Comparison Project

Gravitational lensing by clusters of galaxies offers a powerful probe of their structure and mass distribution. Deriving a lens magnification map for a galaxy cluster is a classic inversion problem and many methods have been developed over the past two decades to solve it. Several research groups have developed techniques independently to map the predominantly dark matter distribution in cluster lenses. While these methods have all provided remarkably high precision mass maps, particularly with exquisite imaging data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the reconstructions themselves have never been directly compared. In this paper, we report the results of comparing various independent lens modeling techniques employed by individual research groups in the community. Here we present for the first time a detailed and robust comparison of methodologies for fidelity, accuracy and precision. For this collaborative exercise, the lens modeling community was provided simulated cluster images -- of two clusters Ares and Hera -- that mimic the depth and resolution of the ongoing HST Frontier Fields. The results of the submitted reconstructions with the un-blinded true mass profile of these two clusters are presented here. Parametric, free-form and hybrid techniques have been deployed by the participating groups and we detail the strengths and trade-offs in accuracy and systematics that arise for each methodology. We note in conclusion that lensing reconstruction methods produce reliable mass distributions that enable the use of clusters as extremely valuable astrophysical laboratories and cosmological probes.Comment: 38 pages, 25 figures, submitted to MNRAS, version with full resolution images can be found at http://pico.bo.astro.it/~massimo/papers/FFsims.pd