Tracking and Improving Bedside Procedures Through Standardized Documentation

Proposal and Goals: We propose to create a standardized electronic procedure note that will replace all documentation for bedside procedures without sedation. ◦Makes notes legible and easily identified ◦Allows uniform tracking of metrics necessary to identify outcomes from a procedure (blood loss, specimens, post-procedure studies, complications) 2.The procedure note will be created in such a way as to allow specialized procedures to be added over time with minor customization to improve physician/nursing work flows and increase efficiency ◦Allows procedures to be sorted and tracked by type ◦Will be constructed to allow attaching CPT codes to patient charts via documentation 3. We propose using this procedure note to create a running database of all bedside procedures ◦Can be utilized by existing software (Qlik) to query all procedure notes to create large anonymized patient listshttps://jdc.jefferson.edu/patientsafetyposters/1071/thumbnail.jp

FROM TERMINOLOGY TO ONTOLOGY: RESIGNIFYING A PARADIGM THROUGH TRANSGENDER POLITICS

Contemporary transgender politics in North America are presently at an impasse regarding the meaning of the label that ostensibly unifies this movement. This project will examine the terminological debate that has come to dominate transgender scholarship and activism, arguing that this concentration has reduced the socio-political viability of gender variant individuals to a matter of definition. Drawing on transgender and queer theory, as well as psychoanalytic theories of abjection, this thesis aims to demonstrate that the issue of viability is grounded not in terminology, but in cultural perceptions of ontology that must be resignified to establish gender variance as a plausible expression of subjectivity. The efforts of transgender rights activists to reconceptualize “the human” in legal terms will be positioned as a potential way through which to achieve this paradigmatic change

Does Photosynthetic Bark have a Role in the Production of Core vs. Outer Wood?

This paper hypothesizes a correlation in some species between the cambial age of transition from core (juvenile) to outer (mature) wood and the cambial age of transition from photosynthetic to non-photosynthetic bark. Secondly, this paper hypothesizes that the relationship is causal: a signal produced in relation to the photosynthetic bark affects wood development a few millimeters away. It is further hypothesized that the photosynthetic periderm is replaced by a non-photosynthetic one at light levels below its light compensation point. In T'suga heterophylla and Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii, the cambial age at which the first periderm dies (the base of photosynthetic bark) ranges from 16 to 33 and 12 to 43 years, respectively, for four Oregon Coast Range populations. These values are in the same range as the cambial ages of transition from core to outer wood, as shown by literature values and data reported here on tracheid length in T. heterophylla. In both species, the cambial age at the base of the live crown is not coincident with, nor consistently higher or lower than, the height of the lowest photosynthetic bark. Data presented here are consistent with the photosynthetic bark hypothesis of formation of core wood, but manipulative studies are needed to further explore the relationship

Parvovirus B19 infection in pediatric transplant patients

Evidence of recent parvovirus virus infection (as determined by the presence of a positive IgM antibody titer) without other identified causes of anemia was found in 5 of 26 pediatric solid-organ transplant recipients evaluated for moderate-to-severe anemia between June 1990 and July 1991. Anemia tended to be chronic (median duration of anemia at the time of diagnosis was 12 weeks) and was associated with normal red blood cell indices in the absence of reticulocytes. The median age of the children at the time of presentation with anemia due to parvovirus was 1.8 years at a median time of 8 months after transplantation. Four of the 5 children were treated with i.v. immunoglobulin because of persistance of anemia requiring blood transfusions. A response characterized by an increase in reticulocyte count and normalization of hemoglobin was seen in each of these patients 2-4 weeks after treatment. The remaining patient experienced a spontaneous recovery from her anemia. Parvovirus infection should be included in the differential diagnosis of solid-organ transplant recipients presenting with severe anemia associated with low or absent reticulocytes

Relaxation properties of the quantum kinetics of carrier-LO-phonon interaction in quantum wells and quantum dots

The time evolution of optically excited carriers in semiconductor quantum wells and quantum dots is analyzed for their interaction with LO-phonons. Both the full two-time Green's function formalism and the one-time approximation provided by the generalized Kadanoff-Baym ansatz are considered, in order to compare their description of relaxation processes. It is shown that the two-time quantum kinetics leads to thermalization in all the examined cases, which is not the case for the one-time approach in the intermediate-coupling regime, even though it provides convergence to a steady state. The thermalization criterion used is the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger condition.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Changes in life-style after liver transplantation

Sixty-five pediatric patients who received liver transplants between May 1981 and May 1984 were observed for as many as 5 years and examined for changes in life-style. Children were less frequently hospitalized, spent less time hospitalized, required fewer medications, and generally had excellent liver and renal function after hepatic transplantation as compared with their pretransplantation status. Most children were in age-appropriate and standard school classes or were only 1 year behind. Cognitive abilities remained unchanged. Children improved in gross motor function and patients' behavior significantly improved according to parents' perceptions. Enuresis was more prevalent, however, than in the population of children who had not received liver transplants. Parental divorce rates were no greater than those reported for other families with chronically ill children. Overall, objective changes in life-style as well as parents' perceptions of behavior of children appear to be improved after liver transplantation

The two-level atom laser: analytical results and the laser transition

The problem of the two-level atom laser is studied analytically. The steady-state solution is expressed as a continued fraction, and allows for accurate approximation by rational functions. Moreover, we show that the abrupt change observed in the pump dependence of the steady-state population is directly connected with the transition to the lasing regime. The condition for a sharp transition to Poissonian statistics is expressed as a scaling limit of vanishing cavity loss and light-matter coupling, $\kappa \to 0$, $g \to 0$, such that $g^2/\kappa$ stays finite and $g^2/\kappa > 2 \gamma$, where $\gamma$ is the rate of atomic losses. The same scaling procedure is also shown to describe a similar change to Poisson distribution in the Scully-Lamb laser model too, suggesting that the low-$\kappa$, low-$g$ asymptotics is of a more general significance for the laser transition.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures. Extended discussion of the paper aim (in the Introduction) and of the results (Conclusions and Discussion). Results unchange