A Plan for a Comprehensive and Integrated Information Systems Curriculum

Curriculum guidelines have placed a strong emphasis on integration of theory and practice in information systems (IS). A parallel concern, as yet unaddressed, is the integration throughout the IS curriculum of key theoretical concepts from individual courses. This paper suggests an architectural plan that incorporates formal methods, technological team issues, and organizational theory considerations in the development of a fully integrated information systems curriculum

Correlation Between Age Estimates for Elk, Cervus Elaphus, Using Tooth Wear/Eruption Patterns and Counts of Annuli in Tooth Cementum

Two different techniques, (1) tooth wear, tooth eruption patterns and other attributes and (2) counting annuli and seasonal growth zones in the cementum of incisor teeth, were used to estimate the age of Elk, Cervus elaphus, that were relocated from Alberta to Ontario, Canada. Age estimates for Elk ranged from 2 to 20 years, and a significant relationship was found between the ages acquired by the two methods. Critical to acquiring accurate age estimates for Elk were staff with extensive skill with respect to the aging technique utilized

Adaptation of The Doubly Labeled Water Method for Subjects Consuming Isotopically Enriched Water

The use of doubly labeled water (DLW) to measure energy expenditure is subject to error if the background abundance of the oxygen and hydrogen isotope tracers changes during the test period. This study evaluated the accuracy and precision of different methods by which such background isotope changes can be corrected, including a modified method that allows prediction of the baseline that would be achieved if subjects were to consume water from a given source indefinitely. Subjects in this study were eight women (4 test subjects and 4 control subjects) who consumed for 28 days water enriched to resemble drinking water aboard the United States space shuttle. Test subjects and control subjects were given a DLW dose on days 1 and 15, respectively. The change to an enriched water source produced a bias in expenditure calculations that exceeded 2.9 MJ/day (35%), relative to calculations from intake-balance. The proposed correction based on the predicted final abundance of 18O and deuterium after equilibration to the new water source eliminated this bias, as did the traditional use of a control group. This new modified correction method is advantageous under field conditions when subject numbers are limited

A Search for Parent-of-Origin Effects on Honey Bee Gene Expression

Parent-specific gene expression (PSGE) is little known outside of mammals and plants. PSGE occurs when the expression level of a gene depends on whether an allele was inherited from the mother or the father. Kin selection theory predicts that there should be extensive PSGE in social insects because social insect parents can gain inclusive fitness benefits by silencing parental alleles in female offspring. We searched for evidence of PSGE in honey bees using transcriptomes from reciprocal crosses between European and Africanized strains. We found 46 transcripts with significant parent-of-origin effects on gene expression, many of which overexpressed the maternal allele. Interestingly, we also found a large proportion of genes showing a bias toward maternal alleles in only one of the reciprocal crosses. These results indicate that PSGE may occur in social insects. The nonreciprocal effects could be largely driven by hybrid incompatibility between these strains. Future work will help to determine if these are indeed parent-of-origin effects that can modulate inclusive fitness benefits

Evaluating the Implementation and Feasibility of a WebBased Tool to Support Timely Identification and Care for the Frail Population in Primary Healthcare Settings

Background: Understanding and addressing the needs of frail persons is an emerging health priority for Nova Scotia and internationally. Primary healthcare (PHC) providers regularly encounter frail persons in their daily clinical work. However, routine identification and measurement of frailty is not standard practice and, in general, there is a lack of awareness about how to identify and respond to frailty. A web-based tool called the Frailty Portal was developed to aid in identifying, screening, and providing care for frail patients in PHC settings. In this study, we will assess the implementation feasibility and impact of the Frailty Portal to: (1) support increased awareness of frailty among providers and patients, (2) identify the degree of frailty within individual patients, and (3) develop and deliver actions to respond to frailtyl in community PHC practice. Methods: This study will be approached using a convergent mixed method design where quantitative and qualitative data are collected concurrently, in this case, over a 9-month period, analyzed separately, and then merged to summarize, interpret and produce a more comprehensive understanding of the initiative’s feasibility and scalability. Methods will be informed by the ‘Implementing the Frailty Portal in Community Primary Care Practice’ logic model and questions will be guided by domains and constructs from an implementation science framework, the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). Discussion: The ‘Frailty Portal’ aims to improve access to, and coordination of, primary care services for persons experiencing frailty. It also aims to increase primary care providers’ ability to care for patients in the context of their frailty. Our goal is to help optimize care in the community by helping community providers gain the knowledge they may lack about frailty both in general and in their practice, support improved identification of frailty with the use of screening tools, offer evidence based severity-specific care goals and connect providers with local available community supports

The Newcomer Health Clinic in Nova Scotia: A Beacon Clinic to Support the Health Needs of the Refugee Population

Abstract Refugees tend to have greater vulnerability compared to the general population reporting greater need for physical, emotional, or dental problems compared to the general population. Despite the importance of creating strong primary care supports for these patients, it has been demonstrated that there is a significant gap in accessing primary care providers who are willing to accept the refugee population. These have resulted in bottlenecks in the transition or bridge clinics and have left patients orphaned without a primary care provider. This in turn results in higher use of emergency service and other unnecessary costs to the healthcare system. Currently there are few studies that have explored these challenges from primary care provider perspectives and very few to none from patient perspectives. A novel collaborative implementation initiative in primary healthcare (PHC) is seeking to improve primary medical care for the refugee population by creating a globally recommended transition or beacon clinic to support care needs of new arrivals and transitions to primary care providers. We discuss the innovative elements of the clinic model in this paper

Detection of chromosomal aneuploidy in ancient genomes

Ancient DNA is a valuable tool for investigating genetic and evolutionary history that can also provide detailed profiles of the lives of ancient individuals. In this study, we develop a generalised computational approach to detect aneuploidies (atypical autosomal and sex chromosome karyotypes) in the ancient genetic record and distinguish such karyotypes from contamination. We confirm that aneuploidies can be detected even in low-coverage genomes ( ~ 0.0001-fold), common in ancient DNA. We apply this method to ancient skeletal remains from Britain to document the first instance of mosaic Turner syndrome (45,X0/46,XX) in the ancient genetic record in an Iron Age individual sequenced to average 9-fold coverage, the earliest known incidence of an individual with a 47,XYY karyotype from the Early Medieval period, as well as individuals with Klinefelter (47,XXY) and Down syndrome (47,XY, + 21). Overall, our approach provides an accessible and automated framework allowing for the detection of individuals with aneuploidies, which extends previous binary approaches. This tool can facilitate the interpretation of burial context and living conditions, as well as elucidate past perceptions of biological sex and people with diverse biological traits