Switching to Electronic Health Record Systems: A Replication of the User Resistance Model

The purpose of this conceptual replication study is to understand the resistance construct of the User Resistance Model (URM) in the context of Health Information Technology (HIT) at an international healthcare organization. Specifically, we studied resistance towards Electronic Health Record systems (EHR). For this, the original scale items were adapted to the new context, and the model was tested with the data collected from 226 employees who work with an EHR system at a large public hospital in Amman, Jordan. Overall, the results support six of the eleven posited hypotheses. One hypothesis was contradicted, and the remaining four hypotheses were not supported. Moreover, the model fit statistics suggested that the current URM does not have a good fit. This indicates that the URM in the new context needs further investigation. We first discuss the hypotheses that are not supported or contradicted and then begin to suggest refinements to the model in an effort to improve its fit

Xeroderma pigmentosa -A disfiguring disease

Abstract Xeroderma pigmentosa is a rare inherited autosomal recessive disease with the inability to repair DNA damage caused by UV light. Recognized in the late 1800 by Maritz Kaposi it has been reported world wide and in al1 races with an over prevalence of 1-4 per million population. Kunwar et all 1,2 . Those affected are extremely sensitive to the UV portion of the light and have a 2000 fold increased risk of skin cancer in the sun exposed skin. Basal cell carcinoma is the most commonly associated carcinoma followed by Squamous cell carcinoma and Melanoma. The pigmentation on the face and the rest of the body can be horribly disfiguring. The recurring cancer occurring on the face and repeated surgical treatment for the ulcerations have important social and psychological implications not encountered with other cancers 3 . We report two cases of BCC and melanoma. The first case is of BCC of the face in a teenaged girl coexisting with xeroderma pigmentosa. The second case presented with melanoma of the scalp in a 10years old female child. The details of these cases are presented and the management. Key Words: Xeroderma pigmentosa, Autosomal recessive, Basal cell carcinoma, Squamous cell carcinoma, Melanoma. nherited as an autosomal recessive trait Xeroderma pigmentosa is genetically heterogeneous with at least 7 different variants 4 . Those affected are extremely sensitive to the UV portion of light. They rapidly develop skin atrophy, splotchy pigmentation, telangiectasia and skin cancer. Case Report: 1 A 17years of age female patient who had already been diagnosed as a case of Xeroderma pigmentosa two years back had presented with history of skin pigmentation over the face, neck and the limbs for 10 years, freckles over the face and photophobia. The trunk had been spared. Ulceration 2 by 1 inch over the nasal bridge was present for two years. She gave history of similar ulcerations over the cheeks two years back which had been excised and grafting. No recurrence has occurred on these grafted areas. Biopsy report of the excised portion had revealed BCC. She also received 6-7 weeks of radiotherapy for the same. Her younger brother was unaffected with the disease though she hasn't seen him for the past two years. Local examination revealed ulcerations extending over whole of the nasal bridge and the root of the nose also involving the medial canthus with crusting and haemorrhage. She had small ulcerations on the forehead .She had two areas of previous skin graft on either cheeks. Small pustular and papular lesions over the body sparing the trunk were also seen. No significant cervical lymphadenopathy was present. Systemic examinations including neurological function were normal. All investigations with serum biochemistry were within normal limit. Management: She was managed with surgical excision of the basal cell carcinoma of the nose. Wide surgical excision of the carcinoma with the trimming of the medial nasal septum and some excision of the right alae cartilage which appeared to be involved in the ulcer. It was decided to cover the nasal defect with midline forehead flap based on the right supraorbital and supratrochlear vessels. As the skin was insufficient on the left side a small left cheek skin was added by doing a VY plasty. The forehead was having many small ulcers so the whole forehead skin was excised and a thick skin graft from the upper arm was applied

Understanding Black Males' IT Career Choices

The under-representation of Blacks in the information technology (IT) profession is a longstanding issue. The purpose of this study is to understand the factors that influence Black male college students to pursue IT careers. This paper presents the results of interviews with 27 Black males majoring in IT at a historically black university. Four themes (community encouragement, exposure to computing, hustler’s ambition, “New Black”) emerged as particularly useful for understanding IT career choice. These findings have practical implications for designing effective interventions that broaden the participation of under-represented groups in the IT workforce, as well as scholarly implications for the conduct of research on academic achievement and IT career choice of successful Black males.ye

AMCIS 2022 Awards Luncheon

This is a video recording and PDF document with the AMCIS 2022 Awards Ceremony

Agenda setting and framing of gender-based violence in Nepal: how it became a health issue.

: Gender-based violence (GBV) has been addressed as a policy issue in Nepal since the mid 1990s, yet it was only in 2010 that Nepal developed a legal and policy framework to combat GBV. This article draws on the concepts of agenda setting and framing to analyse the historical processes by which GBV became legitimized as a health policy issue in Nepal and explored factors that facilitated and constrained the opening and closing of windows of opportunity. The results presented are based on a document analysis of the policy and regulatory framework around GBV in Nepal. A content analysis was undertaken. Agenda setting for GBV policies in Nepal evolved over many years and was characterized by the interplay of political context factors, actors and multiple frames. The way the issue was depicted at different times and by different actors played a key role in the delay in bringing health onto the policy agenda. Women's groups and less powerful Ministries developed gender equity and development frames, but it was only when the more powerful human rights frame was promoted by the country's new Constitution and the Office of the Prime Minister that legislation on GBV was achieved and a domestic violence bill was adopted, followed by a National Plan of Action. This eventually enabled the health frame to converge around the development of implementation policies that incorporated health service responses. Our explicit incorporation of framing within the Kindgon model has illustrated how important it is for understanding the emergence of policy issues, and the subsequent debates about their resolution. The framing of a policy problem by certain policy actors, affects the development of each of the three policy streams, and may facilitate or constrain their convergence. The concept of framing therefore lends an additional depth of understanding to the Kindgon agenda setting model.<br/

Linking microarray reporters with protein functions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The analysis of microarray experiments requires accurate and up-to-date functional annotation of the microarray reporters to optimize the interpretation of the biological processes involved. Pathway visualization tools are used to connect gene expression data with existing biological pathways by using specific database identifiers that link reporters with elements in the pathways.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This paper proposes a novel method that aims to improve microarray reporter annotation by BLASTing the original reporter sequences against a species-specific EMBL subset, that was derived from and crosslinked back to the highly curated UniProt database. The resulting alignments were filtered using high quality alignment criteria and further compared with the outcome of a more traditional approach, where reporter sequences were BLASTed against EnsEMBL followed by locating the corresponding protein (UniProt) entry for the high quality hits. Combining the results of both methods resulted in successful annotation of > 58% of all reporter sequences with UniProt IDs on two commercial array platforms, increasing the amount of Incyte reporters that could be coupled to Gene Ontology terms from 32.7% to 58.3% and to a local GenMAPP pathway from 9.6% to 16.7%. For Agilent, 35.3% of the total reporters are now linked towards GO nodes and 7.1% on local pathways.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our methods increased the annotation quality of microarray reporter sequences and allowed us to visualize more reporters using pathway visualization tools. Even in cases where the original reporter annotation showed the correct description the new identifiers often allowed improved pathway and Gene Ontology linking. These methods are freely available at http://www.bigcat.unimaas.nl/public/publications/Gaj_Annotation/.</p

A longitudinal twin study of the association between childhood autistic traits and psychotic experiences in adolescence

- Background: This twin study investigated whether autistic traits during childhood were associated with adolescent psychotic experiences. - Methods: Data were collected from a community sample of approximately 5000 twin pairs, which included 32 individuals with diagnosed autism spectrum conditions (ASC). Parents rated autistic traits in the twins at four points between ages 8–16 years. Positive, negative, and cognitive psychotic experiences were assessed at age 16 years using self- and parent-report scales. Longitudinal twin analyses tested the associations between these measures. - Results: Autistic traits correlated weakly or nonsignificantly with positive psychotic experiences (paranoia, hallucinations, and grandiosity), and modestly with cognitive psychotic experiences (cognitive disorganisation). Higher correlations were observed for parent-rated negative symptoms and self-reported anhedonia, although the proportion of variance in both accounted for by autistic traits was low (10 and 31 %, respectively). The majority of the genetic influences on negative symptoms and anhedonia were independent of autistic traits. Additionally, individuals with ASC displayed significantly more negative symptoms, anhedonia, and cognitive disorganisation than controls. - Conclusions: Autistic traits do not appear to be strongly associated with psychotic experiences in adolescence; associations were also largely restricted to negative symptoms. Of note, the degree to which the genetic and environmental causes of autistic traits influenced psychotic experiences was limited. These findings thus support a phenotypic and etiological distinction between autistic traits and psychotic experiences

Selected MicroRNAs Define Cell Fate Determination of Murine Central Memory CD8 T Cells

During an immune response T cells enter memory fate determination, a program that divides them into two main populations: effector memory and central memory T cells. Since in many systems protection appears to be preferentially mediated by T cells of the central memory it is important to understand when and how fate determination takes place. To date, cell intrinsic molecular events that determine their differentiation remains unclear. MicroRNAs are a class of small, evolutionarily conserved RNA molecules that negatively regulate gene expression, causing translational repression and/or messenger RNA degradation. Here, using an in vitro system where activated CD8 T cells driven by IL-2 or IL-15 become either effector memory or central memory cells, we assessed the role of microRNAs in memory T cell fate determination. We found that fate determination to central memory T cells is under the balancing effects of a discrete number of microRNAs including miR-150, miR-155 and the let-7 family. Based on miR-150 a new target, KChIP.1 (K + channel interacting protein 1), was uncovered, which is specifically upregulated in developing central memory CD8 T cells. Our studies indicate that cell fate determination such as surface phenotype and self-renewal may be decided at the pre-effector stage on the basis of the balancing effects of a discrete number of microRNAs. These results may have implications for the development of T cell vaccines and T cell-based adoptive therapies

Search for a Technicolor omega_T Particle in Events with a Photon and a b-quark Jet at CDF

If the Technicolor omega_T particle exists, a likely decay mode is omega_T -> gamma pi_T, followed by pi_T -> bb-bar, yielding the signature gamma bb-bar. We have searched 85 pb^-1 of data collected by the CDF experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron for events with a photon and two jets, where one of the jets must contain a secondary vertex implying the presence of a b quark. We find no excess of events above standard model expectations. We express the result of an exclusion region in the M_omega_T - M_pi_T mass plane.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures. Available from the CDF server (PS with figs): http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/physics/pub98/cdf4674_omega_t_prl_4.ps FERMILAB-PUB-98/321-