Computing center management

Nada Logan Stotland, M.D., 135th President, 2008–2009

Bladder Hydrodistention Does Not Result in a Significant Change in Bladder Capacity for Interstitial Cystitis/Bladder Pain Syndrome Patients

IntroductionTesting of a thawed segment or representative sample of a cord blood unit (CBU) for cell recovery, viability, and potency forms part of pre-release testing. Not all CBUs that have had pre-release testing completed are shipped for transplant, due to postponed or cancelled shipment request, and are therefore kept in the inventory until they are searched again. In an effort to identify these CBUs for future expedited release, the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) initiated a project to flag them as “Ready to Ship” in the WMDA Search & Match Service. However, it is not known how long post-thaw results are valid before they must be repeated on another thaw. Such information can be beneficial not only for transplant centers to better assess CBU suitability but also for Cord Blood Banks (CBBs) to avoid unnecessarily exhausting their precious samples.ObjectiveThis study aimed to provide a first insight into the validity of post-thaw results over various lengths of time.MethodsNineteen CBUs, collected between 2003 and 2015 at the BMDI CBB and that had post-thaw testing performed twice, were analyzed for change in the total nucleated cell (TNC) recovery, total CD34 cell recovery, CD34 cell viability, and CFU-GM counts between two thaws.ResultsThe 19 CBUs were grouped into 4 groups based on their storage time between thaws. An average decrease in TNC recovery of 5.3% from first thaw to second thaw was observed for the entire dataset (P = .015). Four CBUs with a greater than 10% decrease had a bag TNC greater than 25 × 108. Individual CBU data is shown in Figure 1. No significant change between thaws was seen with total CD34 recovery (P = .738) or CD34 viability (n = 9 pairs, P = .354). A large variation in CFU-GM counts was observed between thaws. It is worth noting that all CBUs met CBB release criteria of >60% TNC recovery and that CD34 viabilities were above 70% (FACT requirement) in both thaws.Figure 1.Comparison of first and second thaw TNC recovery (A), total CD34 recovery (B), CD34 viability (C), and CFU-GM counts (D) of individual cord blood unit, grouped into 4 groups based on their storage time between thaws: 0-6 months (i), 2-3.5 years (ii), 6-8.5 years (iii), and 12 years (iv).DiscussionWhile results need to be confirmed on a larger dataset, our preliminary data shows very little change in post-thaw cell recovery and viability over various lengths of time (2 months-12 years), suggesting post-thaw results may be valid for longer than 10 years.

Impact of Fatty Liver Disease on Health Care Utilization and Costs in a General Population: A 5-Year Observation

Little is known about youth accessing gender-affirming care in Canada. Trans Youth CAN! is a prospective 24-month cohort study of youth referred for puberty suppression/gender affirming hormones, examining pathways to care, medical, social, and family outcomes. Eligible participants were pubertal, aged <16, naïve to puberty blockers/cross-sex hormones, and recruited at their first endocrine appointment, along with their parent/caregiver (P/C), from clinics in 10 Canadian cities. Baseline sociodemographic, health, and family data were collected from interviewer-assisted youth surveys, self-completed (P/C) surveys, and clinic medical records. Youth data included day-to-day discrimination (InDI-D), depression, (MDS), psychological distress (Kessler-6), gender distress (TYC-GDS), gender positivity (TYC-GPS), and P/C support (self-report by youth and P/C). Pathways to accessing gender-affirming medical care included wait times, prior providers seen, length of time seeking care, and age accessing care. P/C data included parental conflict and consideration/involvement in conversion therapy. Baseline data were collected from 09/2017 to 06/2019 on 174 youth and 160 P/Cs. 78.7% of youth were assigned female at birth. 8.1% of those assigned female at birth, and 8.3% of those assigned male at birth, reported a primarily non-binary identity. 25.7% of youth had one or more immigrant P/Cs; 20.5% were Indigenous; and 15.5% were from rural areas. In the past year, 52.9% of youth reported engaging in self-harm, 32.6% had suicidal ideation, and 13.8% had attempted suicide. Bivariate correlations showed that longer wait times were associated with being older when youth first spoke to someone about their gender, seeing more provider types before first endocrine appointment, P/C report of time spent seeking hormone treatment, and lifetime discrimination. Youth with higher current P/C support were younger at their first appointment. Older youth at first appointment had also been older when they first met with someone outside the family about their gender, and had spent a longer time seeking hormone treatment. These youth also had higher gender distress, lower gender positivity, higher psychological distress, higher depression, experienced higher lifetime and past-year discrimination, and had lower average P/C support. P/Cs reported 8.8% of youth had participated in conversion therapy, while an additional 9.7% had considered having their youth participate. Current or past parental conflict about youths’ gender identity was reported by 40.1%, but was not associated with age of accessing care, types of providers seen, length of time accessing care, or age at first appointment. This research will help fill gaps in knowledge for health care providers about youth accessing gender affirming medical care, enhancing gender-affirming care and support for these youth and their parents/families.

161 The Impact of Statewide Emergency Department Opioid Overdose Treatment Standards on Naloxone Distribution, Behavioral Counseling, and Referral to Treatment

The purposes of the study were to establish isometric torque reference values for healthy 6- to 8-year-old children for 6 lower extremity muscles and determine the effects of gender, age, height, weight, and physical activity upon strength. A hand-held dynamometer was used to obtain force/torque values for 154 children. Age-referenced force/torque and cutoff values are provided for each muscle group. Torque increased with age and height for all muscles and with weight for all muscles except knee extensors. No gender differences were found. Children who participated in 3 or more hours per week in organized sports were stronger in 4 of 6 muscles; the number of hours spent in active play did not affect torque. This study provides hand-held dynamometer strength reference values to enable clinicians to determine if clients of the same age, height, and weight have muscle weakness.

A variety of role exits and role entries were examined as potential predictors of self-concept clarity. Using a large, nationally-representative sample of adults, we assessed the number of role exits and role entries each respondent had experienced in the past year. Although both role exits and role entries were negatively correlated with self-concept clarity, subsequent analyses indicated that only role exits significantly predicted self-concept clarity when controlling for demographics, physical health, and self-esteem. Additionally, we found moderate support for a model in which these patterns of results are mediated by increased social isolation and reduced stability of behavioral routines. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of major life transitions and the psychological impact of social roles.

The emergence of information and instructional technologies and their influence on teaching and learning has brought about significant changes in academic environment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The new learning trend has made it mandatory to equip teachers in educational institutions with the necessary skills to cope with the new challenges. The urgent need for e-learning in KSA has resulted from the massive population growth vis-à-vis the scarcity of teachers in both quantity and quality, including the need to reduce financial burden.Since 2002, when e-learning started in KSA, it has gained recognition and interest among academic institutions, academics and students, though with a relatively slow pace. This paper takes into account the growth of e-learning in KSA. It analyzes the potential need and the overall impacts of e-learning on various stakeholders. The paper also discusses the current e-learning developments as well as future prospect.

Digital transformation (DT) is defined as a strategy for boosting mining assets by attempting significant changes to of own properties through the integration of communication, data computing, and property technologies. Making large-scale changes will be difficult with digital technology, especially if the business is not well-positioned to do so. Increasing cybersecurity protection levels is the most effective way to ensure the success of the transformation. When making significant changes, a clear digital vision should be outlined and implemented with strong leadership. However, the majority of digital transformation initiatives fail before they are completed. The problem does not just affect the mining industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the major challenges encountered in digital transformation projects and to propose a strategic solution for implementing and scaling digital initiatives.

Students: A Changing Constituency at the Heart of the Academic Enterprise Philip G. Altbach, Editor Students are at the heart of the academic enterprise and will be the focus of the first of two special issues of The Review of Higher Education which commemorate two decades of the Review’s publication. This issue focuses on students—attitudes, politics, persistence, and policy—and the next on policy issues in higher education. We asked several colleagues who are well known for their research about students to reflect on the broader implications of their work for higher education policy and practice. The articles presented here go beyond the normal scope of many of the articles published in the Review in that they examine research and its relation to policy and practice rather than present and analyze original research. It is especially important to consider students at a time when so much of the debate on higher education has been aimed at solving financial problems or stimulating greater productivity. We too often lose sight of the main underlying reason for the entire academic enterprise—teaching and learning that will benefit students. As the articles in this issue show, students face numerous challenges in a changing academic and societal context. At the [End Page 111] same time, the students who enroll in higher education are changing. The increase in the numbers of part-time and nontraditional students, the growing proportion of the student population that works while studying, and changes in the demographic profile of American youth all dramatically affect academe. The academic community needs to fully recognize the challenges posed by a changing student population. Debate too often focuses on specific problems without adequate consideration of the changing context. Discussion focuses on remedial courses, while ignoring the demographic and socio-economic changes that have taken place in the student population. Similarly, studies of persistence do not pay sufficient attention to the economic problems faced by students in light of cutbacks in student loan programs and rising tuition. Also overlooked is that students face increasing difficulty in registering for needed courses because the implications of reductions in staffing are largely ignored. Finally, student opinions about the significant changes taking place on campus, from declining support for libraries to tightening up academic requirements, are not generally considered. The articles in this issue deal with key themes relating to college and university students. Alexander W. Astin and his colleagues consider the changing opinions of American students over time. Arthur Levine and Jeanette Cureton discuss the political and social views of American students and focus especially on changing patterns of student politics and activism. In the next two articles, Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini, and Vincent Tinto discuss patterns of student persistence. Together these articles provide significant insight into changing student characteristics, emerging patterns of student opinions, and the conditions necessary to ensure that students have the best possible opportunity to complete their studies and benefit from their education. Students will face ever-increasing challenges in the coming decade. Continuing increases in tuition combined with cutbacks in faculty mean that pursuing a college degree will be more expensive while at the same time less satisfactory. In many academic institutions, study conditions are likely to deteriorate as class size is increased, library resources are diminished, and other support services are downsized. The impact of the new technologies on teaching and learning is much discussed but little understood and likely to be implemented primarily as a means of cost savings rather than instructional improvement. While the most selective liberal arts colleges and top research universities are likely to continue to offer a traditional undergraduate education (although at a higher price) in much the same manner as in the past, much of American higher education will find this standard difficult to sustain. [End Page 112] This issue of the Review certainly does not answer all of the questions raised here. However, our authors do discuss some of the most important challenges facing American students today and in the coming period. These articles provide the basis for further analysis and debate about American students in a changing academic and societal environment. Copyright © 1998 Association for the Study of Higher Education

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-8, April 2005) made significant changes to procedures for managing consumer bankruptcy petitions, but it also included amendments to the Truth in Lending Act. Notable among the Truth in Lending changes is a section providing for new disclosures on the length of time it will take consumers to repay open end credit accounts in full if they make only the minimum required payments. This paper explores the range of assumptions necessary for the calculations underlying the new required disclosures, examines the sensitivity of the disclosures to variations in the assumptions, and explores the potential for inaccuracy in the required disclosures based upon consumers' use of their open end credit accounts. For the latter exploration, the paper examines consumer survey evidence and employs a large longitudinal sample of credit card accounts to measure how often consumers' actual patterns of use of their credit card accounts match the assumptions of the new disclosure.

Somatic sensory perception thresholds (warm, cold, hot pain, touch, pinprick, vibration, two-point discrimination), allodynia and skin temperature were assessed in the affected area of 42 patients with unilateral postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) and 20 patients who had had unilateral shingles not followed by PHN (NoPHN), and in the mirror-image area on the other side. There was no difference between the two groups for age or length of time after the acute herpes zoster infection. The PHN group showed significant changes in all sensory threshold measurements when the affected area was compared with the mirror-image area on the unaffected side, while the NoPHN group exhibited no threshold changes. Mechanical allodynia was present in 87% of the PHN group; half of the 12 patients with ophthalmic PHN showed extension of allodynia to the maxillary distribution. No differences in skin temperature were recorded between affected and unaffected regions in either group. Our findings show a deficit of sensory functions mediated by both large and small primary afferent fibres and also suggest major central involvement in the pathophysiology of the condition. If PHN does not occur following acute herpes zoster, recovery of neural functions appears to be good.

Inspiratory Muscle Training in Patients With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

The changes in latency and amplitude of the cranial evoked potentials (EP) generated by mechanically stimulating the whiskers were measured in adult rats, in which the unilateral infraorbital nerve innervating the whiskers was crushed.1. In normal rats with intact infraorbital nerves, disphasic EPs were recorded subcutaneously from the contra and ipsilateral hemisphere. Latency of the contralateral waves was always shorter than that of the ipsilateral ones.2. Immediately after crushing the unilateral infraorbital nerve, latency of the contralateral EPs evoked by stimulating the crushed side whiskers was prolonged with a significant correlation between the positive and negative component of the EPs. Latency of the EPs simulataneously recorded from the ipsilateral side showed no significant changes. As a result, in some cases latency of the ipsilateral EPs became shorter than that of the contralateral ones. Most of these changes were restored within 3 weeks.3. The contralateral positive and negative EPs evoked by stimulating the crushed side whiskers showed immediate amplitude reduction. Positive EPs recorded from the hemisphere ipsilateral to the stimulation was consistently reduced in amplitude, while in the negative component, increases and decreases in amplitude were found to occur at roughly the same frequency.In the ipsilateral evoked positive component, the amount of amplitude reduction tended to show a positive correlation with the length of time needed to recover control value.4. The ratio of the latency after crushed side stimulation to that after intact side stimulation (C/I ratio) was increased significantly for one week after the nerve crush. The ratio of amplitude of the negative component to the positive component of individual EPs (N/P ratio) was found to be smaller for one week in the EPs evoked on the contralaterral hemisphere by stimulating the crushed side whiskers. The N/P ratio of the EPs on the ipsilateral hemisphere by stimulating the crushed side whiskers was increased at the 1st week after the crushing.These changes returned to normal at the 2nd week. These results indicated that reliable parameters to predict recovery time course of the tactile function after infraorbital nerve crushing would be (1) the N/P ratio of amplitude of the EPs evoked simultaneously on both sides of the head following stimulation of the crushed side whiskers, and (2) the C/I ratio of latency of the EPs evoked through the crossed pathway on the contralateral hemisphere by stimulating the crushed or intact side whiskers.