OR Department: Challenging New Study Made of Traditional O.R. Practices

The ability of nurses to adopt and successfully use EMR is expected to have a significant impact on achieving benefits such as reduction in healthcare costs and improvement in healthcare quality. A review of the current research literature reveals issues and concerns relating to the adoption and use of EMR by nurses in hospital environments. This article presents a literature review of such issues and concerns, and suggests a framework for enhancing the adoption and use of EMR by nurses and hospitals.     

Molecular markers of cardiomyopathy in cyanotic pediatric heart disease

Cyanotic congenital heart disease (CHD) accounts for approximately 25% of all types of CHD, encompassing a variety of cardiac anomalies. Children with cyanotic CHD are at risk for heart failure, cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias. In addition to the hemodynamic burden, recent data suggest that hypoxia may contribute to heart failure. Previous studies have shown that neonatal hypoxia results in significant myocardial gene expression alterations that persist in adulthood after the termination of the hypoxic stimulus in the neonatal period or early infancy. In this article we review the current knowledge on molecular biomarkers of cyanotic CHD pathobiology, and expand on how the current knowledge establishes the basis for future studies to further define the role of molecular tools in cyanotic CHD to improve diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic strategies.     

Androgenic mechanisms of sexual differentiation of the nervous system and behavior

Testicular androgens are the major endocrine factor promoting masculine phenotypes in vertebrates, but androgen signaling is complex and operates via multiple signaling pathways and sites of action. Recently, selective androgen receptor mutants have been engineered to study androgenic mechanisms of sexual differentiation of the nervous system and behavior. The focus of these studies has been to evaluate androgenic mechanisms within the nervous system by manipulating androgen receptor conditionally in neural tissues. Here we review both the effects of neural loss of AR function as well as the effects of neural overexpression of AR in relation to global AR mutants. Although some studies have conformed to our expectations, others have proved challenging to assumptions underlying the dominant hypotheses. Notably, these studies have called into question both the primacy of direct, neural mechanisms and also the linearity of the relationship between androgenic dose and sexual differentiation of brain and behavior.     

Evaluation of the ERIC-PCR as a probable method to differentiate Avibacterium paragallinarum serovars

Infectious coryza, an upper respiratory tract disease in chickens, caused by Avibacterium paragallinarum, leads to huge economic losses. The disease is controlled through vaccination; but vaccination efficacy is dependent on correct identification of the infecting serovar, as limited cross-protection is reported amongst some serovars. Current identification methods include the heamagglutination inhibition test, which is demanding and could be subjective. To overcome this, molecular typing methods proposed are the Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism-PCR, but low reproducibility is reported. Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus (ERIC)-PCR has been suggested for molecular groupings of various bacterial species. This study focuses on evaluating the ERIC-PCR as a probable method to differentiate between different Av. paragallinarum serovars by grouping with reference isolates, based on clonal relations. The ERIC-PCR was performed on 12 reference isolates and 41 field isolates originating from South Africa and South America. The data indicate that the ERIC-PCR is not ideal for the differentiation or for molecular typing of Av. paragallinarum serovars, as no correlation is drawn upon comparison of banding patterns of field isolates and reference strains. However, the results do indicate isolates from the same origin sharing unique banding patterns, indicating potential clonal relationship; but when compared to the reference isolates dominant in the specific area, no correlation could be drawn. Furthermore, although the ERIC-PCR serves a purpose in epidemiological studies, it has proved to have little application in differentiating amongst serovars of Av. paragallinarum and to group untyped field strains with known reference strains.