The impact of libraries and informationists on patient and population care: a mixed-methods study.

Objective: While several studies have examined the effectiveness of librarian interactions with clinicians and impact of librarians on patient care, no studies have explored a library's effects on population care. The goal of this study was to investigate the library's impact on both patient and population care. Methods: Using a sequential exploratory mixed-methods design, we first interviewed a small set of clinicians and researchers active in patient and population care. Based on the themes that we discovered through coding the interviews, we created a survey that was sent to faculty in the health sciences and the health system. Results: We collected data from a representative sample of our population. We discovered that all respondents value the library and informationists, using our services most for teaching, publishing, presenting, and professional development. Conclusion: We now have data to support our value to our population and to show where we can do more work to improve the use of our services. Our study shows the value of doing a mixed-methods sequential exploration in which themes that are important to our user community were identified prior to launching a large-scale survey.

One institution's experience in transforming the health sciences library of the future.

Recognizing a need to be more relevant to its constituents, and aligned with institutional priorities, the Taubman Health Sciences Library redefined its mission, roles, and space. This transformation facilitated innovative, team-based collaborations within the health sciences community and the addition of new roles and responsibilities in academic and clinical engagement, research and informatics, enabling technologies, community outreach, and global health. Library space is being redesigned, and a branch library dedicated to interdisciplinary partnerships has been established. Information gained from this experience will be useful to other libraries faced with budget, resource, and staffing challenges and will offer practical ideas for becoming more integrated into the academic, research, and clinical work of the health sciences enterprise.

Integration of depression and primary care: barriers to adoption.

OBJECTIVE: Despite the prevailing consensus as to its value, the adoption of integrated care models is not widespread. Thus, the objective of this article it to examine the barriers to the adoption of depression and primary care models in the United States. METHODS: A literature search focused on peer-reviewed journal literature in Medline and PsycInfo. The search strategy focused on barriers to integrated mental health care services in primary care, and was based on previously existing searches. The search included: MeSH terms combined with targeted keywords; iterative citation searches in Scopus; searches for grey literature (literature not traditionally indexed by commercial publishers) in Google and organization websites, examination of reference lists, and discussions with researchers. FINDINGS: Integration of depression care and primary care faces multiple barriers. Patients and families face numerous barriers, linked inextricably to create challenges not easily remedied by any one party, including the following: vulnerable populations with special needs, patient and family factors, medical and mental health comorbidities, provider supply and culture, financing and costs, and organizational issues. CONCLUSIONS: An analysis of barriers impeding integration of depression and primary care presents information for future implementation of services.

Studying PubMed usages in the field for complex problem solving: Implications for tool design.

Many recent studies on MEDLINE-based information seeking have shed light on scientists' behaviors and associated tool innovations that may improve efficiency and effectiveness. Few if any studies, however, examine scientists' problem-solving uses of PubMed in actual contexts of work and corresponding needs for better tool support. Addressing this gap, we conducted a field study of novice scientists (14 upper level undergraduate majors in molecular biology) as they engaged in a problem solving activity with PubMed in a laboratory setting. Findings reveal many common stages and patterns of information seeking across users as well as variations, especially variations in cognitive search styles. Based on findings, we suggest tool improvements that both confirm and qualify many results found in other recent studies. Our findings highlight the need to use results from context-rich studies to inform decisions in tool design about when to offer improved features to users.

N-type crystalline silicon films free of amorphous silicon deposited on glass by HCl addition using hot wire chemical vapour deposition.

Since n-type crystalline silicon films have the electric property much better than those of hydrogenated amorphous and microcrystalline silicon films, they can enhance the performance of advanced electronic devices such as solar cells and thin film transistors (TFTs). Since the formation of amorphous silicon is unavoidable in the low temperature deposition of microcrystalline silicon on a glass substrate at temperatures less than 550 degrees C in the plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition and hot wire chemical vapour deposition (HWCVD), crystalline silicon films have not been deposited directly on a glass substrate but fabricated by the post treatment of amorphous silicon films. In this work, by adding the HCl gas, amorphous silicon-free n-type crystalline silicon films could be deposited directly on a glass substrate by HWCVD. The resistivity of the n-type crystalline silicon film for the flow rate ratio of [HCl]/[SiH4] = 7.5 and [PH3]/[SiH4] = 0.042 was 5.31 x 10(-4) ohms cm, which is comparable to the resistivity 1.23 x 10(-3) ohms cm of films prepared by thermal annealing of amorphous silicon films. The absence of amorphous silicon in the film could be confirmed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy.

Cross-domain neurobiology data integration and exploration.

BACKGROUND: Understanding the biomedical implications of data from high throughput experiments requires solutions for effective cross-scale and cross-domain data exploration. However, existing solutions do not provide sufficient support for linking molecular level data to neuroanatomical structures, which is critical for understanding high level neurobiological functions. RESULTS: Our work integrates molecular level data with high level biological functions and we present results using anatomical structure as a scaffold. Our solution also allows the sharing of intermediate data exploration results with other web applications, greatly increasing the power of cross-domain data exploration and mining. CONCLUSIONS: The Flex-based PubAnatomy web application we developed enables highly interactive visual exploration of literature and experimental data for understanding the relationships between molecular level changes, pathways, brain circuits and pathophysiological processes. The prototype of PubAnatomy is freely accessible at: [http://brainarray.mbni.med.umich.edu/Brainarray/prototype/PubAnatomy].

Open Biomedical Ontology-based Medline exploration.

BACKGROUND: Effective Medline database exploration is critical for the understanding of high throughput experimental results and the development of novel hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying the targeted biological processes. While existing solutions enhance Medline exploration through different approaches such as document clustering, network presentations of underlying conceptual relationships and the mapping of search results to MeSH and Gene Ontology trees, we believe the use of multiple ontologies from the Open Biomedical Ontology can greatly help researchers to explore literature from different perspectives as well as to quickly locate the most relevant Medline records for further investigation. RESULTS: We developed an ontology-based interactive Medline exploration solution called PubOnto to enable the interactive exploration and filtering of search results through the use of multiple ontologies from the OBO foundry. The PubOnto program is a rich internet application based on the FLEX platform. It contains a number of interactive tools, visualization capabilities, an open service architecture, and a customizable user interface. It is freely accessible at: http://brainarray.mbni.med.umich.edu/brainarray/prototype/pubonto.

Giant secondary conjunctival inclusion cysts: a late complication of strabismus surgery.

PURPOSE: To present giant conjunctival inclusion cysts as a late complication of strabismus surgery. DESIGN: Retrospective case series of selected patients. PARTICIPANTS: Four patients with a history of strabismus surgery who had developed giant conjunctival inclusion cysts. METHODS: A chart review was performed. The patient's ocular history, ophthalmic examinations, and imaging (ultrasound/ultrasound biomicroscopy and/or computed tomography) were recorded. Surgical excision with subsequent histopathologic correlation was obtained in 3 cases. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical and imaging characteristics with histopathologic correlation. RESULTS: Four patients with giant conjunctival inclusion cysts had a history of strabismus surgery. Ultrasound biomicroscopy was performed in 3 cases and revealed large, cystic, well-circumscribed tumors with low internal reflectivity and hyperechoic components. Computed tomography of the orbits was used to evaluate posterior extension. Their size induced limitation in motility, strabismus, and problems related to chronic exposure. Histopathologic evaluations were consistent with benign inclusion cysts of the conjunctiva. CONCLUSIONS: Giant conjunctival inclusion cysts may appear decades after strabismus surgery. Tumor size, cystic nature, and involvement of underlying structures can be determined by ultrasonography and radiographic imaging. Complete surgical removal can be curative.

Acute presentation of infected urachal cysts: case report and review of diagnosis and therapeutic interventions.

Urachal remnants, although relatively rare, masquerade as a large number of diverse disorders leading to a high rate of misdiagnosis. A typical case is reported in which a 10-year-old boy presented to the Emergency Department twice before being incorrectly diagnosed with a pelvic or lower abdominal periappendiceal abscess. Definitive diagnosis and treatment of an infected urachal cyst were made intraoperatively. A review and discussion of urachal remnants is presented, and a diagnostic algorithm and treatment plan is offered for this entity.