"Streamlined auditing and monitoring of community based services: first steps toward a more efficient system for providers, state government, and the community" : report to the Illinois General Assembly as required by PA 96-1141 /

The Steering Committee recognizes that the Departments may need to implement reviews necessary to address specific Federal requirements and that while consolidated reporting should be used when possible, the review and reporting processes should facilitate the ability to garner Federal funding. However, the analysis thus far confirms the need for change and a significant potential to reduce redundant monitoring and reporting. At the end of this Executive Summary, there is a summary presentation, including a timeline and progress indicators, that gives more details on these recommendations.

Current and potential uses of electronic monitoring and recording /

"February 15, 2008."

Joint motion measurement /

Superseded by TM 8-640, Jan. 1968.

Better case file monitoring of the workers' compensation offset provision by the Social Security Administration could save millions /

"September 30, 1983."

Toward more effective management : the role of objective setting and monitoring : training materials /

"The work involved in developing and producing these materials was performed pursuant to Contract No. HEW-100-75-0055 with the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare ..."

Monitoring dendritic cells in clinical practice using a new whole blood single-platform TruCOUNT assay

Dendritic cells (DC) from distinct DC subsets are essential contributors to normal human immune responses. Despite this, reliable assays that enable DC to be counted precisely have been slow to evolve. We have now developed a new single-platform flow cytometric assay based on TruCOUN(TM) beads and the whole blood Lyse/No-Wash protocol that allows precise counting of the CD14(-) blood DC subsets: CD11c(+)CD16(-) DC, CD11c(+)CD16(+) DC, CD123(hi) DC, CD1c(+) DC and BDCA-3(+) DC. This assay requires 50 mul of whole blood; does not rely on a hematology blood analyser for the absolute DC counts; allows DC counting in EDTA samples 24 It after collection; and is suitable for cord blood and peripheral blood. The data is highly reproducible with intra-assay and inter-assay coefficients of variation less than 3% and 11%, respectively. This assay does not produce the DC-T lymphocyte conjugates that result in DC counting abnormalities in conventional gradient-density separation procedures. Using the TruCOUNT assay, we established that absolute blood DC counts reduce with age in healthy individuals. In preliminary studies, we found a significantly lower absolute blood CD11c(+)CD16(+) DC count in stage III/IV versus stage I/II breast carcinoma patients and a lower absolute blood CD123(hi) DC count in multiple myeloma patients, compared to age-matched controls. These data indicate that scientific progress in DC counting technology will lead to the global standardization of DC counting and allow clinically meaningful data to be obtained. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Initiation of evasive manoeuvres during self-motion: a test of three hypotheses

To understand performance of evasive and interceptive actions it is important to know how people decide when to initiate a movement - initiating at the 'right' moment is often essential for successful performance. It has been proposed that initiation is triggered when a perceptually derived quantity reaches an invariant criterion value. Candidate quantities include time-to-collision (TTC), distance, and rate of image expansion ( ROE), all of which have received empirical support. We studied initiation of an evasive manoeuvre in a computer-simulated steering task in which the observer was required to steer through a stationary visual environment and avoid colliding with an obstacle in their path. The results could not be explained by hypotheses which propose that evasive manoeuvre initiation is based on a fixed criterion value of TTC or distance. The overall pattern was, however, consistent with the use of a criterion ROE value. This was further tested by analyses designed to directly evaluate whether the ROE value used to initiate the response was the same across experimental conditions. Only two of the six participants showed evidence for using the ROE strategy.

The measurement of nicotine in human plasma by high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry

The authors describe a reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry method for the measurement of nicotine in human plasma. Samples (500 muL) with added deuterium-labeled d(3)-nicotine as an internal standard (IS) were treated with a 2-step process of ether extraction (6 mL) followed by back-extraction into 0.1% formic acid (50 muL). Chromatography was performed on a phenyl Novapak column with a mobile phase consisting of 50% 10 mM ammonium fortriate (pH 3.3) and acetonitrile (50:50, vol/vol). A flow rate of 0.2 mL/min resulted in a total analysis time of 5 minutes per sample. Mass spectrometric detection was by selected reactant monitoring (nicotine m/z 163.2 --> 130.2; IS m/z 166.2 --> 87.2). The assay was linear from 0.5 to 100 mug/L (r > 0.993, n = 9). The accuracy and imprecision of the method for quality control sampleswere 87.5% to 113% and < 10.2%, respectively. Interday accuracy and imprecision at the limit of quantification (0.5 mug/L) was 113% and 7.2% (n = 4). The process efficiency for nicotine in plasma was > 75%. The method described has good process efficiency, stabilized nicotine, avoided concentration steps, and most importantly minimized potential contamination. Further, we have established that water-based standards and controls are interchangeable with plasma-based samples. This method was used successfully to measure the pharmacokinetic profiles of subjects involved in the development of an aerosol inhalation drug delivery system.

Origins and early development of human body knowledge

As a knowable object, the human body is highly complex. Evidence from several converging lines of research, including psychological studies, neuroimaging and clinical neuropsychology, indicates that human body knowledge is widely distributed in the adult brain, and is instantiated in at least three partially independent levels of representation. Sensori-motor body knowledge is responsible for on-line control and movement of one's own body and may also contribute to the perception of others' moving bodies; visuo-spatial body knowledge specifies detailed structural descriptions of the spatial attributes of the human body; and lexical-semantic body knowledge contains language-based knowledge about the human body. In the first chapter of this Monograph, we outline the evidence for these three hypothesized levels of human body knowledge, then review relevant literature on infants' and young children's human body knowledge in terms of the three-level framework. In Chapters II and III, we report two complimentary series of studies that specifically investigate the emergence of visuospatial body knowledge in infancy. Our technique is to compare infants' responses to typical and scrambled human bodies, in order to evaluate when and how infants acquire knowledge about the canonical spatial layout of the human body. Data from a series of visual habituation studies indicate that infants first discriminate scrambled from typical human body pictures at 15 to 18 months of age. Data from object examination studies similarly indicate that infants are sensitive to violations of three-dimensional human body stimuli starting at 15-18 months of age. The overall pattern of data supports several conclusions about the early development of human body knowledge: (a) detailed visuo-spatial knowledge about the human body is first evident in the second year of life, (b) visuo-spatial knowledge of human faces and human bodies are at least partially independent in infancy and (c) infants' initial visuo-spatial human body representations appear to be highly schematic, becoming more detailed and specific with development. In the final chapter, we explore these conclusions and discuss how levels of body knowledge may interact in early development.

Monitoring green turtles (Chelonia mydas) at a coastal foraging area in Baja California, Mexico: multiple indices to describe population status

From June 1995 to August 2002 we assessed green turtle (Chelonia mydas) population structure and survival, and identified human impact, at Bahia de los Angeles, a large bay that was once the site of the greatest sea turtle harvest rates in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Turtles were captured live with entanglement nets and mortality was quantified through stranding surveys and flipper tag recoveries. A total of 14,820 netting hours (617.5 d) resulted in 255 captures of 200 green turtles. Straight-carapace length and mass ranged from 46.0-100.0 cm (mean = 74.3 +/- 0.7 cm) and 14.5-145.0 kg (mean = 61.5 +/- 1.7 kg), respectively. The size-frequency distribution remained stable during all years and among all capture locations. Anthropogenic-derived injuries ranging from missing flippers to boat propeller scars were present in 4% of captured turtles. Remains of 18 turtles were found at dumpsites, nine stranded turtles were encountered in the study area, and flipper tags from seven turtles were recovered. Survival was estimated at 0.58 for juveniles and 0.97 for adults using a joint live-recapture and dead-recovery model (Burnham model). Low survival among juveniles, declining annual catch per unit effort, and the presence of butchered carcasses indicated human activities continue to impact green turtles at this foraging area.

Numerical evaluation of the fields induced by body motion in or near high-field MRI scanners

In modern magnetic resonance imaging, both patients and health care workers are exposed to strong. non-uniform static magnetic fields inside and outside of the scanner. In which body movement may be able to induce electric currents in tissues which could be potentially harmful. This paper presents theoretical investigations into the spatial distribution of induced E-fields in a tissue-equivalent human model when moving at various positions around the magnet. The numerical calculations are based on an efficient. quasi-static, finite-difference scheme. Three-dimensional field profiles from an actively shielded 4 T magnet system are used and the body model projected through the field profile with normalized velocity. The simulation shows that it is possible to induce E-fields/currents near the level of physiological significance under some circumstances and provides insight into the spatial characteristics of the induced fields. The methodology presented herein can be extrapolated to very high field strengths for the evaluation of the effects of motion at a variety of field strengths and velocities. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biological monitoring and Biological Limit Values (BLV): The strategy of the European Union

Occupational standards concerning allowable concentrations of chemical compounds in the ambient air of workplaces have been established in several countries worldwide. With the integration of the European Union (EU), there has been a need of establishing harmonised Occupational Exposure Limits (OEL). The European Commission Directive 95/320/EC of 12 July 1995 has given the tasks to a Scientific Committee for Occupational Exposure Limits (SCOEL) to propose, based on scientific data and where appropriate, occupational limit values which may include the 8-h time-weighted average (TWA), short-term limits/excursion limits (STEL) and Biological Limit Values (BLVs). In 2000, the European Union issued a list of 62 chemical substances with Occupational Exposure Limits. Of these, 25 substances received a skin notation, indicating that toxicologically significant amounts may be taken up via the skin. For such substances, monitoring of concentrations in ambient air may not be sufficient, and biological monitoring strategies appear of potential importance in the medical surveillance of exposed workers. Recent progress has been made with respect to formulation of a strategy related to health-based BLVs. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Plaid motion rivalry: Correlates with binocular rivalry and positive mood state

Recently Hupe and Rubin (2003, Vision Research 43 531 - 548) re-introduced the plaid as a form of perceptual rivalry by using two sets of drifting gratings behind a circular aperture to produce quasi-regular perceptual alternations between a coherent moving plaid of diamond-shaped intersections and the two sets of component 'sliding' gratings. We call this phenomenon plaid motion rivalry (PMR), and have compared its temporal dynamics with those of binocular rivalry in a sample of subjects covering a wide range of perceptual alternation rates. In support of the proposal that all rivalries may be mediated by a common switching mechanism, we found a high correlation between alternation rates induced by PMR and binocular rivalry. In keeping with a link discovered between the phase of rivalry and mood, we also found a link between PMR and an individual's mood state that is consistent with suggestions that each opposing phase of rivalry is associated with one or the other hemisphere, with the 'diamonds' phase of PMR linked with the 'positive' left hemisphere.