Clinical Alert from NHLBI

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) issued a clinical alert on Friday, October 21, 2011:
Clinical Alert: Commonly Used Three-drug Regimen for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Found Harmful
NIH Stops One Treatment Arm of Trial; Other Two Treatments to Continue (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/alerts/2011_nhlbi_ifp.html)

One arm of a three arm multi-center, clinical trial studying treatments for the lung-scarring disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) was stopped for safety concerns. The trial found that people with IPF receiving a currently used triple-drug therapy consisting of prednisone, azathioprine, and N-acetylcysteine (NAC) had worse outcomes than those who received placebos or inactive substances.

Think Pink!

So weÔÇÖre officially halfway through breast cancer awareness month.?á The aim is to educate, empower and promote awareness about the disease. Awareness tip: a mammogram can detect breast cancer up to 3 years before a lump can be detected during a self-exam. Have you had a mammogram?

For more info, please visit:

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/BreastCancer/index?ssSourceSiteId=null

LSU Clinics & NO Musician’s Clinic

The former St. Charles General Hospital is the new location for the LSU Healthcare Network Clinics. It is located at 3700 St. Charles Ave with free parking at 3715 Prytania St. The offices officially opened on Monday, October 10th. This is also the location of the New Orleans Muscian’s Clinic. WWL-TV featured the opening on it’s nightly broadcast.

Wi-Fi for iOS 5

If you’ve already taken the plunge and installed iOS 5 on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, you can now jump right onto the LSUHSC wi-fi connection more easily than ever.

ÔÇó Locate LSUHSC-Secure from the available wi-fi networks listed in the Settings
ÔÇó Enter your LSUHSC user i.d. and password; this is the same one you use to access your e-mail
 Accept the eis-dpsnps1.master certificate
ÔÇó You should now be connected!

If you do not have iOS 5, please refer to the instructions for iOS 4 or earlier to use the LSUHSC wi-fi.

Wondering whether you can upgrade to iOS 5? Check this link for the list of compatible devices.

GeauxVote Mobile

In case the slew of robo-calls hasn’t alerted you, there is a state-wide election in 11 days in Louisiana. To assist in learning where to vote & what the complete ballot is in your precinct, the Office of the Secretary of State created the Geauxvote.com website, which has been around for several years. Now there is also a GeauxVote mobile app. It is available for both Android & iPhone. The sample ballot on your handheld device is a great help in making/remembering your decisions.

NIH $9 Million Grant Awarded

Congratulations to School of Medicine faculty, Judd Shellito, who has been awarded approximately $9 million in grant funding to develop a vaccine against Pneumocystis.

Library Commons

Wi-Fi for Android

Wanting to use your Android phone or tablet to hop onto the LSUHSC wi-fi? These steps will guide you through the process:
ÔÇó OS has to be 2.2.2 (Froyo) or later
ÔÇó Go to Wireless & networks/Wi-Fi settings to manage any available networks and choose ÔÇ£LSUHSC-SecureÔÇØ from the list.
ÔÇó The authentication for the network is 802.1x, the EAP method is PEAP, and the Phase 2 authentication is MSCHAPV2.
ÔÇó From there youÔÇÖll be able to enter your LSUHSC user i.d. and password (sometimes the i.d. needs to be prefixed with lsumc-master\userid). After this information is entered, youÔÇÖll be authenticated to the network and it should show you are connected to the LSUHSC wifi.

Faculty Authors for October

October’s faculty publications display has been created by the Library, and highlights recent articles by LSUHSC-New Orleans researchers. The articles on display, rotated out monthly, are in the Library’s Reference area (near the Library elevator) on the third floor of the Resource Center Building. These are culled from the Library’s Faculty Publications Database.

About the Library’s Faculty Publications Database:

The Faculty Publications Database includes publications authored by at least one member of the LSUHSC-New Orleans faculty, 1998 – present. Access to this database is available to the public. To add your faculty publications, or for questions about this database, contact Kathy Kerdolff.

The database is linked from the Library web page here. This page includes a handy link to a PDF of the monthly bibliography of display articles.

Here is a listing of the newest papers included, with those affiliated with LSUHSC-NO in bold print:

1. Akre KL, Farris HE, Lea AM, Page RA, Ryan MJ. “Signal perception in frogs and bats and the evolution of mating signals.” Science. 2011; 333(6043):751-752.

2. Baranwal S, Wang Y, Rathinam R, Lee J, Jin L, McGoey R, Pylayeva Y, Giancotti F, Blobe GC, Alahari SK. “Molecular characterization of the tumor-suppressive function of nischarin in breast cancer.” Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 2011; prepub.

3. Bennett B, Larson-Meyer DE, Ravussin E, Volaufova J, Soros A, Cefalu WT, Chalew S, Gordon S, Smith SR, Newcomer BR, Goran M, Sothern M. “Impaired insulin sensitivity and elevated ectopic fat in healthy obese vs. nonobese prepubertal children.” Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011; prepub.

4. Delahoussaye-Shields RM, Delahoussaye-Soine RL, Soine EJ, Lopez, FA. “Clinical Case of the Month: A 57-Year-Old Man With Diabetes and a Toe Infection.” Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society. 2011; 163(Jul/Aug): 230.

5. Hormes JM, Coffey SF, Drobes DJ, Saladin ME. “The Obsessive Compulsive Cocaine Use Scale: Development and initial validation of a self-rated instrument for the quantification of thoughts about cocaine use.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 2011; prepub.

6. Melvan JN, Siggins RW, Bagby GJ, Stanford WL, Welsh DA, Nelson S, Zhang P. “Suppression of the stem cell antigen-1 response and granulocyte lineage expansion by alcohol during septicemia.” Critical Care Medicine. 2011; 39(9): 2121-2130.

7. Mock JR, Foundas AL, Golob EJ. “Selective influence of auditory distractors on motor cortex excitability.” Neuroreport. 2011; prepub.

8. Paul D. “Experimental Designs for the Study of ReceptorÔÇôReceptor Interactions. Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.” Neuromethods. 2011; 60, Methods for the Discovery and Characterization of G Protein-Coupled Receptors (chapter 15): 305-319.

Take the DPT Health Fair survey

The Doctor of Physical Therapy students, Class of 2013 will host the 5th Annual LSUHSC Health and Wellness Event on October 21, 2011. They want to find out what you, the LSUHSC community, would like to get out of the event this year. They will use the responses we obtain from the survey to formulate our event. They would like the opinions of everyone in order to maximize the experience for those attending.

Please click on the survey link below and complete a short survey. Your feedback is important and will contribute to the success of the event.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/77BZXNT

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Book-drops

Did you know that the downtown library has a book-drop conveniently located near the newspaper, ATM & snack machines on the skywalk? It often takes more than a few books to complete a research paper, so to help alleviate the back breaking burden of toting those books back to the library, use the book-drop.

The Dental campus bookdrop is located on the 3rd floor breezeway.

ScienceDirect Save Issues

ScienceDirect has a couple of bugs that make simply saving an article difficult. While the save icon may appear once you have opened the PDF of an article; clicking the icon does nothing. Of course, sometimes the icon doesn’t appear at all. Here are some work arounds to actually save your article.
Method 1: Right Mouse Click Save – Right mouse click over the PDF link in the Table of Contents display and choose “Save Target As.” This will save the PDF to your specified location. Be sure to change the default name. Unfortnately this method does not work on the Library public computers.
Method 2: Print & Re-Scan – Print the article & re-scan if you need an e-copy. Unfortunately this is wasteful.
Method 3: Print Virtually – If you have virtual print software (Adobe Acrobat but not Adobe Reader) loaded on your computer. Open the article. Click print, but select Print to PDF to virtually print the item to a new location. There are a number of free programs to accomplish this task.
Method 4: PDF Downloader – To use the ScienceDirect PDF Downloader, verify which articles on a Table of Contents page, you want.
     a. Use the check boxes on the left, to select.
     b. At the tope of the page is a link to the PDF downloader (see image below), click on this link.

     c. A java update may need to Run to use the downloader.
     d. A new popup box will appear that will allow you to select the naming convention and location of the download.
     e. This method does not work with all browsers.
Method 5: Email – Once the PDF is opened, select the Send icon from the top. You must have a default email client (not web-based email) for this method to work. Click Attach to Email & Send Copy (see images below).

We are working with Science Direct to correct these issues.

Problems with Delicious

The Libraries have used the social bookmarking service, Delicious for several years to share important links. The service was recently sold by Yahoo and a new website was launched yesterday. Unfortunately, many of the Libraries’ webpages used tag cloud feeds which are not supported at the moment; this may change by tomorrow. Hopefully this will all be settled by the end of the week.

Interlibrary Loan Service

If the Libraries do not have a specific article or book that youÔÇÖre interested in, try getting it through our Inter-library loan service. The ILLiad (Interlibrary Loan) link is conveniently located on the right-hand side of the libraryÔÇÖs homepage. For first time users, simply fill out the First Time Users info and then fill in the specifics of the article or book of interest. Very often, items are free but depending on certain restrictions a charge might be associated with the item you requested. Email the ILL department for more info.

Clinical Advisory from NINDS

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) issued a new Clinical Advisory on September 19, 2011:

Secondary Prevention of Small Subcortical Strokes Trial: NINDS Stops Treatment with Combination Antiplatelet Therapy (Clopidogrel plus Aspirin) Due to Higher Risk of Major Hemorrhage and Death (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/alerts/2011_ninds_stroke.html)

NINDS has stopped the combination antiplatelet intervention in the Secondary Prevention of Small Subcortical Strokes (SPS3) trial. This was a randomized, multicenter clinical trial conducted throughout North America, Latin America and Spain, to learn about preventing a second stroke in patients who had a subcortical stroke and to learn how to prevent cognitive problems after a stroke.

However, the DSMB strongly recommended that the blood pressure intervention component of the trial be continued without modification. All participants are encouraged to continue taking aspirin and blood pressure control medications and to remain active in the trial, which is expected to complete follow-up by April 2012.

Further information about this trial (NCT00059306) can be found at http://www.clinicaltrials.gov.