BackgroundMultidisciplinary team meetings and shared decision-making are potential means of delivering patient-centred care. Not much is known about how those two paradigms fit together in cancer care. This study aimed to investigate how decisions are made in multidisciplinary team meetings and whether patient perspectives are incorporated in these decisions.Materials and MethodsA qualitative study was conducted using non-participant observation at multidisciplinary team meetings (also called tumor boards) at the University Cancer Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany. Two researchers recorded structured field notes from a total of N = 15 multidisciplinary team meetings. Data were analyzed using content analysis and descriptive statistics.ResultsPhysicians mainly exchanged medical information and based their decision-making on this information. Individual patient characteristics or their treatment preferences were rarely considered or discussed. In the few cases where patient preferences were raised as a topic, this information did not seem to be taken into account in decision-making processes about treatment recommendations.ConclusionThe processes in multidisciplinary team meetings we observed did not exhibit shared decision-making. Patient perspectives were absent. If multidisciplinary team meetings wish to become more patient-centred they will have to modify their processes and find a way to include patient preferences into the decision-making process.
With biodiversity research activities being increasingly shifted to the web, the need for a system of persistent and stable identifiers for physical collection objects becomes increasingly pressing. The Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities agreed on a common system of HTTP-URI-based stable identifiers which is now rolled out to its member organizations. The system follows Linked Open Data principles and implements redirection mechanisms to human-readable and machine-readable representations of specimens facilitating seamless integration into the growing semantic web. The implementation of stable identifiers across collection organizations is supported with open source provider software scripts, best practices documentations and recommendations for RDF metadata elements facilitating harmonized access to collection information in web portals.
Database URL: http://cetaf.org/cetaf-stable-identifiers
Pseudomonas putida KT2440 strain was investigated for biosynthesis of the valuable xanthophyll zeaxanthin. A new plasmid was constructed harboring five carotenogenic genes from Pantoea ananatis and three genes from Escherichia coli under control of an L: -rhamnose-inducible promoter. Pseudomonas putida KT2440 wild type hardly tolerated the plasmids for carotenoid production. Mating experiments with E. coli S17-1 strains revealed that the carotenoid products are toxic to the Pseudomonas putida cells. Several carotenoid-tolerant transposon mutants could be isolated, and different gene targets for relief of carotenoid toxicity were identified. After optimization of cultivation conditions and product processing, 51 mg/l zeaxanthin could be produced, corresponding to a product yield of 7 mg zeaxanthin per gram cell dry weight. The effect of various additives on production of hydrophobic zeaxanthin was investigated as well. Particularly, the addition of lecithin during cell cultivation increased volumetric productivity of Pseudomonas putida by a factor of 4.7 (51 mg/l vs. 239 mg/l).
Corynebacterium glutamicum has a great potential as an alternative production host for HA. The fact that Coryne. glutamicum produces no distinct HA capsule facilitates HA isolation and improves overall yield.
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