Reacting to spontaneous feedback from external customers in a university hospital laboratory

Modern quality standards for laboratories recommend the use of customer feedback in quality improvement. Spontaneous customer feedback is one method to obtain information from customers. In the present study, we analysed the feedback data from external customers (health centres and other hospitals) to our university hospital laboratory during 2001–2006. The most common subject matters of the feedback, covering 87% of a total of 95 reports, were lacking test results, suspicion of the validity of test results, return of samples in transportation boxes to customers and delays in service. On investigation, errors or defects were revealed in 78 cases. The most common errors were lacking (45 cases; 58%), erroneous (20 cases; 26%) or delayed test results (7 cases; 9%). As much as 68% of these errors took place in the pre-analytical phase of the laboratory process, occurring most commonly during specimen transfer, when entering orders into the laboratory information system at the university hospital or during sample processing. The most common underlying causes for errors were unintended errors and non-compliance with operating instructions. Latent errors were identified in 14% of the cases. Corrective actions were performed in 79% of the reported cases. It is important that the feedback reports are investigated to find out possible errors and their underlying causes so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken. When processed properly, spontaneous customer feedback is a method that can be used supplementarily to other methods to detect errors and defects in clinical laboratories and to aid in quality improvement.     

An α/β-HSQC-α/β Experiment for Spin-State Selective Editing of IS Cross Peaks

A generalized version of the TROSY experiment allows the spin-state selective editing of the four multiplet components of¹⁵N–¹H cross peaks of amide groups in proteins into four different subspectra, with no penalty in sensitivity. An improvement by in sensitivity results, if only two of the four multiplet components are selected. Use of the experiment for the measurement of¹J_HNcoupling constants is discussed. A water flip-back version of the experiment is demonstrated with a 45 kDa fragment of¹⁵N/²H labeledStaphylococcus aureusgyrase B.     

Dicaesium silver zinc thio­cyanate,Cs2[AgZn(SCN)5]

The title compound, dicaesium(I)‐μ‐thio­cyanato‐κ²N:S‐zinc(II)‐tetra‐μ‐thio­cyanato‐κ²S:N‐argentate(I), crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pmn2₁ and contains units of composition AgZn(SCN)₃ lying on a mirror plane and bonded together through Cs⁺ ions and thio­cyanate groups. The crystal studied contained equal numbers of inversion twins.     

High‐molar‐mass polypropene with tunable elastic properties by hafnocene/borate catalysts

Elastic polypropene has gained growing industrial and academic interest as a thermoplastic elastomer. In this study, “rac”‐ and “meso”‐dimethylsilyl(3‐benzylindenyl)(2‐methylindenyl)hafnium dichloride complexes (Hfr and Hfm, respectively), activated with [NHMe₂Ph][B(C₆F₅)₄]/triisobutyl aluminum, were used in propene polymerization. Using these catalyst systems, we obtained polymers with high molar masses, up to 550 kg/mol, and moderate isotacticities between 34 and 52%. By varying the polymerization conditions, we could modify the polymer microstructure and molar mass. ¹³C NMR was used to calculate the polymer pentad sequence distributions. The crystalline parts of the polymers were analyzed with the differential scanning calorimetry successive self‐nucleation and annealing (SSA) technique. The SSA thermograms revealed that Hfr produced polypropene with a more uniform lamellar structure than Hfm. The mechanical properties were tested with dynamic mechanical analysis creep‐recovery tests. In the series, the polymers with the lowest isotacticities and therefore lowest crystallinities showed the best elastic properties. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 4743–4751, 2006     

Cauliflower-like CdS microspheres composed of nanocrystals and their physicochemical properties

Cauliflower-like cadmium sulfide (CdS) microspheres composed of nanocrystals have been successfully synthesized by a hydrothermal method using poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as the template coordination agent and characterized by a variety of methods. Our experiments confirmed that the size of the CdS microspheres could be easily modified by controlling the chain length of PEG. Powder X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy measurements revealed the cubic structure of the CdS microspheres; morphological studies performed by HR-SEM and HR-TEM methods showed the cauliflower-like structure of the synthesized CdS microspheres. Each microsphere was identified to be created by the self-assembly of CdS nanocrystals and is attributed to the oriented aggregation of the CdS nanocrystals around a polymer-Cd(2+) complex spherical framework structure. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis confirmed the stoichiometries of the CdS microspheres. Diffuse reflectance spectrum (DRS) measurements showed that increasing the PEG chain length increased the band gap value of the CdS microspheres slightly, from 1.99 to 2.06 eV. The cauliflower-like CdS microspheres could be applied to photocatalytic degradation studies.     

Cationic polymerization of β-pinene,styrene and α-methylstyrene

Molecular weight distributions determined by gel permeation chromatography demonstrate that α-methylstyrene copolymerizes with both β-pinene and styrene, forming both bi- and terpolymers. The composition of precipitated polymer versus crude polymer, as determined by nuclear magnetic resonance, suggests that β-pinene and styrene also copolymerize. Extraction of the latter bipolymer of β-pinene and styrene with acetone gives only a small amount of insoluble β-pinene homopolymer, confirming that β-pinene and styrene copolymerize in m-xylene. GPC analysis shows that each copolymer contains some homopolymer. A comparison of M _n with molecular weight calculated from NMR analysis, assuming chain transfer to solvent, indicates that chain transfer is the predominant method of forming dead polymer. The carbonium ions of the growing chain tend to transfer to solvent with increasing ease in the order β-pinene, styrene, and α-methylstyrene.     

Achieving Strong Positive Cooperativity through Activating Weak Non‐Covalent Interactions

Positive cooperativity achieved through activating weak non‐covalent interactions is common in biological assemblies but is rarely observed in synthetic complexes. Two new molecular tubes have been synthesized and the syn isomer binds DABCO‐based organic cations with high orientational selectivity. Surprisingly, the ternary complex with two hosts and one guest shows a high cooperativity factor (α=580), which is the highest reported for synthetic systems without involving ion‐pairing interactions. The X‐ray single‐crystal structure revealed that the strong positive cooperativity likely originates from eight C?H???O hydrogen bonds between the two head‐to‐head‐arranged syn tube molecules. These relatively weak hydrogen bonds were not observed in the free hosts and only emerged in the complex. Furthermore, this complex was used as a basic motif to construct a robust [2+2] cyclic assembly, thus demonstrating its potential in molecular self‐assembly.     

Determination of Backbone Angle ψ in Proteins Using a TROSY-Based α/β-HN(CO)CA-J Experiment

Transverse relaxation-optimized NMR experiment (TROSY) for the measurement of three-bond scalar coupling constant between ¹H^α_i−1 and ¹⁵N_i defining the dihedral angle ψ is described. The triple-spin-state-selective experiment allows measurement of ³J_H^αN from ¹³C^α, ¹⁵N, and ¹H^N correlation spectra H₂O with minimum resonance overlap. Transverse relaxation of ¹³C^α spin is minimized by using spin-state-selective filtering and by acquiring a signal longer in ¹⁵N-dimension in a manner of semi-constant-time TROSY evolution. The ³J_H^αN values obtained with the proposed α/β-HN(CO)CA-J TROSY scheme are in good agreement with the values measured earlier from ubiquitin in D₂O using the HCACO[N] experiment.