Isolation of porcine circovirus-like viruses from pigs with a wasting disease in the USA and Europe

Sinus pericranii is an anomalous extracranial vascular malformation that is in continuity with the intracranial dural venous sinuses. Five case reports, three congenital and two traumatic, are described. Clinical management, including evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment, is discussed. Awareness of this entity by plastic surgeons will allow for earlier diagnosis and appropriate surgical management, resulting in decreased risk of complications.     

Intelligent Medical Record--entry (IMR-E)

This paper describes an automated medical record designed to allow providers to enter patient data at the point of care. The system runs on PCs and Macintoshes and uses a graphical user interface and object-oriented programming to take advantage of current mouse and pen technologies. The provider acquires all relevant patient data by pointing and clicking at selections on input screens, many of which contain anatomical drawings to help the provider quickly and accurately describe patient findings. The system also generates a grammatically correct progress note using the problem-oriented structure. Furthermore, items identified in the assessment and plans portion of the program can be ported to expert systems for medical decisions assistance or to billing systems. The system allows the provider to obtain the necessary information on a focused patient visit in less than 5 min or to enter a complete history and physical.     

Ablation for the treatment of arrhythmias

Surgical ablation of supraventricular cardiac arrhythmias has been rendered obsolete by the various modalities of electromagnetic transcatheter ablation techniques. Any ablation technique, including surgery is essentially the controlled destruction of a substrate which is acting as a source or a critical circuit limb of an arrhythmia. The most successful and popular modality is radio frequency (RF) ablation although other modalities such as dc shock, laser, microwave, and ultrasound are also being investigated. This review discusses the role of electrical ablation, especially RF ablation, as a treatment for supraventricular tachyarrhythmia and reviews the engineering principles and biological responses to ablation. A brief synopsis of the results of electrical catheter ablation procedures is presented. RF catheter ablation is a successful technique in clinical arrhythmia management, with reported success rates of greater than 95% in many series. The indications for clinical RF catheter ablation continue to broaden     

The Cartwright Report ten years on: the obligations and rights of health consumers and providers

It is ten years since the Cartwright report was published, three years since the code of health and disability services consumers' rights was promulgated and two years since the code came into force which makes it due for review next year. This paper reviews the issues identified by Cartwright and the effect that her investigation into the "Unfortunate Experiment" has had on the provision of health services. Issues of clinical freedom, peer supervision and informed consent are discussed in relation to the Health and Disability Commissioner Act, the Privacy Act and concepts of partnership in health care. Some comments on the present state of the relationships between consumers and providers in the health system are included.     

Evaluation of a Brix refractometer to estimate serum immunoglobulin G concentration in neonatal dairy calves

The objective of this study was to evaluate the utility of a digital Brix refractometer for the assessment of success of passive transfer of maternal immunoglobulin compared with the measurement of serum total protein (STP) by refractometry. Blood samples (n = 400) were collected from calves at 3 to 6d of age. Serum IgG concentration was determined by radial immunodiffusion (RID), and STP and percentage Brix (%Brix) were determined using a digital refractometer. The mean IgG concentration was 24.1 g/L [standard deviation (SD) ± 10.0] with a range from 2.1 to 59.1 g/L. The mean STP concentration was 6.0 g/dL (SD ± 0.8) with a range from 4.4 to 8.8 g/dL. The mean %Brix concentration was 9.2% (SD ± 0.9) with a range of 7.3 to 12.4%. Brix percentage was highly correlated with IgG (r = 0.93). Test characteristics were calculated to assess failure of passive transfer (FPT; serum IgG <10 g/L). The sensitivity and specificity of STP at 5.5 g/dL were 76.3 and 94.4%, respectively. A receiver operating characteristic curve was created to plot the true positive rate against the false positive rate for consecutive %Brix values. The optimal combination of sensitivity (88.9%) and specificity (88.9%) was at 8.4% Brix. Serum total protein was also positively correlated with %Brix (r = 1.00) and IgG (r = 0.93). Dairy producers can successfully monitor their colostrum management and the overall success of passive transfer using a digital Brix refractometer to estimate IgG concentration of colostrum and calf serum.     

Spark Plasma Sintering of Nanostructured Aluminum: Influence of Tooling Material on Microstructure

The influence of tooling material, i.e., graphite and WC-Co, on the microstructure of a spark plasma sintering (SPS) consolidated, nanostructured aluminum alloy is studied in this paper. The results show that tooling selection influences microstructure evolution, independent of process parameters. The influence of tooling on microstructure is rationalized on the basis of the following factors: heating rate, electrical current density, localized heating, and imposed pressure. A theoretic framework, based on the physical properties of graphite and WC-Co, is formulated to explain the observed behavior.     

Long-term viable bioaerosol sampling using a temperature- and humidity-controlled filtration apparatus,a laboratory investigation using culturable E. coli.

Sampling for culturable (e.g., viable) aerosolized microbes (bioaerosols) is a useful means to provide information for public health monitoring and studies. However, it is challenging to maintain microbe culturability when sampling at high flow rates (>12 L/min) and extended periods of time (≥4 h). We developed a first-generation, viable bioaerosol collection system (VBCS) utilizing temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH)–conditioned filtration at a flow rate of 25 L/min. A two-stage system of tube-in-shell Nafion? exchange units provides cooling to ≤10°C and RH conditioning to 80–95%. Aerosol particles are collected on a polyurethane nanofiber filter providing a physical collection efficiency of >95% for sizes 0.06–10 µm. The T and RH conditions at the collection filter are maintained, despite changes to ambient conditions. The initial testing of the VBCS was done under indoor, laboratory conditions with aerosolized, vegetative E. coli. A scenario of a 30-min challenge of bioaerosol followed by continued sampling of clean air for various times was used to judge culturability maintenance under extended-term sampling. An initial loss of culturability upon collection onto the filter was observed; 23 ± 13% relative to 4-mm all-glass impinger. However once collected, 98% of culturability was maintained for an additional 4.5 h of sampling. An exponential decay in culturability was observed from 8 h to 15 h of sampling. Also, 24-h cold storage of the filters collected was studied. The VBCS is based on the use of dry filter cassettes, needs minimal maintenance, and preserves culturability of vegetative bacteria for >4 h.

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