Laboratory diagnosis of tuberculosis: past, present, and future

Resurgence of tuberculosis justifies extraordinary efforts to expedite TB diagnosis and susceptibility testing. This demands that laboratory support expand to a "second generation" of methods and procedures, including rapid availability of fluorochrome smears of concentrated specimens, faster techniques for detection (e.g., the BACTEC radiometric broth system and microcolony detection), quicker identification (e.g., high-pressure liquid chromatography, nonisotopic genetic probes), more rapid susceptibility testing methods (e.g., BACTEC), and reporting of these results as critical values. Guidelines have been established for turnaround time for results of smears, TB organism identification, and susceptibility testing to usual first-line drugs. A "third generation" of laboratory techniques soon will make testing not only more effective but also more efficient. These methods include direct testing of respiratory specimens through nonisotopic genetic probes as well as nucleic acid amplification techniques utilizing polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and other molecular procedures. These new procedures and protocols place heavy demands on laboratory test volume, technologist time and costs. For the healthcare system or clinical laboratory without the resources to deal with these new demands, referral of TB specimens represents a reasonable alternative, as long as transport is adequate to meet current CDC and other guidelines for turnaround time.     

The ethnicity gap: The past, present, and future.

The gap between the growth of ethnic minority groups nationally and the numbers of such groups within psychology is described. Three topics relevant to professional psychology are considered: mental health services, the educational pipeline, and the governance structure within the American Psychological Association. The authors outline past and current data and recommend actions for the future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The past, present and future of arterial infection

Today, the pathology of large and medium-sized arteries is in most part considered as degenerative or inflammatory. The role of infection has been preponderant (syphilis) but has become quite modest now, restricted to infectious aneurysms. According to certain observations, infections may participate in initiating arterial inflammation, whether it be specific (Kawasaki's disease, Takayasu's arteritis, coronary artery disease of cardiac grafts) or less so ("plain" atherosclerosis). Suspected microbes (herpes viruses, Chlamydia pneumoniae, etc.) would damage the arterial wall either directly by infecting it, or indirectly by provoking an autoimmune reaction against some of its components (e.g. heat shock proteins). These hypotheses are worth serious consideration because, if established as correct, they would modify radically our etiologic, therapeutic and prophylactic conceptions of arterial diseases, including of course the main one, atherosclerosis.     

The past, present and future of cell pathology problems

Three stages of development in cellular pathology are analyzed. Evaluation of important achievements in the past which permitted the advance to the present stage in cellular pathology is given. New methods in experimental pathology resulted in the appearance of a new direction--molecular morphology and molecular cell pathology. The basic features of this direction and new problems to be resolved are formulated.     

Psychology in Canada: The future is not the past.

Discusses forces that have shaped Canadian psychology's history and discusses its current status and future from the perspective of challenges to the unity of the discipline and profession. Canadian psychology faces reduced financial resources, expanding markets, and consumerism. Canadian psychology consists of several psychologies which, with their attendant push toward multiple perspective and organizations, reflect diversity in psychology. Diversity should be accepted and used for mutual gain, rather than taken as a sign of failure. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The past, present, and future of the prevention of lung cancer

The article relates details of the history of research into the causal association of cigarette smoking and lung cancer on the basis of multidisciplinary studies that have explored the epidemiology, biology, chemistry, and biochemistry of tobacco carcinogenesis and research in behavioral sciences and health education that has sought to address one of our nation's foremost public health problems. Recalling past and present challenges and achievements in all of these areas, the author then outlines his vision for addressing this health problem in the future. This is laid out for various segments of the research community and for society as a whole, i.e., Cancer Centers and hospitals, epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, legislators, educators and behavioral scientists, and the media. It is proposed that for the current policy initiatives in tobacco-related cancer control to succeed, there needs to be a focus on preventing the initiation of tobacco use among children and adolescents. All segments of society can help to achieve this goal. In the nation's research planning, there needs to be a proper balance between basic and applied research, including research on and application of preventive principles, because cancer need not be an inevitable consequence of aging but is largely preventable.     

Perceived past, present, and future control and adjustment to stressful life events.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 100(4) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2011-05716-005). There is an error on page 758. In the sentence “Present control predicted later event-specific distress in Sample 1( β = .17, p     

The genetics of schizophrenia: past, present, and future concepts

Although a genetic susceptibility for schizophrenia has been long established and even noted by Kraepelin in 1907, the mechanisms for its inheritance remains unknown. No candidates have proven to be correct and while many weakly positive chromosomal linkages have been reported, none have yet been consistently replicated. The following review examines the present status of these findings. The conclusion is that the field must move on to finding a consistently replicable mutation segregating with schizophrenia in families, before any of the present linkage results can be resolved.     

Analyzing data from individuals in groups: The past, the present, and the future.

Research on group processes published in the social psychological literature over a 15-year period was examined to evaluate the impact of published critiques and recommendations by methodologists concerning the effects of nonindependence of observations on analyses of data from individuals in groups. The examination revealed modest progress in dealing with the nonindependence problem. Although more group researchers acknowledge the nonindependence problem than ever before, there is little evidence that they are using optimal strategies to address the problem. The most prevalent strategy is to use the group as the unit of analysis even when the data are gathered from individual group members and the research questions concern the effects of the group on its members. Although hierarchical linear modeling is a superior strategy for analyzing data from members of groups, there is no evidence of its use in the published literature during the 15 years considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overview: maintaining outcomes for total hip arthroplasty. The past, present, and future

Developing and maintaining outcomes for total hip arthroplasty, resulting in meaningful and usable data, presents many challenges for today's clinician. Outcomes data collected must show patients' clinical, functional, and overall quality of life status. Data also must be appropriate to illustrate efficiency, effectiveness, and value of medical interventions provided to payers. Previous and current measures of assessing outcomes of total hip arthroplasty are presented, evaluated, and discussed. Recommended standards for the future, including the identification of specific data needed such as demographics, Short Form-36, patient satisfaction, length of stay, infection rate, return to surgery, and revision rates are introduced, leading to an outcomes based suggested standard of care for total hip arthroplasty with application to patients, providers, and payers.     

Surgery and the randomised controlled trial: past, present and future

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs), with their prospective definition of methods and outcome measures, double-blind assessment of outcomes and unbiased selection of subjects and controls, provide the best possible evidence for deciding the value of a medical or surgical intervention. Few surgical studies are designed as RCTs, and those that are should be of a higher quality. The lack of good surgical RCTs may be a result of surgeons lacking the necessary training, expertise and desire to perform RCTs, inadequate funding from granting agencies, difficulties in securing patient consent or a lack of sufficient patient numbers. If an RCT is not feasible for a particular study, then alternative research designs, such as prospective matched-pair trials, may need to be better developed and used. If RCTs can be performed, other strategies to increase the number and quality of RCTs may be needed: Education of surgeons in clinical research methods Improved funding of surgical RCTs Compulsory evaluation of new techniques and technology before their general adoption is permitted.     

Development of young children's understanding that the recent past is causally bound to the present.

The results of 6 studies (involving 304 children) suggested that 4- and 5-year olds, but not 3-year olds, understand that very recent past events determine the present. In Studies 1–3, 3- and 4-year old children were introduced to 2 empty hiding locations. With children's backs to these locations, a camera recorded an experimenter secretly hiding a puppet in one of them. Children viewed the videotape of what had just happened, along with another tape that depicted identical events with a different child and with the puppet hidden in the other location. Only 4-year olds were subsequently able to locate the puppet, even though 3-year olds remembered the contents of the tapes and understood the equivalence between the video events and the real world. In Study 4, similar effects were obtained when a verbal analog of the test was presented to 3–5 year olds. Studies 5 and 6 showed that when children observed 2 events in which they had just participated, only 5-year olds understood that the most recent events were relevant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The past and future of the psychology of science.

As the British statesman Edmund Burke once wrote, "Those who do not know history are destined to repeat it." (Not to be confused with George Santana's comment: "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."). The fact is that the history of the psychology of science has been a struggle for existence. If we wish to move away from struggle and toward a comfortable existence, then we need to learn lessons from the other disciplines that successfully have made the transition from fledgling field to fully established scientific discipline. The history, philosophy, and sociology of science are just such established disciplines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of anthropometric measurements: past, present, and future

Experience, based on anthropometric examination of over 1000 children with facial syndromes and more than 2400 healthy subjects of both sexes and various ages, has led me to diverge in some points from the more usual views found in the physical anthropologic literature. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the major controversial topics associated with anthropometric measurement. These include the problems associated with formation of a representative population sample, the relative validity of longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, the interpretation of intraobserver and interobserver testings, and the questionable judgments of mensurative skill in clinical practice. The factors influencing the accuracy of anthropometric measurements, definitions of both the consistent and less reliable measurements, and the duration of validity of anthropometric normative data are also discussed.