Pericarditis in chronic compensated renal insufficiency

In 80 patients with renal insufficiency we found 15 cases of pericarditis, demonstrated by the diagnostic means of echocardiography. The incidence of pericarditis increased with the rise in serum-creatinin and the severity of hypalbuminemia. These findings confirm the assumption that toxic capillary damage combined with lowered oncotic pressure might be a cause of pericardial effusion. Echocardiography as a reliable and non-invasive diagnostic method should be applied routinely in patients with chronic renal insufficiency--regarding potential therapeutic consequences--especially in patients with a concomitant incidence of hypalbuminemia and pleural effusion.     

Reciprocal relation between renin dependency and sodium dependency in essential hypertension

To investigate the roles of angiotensin II and sodium in essential high-renin, normal-renin and low-renin hypertension, 14 patients received the competitive antagonist of angiotensin II, saralasin, during periods of sodium depletion and repletion. Blood-pressure response to saralasin was determined by the state of sodium balance. Patients from all three renin subgroups exhibited a fall in blood pressure when sufficiently sodium depleted, and an elevation in blood pressure when sodium replete or insufficiently depleted. However, those with low renin required loss of substantially more sodium (sufficient to elicit compensatory stimulation of renin) before depletion could be achieved. In patients with essential hypertension of all three renin subgroups, sodium balance determines the degree of participation of the renin-angiotensin system in sustaining high blood pressure. Even the low-renin type can become renin dependent with sufficient sodium depletion.     

Viewpoint dependency in the recognition of dynamic scenes.

In 3 experiments, the question of viewpoint dependency in mental representations of dynamic scenes was addressed. Participants viewed film clips of soccer episodes from 1 or 2 viewpoints; they were then required to discriminate between video stills of the original episode and distractors. Recognition performance was measured in terms of accuracy and speed. The degree of viewpoint deviation between the initial presentation and the test stimuli was varied, as was both the point of time presented by the video stills and participants' soccer expertise. Findings suggest that viewers develop a viewpoint-dependent mental representation similar to the spatial characteristics of the original episode presentation, even if the presentation was spatially inhomogeneous. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural dependency in language production.

The subjects and verbs of English agree in number. This superficially simple operation is regularly implemented by speakers, but occasionally derails in sentences such as "The time for fun and games are over". Such mistakes are interesting because their systematic deviations from the structural dependencies that govern normal agreement may shed light on how such dependencies are ordinarily implemented in speech. There were two issues at the focus of this work. The first had to do with the nature of the information that is used in carrying out agreement, and the second with the scope of processing operations. The findings from several experiments are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual dependency in the erect and supine positions.

Examined the field dependency-independency of 37 Ss under supine and erect body position. Females were more field dependent than males. No significant differences were found between male pilots and nonpilots. Males exhibited greater field dependency in the supine position. Results suggest the need to consider 3 separate measures of field dependency-slope, breakpoint, and variability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)