Acute pancreatitis secondary to ifosfamide

Acute pancreatitis in cancer patients can be secondary to the malignant process itself. It is also a rare complication of antineoplastic agent administration. Ifosfamide is an effective drug in the treatment of several tumors and has known neurologic, renal, and hematologic toxicities. There is only one recent report in the literature of pancreatitis associated with ifosfamide. We report a case of a 65-year-old woman with small cell bronchogenic carcinoma without pancreatic metastases who developed acute pancreatitis after ifosfamide administration.     

Design-based studies: an action-based ‘form of knowledge’ for thinking,reasoning and operating

Some points of significance in the Royal College of Art report Design in general education have, to a certain extent, been insufficiently exploited by ‘doers and makers’. This paper re-acknowledges the contribution made by the identification of ‘modelling’ and ‘design awareness’ to the acceptability of action-based problem-solving. Simultaneously, the paper relates the RCA report to longer-term trends in thinking about traditional conceptions of knowledge divisions and boundaries. The RCA report is seen as an inevitable point on a continuum, but unfortunately it stopped short of suggesting action-based modes of knowing and thought as constituents of a ‘new’ discrete form of knowledge. This concept, outlined by Hirst, functions alongside the structures associated with verbal/mathematical and other language ‘tools’ used generally to organize aspects of reality in distinctive and characteristic ways and to generate new thought within the language mode and associated knowledge domain of ‘doing and making’.The paper goes on to propose a model which relates the imagery and structure of action-based knowledge with the principle theories on the thought-verbal language relationship and some other prominent observations on the nature of thought and language. As a follow-up to this it is necessary to outline the crucial importance of internalization of action-based experience so that both action-based imagery and structure are assimilated into the thinking, awareness and character of the individual.Finally the paper examines some of the implications this might have for the way design-based studies are to be viewed in the future.     

Exact optimal solution for facility layout: deciding which pairs of locations should be adjacent

This paper describes the development of a mathematical model for determining optimum block layout systems utilizing 0–1 integer programming as the optimization component. The objective function is to maximize a weighted sum of adjacent departments. The selected weight is a measure of the flow of material between departments. Developing a set of constraints, and changing the objective function to minimization of adjacency of departments with no interaction, it is shown that the procedure is capable of determining the optimal location in small size problems. To apply it to larger size problems, additional constraints are developed that help reduce the number of iterations for the integer program to converge to an optimal solution.     

Human alkyltransferase-transduced murine myeloid progenitors are enriched in vivo by BCNU treatment of transplanted mice

OBJECTIVES: To study the relation between the blood pressure and the neurocognitive function within the full adult age range in a large population sample. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study of 936 healthy adults who were recruited from a register of family practices, stratified for age (24-81 years), sex, and occupational level, who took part in a medical and neurocognitive test program. METHODS: The blood pressure status was studied in relation to five measures of cognitive ability, including verbal memory and speed of information processing. Other vascular risk factors were treated as control variables and included smoking, alcohol intake, body mass index, and body fat distribution. The blood pressure was measured five times using an automatic recording technique (with a Dinamap 8100 device). RESULTS: After adjustment for age, sex, and educational level in a hierarchical regression analysis, we found no unequivocal association between the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures (or any other studied vascular risk factor) and cognitive test performance both for the whole group and for the subgroup of subjects who were not being administered antihypertensive medication and whose medical history did not include cardiovascular events. Stratified analysis within four age levels revealed no age-specific associations between the blood pressure and the cognitive function. Subjects whose blood pressure was within the hypertensive range performed worse than did matched controls at letter digit copying, but not according to other cognitive measures. CONCLUSIONS: With a population-based sample unselected for blood pressure status we found no linear relationship between the actual blood pressure level and various aspects of cognitive performance. Prospective studies are needed to investigate the possibility that the systemic blood pressure load over time is associated with a decline in specific cognitive abilities.     

Production of protease by bacillus subtilis using simultaneous control of glucose and ammonium concentrations

Batch, ammonium-controlled and simultaneous glucose and ammonium controlled fermentations were compared for the production of protease by Bacillus subtilis NCIB 8054. During fermentations of B. subtilis, maximum protease production was obtained in the stationary phase. Protease production in fermentations controlled at 5 mmol dm^?3 ammonium was 1.5 times greater than in uncontrolled batch fermentations. Simultaneous control of ammonium at 5 mmol dm^?3 and glucose at 0.15 g dm^?3 using controllers based on an ammonium electrode and an oxygen electrode, doubled protease production compared with fermentations having only an ammonium control and tripled protease production compared with uncontrolled batch fermentations. The protease yield on glucose and protease yield on ammonium was increased in fermentations with simultaneous glucose and ammonium control.     

Explaining gender differences in caregiver distress: The roles of emotional attentiveness and coping styles.

In previous studies, female caregivers generally reported more distress than did male caregivers. This study assesses the validity of 2 explanations of this gender difference. The 1st model hypothesizes that male caregivers are less likely to be attentive to their emotions and, therefore, fail to recognize and report distress. The 2nd model hypothesizes that women are socialized to use coping styles that are less effective for alleviating distress. The data partially supported both explanations. These results support the importance of seeking explanations for observed gender differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reviews

BRITAIN OBSERVED — THE LANDSCAPE THROUGH ARTISTS EYES by Geoffrey Grigson. 280 pages. illustrated. Phaidon Press Ltd., 1975. £10.95.

ASSESSING AMENITY RESOURCE VALUES by Terry C. Daniel, Ervin H. Zube and B. L. Driver: General Technical Report RM-68. Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Forest Service, US Department of Agriculture, 1979.

ECOLOGY AND DESIGN IN AMENITY LAND MANAGEMENT edited by S. E. Wright and G. P. Buckley. 244 pages. Wye College and Recreation Ecology Research Group, 1979. £3.75.

CLIMATIC CHANGE, AGRICULTURE AND SETTLEMENTby M. L.Parry. 214 pages. Wm Dawson and Sons Ltd., Folkestone, 1978. £9.00.

>THE AESTHETICS OF LANDSCAPEedited by Jay Appleton. 94 pages. Rural Planning Services and Landscape Research Group, 1979.

CRC AND THE COUNTRYSIDE HERITAGE edited by Ian Brotherton, Rural Planning Services and the Landscape Research Group, 1980. £3.00.

THE THEFT OF THE COUNTRYSIDE by Marion Shoard. 272 pages. Maurice Temple Smith, 1980. £4.95 (paperback), £9.00 (cased).

AMENITY GRASSLAND : AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE edited by I. H. Rorison and Roderick Hunt, John Wiley & Sons, 1979. £12.00.

THE WHITE PEAK : A STUDY IN LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION by Rachel Berger, in association with Ann and Malcolm MacEwen. Bartlet School of Architecture & Planning, University College, London. £2.00.