Primary sternal osteomyelitis presenting as a pleural-based mass

Osteomyelitis in uncommon locations can present unusual diagnostic difficulties. A patient with primary sternal osteomyelitis who presented with pain over the right supraclavicular area and a radiologic picture of a pleural-based right upper lung mass is discussed. A triple-phase bone scan was consistent with the diagnosis, and a needle aspiration of the mass revealed a staphylococcal abscess. Percutaneous drainage of the contiguous abscess and a prolonged course of antibiotic therapy cured the infection.     

The partial testing design: a less costly way to test equivalence for sensitivity and specificity

We propose a new, less costly, design to test the equivalence of digital versus analogue mammography in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Because breast cancer is a rare event among asymptomatic women, the sample size for testing equivalence of sensitivity is larger than that for testing equivalence of specificity. Hence calculations of sample size are based on sensitivity. With the proposed design it is possible to achieve the same power as a completely paired design by increasing the number of less costly analogue mammograms and not giving the more expensive digital mammograms to some randomly selected subjects who are negative on the analogue mammogram. The key idea is that subjects who are negative on the analogue mammogram are unlikely to have cancer and hence contribute less information for estimating sensitivity than subjects who are positive on the analogue mammogram. To ascertain disease state among subjects not biopsied, we propose another analogue mammogram at a later time determined by a natural history model. The design differs from a double sampling design because it compares two imperfect tests instead of combining information from a perfect and imperfect test.     

Induction of a Citrus gene highly homologous to plant and yeast thi genes involved in thiamine biosynthesis during natural and ethylene-induced fruit maturation

In response to a light pulse, hamsters normally generate phase advances that are positively correlated with the length of their circadian period (tau). To determine whether this is a general property of the phase-shifting oscillator, the present study looked for a correlation between tau and phase-advance size not only for photic but also for nonphotic shifts. Syrian hamsters, Mesocricetus auratus, were entrained to light-dark cycles with a periodicity of either 23.67 h (the short-T group) or 24.33 h (the long-T group); after release into constant darkness, the short-T and long-T groups exhibited short and long taus, respectively. These animals were then induced to run in a novel exercise wheel for 3 h, starting at circadian time (CT) 7, or were exposed to 20 min of light, starting at CT 19. The size of the ensuing phase advances did not differ between the short-T and long-T groups not only for the nonphotic stimulus but also for the photic one, an unexpected result for the photic stimulus. Within the short-T groups for photic and nonphotic stimuli, the shorter tau was, the larger the phase advances were, another unexpected relationship. Another experiment where phase delays were induced by light pulses at CT 15 also failed to yield significant differences between the short-T and long-T groups. Independently of their after-effects on tau, T cycles may influence the capacity of the pacemaker to phase shift in ways that are still unclear but at least similar for both photic and nonphotic shifts.     

Human cholesterol synthesis measurement using deuterated water. Theoretical and procedural considerations

Creation of a dynamic levator aponeurosis fold or double eye adds to the beauty of the East Asian. The eyes are larger and less puffy, and the eyelashes appear longer and curve up and out instead of down. The distance from the ciliary border to the eyebrow is decreased and more in proportion. The Mongolian trait is preserved.     

Knowledge-based interpretation of architectural drawings

A method for machine interpretation of architectural (or other) schematic drawings is presented. The central problem is to build an efficient drawing parser (i.e., a program that identifies the semantic entities, characteristics, and relationships that are represented in the drawing). The parser is built from specifications of the drawing grammar and an underlying spatial model. The grammar describes what to look for, and the spatial model enables the parser to find it quickly. Coupled with existing optical recognition technology, this technique enables the use of drawings directly as: (1) a database to drive various Architecture-Engineering-Construction (AEC) applications; (2) a communication protocol to integrate CAD systems; (3) a traditional user interface.