Heparin-like polymers derived from dextran enhance colonic anastomosis resistance to leakage

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a short computer interview could be used in place of a full diagnostic interview to obtain psychiatric diagnoses, the authors examined the short interview's sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic agreement with the full interview. METHODS: Patients recently discharged from a university psychiatric service were interviewed in two back-to-back sessions, one in which a full diagnostic interview was used and the other in which a short computer interview was used. Based on diagnoses derived from both interviews, the sensitivity and specificity of the short interview and kappa values reflecting the diagnostic agreement of the two interviews were calculated. RESULTS: The short interview had high sensitivity and specificity and excellent diagnostic agreement with the full interview for most disorders. It also had a significantly shorter administration time. However, it missed a substantial percentage of cases of generalized anxiety disorder and misclassified as in remission a substantial proportion of patients with active cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. CONCLUSIONS: With few exceptions, the short interview may be substituted for the full interview when missing an active case is not important or when a count of individual symptoms and subtyping of disorders are not needed. Such uses include screening subjects for inclusion in a study and obtaining an overview of a patient's lifetime psychiatric status.     

Ergonomic job design in frequent manual lifting tasks: A microcomputer-based model

The main objective of this paper is to generate ergonomic software that can be used in the design and evaluation of manual materials handling tasks so as to minimize the risk of injury. Specifically, this study is aimed at developing a microcomputer-based model for the design of frequent manual lifting tasks based ont he concept of job saverity index. The microcomputer-based software package is intended to be used by non-experts in the field of MMH. Possible engineering and administrative controls are implemented in the software in case if human lifting abilities are exceeded. The software was written in AutoLISP for the IBM personal computer. The knowledge base of the software is built upon a set of two models which were developed in the present study. The models were based on 2,736 observations.     

Effects of Operator Stance on Pushing and Pulling Tasks

A considerable amount of research has been done to determine the magnitudes of forces man can exert on loads. However, very little has been done to determine the optimum configurations an operator should assume in front of a load to be most effective. This paper presents the methodology and results of an investigation concerning these skeletal configurations and selects an optimum for pushing as well as pulling of loads. In addition, a biomechanical analysis of the forces and torques developed at various joints is included.     

Filariasis and erisipela in Santo Domingo

Protein complexes present different degrees of stability. We have previously described a glycoprotein from Bacillus thuringiensis that appeared as a multimer unable to be dissociated by the usual SDS-containing sample buffers of pH 6.8. In order to dissociate the complex, a SDS-containing sample buffer of pH 9 was described. In the present report three additional protein complexes with different degrees of stability and the effect of that dissociating sample buffer are described. The study of SDS critical micellar concentration values as a function of pH explains the improvement of dissociating properties at pH 9.