Association between MICA gene A4 allele and acute anterior uveitis in white patients with and without HLA-B27

Because all known influenza A subtypes exist in the aquatic bird reservoir, influenza is not an eradicable disease; prevention and control are the only realistic goals. If people, pigs, and aquatic birds are the principal variables associated with interspecies transfer of influenza virus and the emergence of new human pandemic strains, influenza surveillance in these species is indicated. Live-bird markets housing a wide variety of avian species together (chickens, ducks, geese, pigeon, turkeys, pheasants, guinea fowl), occasionally with pigs, for sale directly to the public provide outstanding conditions for genetic mixing and spreading of influenza viruses; therefore, these birds should be monitored for influenza viruses. Moreover, if pigs are the mixing vessel for influenza viruses, surveillance in this population may also provide an early warning system for humans.     

Hydra: a C-language environment for real-time DOS multitasking at the bedside

Patient monitoring at the bedside is an inherently parallel job, best handled by multiple individual tasks running concurrently. Cost and diffusion considerations strongly favor the use of PC's at the bedside, but their most widespread operating system, DOS, is not built for multitasking. Hence, a software platform in C language has been prepared, allowing the intermediate programmer to easily write independent modules which will then run simultaneously without conflicts. Such a platform aims at allowing effortless sharing of data among concurrently running processes, while providing strong insulation between tasks, enough to allow multiple copies of any one task to run simultaneously unknown to each other. A cooperative, memory sharing multitasking paradigm has been chosen, which offers fine granularity of timeslicing and low execution overhead at the price of some loss in generality of design. Speed, data exchange capability and number of stackable windows are greater than with commercial packages like Windows or LabWindows. Dynamical reprioritization of tasks is built in, allowing the computerized monitor to focus its attention and resources on urgent tasks.     

Pattern of 72-hour intragastric acidity in a homogeneous group of intensive care unit patients

To gain insight into the variation over time of gastric acidity in postoperative ICU patients, intragastric pH was prospectively studied in patients undergoing elective abdominal aortic reconstructive surgery during a 72-hr intra- and postoperative period. Intragastric pH was monitored continuously in 14 patients with combined glass electrodes. During the day of surgery (day 1), the median 24-hr pH for all patients was 6.25 (5.8-7.0, IQR). However, three of the 14 studied patients had a median 24-hr pH of 1.8. The median 24-hr pH throughout day 2 for all was 2.45 (1.6-4.7, P = 0.001). The median 24-hr pH on day 3 was 1.6 (1.5-2.1, P = 0.001). Median 8-hr pH values demonstrate a remarkable interpatient and intraindividual variation in the course of the postoperative period. A progressive lowering of the intragastric pH was observed in the first 40 hr. From the 40- to 48-hr interval until the end of the study, no further significant decrease was found. The intragastric pH was above 4, 74% of the time during day 1, 39% during day 2 (P = 0.006) and 16% during day 3 (P = 0.003). Percentage of time above 4 on day 2 was significantly higher than on day 3 (P = 0.04). In conclusion, since gastric acid and pepsin seem to play a role in stress ulceration, this study suggests some patients are at risk of stress ulceration from the beginning of surgery, but most patients become at risk of stress ulceration in the course of the postoperative period.     

Brain atrophy and cognitive function in older abstinent alcoholic men

We used computer-aided magnetic resonance image analysis and an age-normed battery of neuropsychological tests to measure brain atrophy and cognitive function in 14 older abstinent alcoholic men and 11 older controls in the expectation that these subject groups would show the greatest and most persistent cerebral effects consequent to chronic alcoholism. The abstinent alcoholics exhibited cognitive impairments (primarily in memory and visual-spatial-motor skills) compared with the controls. In contrast, we found no difference in global cerebral atrophy between the groups, although two alcoholics had extensive atrophy compared with all other subjects. However, there was a stronger association between age and ventricular dilation in the alcoholic sample compared with controls. We conclude that a substrate other than magnetic resonance imaging-detectable global atrophy must underlie the persistent cognitive impairments evident in the sampled alcoholics. Furthermore, if there are global atrophic changes in the brain associated with chronic alcoholism, these effects are not ubiquitous and/or may be reversible in most patients with sufficient abstinence.     

Endoscopy of the upper gastrointestinal tract with the new panendoscope f7 (author''s transl)

The Panendoscope F7 with a diameter of 9.5 mm, originally designed for pediatric endoscopy, was used in adults. First results are reported. The instrument has a shorter flexible tip facilitating biopsies in the esophagus. During exploration of the duodenal bulb tip of the instrument can be inverted in most cases allowing inspection of the pyloric region of the duodenum. The aboral part of a gastrojejunal anastomosis after partial gastrectomy can be visualized with the inverted tip of the panendoscope as well. The instrument does also facilitate endoscopic examination of the remaining stomach and of the afferent loop in patients partially gastrectomized. Emergency endoscopy can be done while a gastric tube removing blood during the examination may stay in position.     

Delayed reporting of the rape victim

1. Delayed reporting of rape may be due to impaired cognitive processing, altered states of consciousness, or cognitive dissonance. 2. DNA may speak for the victim who does not remember a rape due to being unconscious. 3. Women with psychosis may incorporate a rape into their delusional system.     

Human corneal endothelial layer repair during organ culture

Circular freeze-thaw endothelial wounds were created on paired human corneas. Ultrastructural and physiological studies were performed after organ culture (OC) incubation at 37 C from 1 to 21 days as well as on fresh noncultured controls. As early as 24 hours after injury, OC corneas demonstrated ultrastructurally intact endothelial cells at the margin of the wound, elongating and sliding toward its center. All OC corneas were completely covered by ultrastructurally intact and physiologically functioning endothelial cells by seven days of OC. These cells were approximately twice normal size. Enlarged endothelial cells that maintained deturgescence function were seen in the wounded area after 14 and 21 days of OC. None of the fresh controls demonstrated deturgescence function and in none could ultrastructurally intact endothelial cells be found in the area of the wound. This confirms our hypothesis that during 37 C OC incubation, human corneal endothelium repairs defects in its layer by cells that are physiologically and ultrastructurally intact.     

Predicting the rates of recovery from selective chemical reaction of ores — A specific example: Leaching of chalcopyrite in acid with oxygen

Correlations previously reported (Roach and Prosser, 1975) have been used to calculate the rate of recovery of copper from lumps of porphyry ore by selective leaching of chalcopyrite. The mineralogical data used were independently determined; kinetic data obtained from the ore were not required in the calculations. The predicted rate curves are within a factor of 2x those determined experimentally by Braun et al. (1974), which is satisfactory for preliminary process design. Substantially less time was required to obtain the information compared with conventional testwork.