Mild traumatic brain injury--the Fife perspective

Excretion was studied of catecholamines and diphenilamine (DOPA) in 310 patients with carcinoma of the stomach and large intestine and 43 patients with non-malignant diseases. The oncological patients showed decrease in activity of the mediator link of the sympathoadrenal system (SAS) as well as its reserves but there was no association with sex, age, location or histological structure. Three types of SAS functioning were identified, such as compensation, overstrain and emaciation. Surgical intervention led to activation of the hormonal link and exhaustion of the system's reserves. Two kinds of sympathoadrenal response to stress were described--adequate and inadequate. In the former type, phases of stress remain as they are, unchanged, as are time periods of formation thereof, while under the latter one time periods of the phases formation or formation thereof get disordered.     

Fate of the 15N-labelled faeces fraction of dairy farm effluent (DFE) irrigated onto soils under different water regimes

Irrigation of dairy farm effluent (DFE) onto pasture is the preferred treatment method in New Zealand for this very dilute organic effluent. Whereas the dynamics of the urine fraction is comparatively well understood, there is a lack of data on the fate of the mainly organic faecal fraction. To improve our understanding of the complex turnover processes, we labelled both the inorganic and organic N compounds of the faecal fraction of DFE with ¹⁵N. We then measured the ¹⁵N dynamics in various soil and plant fractions in a laboratory experiment at two water contents for up to 254 days. Feeding a dairy cow with ¹⁵N-labelled pasture yielded faeces that had a mean ¹⁵N abundance of 2.95 atom%. Unlabelled urine and water were added to the labelled faeces to construct the DFE, which contained 90.4% of the ¹⁵N in the organic nitrogen fraction (2.87 atom%) and 9.6% in the ammonium fraction (1.23 atom%). As N turnover and losses depend on the method of application and the soil structure, we simulated field conditions by surface-applying our DFE onto intact soil cores with pasture. Two soil water treatments were imposed; dry (30% water content) and wet (water table at 17 cm below the soil surface). The surface application resulted in filtration of the DFE, with a high proportion of the ¹⁵N remaining on the soil surface, where it was relatively unavailable for plant uptake but prone to gaseous and physical losses. Of the applied ¹⁵N, 9.9% in the dry and 13.5% in the wet treatment were still recovered as DFE on the soil surface at day 254. Plant uptake of faecal ¹⁵N accounted for 9.3% and 13.0% in the dry and wet treatments, respectively. The bulk of the ¹⁵N was recovered in the soil organic nitrogen fraction (35.1% in dry, 42.5% in wet), whereas ¹⁵N in inorganic and microbial nitrogen accounted for only very small amounts (< 2%). Total recoveries of the applied ¹⁵N in plant, soil and DFE remaining on the surface at day 254 were 58.4% in the dry, and 71.5% in the wet treatment. Separate analysis of the total and ammonium nitrogen contents and ¹⁵N enrichments of the constructed DFE and filtered subsamples (0.5 mm, 0.2 m) showed that the faecal fraction was not labelled homogeneously. Due to this heterogeneity, which was exacerbated by the filtration of DFE on the soil surface, it was difficult to calculate the turnover of the total faecal fraction based on ¹⁵N results.     

Simulation Results for the Decision-Directed MAP Receiver for M-ary Signals in Mulitiplicative and Additive Gaussian Noise

Simulation results are presented for the error-rate performance of the recursive digital maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) detector for knownM-ary signals in multiplicative and additive Gaussian noise. The structure of the digital simulation of the optimum detector is generally described, with specific results obtained for a quaternary signal and 2500 digit per second transmission rate. The simulation is focused on the aeronautical multipath communication problem. Plots of detection error rate versus additive signal-to-noise ratio are given, with the power ratio of multiplicative process to desired signal as a parameter. Results are presented for the cases where the detector has perfect knowledge of the first- and second-order statistics of the multiplicative and additive processes and also where these statistics are estimated in near real time. For comparison, the error rates of conventional coherent and noncoherent digital MAP detectors are also obtained. It is shown that with nonzero multiplicative noise, the error rates of the conventional detectors saturate at a level that is irreducible for increasing additive signal-to-noise ratio. The error rate of the optimum detector having perfect statistical knowledge continues to decrease rapidly with increasing additive signal-to-noise ratio. In the absence of multiplicative noise, the conventional coherent detector and the optimum detector are shown to exhibit identical performance. Suboptimum detectors, having less than perfect statistical knowledge, yield error rates bounded below by the optimum detector rates and bounded above by the conventional detector rates.     

Oncocytic lesions of the caruncle and other ocular adnexa

This is a clinicopathologic study of 18 oncocytic lesions involving the ocular adnexa. These lesions most commonly occur in elderly patients (median age 73), and there is a striking predilection for women. The broad spectrum of lesions included oncocytic adenomatous hyperplasia, oncocytomas, and oncocytic carcinoma. Ten lesions, all of which were oncocytomas, involved the caruncle, four the conjunctiva, and one the mucocutaneous junction of the eyelid. Two tumors involved the lacrimal sac and one the lacrimal gland. A review of the literature disclosed only 17 previously reported oncocytic lesions of the ocular adnexa. A small yellowish-tan or reddish caruncular mass, especially in an elderly woman, should alert the ophthalmologist to consider the possibility of oncocytoma in his differential diagnosis.     

Reduction of intrinsic sinoatrial frequency and norepinephrine response of the exercised rat

Physical training is associated with a reduction of intrinsic sinoatrial activity; the present study examined the role of the parasympathetic nervous system in this reduction. Six groups of rats were studied for 10 weeks: inactive control; treadmill exercised; parasympathetic receptor blockade with atropine; exercise plus atropine; parasympathetic receptor stimulation with carbachol; and exercise plus carbachol. In vivo ISF (cardiac frequency 20 min after injection of propranolol and atropine) was measured at 3-week intervals. At the end of 10 weeks the right atrium was excised, in vitro measurements were made of ISF, and chronotropic dose-response curves to acetylcholine and norepinephrine were established. In vivo, ISF was reduced with time, the greatest reduction being found in the exercise plus atropine group; the treadmill-exercised and the atropine-treated groups also had a greater reduction than the control group. In vitro, no differences were observed in acetylcholine responses. The maximum norepinephrine chronotropic response was reduced in the treadmill-exercised and the exercise plus atropine groups. The maximum norepinephrine-induced frequency correlated with the in vitro ISF (r = 0.75). Thus, ISF was reduced with training, but this effect was independent of parasympathetic activity. The properties of the sinoatrial node which set ISF also influenced the maximum norepinephrine response.     

Odorant responses in taste neurons of the rat NTS

In the experiment reported in this paper, 22 of 35 neurons in the gustatory NTS were found to respond to odorant as well as taste stimuli. This odorant response was apparently mediated by the ethmoid nerve and at least one other odorant-responsive system, possibly other nasal trigeminal afferents. These gustatory neurons responded to odorants, as they did to taste stimuli, in a manner consistent with an encoding of stimulus quality information. Thus at least some of the neurons of the gustatory NTS carry information concerning several of the senses involved in ingestion.     

Orbital involvement in 'sinus' histiocytosis. A report of four cases

Sinus histiocytosis is a newly recognized benign disease affecting mainly children and young adults and usually having a protracted clinical course that is relatively unaffected by therapy. This paper describes four additional patients who had orbital involvement initially and reviews the salient clinical and histopathologic features of this entity. The outstanding clinical feature is cervical lymphadenopathy. Associated findings include low-grade fever, anemia, leukocytosis, and elevated IgG levels. A small percentage of patients develop proptosis with palpable orbital tumors. Such patients may not have appreciable lymphadenopathy. Progressive proptosis may lead to exposure keratitis, corneal ulceration, endophthalmitis, and loss of the eye. Histopathologically, the lymph nodes and orbital mass show a proliferation of large histiocytes intermixed with a variable proportion of lymphocytes and plasma cells. Lymphocytes and occasionally other cells derived from the hematopoietic system are commonly seen within the cytoplasm of the histiocytes.