Survival of patients with pathologically proven multiple system atrophy: a meta-analysis

A systematic review of the neurologic literature identified 433 cases of pathologically proven multiple system atrophy over a 100-year period. Earlier case reports included patients younger in age with more frequent cerebellar involvement. Mean age of onset was 54.2 years (range 31 to 78) and survival was 6.2 years (range 0.5 to 24). Survival analysis showed a secular trend from a median duration of 4.9 years for publications between 1887 and 1970 to 6.8 years between 1991 and 1994. Older age of onset was associated with shorter survival; the hazard ratio for patients with onset after 60 years was 1.8 (95% CI 1.4 to 2.3) compared with patients between 31 and 49 years. Cerebellar features were associated with marginally increased survival (6.1 years versus 5.4 years; p = 0.04). There were no difference in survival according to gender, parkinsonian, or pyramidal features or whether the patient was classified as striatonigral degeneration or olivopontocerebellar atrophy type. These results demonstrate the poor prognosis for patients with multiple system atrophy but may be biased toward the worst cases. Future research needs to recruit more representative samples.     

Conductivity measurements on cobalt and nickel oxides in highly-enriched oxygen atmospheres

The pressure dependencies of the conductivities of nickel and cobalt monoxides have been investigated in the range 10^–2 to 7.5 × 10² atmospheres at temperatures in the region of 1000° C. Conductivity saturation occurs in CoO due to the formation of Co₃O₄, and the experimental data correlates well with a model for the separation of the higher phase. NiO exhibits no saturation effect in the pressure range investigated and the p^1/5 dependence of the conductivity at 950° C with this oxide above 0.1 atm is interpreted in terms of the formation of singly ionised vacancies.     

Mass Spectra of Some Deuteroethanes

Mass spectra of seven of the nine possible deuteroethanes have been measured. When the patterns are computed on a scale to make the sums of ions equal, it is found that the abundances of molecule ions differ nearly twofold in the different molecules, and there are large differences in the patterns of the two C₂H₄D₂ molecules. The peaks in the C₁ range are compared with the patterns predicted for simple breaking of the C—C bond and dissociation of the methyl radicals. The “weighting factors” for removing H and D, HD, and 2D, etc., from C₂HD₅ are computed and also the weighting factors for H⁺ and D⁺ for all the deuteroethanes are given.     

Dogmatism and acquiescent response set.

"This study was designed to test the hypothesis that Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale [1960], structurally identical to the F scale, is similarily vulnerable to acquiescent response bias." Administration of acquiescent response scales, the F Scale, and the Dogmatism scale to a population of adult neurotics revealed a high intercorrelation, which supports the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)