Comparative analysis of Light''s criteria and other biochemical parameters for distinguishing transudates from exudates

We used the Ilizarov method in seven patients with severe congenital radial club hands who had had previous wrist surgery, to correct residual shortening and bowing of the ulna together with recurrent wrist deformity. The mean age at operation was 6.5 years. The mean ulnar shortening was 5.3 cm and the mean angular deformity 42 degrees. The mean length gained was 51% of the original ulna. The mean healing index was 46.9 days (29.8 to 64.0). The ratio of the length of the lengthened ulna to the normal side improved on average from 64% to 95%. The angular deformity was initially completely corrected in six out of seven patients. The length ratio, however, decreased to 83% at the final follow-up. In four patients, the angular deformity partially recurred. We recommend correction of congenital radial club hand by staged procedures. The first is centralisation and stabilisation of the wrist and the second lengthening of the ulna and correction of the angular deformity using the Ilizarov method.     

Albumin microbubble adherence to human coronary endothelium: implications for assessment of endothelial function using myocardial contrast echocardiography

Somatostatin is a neuropeptide that has been shown to interact with dopamine. Low concentrations of cysteamine selectively depletes somatostatin and has been used to investigate the role of endogenous somatostatin in lieu of an available selective receptor antagonist. We examined the effects of various doses of subcutaneous cysteamine on baseline and amphetamine-disrupted sensorimotor gating as measured by prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle reflex. Cysteamine in doses ranging from 50-300 mg/kg reversed decreases in PPI induced by systemic injections of amphetamine (2 mg/kg). Cysteamine had no effect on the amplitude of the acoustic startle reflex itself. The results lend further support to a somatostatin-dopamine interaction within the brain in which endogenous somatostatin facilitates dopaminergic activity. These findings also suggest that endogenous somatostatin might play a significant role in regulation of sensorimotor gating deficits. This has clinical implications as deficient prepulse inhibition is recorded in humans suffering from neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia.     

Scientific information repository assisting reflectance spectrometry in legal medicine

Reflectance spectrometry is a fast and reliable method for the characterization of human skin if the spectra are analyzed with respect to a physical model describing the optical properties of human skin. For a field study performed at the Institute of Legal Medicine and the Freiburg Materials Research Center of the University of Freiburg, a scientific information repository has been developed, which is a variant of an electronic laboratory notebook and assists in the acquisition, management, and high-throughput analysis of reflectance spectra in heterogeneous research environments. At the core of the repository is a database management system hosting the master data. It is filled with primary data via a graphical user interface (GUI) programmed in Java, which also enables the user to browse the database and access the results of data analysis. The latter is carried out via Matlab, Python, and C programs, which retrieve the primary data from the scientific information repository, perform the analysis, and store the results in the database for further usage.     

Switching in the cocktail party: Exploring intentional control of auditory selective attention.

Using a novel variant of dichotic selective listening, we examined the control of auditory selective attention. In our task, subjects had to respond selectively to one of two simultaneously presented auditory stimuli (number words), always spoken by a female and a male speaker, by performing a numerical size categorization. The gender of the task-relevant speaker could change, as indicated by a visual cue prior to auditory stimulus onset. Three experiments show clear performance costs with instructed attention switches. Experiment 2 varied the cuing interval to examine advance preparation for an attention switch. Experiment 3 additionally isolated auditory switch costs from visual cue priming by using two cues for each gender, so that gender repetition could be indicated by a changed cue. Experiment 2 showed that switch costs decreased with prolonged cuing intervals, but Experiment 3 revealed that preparation did not affect auditory switch costs but only visual cue priming. Moreover, incongruent numerical categories in competing auditory stimuli produced interference and substantially increased error rates, suggesting continued processing of task-relevant information that often leads to responding to the incorrect auditory source. Together, the data show clear limitations in advance preparation of auditory attention switches and suggest a considerable degree of inertia in intentional control of auditory selection criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypertrophic neurons innervating the urinary bladder and colon of the streptozotocin-diabetic rat

Female rats were made diabetic with an intravenous injection of streptozotocin (STZ) producing bladder hypertrophy. Using fluorescent dyes injected into the bladder or the colon, we have measured the size of neurons in various ganglia associated with these organs in control and STZ-diabetic rats. These include (1) postganglionic neurons in the pelvic ganglion, (2) postganglionic neurons in the inferior mesenteric ganglion, (3) dorsal root ganglion neurons, (4) sympathetic chain ganglion neurons, (5) preganglionic neurons in the sacral parasympathetic nucleus, (6) motor neurons in Onuf's nucleus innervating the external urethral sphincter. In addition we have measured neurons in some of these groups for rats which have been maintained on a 5% sucrose in water and restricted food diet. In the STZ-diabetic animals only those neurons which make direct contact with the bladder or the colon were found to be hypertrophied (15-70%). In the diuretic animals, only neurons directly innervating the bladder exhibited hypertrophy. We speculate that a trophic factor transported from the organ to the neuron is responsible for this effect.     

Thin film fracture: Ti-coating-Be-substrate bond failure

The role of microstructure in the fracture of the bond between vapour-deposited thin film coatings and substrates will be modelled to a first approximation using classical fracture mechanics principles. Vapour-deposited coatings are composed of a grain structure with varying orientations. The effect of differing degrees of texture on the bond strength between the coating and its substrate will be considered in this analysis. Incorporated in stress calculations will be the residual stresses arising from the thermal contraction of the coating, an applied tensile stress normal to the coating surface (as that in an adherence pull test) and the critical stress needed for coating-substrate bond failure.     

Characterization of Strain-Rate Sensitivity and Grain Boundary Structure in Nanocrystalline Gold-Copper Alloys

The power-law dependence of strength on strain rate provides a measure of the strain-rate sensitivity. In general, strength increases as grain size decreases from the microscale into the nanoscale regime for many cubic metals. The method of microscratch testing is used to measure microhardness in order to evaluate material strength. The strain-rate dependence of hardness is measured by varying the microscratch velocity. New results for nanocrystalline gold alloys show that the exponent (m) of the power-law dependence of stress on strain rate increases to 0.20 as grain size decreases to values less than 10 nm. A high-resolution electron microscopy examination of grain boundary structure reveals that an increase in the strain-rate sensitivity exponent (m) is found with an increase in the grain boundary misorientation.     

Automated Delineation of Subgroups in Web Video: A Medical Activism Case Study

Web 2.0 tools in general, and Web video in particular, provide new ways for activists to express their viewpoints to a broad audience. In this paper we deployed tools that have been used to find subgroups automatically in social networks and applied them to the problem of distinguishing between two sides of a controversial issue based on patterns of online interaction. We explored the problem of distinguishing between anti‐ and pro‐vaccination activists based on a social network of videos and associated comments posted on YouTube. Videos for the analysis were selected by submitting the term “vaccination” to a search on YouTube. A content analysis of the selected videos was then performed ( Keelan et al, 2007 ) to classify videos as pro‐ or anti‐vaccination. Then, a modified version of the SCAN method ( Chin and Chignell, 2008 ) for identifying cohesive subgroups in social networks was applied to the social network inferred from the discussions about the videos. Results showed that a cohesive subgroup of anti‐vaccination people existed in discussions around anti‐vaccination videos, whereas discussions around pro‐vaccination videos included both anti‐vaccination and pro‐vaccination people. Implications of the method and results for more general delineation of types of medical activism and the opposing camps within those camps are discussed.