An epidemic of roller-blade injuries in children

Roller blading is a new and increasingly popular leisure activity in many countries. We reviewed 110 consecutive patients with roller-blade injuries between 1 January and 30 June 1996. The patients ranged from 4 to 14 years in age (mean 6.5 years). Eighty-three (75.4%) sustained injuries to the upper limb and 27 (24.5%) injured the lower limb. Fifty-six patients, were girls and 54 were boys. Of the 110 patients, 79 (72.7%) sustained fractures, 28 (25.4%) soft tissue injuries and 3 (2.7%) dislocations. Eighty-three (75.4%) of the patients wore no protective equipment on the limbs. Four months following injury 103 (93.6%) patients were fully recovered. The mean duration of school absence was 3 days. Subsequently 101 children returned to using roller-blades following injury. Seventy-three (66.3%) of these now use protective equipment. We found that injuries were unrelated to age or duration of roller-blading experience or to the brand-name of roller blades used, and that most of our patients wore no protective equipment at the time of injury.     

Contracting, prompting, and reinforcing substance use disorder continuing care: A randomized clinical trial.

Although continuing care is strongly related to positive treatment outcomes for substance use disorder (SUD), participation rates are low and few effective interventions are available. In a randomized clinical trial with 150 participants (97% men), 75 graduates of a residential Veterans Affairs Medical Center SUD program who received an aftercare contract, attendance prompts, and reinforcers (CPR) were compared to 75 graduates who received standard treatment (STX). Among CPR participants, 55% completed at least 3 months of aftercare, compared to 36% in STX. Similarly, CPR participants remained in treatment longer than those in STX (5.5 vs. 4.4 months). Additionally, CPR participants were more likely to be abstinent compared to STX (57% vs. 37%) after 1 year. The CPR intervention offers a practical means to improve adherence among individuals in SUD treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Giuseppe Gradenigo and his contributions to audiology

Giuseppe Gradenigo (1859-1926) was an important figure in the development of Otology. Within this paper the authors consider his background and his particular contributions to the development of various aspects of audiology.     

Gastric ECL-cell hyperplasia produces enhanced basal and stimulated gastric acid output but not gastric erosion formation in the rat

Cervical involvement is one of the major prognostic factors in carcinoma of the endometrium confined to the uterus. The purpose of this study was to determine whether intrauterine ultrasound with a high-frequency miniature probe can depict the degree of cervical involvement of the disease. Thirty-two women with endometrial carcinoma underwent preoperative transvaginal and intrauterine sonography. By both scans, the degree of cervical involvement was prospectively evaluated. Sonograms were compared with the findings from histologic examination. Intrauterine sonography was completed in 30 of the 32 patients. In these 30 patients, the degree of cervical involvement (none, endocervical gland, or cervical stroma) based on transvaginal scan was correct in 23 cases (77%), and that based on intrauterine scan was correct in 26 cases (87%). Three tumors with endocervical glandular involvement were correctly diagnosed by intrauterine sonography, whereas they were incorrectly diagnosed by transvaginal scan. The specificity and positive predictive value of intrauterine sonography for the assessment of the presence of cervical stromal invasion are 100% (26/26 and 3/3, respectively). Although this study is preliminary, our experience with intrauterine sonography shows that it has potential for assessing cervical stromal invasion in endometrial carcinoma.     

Predictors of outcome in LAAM, buprenorphine, and methadone treatment for opioid dependence.

This study examined (1) predictors of treatment outcome for opioid-dependent participants in a single-site controlled trial comparing methadone, buprenorphine, and LAAM treatments and (2) the extent to which various subpopulations of patients may have more successful outcomes with each medication. The relationships between patient demographics, drug use history, and psychological status and outcome measures of treatment retention, opiate use, and cocaine use were assessed. We believe this study to be the first to demonstrate that predictors of treatment success appear to be largely similar in LAAM, buprenorphine, and methadone treatment for opioid dependence. We did not find any factors that would strongly guide selection of one medication over others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High Throughput Primer Walking of cDNA Clones

Primer walking of cloned DNA is a standard research tool. It has been used in the past to determine the sequence of individual clones of interest. With the expansion of DNA sequencing capacity the need to be able to walk larger numbers of clones has become necessary. Our laboratory is a mid-sized genomics facility. In conjunction with the Advanced Biomedical Computing Center (ABCC) we have developed methods for automating the primer selection, DNA sequencing, contig assembly and sequence analysis for clones arrayed in microtiter format. This approach has allowed us to walk 475 clones (five microtiter plates) selected from a cDNA library.     

The association between visual incompetence and spinal derangement: an instructive case history

Dotarizine is a new diphenylmethylpiperazine derivative with Ca2+ channel blocking properties and inhibitory effects on 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C receptors. Previous pilot studies in healthy volunteers demonstrated a good tolerability after single and multiple dosing. Dotarizine appeared to be rapidly and extensively metabolized to an active compound (FI-6020). We aimed to study the physiologic, subjective and psychomotor acute effects of oral dotarizine after single dose administration, to evaluate the tolerability and safety after multiple dosing over 2 weeks, and to study the pharmacokinetic parameters and linearity after single and multiple administration. Two different studies were carried out in 2 groups of 8 healthy male volunteers. Oral single doses of dotarizine 50, 100 and 200 mg were administered in a randomized, double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled trial. Oral doses of 50 mg twice daily were administered in an open trial over 14 days. Drug effect assessments included vital signs, collection of adverse events, ECG and blood and urine safety evaluations, subjective effects, psychomotor performance tasks and blood sampling. Dotarizine and its metabolite were determined by gas chromatography with N-P detector. The results showed a good tolerability of dotarizine after single oral doses as well as multiple oral doses over 14 days. No clinically relevant adverse events were reported during the study. The highest single dose (200 mg) produced a slight increase in sedation-related symptoms as well as a slight impairment in psychomotor performance tasks. Dotarizine and its major metabolite proved linear kinetics at single doses. The administration of oral doses of dotarizine 50 mg b.i.d. reached the steady state after the 7th day of treatment. The pharmacokinetic parameters remained similar from day 7 to day 14. The terminal elimination half-life of dotarizine and its metabolite appeared to be between 7 and 12 h.     

Intrathecal narcotics for labor analgesia

Intrathecal narcotics are a relatively recent addition to the list of analgesic options that are available for the management of labor pain. Pain during the first stage of labor is related to repetitive uterine contractions and resultant cervical dilatation, while pain during the second stage is due to stretching of the perineum. Traditionally, continuous epidural analgesia has been used as the reference standard for providing comfort during labor. Intrathecal narcotics represent a safe and effective alternative that provides significant, rapid relief of labor pain during the first stage of labor. The drugs most often used for intrathecal administration include sufentanil, fentanyl, meperidine and morphine. Use of intrathecal narcotics does not significantly affect the natural progression of labor, and no adverse fetal outcomes have been reported.     

A computationally efficient discrete Backus-Gilbert footprint-matching algorithm

A computationally efficient discrete Backus-Gilbert (BG) method is derived that is appropriate for resolution-matching applications using oversampled data. The method builds upon existing BG methods and approximation techniques to create a modified set of BG coefficients. The method in its current form is restricted to a resolution-only minimization constraint, but in the future could be extended to use a simultaneous noise minimization constraint using a generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) approach. A theoretical one-dimensional intercomparison is performed using a hypothetical sensor configuration. A comparison of the discrete BG method with a nondiscrete BG method shows that the new approach can be 250% more efficient while maintaining similar accuracies. In addition, an SVD approximation increases the computational efficiencies an additional 43%-106%, depending upon the scene. Several quadrature methods were also tested. The results suggest that accuracy improvements are possible using customized quadrature in regions containing known physical data discontinuities (such as along coastlines in microwave imagery data). The ability to recompute the modified BG coefficients dynamically at lower computational cost makes this work applicable toward applications in which noise may vary, or where data observations are not available consistently (e.g. in radio frequency interference contaminated environments).     

Laser turn-on delay and chirp noise effects in Gb/sintensity-modulated direct-detection systems

This paper describes a new IM/DD optical transmission system simulation which incorporates the impact of laser diode stochastic turn-on effects on system performance. Using this simulation, experimentally observed error rate floors, due to inappropriate laser diode biasing, can be theoretically modelled and predicted, for the first time