Comparative study of monoclonal antibody scan in diagnosing orthopaedic infection

When clinical data are insufficient to diagnose infection of bone or joints, nuclear scanning becomes crucial in making an accurate diagnosis. The efficacy of (99m)technetium antigranulocyte monoclonal antibody Fab' fragment (LeukoScan) is prospectively compared with (111)indium white blood cell and (99m)technetium methylene diphosphonate bone scans in 74 patients with suspected musculoskeletal infections. They were grouped according to site of suspected infection: 33 long bones, 23 prosthetic joints, and 18 diabetic feet. Sixty-two of these 74 patients had surgical verification with histopathology or culture. The remaining 12 patients had clinical followup as proof of absence of infection. The overall sensitivity of LeukoScan, (111)indium white blood cell, and (99m)technetium methylene diphosphonate bone scans was 93%, 85% and 92%, respectively. Specificity was 89%, 75% and 52%, and accuracy was 90%, 79% and 74%, respectively. The conclusion from this study is that LeukoScan is more accurate in detecting osteomyelitis, with better sensitivity and specificity in prosthetic joints. Compared with (111)indium white blood cell scans, LeukoScan++ gives superior images, and results are obtained in 1 to 6 hours without biohazard risk from handling blood products.     

Distribution of diethylstilboestrol in pigs

The synthetic growth promoter diethylstilboestrol (DES) administered orally to pigs can be detected by radioimmunoassay (RIA) analysis of kidney, liver, faeces, bile and urine from animals fed continuously to slaughter, but not in muscle, fat or plasma. If treated animals are fed on material not containing DES for 72 h prior to slaughter, then the levels of parent compound and metabolite in all products decrease to become not significantly greater than those in control animals. The gross metabolism of DES in pigs and bovines appears to be similar.     

Analysis of sequence distribution in methyl methacrylate-methyl acrylate copolymers by C NMR spectroscopy

Methyl methacrylate (MMA)-methyl acrylate (MA) copolymers, prepared in bulk at 50 °C using AIBN as initiator, were characterized by 150 MHz ¹³C NMR spectroscopy, including use of the Distortionless Enhancement by Polarization Transfer (DEPT) experiment to obtain methylene and methine carbon resonances as subspectra. Dyad, triad, tetrad and partial pentad distributions were measured from the α-methyl, methine and methylene carbon resonances. These were in good agreement with distributions calculated for the copolymers based on monomer feed compositions, conversions and reactivity ratios of 2.60 and 0.27 for methyl methacrylate and methyl acrylate, respectively.     

Adsorption of Cationic Dyes by Acrylic Films II—Kinetics of Dyeing

Concentration distributions of basic dyes in a film of acrylic polymer have been determined using a microdensitometric technique. The diffusion coefficients calculated from them are dependent on concentration. An explanation of the dependence is offered based on the ionic transfer of hydrogen (or sodium) ions for dye. From the concentration dependence an average diffusion coefficient was calculated and found to agree with that calculated from rates of dyeing. Rates of dyeing of a binary mixture have demonstrated the competitive effect predicted by the diffusion equation derived for the individual dyes.     

Topology Dissemination for Reliable One-Hop Distributed Hash Tables

Many distributed hash tables (DHTs) resolve lookups in O(log n) hops, where n is the number of nodes. One-hop DHTs give lower lookup latencies and lower lookup failure rates. However, it is hard to maintain large, wide-area one-hop topologies. We contribute aecast, a new topology dissemination algorithm for one-hop DHTs. It avoids expensive repair mechanisms and critical points of failure in existing one-hop DHTs. When a node discovers by anti-entropy that it has missed a topology update, it initiates "controlled flooding,rdquo sending the update to nodes in the multicast tree that also missed the update. We compare aecast with a widely cited epidemic multicasting algorithm, pbcast, by analysis and simulation. Aecast gives at least fivefold fewer out-of-date nodes on average within one round of a topology update. We support it with a fault-tolerant topology agreement protocol, so that only legitimate topology changes propagate throughout the overlay. Consequently, we argue that one-hop DHTs deserve greater attention for Internet applications in which reasonably reliable nodes carry high lookup loads.     

Parallel algorithms for image enhancement and segmentation by region growing, with an experimental study

This paper presents efficient and portable implementations of a powerful image enhancement process, the Symmetric Neighborhood Filter (SNF), and an image segmentation technique that makes use of the SNF and a variant of the conventional connected components algorithm which we call -Connected Components. We use efficient techniques for distributing and coalescing data as well as efficient combinations of task and data parallelism. The image segmentation algorithm makes use of an efficient connected components algorithm based on a novel approach for parallel merging. The algorithms have been coded in Split-C and run on a variety of platforms, including the Thinking Machines CM-5, IBM SP-1 and SP-2, Cray Research T3D, Meiko Scientific CS-2, Intel Paragon, and workstation clusters. Our experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis (and provide the best known execution times for segmentation, even when compared with machine-specific implementations). Our test data include difficult images from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite data.Also affiliated with the Department of Electrical Engineering.Also affiliated with the Department of Computer Science and the Center for Automation Research.     

Validation of reported events from a vertical chute marine evacuation study

Background

The use of vertical chute marine evacuation systems (MES) is now well established on board marine passenger vessels; this system has yet to be deployed in an emergency situation, however, it has been associated with a fatality and several major injuries during training. Brunel University's Ethics Committee endorsed an initial retrospective cross sectional study (Harwood and Farrow, 2008) and the present quantitative observational study. Harwood and Farrow (2008) found that the physical, physiological and psychological characteristics of potential evacuees increased the likelihood of injury and adversely affected the reliability of the system.

Purpose

The validation of factors associated with the adverse outcomes recorded by Harwood and Farrow (2008) during vertical chute MES training, and to assess the hypothesis that evacuee's clothing material will affect the efficiency of the system.

Design

Observational data in a marine training establishment providing a triangulation measurement process of evidence from the retrospective study (Harwood and Farrow, 2008). Subjects were three hundred and seventy five representative participants on training courses for evacuation from a ship into inflated life rafts. The main outcome measures were stopping during descent and exiting the chute in an undesirable position.

Results

6.1% stopped momentarily during descent; 20.3% exited the chute in an undesirable position; on entering the raft 7.7% flipped over and 9.1% had their legs tucked up under their bodies. Independent variables including evacuees' clothing material were statistically significantly associated with adverse outcomes. Participants stopping during descent had an RR of 3.03 (95% CI 1.38, 6.64) for exiting the chute in an undesirable position.

Conclusions

This quantitative observational study broadly supported the results obtained from the retrospective cross sectional study (Harwood and Farrow, 2008). Stopping during descent and evacuee clothing increased the likelihood of undesirable outcomes and impacted on the efficiency of the system.     

Fibre optics for short-haul communications links

DP managers are often unsure of fibre-optic systems for their short-haul communications links. They may worry about installation, the expense, maintenance or the capabilities of such systems. The paper discusses the advantages of fibres over coaxial or twisted-pair copper-based systems. Optical systems are said to be both cheaper to install and easier to maintain. Because of their immunity to electromagnetic induction, they are inherently more secure. A comparison of a typical 500 m fibre-optic link and its twisted-pair equivalent is presented.