Detection of four species of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato in Ixodes ricinus ticks collected from roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in The Netherlands

Epiglottic disruption is an uncommon injury usually associated with significant supraglottic trauma. This injury may be overlooked because of the difficulty in examining the larynx or other associated severe injuries. We present two cases of clinically unsuspected epiglottic disruption that were first seen on MR images of the neck.     

National survey of mammographic facilities in 1985, 1988, and 1992

PURPOSE: To determine trends in mammography in the United States. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A sample of mammographic facilities was selected for each year of the Nationwide Evaluation of X-ray Trends. The same protocol was followed for the 1985, 1988, and 1992 surveys. Data were collected with use of the same imaging phantom for all three surveys and also with a different phantom in the 1988 and 1992 surveys. RESULTS: Of the 356 facilities surveyed in 1992, 59% claimed to be in compliance with the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) mammography requirements, 42% were accredited by the American College of Radiology (ACR), and 23% did not hold credentials from either the HCFA or the ACR. Since 1985, there has been a 34% improvement in acceptable phantom image quality score and a 20% decrease in the mean glandular dose. CONCLUSION: Mammography as practiced today is essentially a screen-film technique. Mammographic phantom image quality has improved considerably. The overall mean glandular dose has decreased primarily because of the elimination of xeroradiography.     

Continuous measurement of cardiac output by the Fick principle in infants and children: comparison with the thermodilution method

OBJECTIVE: To compare a system that continuously monitors cardiac output by the Fick principle with measurements by the thermodilution technique in pediatric patients. DESIGN: Prospective direct comparison of the above two techniques. SETTING: Pediatric intensive care unit of a university hospital. PATIENTS: 25 infants and children, aged 1 week to 17 years (median 10 months), who had undergone open heart surgery were studied. Only patients without an endotracheal tube leak and without a residual shunt were included. METHODS: The system based on the Fick principle uses measurements of oxygen consumption taken by a metabolic monitor and of arterial and mixed venous oxygen saturation taken by pulse- and fiberoptic oximetry to calculate cardiac output every 20s. INTERVENTIONS: In every patient one pair of measurements was taken. Continuous Fick and thermodilution cardiac output measurements were performed simultaneously, with the examiners remaining ignorant of the results of the other method. RESULTS: Cardiac output measurements ranged from 0.21 to 4.55 l/min. A good correlation coefficient was found: r2 = 0.98; P < 0.001; SEE = 0.41 l/min. The bias is absolute values and in percent of average cardiac output was - 0.05 l/min or - 4.4% with a precision of 0.32 l/min or 21.3% at 2 SD, respectively. The difference was most marked in a neonate with low cardiac output. CONCLUSION: Continuous measurement of cardiac output by the Fick principle offers a convenient method for the hemodynamic monitoring of unstable infants and children.     

Agility through discipline: a debate

While Beck asserts that agility is only possible through greater discipline on the part of everyone involved, Boehm counters that you don't broaden the definition of "discipline" by rejecting parts of it. Yet, from inside extreme programming, it seems that the only way to achieve the desired results is to view the world in 'both-and" terms instead of "either-or" terms.     

Pigeon perception and discrimination of rapidly changing texture stimuli

The perception and discrimination of rapidly changing texture stimuli by pigeons was examined in a target localization task. Five experienced pigeons were rewarded for finding and pecking at a randomly placed odd target block of small repeated elements embedded in a larger rectangular array of contrasting distractor elements. On dynamic color test trials, the color of the target, distractor, or both of these regions changed at rates of 100, 250, 500, or 1000 ms per frame. The number of colors appearing within such trials also varied. Pigeons performed well above chance in all test conditions, with target-associated changes producing the best discrimination. The results suggest: (a) global relational information can exclusively guide target localization behavior, (b) pigeons can perceptually group and segregate colored textured differences quite rapidly (< or = 100 ms), and (c) pigeons may possess automatic search control processes that can be captured by stimulus-driven changes in the display.