Adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Do I have them in my practice?

The long term sequelae of childhood sexual abuse include many symptoms commonly encountered in general practice settings. Guidelines to empathic history taking, comprehensive assessment, and an overview of management are presented, together with a contextual background.     

Throughput and Delay in Random Wireless Networks With Restricted Mobility

Grossglauser and Tse (2001) introduced a mobile random network model where each node moves independently on a unit disk according to a stationary uniform distribution and showed that a throughput of Theta(1) is achievable. El Gamal, Mammen, Prabhakar, and Shah (2004) showed that the delay associated with this throughput scales as Theta(nlogn), when each node moves according to an independent random walk. In a later work, Diggavi, Grossglauser, and Tse (2002) considered a random network on a sphere with a restricted mobility model, where each node moves along a randomly chosen great circle on the unit sphere. They showed that even with this one-dimensional restriction on mobility, constant throughput scaling is achievable. Thus, this particular mobility restriction does not affect the throughput scaling. This raises the question whether this mobility restriction affects the delay scaling. This correspondence studies the delay scaling at Theta(1) throughput for a random network with restricted mobility. First, a variant of the scheme presented by Diggavi, Grossglauser, and Tse (2002) is presented and it is shown to achieve Theta(1) throughput using different (and perhaps simpler) techniques. The exact order of delay scaling for this scheme is determined, somewhat surprisingly, to be of Theta(nlogn), which is the same as that without the mobility restriction. Thus, this particular mobility restriction does not affect either the maximal throughput scaling or the corresponding delay scaling of the network. This happens because under this 1-D restriction, each node is in the proximity of every other node in essentially the same manner as without this restriction     

Rare pancreatic tumours in children (other than nesidioblastosis)

BACKGROUND: The rarity of pancreatic tumours other than nesidioblastosis in children is such that the experience of any one surgeon or institution is small. As a consequence, there is limited information on the appropriate management and outcome of these tumours. For this reason a review was conducted of the experience of a large paediatric surgical institution. METHODS: During a 23-year period, six patients with pancreatic tumours other than nesidioblastosis were treated at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. RESULTS: Despite the varied modes of presentation and surgery undertaken, all six patients with surgery alone, with follow-up from 1 to 18 years. Two of the tumours were malignant; the remaining four being islet cell adenomata. No form of adjuvant treatment (chemotherapy or radiotherapy) was used. CONCLUSION: These rare paediatric tumours appear to have a good prognosis, even when malignant, and respond well to radical surgical ablation. Adjuvant therapy appears to be unnecessary.     

What is housing all about?

Encouraged by its Building Research Institute, Denmark has been examining how low rise, high density development might offer a better answer to mass housing needs than blocks of flats. The economic, organisational and sociological arguments which have arisen as a result are reviewed in this article.     

Mechanism of ep additive-metal interaction: Assessment of certain S-benzylisothiocarbamides

The synthesis of certain S-benzylisothiocarbamides and the assessment of their extreme pressure (ep) properties are reported. These additives were compared with a commercial additive. The tribological end effects were studied using a scanning electron microscope. m-chlorophenyl and p-tolyl-S-benzylisothiocarbamides were found to be potentially effective. The mechanism of ep activity is discussed and a theory put forward to explain the ep additive-metal interaction.     

Representing primary electrophoretic data in the 1/time domain: comparison to representations in the time domain

A plot of absorbance vs 1/time (the "1/time domain") is a more useful representation of the primary data in capillary electrophoresis than traditional plots of absorbance vs time (the "time domain") in a wide set of circumstances, especially when comparing electropherograms in which the rate of electroosmotic flow is not precisely the same. The quantity that is of fundamental interest in capillary electrophoresis (CE) is the electrophoretic mobility of an analyte. The electrophoretic mobility of a species is nonlinearly proportional to time and, therefore, not linearly represented in the time domain: that is, the distance between two peaks along the time axis is not linearly related to the difference in their electrophoretic mobilities. In contrast, the electrophoretic mobility is linearly proportional to 1/time, and the distance between two peaks along the 1/time axis is linearly related to the difference in electrophoretic mobilities. Plots in the 1/time domain are similar to the familiar plots in the time domain (each analyte is represented by a peak, and the order of peaks corresponds to the order in which these analytes reach the detector), but the spacing between the peaks corresponds linearly to differences in mobility. This article derives this useful, visually appealing, and broadly applicable plotting strategy and illustrates common situations in which these plots are more useful than plots in the time domain.     

Determination of the binding of ligands containing the N-2,4-dinitrophenyl group to bivalent monoclonal rat anti-DNP antibody using affinity capillary electrophoresis

Affinity capillary electrophoresis has been used to determine the two dissociation constants of the complex between anti-DNP rat monoclonal IgG2b antibody and charged ligands that contained a N-dinitrophenyl group. Singly and multiply charged ligands were used to establish the influence of the charge on the mobility of the complex between Ig and its ligand(s). Zwitterionic buffer additives lessened adsorption of protein to the walls of the capillary. A form of analysis of the binding data is derived that is more useful than Scatchard analysis for certain multivalent systems where cooperativity of binding is in question, but where it is also possible to make plausible assumptions about electrophoretic mobilities of protein and protein-ligand complexes. The uncertainties and assumptions of this analysis are contrasted with those of Scatchard analysis. For this antibody and these monovalent ligands, the dissociation of the ligands from the antibody occurred noncooperatively. The charge on IgG2b at pH 8.3 is estimated to be -8.0 +/- 0.2; this value is obtained by analysis of the electrophoretic mobilities of complexes IgG2bL2, where the ligands L are structurally similar but have different charges (the charges on the ligands were also determined by CE).     

Hospital-made diet versus commercial supplement in postburn nutritional support

Nutritional support is an important aspect of the management of burn patients. Nutrition supplementation can be achieved either by 'hospital-made' or 'commercial' diets. Commercial diets are efficacious but expensive and sometimes not easily available. This study was undertaken to compare the efficacy and tolerance of a hospital-made diet with a commercial diet. Twenty patients with burns ranging from 20-50 per cent TBSA were studied to compare the efficacy and tolerance of the 'hospital-made' diet with 'commercial' preparations. Patients were divided into two groups of 10 each and randomised within each group to receive either a hospital-made diet (five patients) or a commercial diet (five patients). Efficacy of diet was assessed by evaluation of nutritional status, graft take, number of surgical procedures and duration of hospital stay. Tolerance was assessed by recording side effects such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal distention and diarrhoea. Both diets were well tolerated by all patients. There was no significant difference in nutritional status, number of surgical procedures, percentage of graft take and duration of hospital stay on either diet, suggesting that hospital-made diets are similar in efficacy and tolerance but cheaper and more easily available. They are a good alternative to 'commercial' diets, especially in poor patients.