Science.gov (United States)

The progression of hip dysplasia was investigated in 116 military working dogs. Medical records were reviewed for any clinical history of hind-limb lameness. Pelvic radiographs were studied for evidence and degree of hip dysplasia, degenerative joint disease, or both. The number of months each dog worked was determined. Each dog's age at termination from service and cause of death (or euthanasia) were recorded. The mean months of work for normal and dysplastic dogs were evaluated using the Student's t-test. No significant difference was found in the total number of months worked between normal and dysplastic dogs (p greater than 0.05). PMID:8875358

Science.gov (United States)

... Accession Number : AD0833945. Title : COST EVALUATION AND COST ESTIMATING FOR SHIPBOARD ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT. VOLUME II. ...

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The planned spallation source can be of considerable significance for biomedical basic research and for clinically relevant diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The following gives a brief description and explanations for its possible use in clinical medicine: I. Treatment of Malignant Tumors II. Production of Isotopes for Biochemical Investigations in Living Organisms for Diagnostic Purposes.

Science.gov (United States)

... POG Cook, BA A Case Control Study of Childhood 147 8552(85) Rhabdomyosarcoma (0) POG COOK, BA Phase II Study of 6-Mercaptopurine ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

PURPOSE: To determine the risk factors and clinical signs of Curvularia keratitis and to evaluate the management and outcome of this corneal phaeohyphomycosis. METHODS: We reviewed clinical and laboratory...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

PurposeTo evaluate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of cataract surgery in highly myopic Korean subjects.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed...Full Text Available

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

The treatment of acetabular bone defects presents a great challenge in revision total hip arthroplasty (THA). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinical and radiological outcome of revision THA using jumbo cups for acetabular reconstruction after applying the bone-grafting technique. We studied 17?patients with acetabular defects ranging from Type 2A to Type 3A according to Paprosky`s classification. According to the AAOS-score twelve patients were classified as Type II and five patients as Type III. Uncemented press-fit cups with an outer diameter larger than 64?mm were used in all cases. Fifteen patients received morselized bone allografts. In eight patients an additional screw fixation was necessary. The mean follow-up period was 82?months (range 33?149). The mean Harris Hip...

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The development and evaluation of a post-column reaction detector sensitive to platinum(II) complexes is presented in which sodium bisulfite is used as the derivatizing agent with potassium dichromate as an activating agent. The influences of mobile phase changes (i.e., pH, organic modifiers, electrolytes), oxygen, metal ions, and order of reagent addition on reaction kinetics and product yield are defined and used in optimization of detector response. Detection at lambda/sub max/ 290 nm results in an on-line post-column sensitivity of 40-60 ng/mL for selected cis-dichloroplatinum complexes and a sensitivity of 300-1200 ng/mL for four (substituted)-malonato-platinum complexes. The reaction detector is used to monitor the kinetics of aquation of cisplatin (CDDP) and to quantitate CDDP degradation in plasma. As the sensitivity for CDDP in plasma is comparable to that achieved from high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) effluent ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

A form for the clinical evaluation of bovine digital disease was developed. In this article, each section of the resulting Digit Evaluation Form is discussed and justified. By following the...Full Text Available

Science.gov (United States)

New tetradentate N(2)O(2) donor Schiff bases and their mononuclear Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), and Pd(II) complexes were synthesized and characterized extensively by IR, (1)H-, (13)C-NMR, mass, ESR, conductivity measurements, elemental and thermal analysis. Specifically the magnetic and electronic spectral measurements demonstrate the octahedral structures of cobalt(II), nickel(II) complexes and square planar geometries of copper(II), palladium(II) complexes. All the ligands and complexes were screened for their in vitro antibacterial activity against two gram-positive bacteria (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus) and two gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia). In this study, Pd(II) complexes exhibited potent antibacterial activity against B. subtilis, S. aureus whereas ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

PurposeWe previously reported a randomized phase II clinical trial combining a poxvirus-based vaccine encoding PSA with radiotherapy in patients with localized prostate...Full Text Available

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We wanted to evaluate the correlation of mild renal pelvic dilatation (RPD) that is observed to be less than 10 mm on ultrasound (US) with urinary tract infection (UTI) and vesicoureteral reflux (VUR) in neonates. We reviewed 137 kidneys of 107 neonates who had RPD less than 10 mm on US. All the kidneys were divided into two groups: Group I (RPD <= 5.0 mm) and Group II (RPD > 5.0 mm), and we statistically analyzed the RPD change according to UTI and VUR. Seven neonates had VUR (5.1%), and there was no statistical significance between Group I (6 neonates, 5.6%) and Group II (1 neonate, 3.3%). Thirty seven cases (27%) had UTI and there was no statistical significance between Group I (30 cases, 28.0%) and Group II (7 cases, 23.3%). The RPD did not change in 81.8% of the cases, it increased in 4.4% of the cases and it decreased in 13.9% of the cases on follow up US. The incidence of VUR and ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Objective. Cervical cancer patients who had an abandoned radical hysterectomy were evaluated for preoperative clinical predictors, complication rates, and outcomes. Study...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Patients with adhesive capsulitis were clinically evaluated to establish whether pain elicited by pressure on the coracoid area may be considered a pathognomonic sign of this condition. The study group...Full Text Available

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Objective: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of multiple stents placement in the management of hilar cholangiocarcinoma, especially in the complex cases of which the hepatic ducts are invaded. Methods: Forty-five consecutive patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma were treated with percutaneous transhepatic placement of two or three self-expandable metallic endoprostheses. The cause of hilar obstructions in these patients were all cholangiocarcinoma, including Bismuth classification type II (n 12), IIIa (n 17), IIIb (n 10), and IV (n 6). Two or 3 stents were placed in the configuration of T, Y or X over the strictures. Results: Stent placement with 2 or 3 endoprostheses was successful in all patients. All patients showed significant decrease in serum bilirubin level. The mortality rate within 30 days of stent placement was 2.2% (1/45). The mean survival and stent patency times were 215.3 d (26- 516 d) and 181.5 d (26-473 d), ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The main purpose of this work is to report the personal experience with addition of contrast-enhanced multiphase helical CT to unenhanced CT (Lipiodol CT) in the evaluation of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma treated with chemoembolization and to analyze the present role of oily agent CT. It has been retrospectively reviewed the examinations of 42 consecutive patients submitted to globla chemoembolization over a 2-year period. CT was performed 18-30 days after the treatment. The Lipiodol CT study was carried out with volume acquisitions. It has been considered as nodules all well-defined areas with dense oily agent uptake; uptake itself was classified as: 0=absent, I=lower tha 10% of the tumor volume; II=lower than 50%, III=50%, IV=homogeneous. Contrast-enhanced helical CT was performed with the 2-phase technique in 28 patients and with the 3-phase technique in 14; it has been considered as nodules all well-defined and relatively ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

PurposeClinical trials have commenced to evaluate the feasibility of targeting malignant gliomas with genetically engineered cytolytic T-cells (CTLs) delivered directly...Full Text Available

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To evaluate the feasibility and clinical effectiveness of using a polyurethane-covered expandable nitinol stent in the palliative treatment of malignant duodenal obstruction. Under fluoroscopic guidance, a polyurethane-covered expandable nitinol stent was placed in 12 consecutive patients with malignant duodenal obstructions. All presented with severe nausea and recurrent vomiting. The underlying causes of obstruction were duodenal carcinoma (n=4), pancreatic carcinoma (n=4), gall bladder carcinoma (n=2), distal CBD carcinoma (n=1), and uterine cervical carcinoma (n=1). The sites of obstruction were part I (n=1), part II (n=8), and III (n=3). Due to pre-existing jaundice, eight patients with part II obstructions underwent biliary decompression prior to stent placement. An introducer sheath with a 6-mm outer diameter and stents 16 mm in diameter were employed, and to place the stent, and after-loading ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Purpose:The goal of this study was to use two separate databases to evaluate the clinical outcomes and the economic impact of adherence to Level I Pathways, an evidence-based oncology...Full Text Available

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The diagnostic value of the portable chest radiography obtained with Fuji computed radiography (FCR) was evaluated in comparison with conventional images in 23 patients who were admitted to ICU in Yokohama City University Hospital. On the whole , FCR produced more exellent images than conventional screen-film radiographs. Especially the evaluation for the demonstration of the catheters, the endotracheal tubes and the tracheal shadows obtained high score. We discuss the clinically utility of FCR for the portable chest radiographs in ICU. (author).

Science.gov (United States)

Some acylhydrazine derived ONO donor Schiff bases and their Co(II) and Ni(II) complexes have been prepared having the same metal ion (cation) but different anions. These synthesized metal(II) complexes have been characterized on the basis of their elemental analyses, magnetic moment, molar conductance, and IR and electronic spectral data. All of the Schiff base ligands function as tridentates and the deprotonated enolic form is preferred for coordination. In order to evaluate the effect of anions on the bactericidal activity, these synthesized complexes, in comparison to the uncomplexed Schiff bases have been screened against bacterial species., Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and the results are reported. PMID:18475936

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Background and purpose: We evaluate the feasibility of concomitant and adjuvant docetaxel combined with three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) and androgen deprivation in high-risk prostate carcinomas. Methods: Fifty men with high-risk localized prostate cancer (16), locally advanced (28) or very high-risk prostate cancer (6) were included. Seventy Gy were delivered on prostate and seminal vesicles in 35 fractions, concurrently with weekly docetaxel (20 mg/m"2). Three weeks after the completion of 3D-CRT, docetaxel was given for 3 cycles (60 mg/m"2), every 3 weeks. Patients had to receive LHRH agonist during 3 years. Results: The intent to treat analysis shows that four patients out of 15 stopped prematurely the chemotherapy due to grade 3-4 acute toxicity. In the per protocol analysis, 46 patients completed a full-dose chemoradiation regimen representing 413 cycles: five patients experienced a grade 3 toxicity, and 15 patients experienced a grade 2 ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The usefulness and clinical applicability of computed radiography(FCR) in X-ray examination of the stomach were evaluated in comparison with film-screen (FS) radiography by both phantom experiments and clinical studies. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis consisting of 25 normal and 25 artificially created simulated lesions on an orginally created Styrofoam phantom showed no difference in lesion detectability between FCR and FS radiography. Both were also equal in evaluation of the internal structure and margin of the 25 lesions by visual ranking. ROC curve analysis of clinical cases was performed in 30 cases, 20 normal and 10 abnormal, while evaluation by visual ranking was performed on 18 lesions. There was no significant difference between FCR and FS radiography either with ROC curve analysis or visual ranking, although the variations were ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

PurposeRTOG protocol 95-17 was a phase I/II trial to evaluate multi-catheter brachytherapy as the sole method of adjuvant breast radiotherapy for stage I/II breast...Full Text Available

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The current role of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in different organ systems is discussed and compared to nuclear medicine and to other available clinical diagnostic modalities. The value of optimizing radiofrequency pulse sequence selection to provide additional tissue characterization is also described. The results of nuclear medicine and MRI studies in 56 patients are compared to evaluate the clinical diagnostic contribution of each imaging modality for various pathological processes. In addition, the state-of-the-art MRI systems and future development in MRI technology with its potential contribution is defined.

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

PurposePlatinum and taxane compounds have demonstrated activity in uterine carcinosarcoma (malignant mixed Mullerian tumor). Ifosfamide plus paclitaxel is the regimen with established...Full Text Available

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The "1"3"1I-labelled monoclonal antibodies 791T/36 and 79IT/36 Fab fragments have been evaluated in the imaging of patients with colorectal cancer, with benign colorectal tumours, and with malignant tumours of other parts of the gastrointestinal tract. The results of clinical imaging have been carefully correlated with clinical findings and direct measurement of the preferential uptake of antibody by the tumours. (UK).

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

BackgroundPaclitaxel-eluting stents decrease angiographic and clinical restenosis following percutaneous coronary intervention compared to bare metal stents. TAXUS Element is a third-generation...Full Text Available

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The biosorption characteristics of Cd(II) ions using the red alga (Ceramium virgatum) were investigated. Experimental parameters affecting the biosorption process such as pH, contact time, biomass dosage and temperature were studied. Langmuir, Freundlich and Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) models were applied to describe the biosorption isotherms. The biosorption capacity of C. virgatum biomass for Cd(II) ions was found to be 39.7 mg/g. From the D-R isotherm model, the mean free energy was calculated as 12.7 kJ/mol, indicating that the biosorption of Cd(II) the metal ions was taken place by chemisorption. The calculated thermodynamic parameters ({delta}G{sup o}, {delta}H{sup o} and {delta}S{sup o}) showed that the biosorption of Cd(II) ions onto C. virgatum was feasible, spontaneous and exothermic at 293-323 K. Evaluation of experimental data in terms of biosorption kinetics showed that ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

The increasing demand for molecular diagnostics in clinical microbiology laboratories necessitates automated sample processing. In the present study, we evaluated the performance of the MagNA Pure LC...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of pregabalin in painful cervical or lumbosacral radiculopathy treated in Primary Care settings under routine clinical practice. An observational,...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

The objective of this article is to evaluate two-year clinical and radiological follow-up results for patients who were treated with microdiscectomy and posterior dynamic transpedicular stabilisation...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

ContextResponse Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors [RECIST (unidimensional)], World Health Organization [WHO (bi-dimensional)] and European Association for Study...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Broth disk elution procedures represent one of the most practical means for clinical laboratories to perform routine antibiotic susceptibility tests on anaerobic bacteria. The accuracy of five disk...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to investigate the effect of cigarette smoking on clinical parameters and signs anemia of chronic disease in chronic periodontitis patients.Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Ayurvedic drugs have begun to be evaluated in controlled clinical trials. The trials, often placebo controlled, are usually designed to demonstrate superiority. Though the results have been usually...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

This study was an evaluation of the performance of self-applied, blue light, light-emitting diode therapy in the treatment of mild-to-moderate inflammatory acne on the face, concerning: 1) time to improvement...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

BackgroundKinematic and kinetic measurements used in laboratory settings can quantify upper extremity movement impairment following stroke, but their relationship...Full Text Available

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Purpose Evaluation of the all-trans retinoic acid (t-RA) effects on in vitro maturation (IVM) and in vitro fertilization (IVF) of immature mouse oocytes in the presence and absence of granulosa cell monolayer. Methods Denuded oocytes isolated from mice ovaries and matured in IVM medium alone (Control I), IVM medium in the presence of granulosa cells (Control II), IVM medium with t-RA (Experimental I) and IVM medium simultaneously with t-RA and granulosa cells (Experimental II). After 24?h, matured oocytes were fertilized in T6 medium and their development was followed until the blastocyst stage. Metaphase II oocytes ploidy were evaluated by chromosome counting. Results The t-RA group compared to the control groups showed no obvious abnormalities. Additionally maturation and embryo developm...

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To determine clinical predictors and accuracy of {sup 123}I-FP-CIT SPECT imaging in the differentiation of drug-induced parkinsonism (DIP) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Several clinical features and {sup 123}I-FP-CIT SPECT images in 32 patients with DIP, 25 patients with PD unmasked by antidopaminergic drugs (PDu) and 22 patients with PD without a previous history of antidopaminergic treatment (PDc) were retrospectively evaluated. DIP and PD shared all clinical features except symmetry of parkinsonian signs which was more frequently observed in patients with DIP (46.9%) than in patients with PDu (16.0%, p<0.05) or PDc (4.5%, p<0.01). Qualitatively {sup 123}I-FP-CIT SPECT images were normal in 29 patients with DIP (90.6%) and abnormal in all patients with PD, and this imaging technique showed high levels of accuracy. DIP and PD are difficult to differentiate based on ...

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In Niigata University Hospital, most of conventional radiography were changed to Fuji computed Radiography (FCR) from July 1988. To evaluate its clinical utility, questionnaires relating to FCR image were distributed to all physicians including non-radiologists in the hospital after three months. The ratio of the physicians evaluated FCR image to be better than conventional image was 75% in chest radiography, 64% in abdominal radiography. FCR tomography of bone, joint, cranium and chest was also evaluated to be better than conventional by most of the physicians. Reduced size of the film and difficulty in detecting interstitial shadows of the lung were mentioned to be the fault of FCR. (author).

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BACKGROUNDLifestyle modifications are successfully employed to treat obese and overweight women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The aims of the current pilot study were (i) to compare the efficacy on reproductive functions of a structured exercise training (SET) programme with a diet programme in obese PCOS patients and (ii) to study their clinical, hormonal and metabolic effects to elucidate potentially different mechanisms of action.METHODSForty obese PCOS patients with anovulatory infertility underwent a SET programme (SET group, n = 20) and a hypocaloric hyperproteic diet (diet group, n = 20). Clinical, hormonal and metabolic data were assessed at baseline, and at 12- and 24-week follow-ups. Primary endpoint was cumulative pregnancy rate.RESULTSThe two groups had similar demogra...

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This document exposes the results of the fourth evaluation report of the working group II of the inter government experts group on the climatic change. This evaluation presents the today scientific understanding of the climatic change impacts on the humans and their adaptation ability and vulnerability. It is based on the GIEC evaluations and new knowledge added since the third evaluation report. (A.L.B.)

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Intravenous digital subtraction angiography using Fuji computed radiography system (FCR-DSA) was used to evaluate 57 preoperative patients with clinical manifestations of peripheral vascular disease of lower extremity. With its high contrast resolution and good special resolution, image of FCR-DSA could offer optimal information of vascular abnormality in lower extremity distal to midfoot for the diagnosis and the choice of management.

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In this note it is suggested that binuclear platinum(II) complexes with a solely inorganic bridging pyrophosphito ligand also possess many of the complementary advantages of inorganic and organic dyes. They are evaluated for their potential use as a luminescent solar concentrator material. The disadvantages include: the high cost of platinum; the absorption spectra in solution shows a weaker absorption at 452 nm which may cause reabsorption of emitted light; the positions of the absorption and emission maxima are not at the optimal wavelengths for absorption of sunlight and emission to a solar cell. In spite of these drawbacks the author believes the platinum complexes merit consideration for fabrication of solar concentrator devices.

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Silanization of the silica gel surface in the synthesis of silica gel polyamine composites uses (chloropropyl)-trichlorosilane (CPTCS). It is possible to substitute a molar fraction of reagent CPTCS with methyltrichlorosilane (MTCS), creating a mixed silane surface layer. Two types of silica gels were modified with a series of MTCS:CPTCS molar ratios. Solid-state CP/MAS 29Si and 13C NMR spectroscopies were used to evaluate the surface silane composition. Surface silane coverage was markedly improved for the resulting gels. When polyamines were grafted to the resultant MTCS:CPTCS silane layers, it was shown that the decrease in the number of propyl attachments to the polyamine resulted in increased quantities of ''free amines''. Optimum MTCS:CPTCS ratios were determined for three polyamines grafted onto one silica gel. A substantial free amine increase was observed for poly(allylamine) (PAA). Metal uptake studies show increases in ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

We treated 13 patients for femoral neck fracture. They consisted of 2 males and 11 females, and were classified according to Garden stage classification; Stage I, 3 cases; Stage II, 2 cases; Stage III, 2 cases; Stage IV, 4 cases. Two trochanteric fracture cases were used by control. We evaluated perfusion of the femoral head after femoral neck fracture using bone scintigraphy, which is considered useful for evaluation of perfusion of the femoral neck before operation. (author)

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The single specimen unloading compliance technique has become the preferred method for evaluating J-integrals. It involves data acquisition and analysis using a computer. This paper describes in detail the development of a simple experimental system and related software that can be used in a laboratory equipped with a microcomputer and with access to a minicomputer. The effects of loading rate, test temperature, specimen geometry and material composition can be readily evaluated using this system. The results on a pressure vessel steel and an #alpha#-#beta# titanium alloy are discussed in Part II. (author).

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Background: Recent series describing the clinical presentation, response to therapy, and long-term outcome of Zollinger-Ellison syndrome are limited. Aims: To assess the clinical characteristics and long-term outcome of patients with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Methods: Over a 20-year period, patients with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome were enrolled in a prospective trial evaluating the efficacy of lansoprazole. Following dose stabilization, patients were followed on a 6-monthly basis with interval history, physical examination, endoscopy with gastric biopsies, gastric acid analysis and laboratory studies. Results: 72 patients (mean age 54+/-12 years, % male 58%, % Caucasian 69%) were prospectively enrolled. The clinical presentation was stereotypical for Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Symptoms ...

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Paraquat is a nonselective contact herbicide of great toxicological importance, being associated with high mortality rates, mainly due to respiratory failure. We report the case of a 22-year-old male admitted to the emergency room with a sore throat, dysphagia, hemoptysis, and retrosternal pain after the ingestion of 50 mL of a paraquat solution, four days prior to admission. Chest CT scans revealed pulmonary opacities, pneumomediastinum, pneumothorax, and subcutaneous emphysema. The patient was submitted to two cycles of immunosuppressive therapy with cyclophosphamide, methylprednisolone, and dexamethasone. The pulmonary gas exchange parameters gradually improved, and the patient was discharged four weeks later. The clinical and tomographic follow-up evaluations performed at four months after discharge showed that there had been further clinical improvement. We also present a brief review of the literature, as well as a ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Within the past decade two important groups of radiopharmaceuticals labelled with /sup 123/I were introduced into the clinical application opening new areas of metabolic studies in nuclear medicine: radioiodinated fatty acids were developed for metabolic studies of the myocardium and radioiodinated amphetamine derivatives were prepared for studying brain diseases by means of SPECT. It must be emphasized that the radiochemical problems with both groups of compounds are practically the same since both are radioiodinated by a nucleophilic substitution mechanism using /sup 123/I directly in its anionic form. The clinical application of brain imaging agents, particularly the one of p-/sup 123/I-iodo-N-isopropylamphetamine, is important and will presumably increase as soon as the details of the individual biochemical steps, which are involved in brain uptake mechanisms, are evaluated. It is felt that the potential of the ...

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Summary A prospective and randomized trial design is of utmost interest when it comes to evaluating new developments in the management of cardiovascular medicine. By defining the primary end point and a profound related statistic new therapeutic options can be tested with an adequate number of patients. The course of the trial is supervised by a Clinical Events Committee and a Data and Safety Monitoring Board. Registries are promising tools for describing how the results of clinical trials are translated into daily practice. Their drawbacks include lack of control of the clinical endpoints and their uniform definition and lack of a control group. There are numerous examples from cardiology of the limited usefulness of data obtained from registry studies with their often unexpected results ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The aim of the study was to assess the usefulness of artificial neural networks (ANN) application in evaluation of scintimammography in the context of clinical data in the diagnosis of breast cancer. The results produced by ANN were compared with the diagnosis of two independent observers, nuclear medicine specialists. Material and methods: The clinical data and the numerical values derived from scintimammograms of 103 patients were the material for the study. The reference method was the result of histopathology study (core biopsy and /or FNB). Results: The overall sensitivity of physician diagnosis was 78% with specificity of 72%. The ANN produced 71% sensitivity and specificity of 73%. The physicians and ANN results were not significantly different (p=0.4619). Conclusions: Artificial neutral networks are useful tool in clinical diagnosis of breast cancer. (authors)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the difference in prognostic factors between stage IB and II uterine cervical carcinoma patients treated with postoperative radiation therapy. Between May 1988 and May 1998, a total of 94 patients including 47 patients with stage IB and 47 patients with stage II uterine cervical carcinoma were treated with postoperative radiation therapy at Tokyo Metropolitan Komagome Hospital. All patients were treated with 10 MV X-rays using an anterior-posterior parallel opposed field which covered the whole pelvis. Fractionation was 2 Gy per day, five fractions per week, to a total dose of 50 Gy. The 5-year overall survival rates of stage IB and II were 89.4% and 79.3%, respectively. In multivariate analysis for all patients, lymph node status, histology, and surgical margin status were recognized as prognostic factors. Limited to stage IB patients, lymph node status ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Primary objective: Acquired brain injury (ABI) is associated with significant cognitive, behavioural, psychological and physical impairment. Hence, it has been important to leverage assessment approaches in rehabilitation by using current and emerging technologies, including virtual reality (VR). A number of VR rehabilitation programmes have been designed in recent years, mainly to improve upper limb function. However, before this technology gains widespread use, evaluation of the scientific evidence supporting VR-assisted rehabilitation is needed. The present review aimed to assess the rationale, design and methodology of research investigating the clinical impact of VR on ABI upper-limb rehabilitation. Research design: A total of 22 studies were surveyed using a Cochrane-style review. Re...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Summary Objective To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of an educational outreach intervention to improve primary respiratory care by South African nurses. Methods Cost-effectiveness analysis alongside a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial, with individual patient data. The intervention, the Practical Approach to Lung Health in South Africa (PALSA), comprised educational outreach based on syndromic clinical practice guidelines for tuberculosis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. The study included 1999 patients aged 15 or over with cough or difficult breathing, attending 40 primary care clinics staffed by nurses in the Free State province. They were interviewed at first presentation, and 1856 (93%) were interviewed 3 months late...

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PurposeTo evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the Zilver vascular stent in the treatment of de novo or restenotic lesions in the external and common iliac arteries.Materials and MethodsRegardless of the results of an initial percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA), 151 consecutive patients were implanted with Zilver vascular stents (Cook, Bloomington, Ind) in up to two stenotic (?10 cm) or occluded (?5 cm) atherosclerotic lesions of the external or common iliac arteries. The primary endpoint was the rate of major adverse events within 9 months after the procedure. Major adverse events were defined as death, myocardial infarction, target lesion revascularization, and limb loss. Secondary endpoints included acute procedural success, 30-day clinical success, 9-month pat...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

The aim of this study was to observe both the clinical signs and symptoms of wounds at risk of infection, that is critically colonised (biofilm infected) and antimicrobial-performance of an ionic silver alginate/carboxymethylcellulose (SACMC) dressing, in comparison with a non silver calcium alginate fibre (AF) dressing, on chronic venous leg and pressure ulcers. Thirty-six patients with venous or pressure ulcers, considered clinically to be critically colonised (biofilm infected), were randomly chosen to receive either an SACMC dressing or a non silver calcium AF dressing. The efficacy of each wound dressing was evaluated over a 4-week period. The primary study endpoints were prevention of infection and progression to wound healing. The SACMC group showed a statistically significant (P = ...

Science.gov (United States)

Understanding Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) documentation and coding rules is challenging for most physicians. To accurately bill for clinical services, physicians must learn a system that may initially seem daunting, but is in fact governed by a small number of straightforward rules. The Evaluation and Management (E/M) guidelines for all service codes specify 3 components: history, examination, and medical decision-making, each with a defined set of elements or characteristics. Service coding is based on the level of care supported by the number of history and examination elements and the complexity of decision-making. This article will clarify the guidelines for outpatient clinical services and suggest a practical method of selecting appropriate E/M codes. Because physicians must often choose between billing codes 99213 and 99214 for a visit by an established patient, it will particularly focus on the ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Objective: To compare the therapeutic effect of unilateral biliary duct drainage with bilateral biliary duct drainage in the treatment of Bismuth-Corlette II-IV type hilar cholangiocarcinoma in order to provide rational and proper clinical options. Methods: Biliary duct drainage was performed in 80 patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma. The patients were divided into unilateral drainage group (n = 52) and bilateral drainage group (n = 28). The clinical data and the therapeutic results of the two groups were retrospectively analyzed and compared. Results The two groups were quite comparable in the patient's age, sex, clinical type, drainage way, preoperative total and direct bilirubin level, white blood cell, total protein and albumin, etc. After the treatment, the mean reduction value of the total bilirubin and direct bilirubin was 82.73 #mu#mol/L and 31.71#mu#mol/L respectively in unilateral drainage ...

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An evaluation was made of the effectiveness of the action of reagents used for cleaning cyan-containing waste water for conditioning of the overflow of copper concentrate thickners of the Belousovskiy enrichment before sorption extraction of gold by activated charcoal. It was established that conditioning of the overflow by iron sulfates (II), copper and zinc diminshes, and by hypochlorite increases the capacitance of the activated charcoal for gold.

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Seven hundred thirty-two female urogenital samples were collected for Chlamydia trachomatis testing by both the Sanofi Diagnostics Pasteur (Chaska, Minn.) Chlamydia Microplate EIA by the shortened protocol...Full Text Available

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The model of `ecological forestry' has evolved as a part of the development of the concept of ecosystem management. `Ecological forestry' emphasises that manipulation of a forest ecosystem should consider, and as far as practicable work within the limits of, natural disturbance patterns prior to extensive human alteration of the landscape. This paper evaluates the extent to which forest management practices in jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) and karri (Eucalyptus diversicolor) forests of south-western Australia align with this view of the characteristics and appropriate silviculture of `ecological forestry'. Characteristics and appropriate silviculture of `ecological forestry' are evaluated in relation to (i) the stand level decisions of stand structure and harvest timing and (ii) the landsc...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Over a 5-year period (1976-1980) 499 patients with non-seminomatous testicular germ cell tumours were included in the Danish Testicular Carcinoma Study (DATECA). The 3-year crude survival for patients in clinical stages I, II and III was 91, 77 and 45 per cent, respectively. In stage I the relapse-free survival for patients given radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine was significantly higher than that for patients given radiation alone. No difference in the crude survival for patients given radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine was significantly higher than that for patients given radiation alone. No difference in the crude survival was observed. For stage II patients maintenance chemotherapy following radiation combined with bleomycin and vincristine did not improve relapse-free or crude survival. The survival of patients with non-seminomatous tumours improved significantly during the 5-year period. ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

A new three-dimensional treatment planning system (TPS) based on convolution/superposition algorithms (TMS-Radix from HELAX AB, Uppsala, Sweden) was recently installed at the University Hospital in Lund. The purpose of the present study was to design a quality assurance and acceptance testing programme to meet the specific characteristics of this convolution model. The model is based on parametrization of a non-measurable quantity - the polyenergetic pencil beam. However, the verification of the treatment planning model is still dependent on numerous comparisons of measured depth-doses and dose profiles. The test programme was divided in two basic parts: (i) model implementation and beam data consistency and (ii) model performance and limitations in special situations. The first part was scheduled for all photon beam qualities available before they could be used for clinical treatment planning. The second part was performed for selected ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The US study of the posterior compartment of the knee usually allows the clinical suspicion of popliteal cyst to be confirmed. Neverthless, in case of giant Baker's cysts - which are, at any rate, less frequent -US diagnosis is more difficult. CT can help determine the benign nature of the lesion, and hallow an accurate spatial evaluation. Moreover CT, when accurately performed, demonstrates the caudal or cranial cystic spread, together with its clear separation from adjacent muscular tissues. Direct coronal scans are more useful to obtain better spatial definition than reformatted images.

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This case report evaluates X-ray findings in patients with miliary accumulation of mercury observed after parenteral application of metallic mercury in a suizide attempt. There are certain discrepancies between clinical symptoms and the X-ray findings. A clear demonstration of mercury in coronary blood vessels is possible by fluoroscopy.

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

AIM: To evaluate the biological and clinical characteristics of miR-622 in gastric cancer.METHODS: We analyzed the expression of miR-622 in 57 pair matched gastric neoplastic and adjacent non-neoplastic...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Antimicrobial susceptibilities of 233 Gram-positive and 180 Gram-negative strains to two novel bis-indoles were evaluated. Both compounds were potent inhibitors of Gram-positive bacteria, with MIC₉₀...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Multiple-breath nitrogen washouts (MBNW) were performed with 21 adult dairy cows (seven normal cows tested on two days each, four clinically normal cows tested on six days, and ten cows with respiratory...Full Text Available

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

PurposeThe purpose of the present study was to compare the effect of submucosal versus intramuscular administration of dexamethasone sodium phosphate on patients' quality of life after surgical removal of impacted lower third molars. Patients and MethodsA randomized, non-blind, clinical trial was planned. The sample was composed of patients requiring extraction under local anesthesia of a single partial bony impacted mandibular third molar with Class II or III and position B or C, according to the Pell and Gregory classification. The patients were randomly distributed into 1 of 3 groups: submucosal dexamethasone, intramuscular dexamethasone, and a control group that received no steroid. A modified translated questionnaire was used to assess the patients' perception regarding different qual...

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Abstract Background Despite the undeniable impact of systemic sclerosis (SS) on quality of life, only a few studies so far have focused on its psychiatric or psychological aspects. We aimed at assessing psychiatric symptoms and self-image in inpatients with SS and comparing them with patients with either a very mild skin condition or a serious skin condition. Methods Three groups were recruited: (i) 38 consecutive female inpatients with SS; (ii) 38 age-matched female outpatients with melanocytic naevi; (iii) 35 age-matched female inpatients with melanoma. All participants completed the Zung Anxiety Scale, the Zung Depression Scale and a self-report questionnaire measuring self-perceived personal qualities. Patients with SS were also clinically interviewed by a psychologist. Results The cli...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

This three-part article describes the early years of one of the mother-baby-children groups of the Project for Mothers, Infants, and Young Children of September 11, 2001. The goal of the group was to help prevent the effects of trauma and loss from disrupting the relationships among the mothers, their infants, and growing children. View I by Anni Bergman describes the mothers' states of minds as the group began, when they felt that their worlds had collapsed under them. View II by Sally Moskowitz focuses on the clinical experience of working in the group, transference and countertransference themes, helping the mothers and children with their mourning process, and helping the mothers' relationships to each other, their babies, older children, family, and friends. The evolution of a casual,...

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We evaluated the relation between the lipiodol accumulative pattern on CT 1 month after 1st Lp-TAE and the effect of Lp-TAE and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in 70 cases undergoing Lp-TAE twice. The lipiodol accumulative pattern on CT can be classified into four types (I: homogeneous, II: defect, III: inhomogeneous, IV: no or slight). In the type I, recurrence of the main tumor was 26.7%, daughter was 73.7%, suggesting a good effect of Lp-TAE. In the types II, III and IV, recurrence of the main tumor was seen in 66.7%, 83.3% and 83.3%, respectively, suggesting that the effect of Lp-TAE was worse according to the lipiodol accumulative pattern on CT. The lipiodol accumulative pattern on CT is useful for the detection of recurrence and assessment of the effect of Lp-TAE. (author).

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X11 Desktop Environments (KDE and GNOME) - Part II

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AbstractBackground: Certolizumab pegol (Cimzia, CZP) was approved for the treatment of Crohn's disease (CD) patients in 2007 in Switzerland as the first country worldwide. This prospective phase IV study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of CZP over 26 weeks in a multicenter cohort of practice-based patients. Methods: Evaluation questionnaires at baseline, week 6, and week 26 were completed by gastroenterologists in hospitals and private practices. Adverse events were evaluated according to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Results: Sixty patients (38F/22M) were included; 53% had complicated disease (stricturing or penetrating), 45% had undergone prior CD-related surgery. All patients had prior exposure to systemic steroids, 96% to immunomodulators, 73% to infliximab, and...

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Asthma, affecting as many as 400 million individuals worldwide, is one of the most prevalent chronic health condition in the United States. With an increasing number of patients with asthma and the frequent inability of conventional lifestyle modification and therapy to effectively control the problem, nutritional and dietary therapies are being sought. This study was undertaken to investigate the efficacy of the purple passion fruit peel (PFP) extract, a novel mixture of bioflavonoids, on asthma symptoms. Patients with asthma were studied in a 4-week randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial with oral administration of PFP extract (150 mg/d) or placebo pills. The effects of PFP extract were evaluated by assessing the clinical symptoms of asthma and spirometry tests. Most clinical...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Objective To report the clinical response to image-guided percutaneous cryotherapy (IPC) for the palliative management of localized metastases in patients with gynecologic malignancies. Methods Institutional review board approval and patient consent were obtained. Gynecologic oncology patients were identified from our institution's cryotherapy database from August 2003 to August 2007. Cryotherapy was performed with 2.4?mm diameter probes (Endocare, Irvine, CA) with ultrasound or computerized tomography (CT) guidance under conscious sedation and local anesthesia. Follow-up was conducted by imaging studies and clinical encounters, using Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST criteria). Results Twenty-eight ablation sessions were performed for 41 metastatic foci in 15 patients w...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The philosophy pervading the treatment approach to Ewing's sarcoma was to have therapy encompass all foci of disease, including sites of occult or potential involvement in addition to obvious clinical manifestations. The experience with integrated methods of treatment in 66 consecutive patients at the National Cancer Institute is reviewed. A median survival of 18 months (44 percent 2 year survival rate) for patients with recognizable metastases on admission bears impressive witness to the value of adjuvant therapy in Ewing's sarcoma. Even more encouraging, an uncorrected 5 year survival rate of 53 percent (42 percent continuously free of disease) for patients given ''pyrophylactic'', adjuvant therapy indicates the potential for permanent control of disease in a significant fraction of cases with clinically localized primary tumors. (U.S.).

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Summary Background:- Cholinesterase inhibitors form the mainstay of treatment for persons with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer-s disease (AD). The rivastigmine patch may increase compliance and the proportion of patients maintaining an efficacious dose compared with oral cholinesterase inhibitors. Objective:- To investigate the proportion of patients who reached and maintained the target rivastigmine patch dose compared with the target rivastigmine capsule dose reported in clinical trials. Methods:- This was a multicentre, 24-week, open-label study in persons with probable AD and a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score of --10 and --26. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients (ITT population) treated with 9.5-mg/24-h rivastigmine patch for at least 8-weeks at week 24. Secondary ...

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AIM: To define the value of digital radiography with a clinical flat panel detector system for evaluation of wrist fractures in comparison with state of the art storage phosphor radiography. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Hard copy images of 26 fractured wrist specimens were acquired with the same exposure dose on a state of the art storage phosphor radiography system and a clinical flat panel detector. Image features like cortical bone surface, trabecular bone, soft tissues and fracture delineation were independently analysed by 4 observers using a standardised protocol. Image quality ratings were evaluated with an analysis of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS: Flat panel detector radiographs were rated superior with respect to cortical and trabecular bone representation as well as fracture evaluation, while storage phosphor radiographs produced better soft tissue detail. CONCLUSION: In some of the ...

Science.gov (United States)

This study evaluated whether differences in design of 3-dimensional polylactic acid barriers (EPi-Guide and Guidor) would influence hard tissue results in the treatment of Grade II furcations in humans. A multicenter study was conducted, using 40 patients with moderate to advanced bilateral chronic adult periodontitis of the mandibular first or second molars. After flap access, debridement, and root preparation, surgical bone level measurements were taken and membranes were placed on a random basis. Surgical reentry occurred at 1 year. Data collected from all 3 investigative centers were pooled and analyzed using an analysis of variance appropriate for a counterbalancing design. Both barrier materials resulted in significant gains of attachment level and defect reduction. The composite reduction in the vertical component of the osseous defects was greater in the sites treated with Epi-Guide as compared to those treated with Guidor; the ...

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Equinovarus of the foot is the most common lower extremity deformity following traumatic brain injury. We evaluated outcomes of the split anterior tibialis tendon transfer (SPLATT) for correction of equinovarus in 47 patients with hemiplegic traumatic brain injury and specifically studied differences in outcomes with two tendon fixation techniques. Seventeen patients constituting Group I underwent fixation with one technique and 30 constituting Group II had another technique. Patients in both groups had appropriate procedures based on dynamic electromyography and gait analyses. Both groups were demographically comparable. All 47 feet were corrected to plantigrade position. Thirty-six of 47 patients became brace-free at final followup. There was a notable decrease in the use of ambulatory aids and ambulatory status improved in both groups. There were three fixation-related complications in Group I and none in Group II. ...

Science.gov (United States)

The objective of this study was to simplify the opacifying mixing process of the bone cement and contrast used for percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP). We performed a biomechanical study of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) (Corinplast 3) using three different mixtures of PMMA, monomer, and contrast: group I, 2:1; group II, 3:2; group III, 3:2:1 ratio of powder/monomer/iodinated contrast (Omnipaque). In vitro biomechanical testing of ultimate compressive strength was carried out in all samples. Following the conclusion of a proper bone cement mixture regimen drawn from the in vitro study, PVP was performed in 125 patients: 58 with cancer, 12 with hemangioma, and 54 with osteoporotic fracture. The ultimate compressive strength in group III was decreased by 38% compared to groups II and I. Proper fluoroscopic visualization was achieved in all PVP procedures using this mixture. There were no major complications associated with injection of the cement ...

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Purpose: To evaluate a simple method for quantification of focal activity in bone scintigraphy (BS). Material and methods: The gamma camera was calibrated using a phantom. Quantitative bone scintigraphy (QBS) was performed on 11 men recently diagnosed with prostate cancer (PCa), for whom routine BS showed involvement of the skeleton. Following endocrine therapy for 4 to 8 months, a second QBS was performed. Changes in QBS values were then compared to changes in serum levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Results: PSA response indicating regression of PCa was accompanied by a decrease in the QBS value in 8 of the 11 patients. The overall mean error of the QBS values was 15%. conclusion: QBS according to this method is a relatively simple procedure that might contribute to objective evaluation of therapeutic effects in skeletal metastases, although its validity must be tested in a larger clinical material.

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A multi-centre evaluation of the test strip analyser, Rapimat, was performed by four laboratories following the ECCLS 2nd draft guidelines for the evaluation of analysers in clinical chemistry. Using the Rapignost urine test strip with the test fields for bilirubin, urobilinogen, acetoacetate, ascorbic acid, glucose, protein, nitrite, pH and haemoglobin, the Rapimat was found to be analytically reliable in comparison with other, in most cases quantitative procedures. During the observation period of about 6 months no breakdown occurred in any laboratory. Interferences and sensitivity as discussed for the bilirubin and urobilinogen test field are more related to the test strip than to the instrument. Several improvements for further developments are suggested. This multi-centre study has shown that the ECCLS protocol is applicable to analytical procedures leading to discrete results. PMID:4056663

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

A few metal complexes of isatin-isonicotinoylhydrazone with Ni(II), Cr(III), Co(II), Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II) have been prepared and characterized on the basis of elemental analyses, infrared and electronic spectra as well as "1H NMR spectra, conductivity and magnetic measurements. In view of the results obtained, it has been found that two molecules of isatin-isonicotinoylhydrazone are chelated to the central metal ion as bis-uninegative ONO tridentate ligand forming non-electrolytic octahedral metal complexes. (author)

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For Stage II of the European Dioxin Project the following objectives were set: - Amendment of existing emission data collected for most relevant emission sources in order to reduce uncertainties of emission estimates. Collecting first emission data from countries not yet performing dioxin emission measurement programs. Extending the inventory of dioxin emissions to ambient air produced in Stage I by a complementary study on emissions to land and water. Extending the regional scope of data collection to countries in Central Europe. The report of Stage II of the European Dioxin Project is presented in 3 Volumes. Volume 1 contains an overview on the background and approach of different activities carried out and on the results obtained. These results are put into a broader view regarding the dioxin reduction measures in Europe leading to conclusions and recommendation for future work. Volume 2 of the report contains a detailed presentation of the ...

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Bone images obtained by single exposure dual energy subtraction with computed radiography, a new image processing method, were evaluated for the detectability of calcification in lung nodules in both phantom and clinical studies. In the phantom study, five simulated nodules containing known and uniformly distributed amounts of calcium hydroxide were placed in a human chest phantom and images were obtained the following five techniques: 1) conventional radiography (CXR), 2) low kV conventional radiography (Low), 3) Fuji computed radiography (FCR), 4) bone images with conventional singles exposure energy subtraction (ES) and 5) bone image with fine single exposure energy subtraction (FES). The detectability of calcification in the simulated nodules was evaluated by six radiologists using ROC analysis and two-way analysis of variance. In the clinical study, images of 42 lung nodules (21 calcified lung ...

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This is a report of 21 patients presenting with epigastric pain, bilious vomiting, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, iron-deficiency anemia, and weight loss, who had undergone Billroth II gastrectomy from 3 to 35 yr earlier. Eighteen of 21 patients were found to have significant enterogastric reflux indices varying from 60% to 95% demonstrated by /sup 99m/Tc HIDA scintigraphy. Thirteen patients had diversion antireflux surgery in the form of a Roux-en-Y procedure, and 1 patient had a Henley loop jejunal interposition. Postoperative /sup 99m/Tc HIDA scintigraphic studies showed the enterogastric reflux indices to have decreased significantly to a range of 2%-26% (p less than 0.00001). There was marked improvement of symptoms, including correction of anemia and weight gain in those patients who had been anemic or who had sustained earlier weight loss. The enterogastric reflux indices of 10 asymptomatic control patients after Billroth II ...

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Quantitative evaluation of CRT and CR observations in indentification of malignancy using phantom and clinical data. A breast phantom and a total of 40 patients were imaged by Fuji computed radiography (FCR). The images were interpreted twice by six radiologists both on CR film (2510 x 2000 pixels x 10 bits, 0.1 mm spatial resolution) and on a CRT monitor (1568 x 1152 pixels x 10 bits, 0.1 mm pixel size with double expansion) with image processing parameters of a toutine (RN 1.0, RE 0.2), for a calcification (RN 9.0, RE 4.0) and for a mass (RN 7.0, RE 2.0). The forty clinical cases included breast diseases with calcifications, masses, and normal breasts. Two-tailed t-test was performed to analyze interpretation of simulated microcalcifications and masses in the phantom. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to evaluate clinical cases. In all ...

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Three novel inosine-based dinuclear platinum complexes have been synthesized via a solid-phase strategy. In these compounds, the metal is linked both to the N-7 of the purine nucleus and to the terminal amine group of a hexylamine side chain installed on N-1. Cis- or trans- diamine as well as ethylenediamine ligands are coordinated to platinum along with a chloride. The synthesised complexes were tested against four different human tumor cell lines. One of these complexes proved to be more cytotoxic than cisplatin against the MCF7 cancer cell line in a short-term exposure assay.

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The authors present a guide to the imaging of facial fractures. It is illustrated with conventional radiographs and computed tomograms; the magnetic resonance images primarily suggest the potential applications of this technique. This book provides a source of imaging information on facial trauma. A section on pertinent anatomy is followed by a systematic discussion of the common isolated and complex facial fractures. Perspectives are offered on some commonly seen but infrequently described relationships, such as the tripod-LeFort II association. Consideration is also given to related soft-tissue injuries. The book includes a brief chapter on the type and utility of supplementary imaging studies in the evaluation of those intracranial injuries that may occur concurrently.

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

In FY 1984 three specific tasks which are all related to not-well-understood two-phase phenomena of importance to LWR accidents have been identified under the program. These three tasks are: (1) inverted annular flow experiments and modeling; (2) hot leg U-bend two-phase flow simulation study; and (3) development and evaluation of two-phase flow scaling criteria. Some of the important results obtained under Tasks (1) and (2) are reported in this paper.

Science.gov (United States)

Recently, various types of allogeneic skin substitutes including cultured epidermal substitute (CES), cultured dermal substitute (CDS), and cultured skin substitute (CSS), which are composed of keratinocytes and/or fibroblasts as the cellular component(s), have been used as biological wound dressings. In our study, the allogeneic CDS was prepared by plating fibroblasts on a spongy collagen. The clinical evaluation was conducted using fresh or cryopreserved allogeneic CDS. In 145 of our clinical cases, 95% (138/145) of various wounds were evaluated as achieving good or excellent results, including 96% (22/23) of deep dermal burns (DDB) and dermal burns (DB), 100% (53/53) of partial-thickness donor wounds, 91% (21/23) of traumatic skin defects, 100% (5/5) of pressure ulcers, 82% (9/11) of chronic skin ulcers, 100% (6/6) of coverage for debrided DB, and 92% (22/24) of coverage for autologous meshed graft. ...

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Perforated thermoplastic masks are used to provide patients immobilization. This procedure inserts a material in the path of the radiation beam, that attenuates and modifies the beam fluence and flatness. The present study evaluates the increase in skin dose as a result of using thermoplastic masks. Relative doses were measured on the surface of a solid water phantom, in the presence and absence of masks. These masks were stretched according to deformation patterns observed in clinical routine. The measurements were obtained with a plane-parallel chamber (Markus type 23343) and radiochromic film (EBT Gafchromic) for 6MV X-rays from a linear accelerator, and for a radiation beam from a cobalt therapy unit. The results showed that thermoplastic masks, whose thickness varied between 2 and 3 mm, increased the dose on the surface by a factor of 3. Due to the variations in the skin dose distribution, clinical procedures were ...

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In our evaluation we utilized the Asahi Mark-J NMR-CT system, with a resistive vertical quadrupolar electromagnet (0.1 Tesla) and a proton resonance frequency of 4.5 MHz. Our main imaging methods are the inversion-recovery or IR, saturation-recovery, or SR, and calculated T/sub 1/. Difference, or D images, constructed by subtracting the data of the IR signal from that of the SR signal, have also been obtained in some cases. The system allows averaging of raw data. Hybrid images were constructed from two or more images to obtain clear definition of areas of interest. By using the hybrid image, several tissues of different relaxation times can be shown in the same image. Application in our study of the newly developed hybrid image indicates its importance in the detection and diagnosis of lesion, especially the detection of the differentiation of an edematous lesion from a tumor, and also abnormal fluid collection such as the pleural effusion or ascites. We hope that ...

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Platinum(II) complexes have been investigated in the hydration of alkynes. These catalysts offer improved regioselectivity over Hg(II) counterparts. 1 fig., 2 tabs.

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Snapping or grating scapula is a condition of the shoulder girdle in which the patient complains of pain and an audible snapping sound which may be associated with pain. We evaluated the diagnostic value of the computed tomography (CT) scans using the clinical diagnosis of a grating scapula as the gold standard. This retrospective study reports the sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio and receiver operator characteristic curve for the CT scans and the k value as a measure of the interobserver agreement. None of the parameters validated the examination. We therefore concluded that CT scans are inappropriate for differentiation between a grating scapula and a normally functioning shoulder except in cases where bony abnormalities are present. (orig.)

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Twenty-seven patients with symptoms or clinical findings suggesting joint or bone disorders of the anterior chest wall (ACW) were evaluated by spiral CT with 3-dimensional (3-D) and multiplanar reconstructions. Preceding conventional ACW tomography was performed in 10 patients. ACW joint and bone changes were visualized more adequately by coronal 2-D reconstructions based on spiral CT than by conventional tomography. In addition, nonossified costal cartilages and soft tissue lesions were demonstrated. 3-D reconstructions sometimes added information, especially in patients with fracture and dislocation. (orig.).

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Positron-emission tomography (PET) and PET/CT (computed tomography) are becoming increasingly important for diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Clinically relevant changes can sometimes be seen on PET that are not seen on other imaging modalities. However, PET is not suitable for guiding biopsy as the images are not obtained in real-time. Therefore, our research group has begun developing a concept for PET/CT-guided interventional procedures. This paper presents the rationale for this concept, outlines our research plan, and includes an initial study to evaluate the relative sensitivity of CT and PET/CT in detecting suspicious lesions. (orig.)

Science.gov (United States)

Brucela serology using ELISA and standard agglutination test was performed on 23 patients with prolonged fever where the test was requested, on 26 randomly chosen patients with prolonged fever where it was not requested and on 17 controls. ELISA was positive in 39.1, 26.9 and 0 per cent respectively in these groups. Brucellosis may often be unsuspected because of its varied clinical manifestations and may be a more important cause of fever than previously considered. Our data reaffirm that ELISA is superior to the standard agglutination test for the diagnosis of brucellosis. PMID:8707374

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Multi-fiber WDM networks are becoming the major telecommunication platforms for transmitting exponentially increasing data traffic. While today's networks are mainly providing circuit-switched connections, optical packet-switching technologies have been investigated for years, aiming at achieving more efficient utilizations of network resources. In this paper, we have evaluated, for the first time, the packet-loss performance of multi-fiber optical packet switches (MOPS). Our main contributions are threefold. Firstly, we have proposed simple and accurate analytical models for analyzing packet-loss performance of (i) the most fundamental MOPS configuration, (ii) MOPS equipped with fiber delay lines (FDLs) and (iii) shared wavelength converters (SWCs). Secondly, we have shown that the MOPS n...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aim: Rheumatoid arthritis is a limiting disease having, among its pathological features, the inflammation of synovial tissue with progressive and later destruction of the articulation. This leads to joint deformation and loss of its function, generating pain and reducing the mobility of the affected articulation. The aim was to evaluate "1"6"6Ho-Hydroxyapatite ("1"6"6 Ho-HA) as potential radiopharmaceutical for the symptomatic treatment of chronic and acute arthritis. Materials and Methods: Holmiun-166 was produced by irradiation of Ho_2O_3 at La Reina Research Reactor, Nuclear Chilean Energy Commission. Hydroxyapatite was in-house synthesized. Its labelling and quality controls follows the internationally accepted procedures. An antigen's arthritis was induced to eight New Zealand rabbits with the "1"6"6 Ho-HA radiochemical being administered thereafter in two dosage modalities (single and double). The compound therapeutic efficiency was ...

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To evaluate the effectiveness of percutaneous mechanical declotting. Using a 7-F Desilets-Hoffman sheath and the crossed-catheter technique, we aspirated the intragraft clot and pushed the residual clot into the central circulation with balloon catheters. The success rate, procedure time, complications and patency rates were evaluated. Technical success was achieved in 24 of 32 cases, with a procedure time of 30-240 (average, 111) minutes. In five of eight cases in which technical failure occurred, the guide wire failed to reach the stenotic site and in the other three, there was insufficient luminal dilatation. Complications included vein ruptures (n=2), arterial emboli (n=1) and arterial dissection (1), but there was no evidence of clinical symptoms of pulmonary embolism. The six-month patency rate was 67.8%. Mechanical declotting of thrombosed dialysis graft using a balloon catheter is relatively inexpensive, safe and ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The aim of this review is to evaluate the role of inflammatory spine disease in patients with chronic back pain. The contribution of imaging modalities for the diagnostic evaluation of back pain is discussed. A systematic literature search based on the classification of seronegative spondyloarthropathies and rheumatoid arthritis was performed. The results of this search and the experiences in a large collective of rheumatological patients are analyzed. The prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis (1-2%) is comparable to that of spondyloarthropathies (1.9%). The etiology of these entities is not fully elucidated. Magnetic resonance imaging is increasingly used for early detection and surveillance of therapy with TNF-#alpha# antagonists. Bone marrow edema, which is only detectable with MRI, represents an early sign of inflammation. Therapy with TNF-#alpha# antagonists is based on clinical and laboratory criteria, and signs of ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) plaster for knee osteoarthritis among Japanese patients. An open-labeled, randomized, controlled, multiclinic trial was performed involving outpatient clinic groups. Two comparative groups?plaster NSAIDs and oral NSAIDs?were randomly allocated. The drugs used were limited to the current top three in both groups in Japan. Treatments were assessed after four?weeks and compared with the baseline scores. Outcomes were evaluated by two psychometric measures: Japanese knee osteoarthritis measure, and pain with the visual analogue scale. The total number of patients included in the final evaluation was 165 (87 for the plaster group and 78 for the oral group). Between these two groups there were ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Computed Tomography (CT) of the spine was performed on 17 patients with myeloma in order to assess the role of the technique in recognizing and evaluating the extent of the lesions. Myelomatous lesions followed two patterns at CT: first of all, multiple focal lesions, whose density is either solid, liquid, or fatty; second, an extensive pattern involving the spongiosa of the vertebra, including the posterior arch. CT detected more lesions than conventional radiology; furthermore, the extent of the lesions was much better demonstrated by CT. CT should thus be performed: a) in case of pain and/or neurological findings in negative radiological examinations; b) to evaluate the extent of myelomatous lesions (mainly in the spine); c) in solitary myeloma CT may be performed on different bone segments with clinical symptomatology but normal X-ray findings.

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

This research report discusses the radiation hardening of a commercially available mobile robot, the REMOTEC ANDROS. This hardening effort is culminating in the availability of a megarad hardened mobile platform to access areas in nuclear facilities with extremely high levels of radiation (0.1 to 1 Mrad). These radiation levels may be encountered both during routine repair and monitoring activities and accident situations. The project has completed a phase-I U.S. Department of Energy Small Business Innovative Research contract and is now in a phase-II effort with completion scheduled in early 1995. The research involves the evaluation of the material and electrical components of an ANDROS robot to determine the anticipated radiation hardness of the current production version and evaluation of the components that must be replaced or modified to harden the system to higher radiation levels. The work being reported is based on ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

DECOVALEX II project started in November 1995 as a continuation of the DECOVALEX I project, which was completed at the end of 1994. The project was initiated by recognizing the fact that a proper evaluation of the current capacities of numerical modelling of the coupled T-H-M processes in fractured media is needed not only for small scale, well controlled laboratory test cases such as those studied in DECOVALEX I, but also for less characterised, more complex and realistic in-situ experiments. This will contribute to validation and confidence building in the current mathematical models, numerical methods and computer codes. Four tasks were defined in the DECOVALEX II project: TASK 1 - numerical study of the RCF3 pumping test and shaft excavation at Sellafield by Nirex, UK; TASK 2 - numerical study of the in-situ T-H-M experiments at Kamaishi Mine by PNC, Japan; TASK 3 - review of current state-of-the-art of rock joint ...

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No abstract prepared.

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

In consistency with the increasing requests from Member States for establishing radiotherapy programmes, an IAEA Technical Co-operation project was initiated in Latin America aimed at improving the physical aspects (as a complement to the clinical issues) of quality assurance in radiotherapy; this ARCAL XXX project (RLA/6/032) was classified as a Model Project of the IAEA. Among the important outcomes of the project were (i) the training of a considerable number of medical physicists in hospitals of the region, (ii) the development of a protocol for quality control procedures, and (iii) the organization of quality audit site visits (to the participant countries) where the implementation in hospitals of the developed quality control procedures is verified. The present publication is the protocol for quality control of the physical aspects of radiotherapy. It contains detailed procedures on what should be measured by a medical physicist in a ...

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To study the utility of ultrasound and computed tomography (CT) in case of suspected appendicitis. To determine the diagnostic yield in terms of different clinical contexts and patient characteristics. to assess the costs and benefits of introducing these techniques and propose a protocol for their use. Negative appendectomies, complications and length of hospital stay in a group of 152 patients with suspected appendicitis who underwent ultrasound and CT were compared with those of 180 patients who underwent appendectomy during the same time period, but had not been selected for the first group: these patients costs for each group were calculated. In the first group, the diagnostic value of the clinical signs was also evaluated. The reliability of the clinical signs was limited, while the results with ultrasound and CT were excellent. The incidence of negative appendectomy was 9.6% in the study group ...

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PMID:10488815

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PMID:1354044

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A series of thiazolo[3,2-b][1,2,4]triazole incorporating diphenylsulfone moieties were synthesized starting from 5-[4-(4-X-phenylsulfonyl)phenyl]-4H-1,2,4-triazole-3-thioles 3a-c, X=H, Cl, Br. Thus, alkylation of 1,2,4-triazoles 3 with phenacyl bromide or 4-bromophenacyl bromide afforded S-substituted 1,2,4-triazoles 4, 5. These new intermediates 4 and 5, in the presence of H2SO4 (c), were cyclized to 2-[4-(4-X-phenylsulfonyl)phenyl]-6-(4-Y-phenyl)[1,3]thiazolo[3,2-b]-[1, 2,4]-triazoles 6, 7 (I) and not to isomeric thiazolo[2,3-c][1,2,4]-triazoles 6, 7 (II). The newly synthesized compounds were characterized by IR, 1H, 13C NMR and elemental analysis. MS spectra confirmed the formation of thiazolo[3,2-b][1,2,4]triazole 6, 7 (forms I) in detriment of [2,3-c] isomeric compounds (forms II). Th...

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In developing new Tc-99m brain perfusion imaging agents for SPECT, a series of BAT (bis-aminoethanethiol) derivatives was prepared. These N/sub 2/S/sub 2/ ligands formed stable and neutral complexes with reduced Tc-99m, either by Sn(II)-PPi or sodium borohydride reduction. The purity of the Tc-99m complexes was >95% (HPLC reverse-phase column, acetonitrile: pH 7.0 buffer, 85:15). The biodistribution in rats was evaluated using I-125 iodoantipyrine (IAP), a free diffusible tracer, as the internal reference. Compounds with a free hydroxyl group (I and IV) showed lower brain uptake, inspite of high P.C.; this may be related to in vivo instability of the complexes. High initial brain uptake was observed for three compounds (II, III and V), however, only compound V (P.C.=384) showed significant brain retention. Planar imaging with compound V in a monkey demonstrated that the compound localized in brain and the retention time ...

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The BEATRIX-II irradiation experiment is an in-situ tritium release experiment being carried out in the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) reactor to evaluate the tritium release characteristics of fusion solid breeder materials. A sophisticated tritium gas handling system has been developed to continuously monitor the tritium recovery from the specimens and facilitate tritium removal from the experiment's sweep gas flow stream. The in-situ recovery experiment accommodates two different in-reactor specimen canisters with individual gas streams and temperature monitoring/control. Ionization chambers have been specifically designed to respond to the rapid changes in the tritium release rate at the anticipated tritium concentrations. Two ceramic electrolysis cells have proved effective in reducing the moisture in the gas streams to hydrogen/tritium. A tritium getter system, capable of reducing the tritium level by a factor greater than 4000, ...

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the interobserver agreement of ultrasonographic assessment of finger and toe joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by 2 investigators with different medical backgrounds. METHODS: Ultrasonography and clinical examination were performed on 150 small joints of 30 patients with active RA. A General Electric LOGIQ 500 ultrasound unit with a 7-13-MHz linear array transducer was used. In each patient, 5 preselected small joints (second and third metacarpophalangeal, second proximal interphalangeal, first and second metatarsophalangeal) were examined independently on the same day by 2 ultrasound investigators (an experienced musculoskeletal radiologist and a rheumatologist with limited ultrasound training). Joint effusion, synovial thickening, bone erosions, and power Doppler signal were evaluated in accordance with an introduced 4-grade semiquantitative scoring system, on which the investigators ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brachytherapy refers to short distance treatment of cancer with radiation from small, encapsulated radionuclide sources. This type of treatment is given by placing sources directly into or near the volume to be treated. The dose is then delivered continuously, either over a short period of time (temporary implants) or over the lifetime of the source to a complete decay (permanent implants). This technique is extensively used in the treatments of gynecological, breast, prostate, head and neck, and other soft tissue cancers. The clinical outcomes of this treatment depend on accurate dosimetry and dose delivery. The patient is generally considered to be water equivalent. So the treatment planning system software generally is based on measured or calculated dose distributions in homogenous water medium. In real situation, the treatment volume is not homogenous water medium, but it is a heterogeneous medium consisting of bone, soft tissue, lung, air etc. For better ...

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Thirty-nine previously untreated patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue were treated by irradiation or a combination of irradiation and surgery, with or without chemotherapy, between January 1971 and December 1980. All of the patients had a follow-up period of at least nine years. Twenty-two patients were men and 17 were women. The average age was 50.1 years, with a range of 30 to 74 years. The absolute five-year survival rate was 82.1% and the cumulative ten-year survival rate 76.9% for these 39 patients. Cervical node metastases were clinically found on admission in 14 patients whose five-year survival rate was 64.3%, whereas it was 92.0% for 25 patients without metastasis. The absolute five-year survival rate decreased from 92.3% for patients with stage I lesions to 90.9%, 87.5% and 42.9% for those with stage II, stage III and stage IV lesions, respectively. Most of the patients received external irradiation and intraoral ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The release rate of a nuclide from a reactor or a radioactive waste disposal plant at the accident is not steady, but varies with time. The various parameters of a nuclide migration into environment vary also day after day, or with the seasons. In such cases, dynamic behavior of the nuclide in the environment must be taken into consideration. It is difficult for a mathematical model to involve all of mechanisms for the nuclide migration. The environment for evaluation of doses are usually divided into some of compartments in which a nuclide concentration is uniform. Time variations of the nuclide concentration in the compartment are described in simultaneous differential equations. The nuclide concentration can be solved as a time function, and the radiation doses, therefore, can be estimated as a time function. Generic analysis code for dynamic compartment model (GACOM) is developed for the nuclide migration and the evaluation of doses in ...

Science.gov (United States)

The ability to use an acoustic stethoscope to detect lung and/or heart sounds, and then to then communicate one's interpretation of those sounds is an essential skill for many medical professionals. Interpretation of lung and heart sounds, in the context of history and other examination findings, often aids the differential diagnosis. Bedside assessment of changing auscultation findings may also guide treatment. Learning lung and heart auscultation skills typically involves listening to pre-recorded normal and adventitious sounds, often followed by laboratory instruction to guide stethoscope placement, and finally correlating the sounds with the associated pathophysiology and pathology. Recently, medical simulation has become an important tool for teaching prior to clinical practice, and for evaluating bedside auscultation skills. When simulating cardiovascular or pulmonary problems, high-quality lung and heart sounds should be able to ...

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For diagnosis of loosening or infection after implantation of a single-side or double-side total hip endoprosthesis 59 patients being in pain were investigated by a combination of bone scan (Technetium-99m DPD) and leucocyte scan (Indium-111 labelled leucocytes). The correlation between clinical results and scintigraphic findings revealed: bone scintigraphy detects loosening of prostheses with 95% sensitivity (45/47); bone scintigraphy excludes an instable prosthesis with 89% specificity (3/27). 45% of the loosened prostheses revealed an infection (21/47): leucocyte scintigraphy could detect 17 correct positive. Three leucocyte scans of 53 prostheses without clinical signs of infection were false positive. Therefore, leucocyte scintigraphy had a sensitivity of 91% and a specificity of 94% for detecting infection. Bone scintigraphy can detect loosening of prostheses with 93% accuracy, Indium-111 labelled leucocyte scintigraphy can detect ...

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A retrospective study was made of all radionuclide (RN) bone images performed at our institution over a two-year period to evaluate femoral head viability after nonpathologic fracture of the femoral neck. Twelve patients had avascular femoral heads during the perioperative period, of which nine had adequate follow-up. Seven of these nine patients had follow-up bone images. Revascularization occurred in four patients, while three had persistent absence of femoral head uptake. With clinical follow-up ranging from four to 29 months (median: 14 months), only two of these nine patients developed clinical or radiographic evidence of osteonecrosis. RN bone imaging performed in the perioperative period does not reliably predict the development of post-traumatic osteonecrosis of the femoral head and, at present, should not be used to determine prospectively method of treatment of femoral neck fracture.

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In the paper six cases of facial osteomyelitis as a complication of chronic sinusitis in hemophiliac-AIDS patients are reported. Osteomyelitis was suggested by an increasing of erythrocyte sedimentation rate. The diagnosis was confirmed by a positive {sup 99m} Tc MDP scintigraphy. The patients were submitted to clinical treatment. The erythrocyte sedimentation rate and 67-gallium citrate scans were used in the follow-up of the therapy. Three patients had negative gallium after three weeks of organism-specific antibiotic therapy; in two patients the gallium scintigraphy remained positive. One patient did not undergo the radionuclide scan for this clinical conditions. These results suggest that MDP scans showed higher sensitivity and specificity in detection of bone disease in chronic sinusitis. Gallium scans appeared to be valuable tool in the follow-up of the infection. There are no reports in the literature of osteomyelitis as a complication ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

In 620 patients quantitative bone scintigraphy with "9"9"mTc pyrophosphate of the sacroiliac joints and of the spine was performed: 365 patients with confirmed ankylosing spondylitis, 125 patients with clinical radiological suspicion for ankylosing spondylitis (probable Bechterev) and control group of 130 healthy individuals. By comparison of the activity in zones of interest of the sacroiliac joints, the spine and sacrum, the following indices were determined: sacroiliac (separately for the left and right sacroiliac joints), index D_1_0/sacrum, index L_4/sacrum and index C_7/sacrum. The scintigraphic finding was compared to the X-ray one and to the radiological stage of the disease. A long-term follow-up of the patients was carried out during 1-6 years with scintigraphic, X-ray and clinical investigations. Emphasis was laid upon the posibilities for quantitative scintigraphy for early diagnostics of ankylosing spondylitis. The combination of ...

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Purpose: To describe the clinical aspects and evaluate optical coherence tomography of macular microholes. Methods: Seven patients were assessed (8 eyes) with microholes of the macula. All patients underwent complete eye examination, fundus photography, fluorescent angiography and OCT-3 imaging. Results: Ages ranged from 26 to 69 years. Six patients were female (85.7%) and five of them had microhole in the right eye. The presenting symptom was decrease in visual acuity (71.3%) and central scotoma in (14.3%). Five eyes (71.4%) had no defects shown by fluorescent angiography. A defect in the outer retina was demonstrated in all eyes on optical coherence tomography. The lesions were nonprogressive. Conclusion: Macular microholes are small lamellar defects in the outer retina. The condition is nonprogressive, generally unilateral and compatible with good visual acuity. Fundus biomicroscopy associated with an optical coherence tomography are the ...

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Automatic segmentation of anatomical structures in medical images is a valuable tool for efficient computer-aided radiotherapy and surgery planning and an enabling technology for dynamic adaptive radiotherapy. This paper presents the design, algorithms and validation of new software for the automatic segmentation of CT images used for radiotherapy treatment planning. A coarse to fine approach is followed that consists of presegmentation, anatomic orientation and structure segmentation. No user input or a priori information about the image content is required. In presegmentation, the body outline, the bones and lung equivalent tissue are detected. Anatomic orientation recognizes the patient's position, orientation and gender and creates an elastic mapping of the slice positions to a reference scale. Structure segmentation is divided into localization, outlining and refinement, performed by procedures with implicit anatomic knowledge using standard image processing operations. ...

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Quantitative hepatic scintiangiography was previously used for evaluating the relative contribution of hepatic arterial and portal venous blood flows to the hepatic circulation. The present study compares 3 different procedures (automatic and manual integration, and slope fitting methods) for analyzing the hepatic time activity curves obtained after bolus i.v. injection of 370 MBq /sup 99m/Tc-diethylentriaminopentacetic acid. Twenty five subjects were studied: Five controls, ten cirrhotics, and ten portal hypertensive patients previously submitted to side to side portacaval anastomosis. The correspondence between results given by the different methods was satisfactory only in shunted patients, and the reproducibility of computed parameters was quite poor for all procedures. Accordingly, none of the methods can be considered as supporting reliable quantitative pathophysiological evaluations. However, the hepatic arterial/portal venous flow ratio ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The paper discusses the methodology used at Electricidade de Portugal (EDP) in planning its electric power system. In particular, it considers a description of the methodology used by EDP for a more accurate definition of the input data required to characterize hydroelectric plants and the evaluation of their impact on an optimal long-term expansion plan. In addition, the paper describes an analysis of the results of studies, both with WASP-II and WASP-III, with and without pumped storage plants, respectively. Finally, the paper details the use of VALOR AGUA, in conjunction with WASP, for a better simulation of the hydroelectric system and which also permits to solve other problems closely connected such as the calculation of marginal production costs. (author).

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This is the seventh report by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) in response to the Congressional requirement for an annual report on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Reactor Safety Research Program. As previously requested by the Congress, the timing of this report has been adjusted to enable the ACRS to address the proposed budget for FY 1985 that has been submitted to the Congress by the President. Part I is a compilation of our comments and recommendations regarding the NRC Safety Research Program budget for FY 1985. It is intended to serve as an Executive Summary. Part II is divided into eight chapters, each of which represents a Decision Unit of the NRC research program. In each chapter, specific comments are included on the research involved in the Decision Unit, an assessment of priorities, and recommendations regarding new directions and levels of funding.

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

A simple and rapid procedure was developed for the purification of cyclotron-produced "2"0"3Pb via the "2"0"3Tl(d,2n) "2"0"3Pb reaction. A Pb(II) selective ion-exchange resin, with commercial name Pb Resin from Eichrom Technologies, Inc., was used to purify "2"0"3Pb from the cyclotron-irradiated Tl target with excellent recovery of the enriched Tl target material. The purified "2"0"3Pb was used to radiolabel the monoclonal antibody Herceptin. The in vitro and in vivo properties of the "2"0"3Pb radioimmunoconjugate were evaluated.

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The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Code KIVA II has been applied to model combustion pressure oscillations in the Indirect Injection Diesel Engine. These oscillations are attenuated and transmitted by the engine structure to the surroundings as noise. The computational model was used to evaluate changes in design and operating characteristics of an engine, and the effect of these on the intensity of gas pressure oscillation. The results in general corroborate the trends of published experimental measurements of combustion noise. A 40% increase in grid resolution showed minor changes in the magnitude of cylinder pressure oscillation and approximately 0.5{degree} crank angle phase advance in the oscillation cycle compared with the grid used for the results presented here. 18 refs., 18 figs.

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Equinovarus of the foot is the most common lower extremity deformity following traumatic brain injury. We evaluated outcomes of the split anterior tibialis tendon transfer (SPLATT) for correction of equinovarus in 47 patients with hemiplegic traumatic brain injury and specifically studied differences in outcomes with two tendon fixation techniques. Seventeen patients constituting Group I underwent fixation with one technique and 30 constituting Group II had another technique. Patients in both groups had appropriate procedures based on dynamic electromyography and gait analyses. Both groups were demographically comparable. All 47 feet were corrected to plantigrade position. Thirty-six of 47 patients became brace-free at final followup. There was a notable decrease in the use of ambulatory a...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Abstract Gelatinization temperature (GT) is an important parameter in evaluating the cooking and eating quality of rice. Indeed, the phenotype, biochemistry and inheritance of GT have been widely studied in recent times. Previous map-based cloning revealed that GT was controlled by ALK gene, which encodes a putative soluble starch synthase II-3. Complementation vector and RNAi vector were constructed and transformed into Nipponbare mediated by Agrobacterium. Phenotypic and molecular analyses of transgenic lines provided direct evidence for ALK as a key gene for GT. Meanwhile, amylose content, gel consistency and pasting properties were also affected in transgenic lines. Two of four nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms in coding sequence of ALK were identified as essential for GT. ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The aim of this work was to develop several strategies and software-packages for the evaluation of in-vivo-data of the human brain, which were acquired with high-resolution 1H-MRSI at 1.5 and 3 T. Several studies involving phantoms, volunteers and patients were performed. Quality assurance studies were conducted in order to evaluate the reproducibility of the applied MR-techniques at both field strengths. A qualitative comparison-study between MRSI-data from a 1.5 T clinical MR-scanner and a 3 T research MR-scanner showed the advantages of the more advanced MRSI sequences and higher field strength (3 T). A study involving patients with primary brain tumours (gliomas) was performed in cooperation with the Department of Neurosurgery (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg). The methods developed in the course of this study, such as the integration of MRS-data into a stereotactic-system, the segmentation of metabolic maps and the ...

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Adjuvant-induced arthritis in rats is a chronic inflammatory disease, widely as an animal model for rheumatoid arthritis. In our study the effect of various fractions of dialyzable leukocyte extract (DLE): DLE I-molecular weight below 10 kDa (commercial preparation), DLE II-molecular weight below 5 kDa (suppressor fraction), DLE III-molecular weight 5-10 kDa on rat adjuvant-induced arthritis was studied. The adjuvant arthritic (AA) rats were treated with DLE fractions i.p. in solutions containing an active substance isolated from 12.5 x 10{sup 6} and 6.25 x 10{sup 6} leukocytes from day 1 (adjuvant injected) through day 18, every second day (total 9 times). Various markers in inflammation, immune function and joint destruction were evaluated: hind paw volume, serum hyaluronic acid, serum albumin and biopterin in urine. All these markers showed a significant improvement after using fraction DLE II in comparison with AA ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Some acylhydrazine derived ONO donor Schiff bases and their Co(II) and Ni(II) complexes have been prepared having the same metal ion (cation) but different anions. These synthesized metal(II)...Full Text Available

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The studies using phantoms confirmed that the reduction of electron beam energy and minimization of X-ray contamination could be achieved when electron beam was interposed by an acrylic plate placed 20 cm anterior to a patient. Four patients of mycosis fungoides were treated with 8 MeV electron beam of a linear accelerator at UOEH Hospital from October 1981 to December 1986. Two of them were treated with this technique by placing 2 cm thick acrylic plate anterior to the patients and satisfactory results were obtained. Cutaneous lesions subsided remarkably with the dosage of 2000 cGy given in 2 months. Leucopenia due to bone marrow suppression was mild and the patients tolerated the treatment well.

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Femoral head replacement was performed for femoral neck fracture or femoral head necrosis on 36 hips of 34 patients on whom Tc-99m MDP scintigraphy was done for analysis of radioisotope uptake around the prosthesis. In the cases with satisfactory clinical course after replacement surgery the uptake was high in the area between the prosthesis and the trochanter, in the area of the stem tip of the prosthesis and in the acetabular area. The high uptake decreased gradually and reached a normal level by 8 months after surgery. The cases with no decrease of high uptake by 8 months after surgery were considered to have had an eventful postoperative course associated with some complication such as infection, fracture, loosening etc. Tc-99m MDP scintigraphy was useful for early detection of complications and to evaluate progress of the operated patients. (author)

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Cellular telephones emit a radiofrequency electromagnetic field, part of which is absorbed in the user's head. Many studies have been conducted to look for their possible health hazard to human, at the experimental, epidemiological or clinical level. After a short recall on dosimetry, the author describes the state-of-the art about harmful and irreversible effects, up to now not confirmed, and about some benign symptoms which look absolutely actual. A causal relationship of the electromagnetic field on these benign symptoms is however not proven; other, studies are running to evaluate their possible long-term consequences. Interferences with cardiac pacemakers can easily be avoided by holding the telephone handset farther than 10 cm. (author)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

A Quantitative Computed Tomography (QCT) method, simplifying the well-known technique proposed by Genant (1982) and applied to a standard third generation whole body CT scanner is described. This technique was applied in the measurement of the trabecular bone which has high sensitivity for metabolic changes. The BMC (Bone Mineral Content) measured in different groups of subjects (healthy postmenopausal patients versus women with postmenopausal osteoporosis) showed a highly significant difference (p<0.001). The precision of repositioning (coefficient of variation 1.8% to 2.3%, obtained in healty male patients) and the good, linear relationship computed from the phantom values, minimize measurement errors. Since this method is quickly applied and involves low-dose radiation-exposure, it could be introduced in the clinical study of metabolic bone diseases.

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

High-level expression of mitotic arrest defective protein 2 (MAD2), a central component of the spindle assembly checkpoint, has been observed in a variety of human malignancies. Aim of the present study was to observe the expression of MAD2 in human non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and explore its clinicopathologic significance and evaluate MAD2 expression as a prognostic marker. MAD2 transcript was found to be overexpressed in the great majority of lung cancers by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. A total of 358 NSCLCs were analyzed immunohistochemically on tissue microarrays. High-level MAD2 expression was observed in 26.3% (94 of 358 cases), and correlated with male sex (P=0.0002), tumor progression (pT status) (P=0.0009), visceral or parietal pleural invasion (P=0.0151), non-adenocarcinoma, ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

For the purpose of nationwide surveillance of the antimicrobial susceptibility of bacterial respiratory pathogens collected from patients in Japan, the Japanese Society of Chemotherapy conducted a third year of nationwide surveillance during the period from January to April 2008. A total of 1,097 strains were collected from clinical specimens obtained from well-diagnosed adult patients with respiratory tract infections. Susceptibility testing was evaluable with 987 strains (189 Staphylococcus aureus, 211 Streptococcus pneumoniae, 6 Streptococcus pyogenes, 187 Haemophilus influenzae, 106 Moraxella catarrhalis, 126 Klebsiella pneumoniae, and 162 Pseudomonas aeruginosa). A total of 44 antibacterial agents, including 26 ?-lactams (four penicillins, three penicillins in combination with ?-lacta...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Major depressive disorder and alcohol dependence are common and serious mental illnesses. There is a great interest in discovering useful treatments for both mood symptoms and alcohol abuse in those patients with depressive disorders and comorbid alcohol dependence. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and tolerability of mirtazapine for the treatment of patients with alcohol dependence comorbid with a depressive disorder in an open label, naturalistic multicentre treatment setting. The 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS) and the Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S) scale were measured at baseline and at weeks 4 and 8 for the assessment of treatment effectiveness. Alcohol craving was measured using ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Magnetic resonance imaging has proven an invaluable method in the diagnosis of joint diseases associated with osteonecrotic, inflammatory, traumatic and degenerative processes. At the clinical level, it has an important role in decisions about the method of treatment and evaluations of the therapeutic success. When the merits of MRT are balanced against those of conventional radiography including tomography and CT, which both ensure better spatial resolution in the visualisation of cortical and spongy bone structures, it becomes quite evident that MRT must not be regarded as an alternative method of imaging but as one that can be used additionally to obtain the most information for the diagnosis of arthropathy. The question as to whether new pulse sequences (snap shots) or invasive techniques like intra-articular injection of paramagnetic substances (MR arthrography) are likely to become routine procedures in the detection of joint diseases ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Rapid and reliable diagnostic methods are needed to control methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) transmission. We studied the BD GeneOhm? MRSA Assay which is based on one specific amplification product at the junction of the right extremity sequence of the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) and the chromosomal sequence of orfX of S. aureus. The test was applied on 95 clinical isolates in Finland: 83% were positive. The isolates giving negative results represented several pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) types and harboured SCCmec types IV, V, VI or were new types with different combinations of ccr genes.

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

This study evaluated the clinical efficacy of treatment with oral risedronate (17.5?mg once daily) for 8?weeks in 11 Japanese patients with Paget?s disease of bone (PDB). Risedronate suppressed the excessive bone turnover associated with PDB and improved several biochemical markers, including serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP), serum bone-specific ALP (BALP), urinary deoxypyridinoline (DPD), and urinary cross-linked N-telopeptide of type 1 collagen (NTX). These markers began to decrease within about 2?weeks after the initiation of treatment in most patients, and the response persisted for up to 40?weeks after the cessation of treatment. Risedronate reduced pain by week 24 in most patients. According to quantitative bone scintigraphy, the lesion with the highest radioisotope (RI) uptake showe...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Intra-arterial subtraction angiography(IADSA) using Fuji computed radiography(FCR) was performed on 130 patients with cervical, pelvic, peripheral and abdominal diseases. It was compared with conventional angiography(radiographs produced by combining photographic film with an intensifying screen) performed on same patients. Radiographs produced by FCR were better than conventional radiographs in cervical, pelvic and peripheral angiography. In the abdominal angiography using FCR, there was misregistration artifact in some cases, but in hepatic angiography, the new radiographs under the injection of small amount of contrast medium(about 10ml) and the short exposure duration(about 10 seconds) were excellent. It was as valuable as conventional angiography (infusion hepatic angiography) for diagnosing hepatic neoplasms. (author).

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Adaptive radiation therapy for liver cancer has the potential to reduce normal tissue complications and enable dose escalation, allowing the potential for tumor control in this challenging site. Using adaptive techniques to tailor treatment margins to reflect patient-specific breathing motions and image-guidance techniques can reduce the high dose delivered to surrounding normal tissues while ensuring that the prescription dose is delivered to the tumor. Several treatment planning and delivery techniques have been developed for use in the liver, including a margin to encompass the full breathing motion, mean position techniques, which evaluate the probability of tumor location during breathing, breath hold, gating, and tracking. Patient selection, clinical workflow, and quality assurance m...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

During the last few decades, accuracy in photon and electron radiotherapy has increased substantially. This is partly due to enhanced linear accelerator technology, providing more flexibility in field definition (e.g. the usage of computer-controlled dynamic multileaf collimators), which led to intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Important improvements have also been made in the treatment planning process, more specifically in the dose calculations. Originally, dose calculations relied heavily on analytic, semi-analytic and empirical algorithms. The more accurate convolution/superposition codes use pre-calculated Monte Carlo dose 'kernels' partly accounting for tissue density heterogeneities. It is generally recognized that the Monte Carlo method is able to increase accuracy even further. Since the second half of the 1990s, several Monte Carlo dose engines for radiotherapy treatment planning have been introduced. To enable the use of a Monte Carlo treatment planning (MCTP) dose ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Although the radioisotope liver scan has primarily been of use in the detection of the intra-hepatic space occupying lesions, there has been an increasing awareness of its use in evaluation of liver function. In this study, the degree of hepatomegaly, changes in shape and mottling radiodensity on each lobe and splenic visualization in the liver scans done with colloidal radiogold were numerically expressed as scores under the arbitrary standard in 210 patients with liver cirrhosis. The clinical value of this scoring system was studied with special regards to the correlation between the radiogold hepatic uptake half time and conventional liver function tests. Following were the results; 1) The normal scan appeared in 6.7% of 210 patients with liver cirrhosis. 2) The colloidal radiogold hepatic uptake half time was abnormally and progressively prolonged in parallel to severity of hepatocellular dysfunction. The mean hepatic uptake half time in ...

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The insulin/IGF-1 signaling (IIS) pathway is a conserved regulator of longevity, development, and metabolism. In Caenorhabditis elegans IIS involves activation of DAF-2 (insulin/IGF-1...Full Text Available

CERN Document Server

Satellite CMB anisotropy missions and new generation of balloon-borne and ground experiments, make use of complex multi-frequency instruments at the focus of a meter class telescope. Between 70 GHz and 300 GHz, where foreground contamination is minimum, it is extremely important to reach the best trade-off between the improvement of the angular resolution and the minimization of the straylight contamination mainly due to the Galactic emission. We focus here, as a working case, on the 30 and 100 GHz channels of the Planck Low Frequency Instrument (LFI). We evaluate the GSC introduced by the most relevant Galactic foreground components for a reference set of optical configurations. We show that it is possible to improve the angular resolution of 5-7% by keeping the overall GSC below the level of few microKelvin. A comparison between the level of straylight introduced by the different Galactic components for different beam regions is presented. Simple approximate ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

In order to develop competitive and reliable nuclear power generation systems, development of innovative structural design methods is indispensable and risk-based design approach based on the assessment of failure probability is being developed. Fatigue is commonly considered as an important contributor to failure probability in many components of reactor systems and its assessment gives a large influence on total reliability of the plants. In order to assess its effect on the reliability, propagation of cracks needs to be evaluated as well as their initiation and pre-existence probability. As a part of new design approach, efforts are being taken to develop a simplified estimation method for fatigue crack growth under cyclic application of thermal and thermo-mechanical loading. A simplified estimation method of J-integral based on reference stress method and elastic follow-up factor was developed based on many finite element analyses and ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The weldability and high temperature strength properties of tungsten-inert-gas (TIG) weldments of Hastelloy alloy XR were investigated by using two different heats of filler metals; the first (HXRF1) was designed on the basis of multiple regression analysis; the second (HXRF2) was the reference material. Bend tests, the FISCO cracking test and optical metallography were used to evaluate weldability. Tensile and creep tests were performed at 900deg C to evaluate high temperature strength properties. The results of weldability tests for both alloys showed good performance. The tensile properties of the weldments were remarkably improved in particular with respect to high temperature ductility. The creep rupture strength in the weldments made with alloy-designed HXRF1 was much higher than those of the Hastelloy alloy XR-II base metal with a higher B content. Furthermore, the creep properties were stable with respect to ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, using the ANS Low Power /Shutdown (LPSD)PRA Standard, evaluated the LPSD PSA model of the KSNP, Younggwang (YGN) Units 5 and 6, and identified the items to be improved. The evaluation results of human reliability analysis (HRA) of the pre-accident human errors in the LPSD PSA model of the KSNP showed that 13 items among 15 items of supporting requirements for those in the ANS PRA Standard were identified as them to be improved. Thus, we newly carried out a HRA for pre-accident human errors in the LPSD PSA model for the KSNP to improve its quality. We considered potential pre-accident human errors for all manual valves and control/instrumentation equipment of the systems modeled in the KSNP LPSD PSA model except reactor protection system/ engineering safety features actuation system. We reviewed 160 manual valves and 56 control/instrumentation equipment. The number of newly identified pre-accident human ...

Science.gov (United States)

The results of this research centered on the experimental studies of a single superconducting persistent current qubit, the implementation of type-II algorithms using these qubits, and the proposal for adiabatic quantum computing using these qubits. The m...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

The in vivo photochemical activity of photosystem II was inferred from modulated chlorophyll fluorescence and photoacoustic measurements in intact leaves of several plant species (Lycopersicon...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Woolfolk, C. A. (University of Washington, Seattle). Reduction of inorganic compounds with molecular hydrogen by Micrococcus lactilyticus. II. Stoichiometry with inorganic...Full Text Available

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This document describes payload control at LLNL to ensure that all shipments of CH-TRU waste in the TRUPACT-II (Transuranic Package Transporter-II) meet the requirements of the TRUPACT-II SARP (safety report for packaging). This document also provides specific instructions for the selection of authorized payloads once individual payload containers are qualified for transport. The physical assembly of the qualified payload and operating procedures for the use of the TRUPACT-II, including loading and unloading operations, are described in HWM Procedure No. 204, based on the information in the TRUPACT-II SARP. The LLNL TRAMPAC, along with the TRUPACT-II operating procedures contained in HWM Procedure No. 204, meet the documentation needs for the use of the TRUPACT-II at LLNL. Table 14-1 provides a summary of the LLNL waste generation and ...

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Biosorption using activated sludge biomass (ASB) as a potentially sustainable technology for the treatment of wastewater containing different metal ions (Cd(II), Pb(II) and Zn(II)) was investigated. ASB metal uptake clearly competed with protons consumed by microbial biomass compared with control tests with non-activated sludge biomass. Biosorption tests confirmed maximum exchange between metal ions and protons at pH 2.0-4.5. It was revealed by the study that the amount of metal ions released from the biomass increased with biomass sludge concentration. The result showed that maximum absorption of metal ions was observed for Cd(II) at pH 3.5, Pb(II) at pH 4.0, and pH 4.5 for Zn(II) ions. The maximum absorption capacities of ASB for Cd(II), Pb(II) and Zn(II) were determined to be 59.3, 68.5 and 86.5%, ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iodixanol is a new nonionic dimer, isotonic with blood at all clinically relevant concentrations. Iodixanol (270 mg I/ml) was compared in a double-blind, randomized, parallel-group, phase-III study to the monomeric nonionic iohexol (300 mg I/ml) for evaluation of safety, tolerability and radiographic efficacy during cerebral CT. One hundred adult patients scheduled to undergo contrast-enhanced cerebral CT were randomly allocated to receive either iodixanol or iohexol. All completed the trial. Safety was evaluated by recording discomfort and other adverse events, tolerance by assessing intensity and incidence of discomfort. Radiographic efficacy was assessed from the diagnostic information and the radiographic density. No serious adverse events occurred. One patient (2 %) in the iodixanol group and one patient (2 %) in the iohexol group experienced a transient reddening at the neck and lower neck-line, respectively. Both ...

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Hepatobiliary scintigraphy is the only non-invasive technique providing real-time assessment of hepatocytes function and bile progression from the liver to the intestine; for this reason it is of great importance in the study of jaundice and many other disorders of the liver and the biliary tract in children. Ultrasonography is the initial method of evaluating the intra- and extrahepatic bile ducts dilatation: the differential diagnosis between biliary atresia and neonatal hepatitis cannot however be done without hepatobiliary scintigraphy. Cystic fibrosis patients also require hepatobiliary scintigraphy; liver and biliary tract disease can really occur independently of the underlying disease severity and the presence of steatorrhoea. Hepatobiliary imaging in children who have undergone liver transplantation is of major importance; it can assess vascularity, parenchymal function biliary drainage, possible presence of a bile leak and obstruction; it has very good ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

SiAlONs are ceramics with high potential as biomaterials due to their chemical stability, associated with suitable mechanical properties, such as high fracture toughness and fracture resistance. The objective of this work was to investigate the mechanical properties and the cytotoxicity of these ceramic materials. Three different compositions were prepared, using silicon nitride, aluminum nitride and a rare earth oxide mixture as starting powders, yielding Si_3N_4-SiAlON composites or pure SiAlON ceramics, after hot-pressing at 1750 deg. C, for 30 min. The sintered samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Furthermore, hardness and fracture toughness were determined using the Vicker's indentation method. The biological compatibility was evaluated by in vitro cytotoxicity tests. Ceramic with elevated hardness, ranging between 17 and 21 GPa, and high fracture toughness of 5 to 6 MPa m"1"/"2 were obtained. ...

Science.gov (United States)

There is a plethora of new silver-containing dressings on the market today. Various manufacturers attempt to show that their dressings are the most efficacious and therefore should be preferentially employed by health care workers based on the results of their in vitro tests. However, there have been no studies that clearly identify which tests are appropriate for comparison purposes. The purpose of this study was to determine which in vitro test is most appropriate for evaluating the antimicrobial efficacy of silver-containing dressings. This was done by testing seven silver-containing dressings and two non-silver-containing topical agents against 17 clinically relevant microorganisms using zone of inhibition assays and time-kill kinetic assays in complex media. The results for the two assays were then correlated to determine whether the methods generated similar results. It was determined that the two methods do not correlate at all. This is ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of Fuji computed radiography (FCR) in the detection of interstitial pulmonary infiltrates, FCR life-size images at a pixel size of 0.1 mm were compared with conventional radiographs taken on the same day. Seventeen radiologists assessed the radiographs and FCR images of 56 cases, including 39 cases of various interstitial lung diseases such as interstitial pneumonia, pulmonary abnormalities associated with collagen disease, sarcoidosis, multiple pulmonary metastases, diffuse panbronchiolitis and pulmonary emphysema, and 17 normal controls. All of the pulmonary abnormalities were confirmed by high resolution CT. Observer performance tests were carried out using receiver operating characteristic analysis. In 21 cases of increased pulmonary density revealed by high resolution CT, FCR was significantly superior to conventional radiographs in the detection of reticular or linear shadows. In 11 cases of subtle interstitial ...

Science.gov (United States)

In 2000, the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) laid out a definition of competence that included six specific areas of focus: patient care (including clinical reasoning), medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and systems-based practice. The ACGME's intention was to mandate increasingly reliable and valid assessment measures to be used by all training programs over the next decade, with the goal of providing "more credible, accurate, reliable and useful educational outcome data." In this article, the authors will review definitions of competency according to the new ACGME standards and examine the assessment tools currently available, including global evaluations, 360-degree evaluations, checklists, standardized examinations and direct observations. The authors will provide an overview of critical considerations in ...

British Library Electronic Table of Contents (United Kingdom)

Background When assessing the function of the cardiovascular system, cardiac output (CO) is a substantial parameter. For its determination, numerous non-invasive techniques have been proposed in the recent years including inert gas rebreathing (IGR) and impedance cardiography (ICG). The aim of our study was to evaluate whether a novel ICG algorithm (electrical velocimetry) and IGR can be used interchangeably in the clinical setting. Methods A total of 120 consecutive stable patients were included resulting in two pairs of repeated non-invasive cardiac output measurements. Results The mean CO was 5.0???1.2?l/min (range 2.6?8.6?l/min) using IGR and 4.4???1.1?l/min (1.7?7.4?l/min) using ICG, respectively. Bland?Altman analysis revealed an acceptable agreement with a mean bias of 0.6???1.2?l/m...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Patients who fail to attend initial appointments reduce clinic efficiency. To maximize attendance by newly referred outpatients, we introduced a mandatory group orientation clinic for all new patients...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

The Clinical Summary is a Web-based application for accessing the clinical database at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The application has been developed to give physicians in our health care community...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

PURPOSE The Wells rule is widely used for clinical assessment of patients with suspected deep vein thrombosis (DVT), especially in the secondary care setting. Recently a new clinical decision...Full Text Available

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

HT-29 human colon tumor cells growing as spheroids have been evaluated as a model system for measuring the response of human colon tumor cell to antineoplastic agents. HT-29 cells have been capacity to form spheroids up to 1 mm or more in diameter when grown in spinner culture. The multicellular HT-29 spheroids develop hypoxic centers reflecting the cellular conditions found in human cancer treatment, i.e., nutritionally deficient hypoxic cells that are felt to be a significant source of both radiation and chemotherapy clinical treatment failures. Spheroids of increasing size were radiated and then dispersed into single cells for colony survival assay. Compared with irradiated single cell suspensions, the spheroid cells demonstrated a significant increase in radioresistance. Growing spheroids developed a complex radiation survival curve which was variable with respect to size of the spheroid. The drug 5-Fu was studied to examine in a ...

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

The Anisotropic Analytical Algorithm (AAA) is a new pencil beam convolution/superposition algorithm proposed by Varian for photon dose calculations. The configuration of AAA depends on linear accelerator design and specifications. The purpose of this study was to investigate the accuracy of AAA for an Elekta SL25 linear accelerator for small fields and intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatments in inhomogeneous media. The accuracy of AAA was evaluated in two studies. First, AAA was compared both with Monte Carlo (MC) and the measurements in an inhomogeneous phantom simulating lung equivalent tissues and bone ribs. The algorithm was tested under lateral electronic disequilibrium conditions, using small fields (2x2 cm"2). Good agreement was generally achieved for depth dose and profiles, with deviations generally below 3% in lung inhomogeneities and below 5% at interfaces. However, the effects of attenuation and scattering close to the bone ribs were not ...

Science.gov (United States)

The objectives of this study were to evaluate the performance of the NucliSens easyMAG platform for nucleic acid extraction from different clinical specimens compared to NucliSens miniMAG platform and manual QIAGEN extraction. The NucliSens easyMAG and the NucliSens miniMAG showed equal performance on 215 throat swabs since real-time nucleic acid sequence-based amplification scored the same samples positive for Mycoplasma pneumoniae (n=9) and Chlamydia pneumoniae (n=5) RNAs, although internal control RNA was slightly better detected with the NucliSens easyMAG (99.3% versus 96.8%). NucliSens easyMAG extracted nucleic acids more efficiently (higher recovery and/or fewer inhibitors) compared to QIAGEN extraction by showing, on average, lower Ct values in real-time LightCycler PCR, although 4 individual specimen out of 45 were found positive only with QIAGEN. For nine M. pneumoniae-positive throat swabs, the mean difference in Ct values between ...

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review the recent literature on the prognostic value of biomarkers of liver fibrosis and impaired liver function in patients with chronic hepatitis C with or without HIV coinfection. RECENT FINDINGS: A combination of standard blood tests seems to be useful in identifying patients at risk of liver-related complications. Findings from studies investigating the validity of the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score in HIV-infected liver transplant candidates are conflicting. Two large studies of HIV/hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfected patients have shown that plasma levels of the fibrosis marker hyaluronic acid are a strong predictor of clinical complications. A smaller study found hyaluronic acid and two other fibrosis tests, aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) and Fib-4, to be independent predictors of mortality when included in models with the MELD or the Child-Pugh-Turcotte scores. SUMMARY: Although the data are ...

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Although clinic environments are a primary location for exchanging information with clinicians, patients experience these spaces as harsh environments to access, use, exchange, and manage information....Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

As controlled clinical vocabularies assume an increasing role in modern clinical information systems, so the issue of their quality demands greater attention. In order to meet the resulting stringent...Full Text Available

UK PubMed Central (United Kingdom)

Although coagulase-negative staphylococci (C-NS) have been implicated in certain human infections, they are generally regarded as contaminants, and their clinical significance is questioned. To assess...Full Text Available

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Short communication. 5 refs., 2 figs.

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

... momentum transfer propagator scattering scattering amplitudes strong