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Biomedical subjects

A Smith

Publications and source records attributed to A Smith.

At least 1,225 records · Page 68Linked to original sources
PubMed1981

Carbon dioxide reduction and nitrogenase activity in organo-molybdenum microstructures.

Organo-molybdenum microstructures were prepared by visible light irradiation of ammonium molybdate, formaldehyde, ammonium phosphate and a mineral solution. These microstructures are shown to be capable of carbon dioxide photoreduction, nitrogenase activity, and water decomposition, and may represent a metabolic stage between the nonliving and the living.

Carbon Dioxide↗
PubMed1981

Clothing for staff: garments that guard.

Much of the clothing worn in hospitals is designed for protection, either of the staff themselves, or of their everyday clothes, or their patients and the community generally. A. Smith, safety liaison officer, Haringey HD, reviews the requirements of legislation and good practice.

Accident Prevention↗
PubMed1981

Parental loss in childhood: relationship to adult psychiatric impairment and contact with psychiatric services.

Both parental death in childhood and parent-child separations (from causes other than death) were assessed in a community survey of psychiatric disorder and in an equivalent sample of psychiatric outpatients from the same community. Symptomatic disorder (psychiatric caseness) and psychiatric illness behavior (patient status) were examined. Symptomatic disorder was defined by comparing community (unreferred) cases with noncases. Illness behavior was specified by comparing the psychiatric outpatients with the community cases. Parental death in childhood bore no relation to either symptomatic disorder in the community sample (psychiatric caseness) or to psychiatric illness behavior (patient status) in adult life. Parent-child separations similarly had no relation to adult symptomatic disorder but were significantly associated with psychiatric illness behavior.

Humans↗
PubMed1981

The internodal atrial myocardium.

The anatomical substrates of internodal conduction have long been a contentious topic. Debated first by the German Pathological Society in 1910, the consensus of established opinion for over half a century was that conduction between sinus and atrioventricular nodes occurred through plain myocardium. This was a conclusion supported by Truex in 1961. Despite his restatement of this fact in 1976, it has become fashionable to describe internodal conduction as being mediated by specialized internodal pathways. To reinvestigate this problem we studied 22 human fetal and 32 human infant hearts. In each case it was possible to cut the atrial tissues as a single block of tissue and to examine serial sections through the internodal myocardium. The sinus node, atrioventricular node, and segments of atrioventricular ring specialized tissue were recognized as specialized tissue using the light microscope in each heart. In contrast, there was nothing "special" about the myocardium between the nodes, nor was it possible to recognize tracts on the basis of either histological appearance or cellular architecture. It is concluded that, from the standpoint of light microscopy, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the purported concept of specialized anatomical substrates for internodal conduction.

Atrioventricular Node↗
PubMed1981

A retrospective review of 89 stab wounds to the abdomen and chest.

This study compared the admission findings in 89 stab victims with the subsequent severity of their injury. The majority of patients were young males who arrived at hospital after 2300 h on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday and had consumed alcohol prior to admission. The presence of "clinical shock" or absent bowel sounds was invariably associated with significant injury. However, 64 of the 89 patients in this study had a normal blood pressure and audible bowel sounds at the time of admission. Thirty of the 64 patients had also suffered significant injury, which frequently was a perforated viscus. A diagnostic laparotomy should be readily performed in such patients in view of the high incidence of occult injury. Experienced anaesthetic support is necessary to ensure a low mortality from the actual laparotomy.

Abdominal Injuries↗
PubMed1981

Training in the use of Goal Attainment Scaling.

Goal Attainment Scaling is emerging as one of the most frequently utilized methods of evaluating mental health programs. However, little material is available on the practical problems encountered in training mental health clinicians to use Goal Attainment Scaling. This report details some of the difficulties encountered and the training program that evolved when a large scale research program used Goal Attainment Scaling as the criterion of outcome.

Community Mental Health Services↗
PubMed1981

Liver tissue perfusion: comparison of radiologic and isotope clearance techniques in a patient with portal hypertension.

A patient with portal hypertension was investigated preoperatively with splenoportography and found to have a large extrahepatic shunt through esophageal varices but poor portal perfusion of the liver. However, intraoperative measurement of the hepatic tissue perfusion using the krypton-85 clearance technique showed it to be essentially normal. Erroneous conclusions about actual hepatic perfusion may be made on the basis of findings on splenoportography alone.

Aged↗
PubMed1981

Is the CSF lactate measurement useful in the management of children with suspected bacterial meningitis?

The role of the cerebrospinal fluid lactate measurement was evaluated for the management of children with suspected bacterial meningitis. Although CSF lactate can be precisely measured, it provided no additional information over that which can be obtained from a CSF cell count. Reliance on the CSF lactate concentration alone would have increased the number of children being treated unnecessarily with antibiotics. There was neither clinical nor experimental evidence to suggest that the test should be used in the early diagnosis of meningitis. In patients with equivocal clinical and CSF findings, it failed to differentiate bacterial from nonbacterial infection. The data do not support the view that the measurement of CSF lactate has significant role in the management of children with suspected meningitis.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

Recruitment patterns of motor units in speech production.

Single motor units were recorded with intramuscular electrodes in sites selected to isolate units of the mentalis muscles of two human subjects. Order of recruitment of three groups of motor units was analyzed during repetition of syllables. Within each group motor units showed variable patterns of recruitment over repeated utterances. These recruitment patterns of labial motor units and the patterns observed by Sussman et al. in a jaw opening muscle are used to illustrate issues critical to interpretation of recruitment patterns of motor units active during speech. From extant data, inferences about the size of the motor units active cannot be made; however, the variability of recruitment patterns has significance for hypotheses about the underlying mechanisms of recruitment. Discussion includes the question of the size of motor units as inferred from action potential amplitude, differences in methodology between experiments in speech and those often used to interpret them, and the extent to which it is possible to isolate motor units from a single muscle in electromyography of facial muscles.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed1981

Disorganization and reorganization of cognitive and sensorimotor functions in cerebral commissurotomy. Compensatory roles of the forebrain commissures and cerebral hemispheres in man.

Neuropsychological studies of 10 patients with complete cerebral commissurotomy and 2 with frontal commissurotomy showed differences in the nature and severity of pre-operative, initial and long-term post-operative deficits in verbal and nonverbal cognitive, memory, and sensorimotor functions. Neurosurgical findings before and after operation recorded various types of extra-callosal brain damage in all 12 patients, including 4 with gross structural lesions in the right hemisphere before surgery. Our findings revealed that differences in the nature and severity of pre-operative and post-operative deficits varied according to the nature and laterality of associated extra-callosal damage before as well as after operation. Following complete commissurotomy, all 4 patients with pre-operative structural lesions of the right hemisphere revealed a unique pattern of marked, selective impairment of nonverbal cognitive functions strikingly similar to the effects of right hemispherectomy for tumour in adults. The remaining 8 patients showed systematic patterns of greater impairment in verbal and nonverbal cognitive and contralateral sensorimotor functions, depending on the laterality of extra-callosal damage. The significantly higher pre-operative Wechsler Performance IQs of the 4 patients with structural lesions of the right hemisphere suggest that following earlier damage to the right hemisphere, the forebrain commissures contribute to a reorganization of interhemispheric relations to permit restitution of the diminished nonverbal cognitive functions resulting from damage to the right hemisphere. Thus, in addition to other possible roles in integrating the functions of the two hemispheres in the normal brain, the forebrain commissures can also serve as 'standby' or 'reserve' structures for reorganization of compensatory interhemispheric mechanisms following lateralized brain insults. Since some patients showed later postoperative improvement, the extent of ultimate competence and the 'cognitive costs' of commissurotomy can only be defined by continuing follow-up studies. Apart from their practical clinical implications, such studies may also contribute to elucidation of the principles underlying the organization, disorganization and reorganization of human brain functions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1981

A case-control study of leukemia in the U.S. rubber industry.

A matched case-control study was conducted for 72 cases of leukemia occurring among employees of four rubber and tire manufacturing companies during the period from 1964 to 1973, to determine if certain environmental exposures were related to the risk of developing leukemia. Earlier studies conducted in one company had shown an association of lymphatic leukemia with a work history of possible solvent exposure, and the results of the present study suggest that the association is weaker than previously described. However, recently acquired detailed environmental information reported elsewhere tends to support the initial finding at this company. Further studies are required to fully resolve this issue. A finding was the lack of association in the order three companies. In addition, lymphatic leukemia was found to be associated with work experience in general service jobs for the two larger companies from which a majority (89%) of the cases derive. Intervals from exposure death peaked at 27 to 38 years. No elevated risk for myeloid leukemia was found.

Female↗
PubMed1981

Terminal transferase expression in relapsed acute myeloid leukaemia.

In three cases of acute myeloid leukaemia marked increases in expression of the nuclear enzyme, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT), were observed during disease relapse. The first case was heterogeneous at diagnosis, consisting of subpopulations of large TdT- myeloblasts and small TDT+ blasts; however, at relapse there was complete replacement by TdT+ lymphoblasts. The other cases at diagnosis were both typical acute myeloid leukaemia, TdT-; at relapse, one showed a mixture of TdT- myeloblasts and TdT+ lymphoblasts, while in the other, TdT was demonstrated on a subpopulation of myeloblasts. No chromosomal abnormalities were found. It is suggested that in the first two cases these phenomena may have been due to leukaemic involvement of a pluripotential stem cell, or that sub-clones with different properties may have coexisted. In the third case at relapse, TdT was expressed aberrantly by malignant myeloid cells.

Aged↗