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PubMed1989

[Fertilization in vitro and embryo transfer (FIVET) and endometriosis. Uncertainties and issues].

The progressive improvements in the results and extra simplification of the recent techniques for in vitro fertilisation and embryo transfer (IVFET) have contributed to broadening the indications for this method of assisted reproduction. Endometriosis has not escaped this evolution and more and more works referring to the use of IVFET for this indication. All the same, there are many questions which have not been clearly answered. The possible variety of causes for this condition, the number of factors that may be causing the infertility, make it difficult to assess completely the method of therapy, and require that controlled studies should carried out. These are not always easy to perform. IVFET is no exception to these difficulties. The relationships between endometriosis and infertility are complex and very often difficult to assess. All the same, very many hypotheses have been put out to explain the deleterious effect of this abnormality. Certain mechanisms have been suggested (such as troubles with maturation of the follicle and of the oocyte and the production of a hostile environment for the gametes and for the embryo). These are logical arguments for IVFET which initially produces follicular maturation and takes the gametes and the embryo away from the peritoneal and tubal environment. In spite of certain hypotheses which would be unfavourable in cases of endometriosis (oocytes being less likely to be fertilised, poorer quality of the embryos, defective implantation...) the results that have been obtained after IVFET are overall very favourable and certainly can compare with those obtained when it has been used for, for instance, tubal indication.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Embryo Transfer↗
PubMed1975

[The importance of afterloading technics for radiation protection].

The importance of afterloading techniques for the improvement in radiological protection is shown. Simplifications of the constructional and operational provisions of radiation protection resulting therefrom are discussed. In this connection, the possibility is accentuated of completely giving up under certain conditions the measurement of the individual exposure doses to personnel working in the irradiation room, using long-term and short-term dosimeters.

Female↗
PubMed1976

Simplifications of the derivations and forms of steady-state equations for non-equilibrium random substrate-modifier and allosteric enzyme mechanisms.

The steady-state equations for "random" enzymic mechanisms (ones with alternative routes for substrate and enzyme to form enzyme-substrate complexes) are non-Michaelian and very complicated when a quasi-equilibrium approximation cannot be used. General methods for simplifying their forms and derivations are given and applied to several single-substrate mechanisms of general or topical interest. The special simplifications resulting from partial ordering of reaction mechanism, from gross inequalities of rate constants, and from special relationships between catalytic and dissociation rate constants, are considered with reference to allosteric mechanisms. Some equations mentioned, but not given here, and more detailed working out of some of those given, have been deposited as Supplementary Publication SUP 50069 (18 pages) at the British Library Lending Division, Boston Spa, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7BQ, U.K., from whom copies can be obtained on the terms given in Biochem. J. (1976) 153, 5.

Allosteric Regulation↗
PubMed1991

Endoscopic ventricular fenestration using a "saline torch".

The fiberoptic endoscope has never gained popularity among neurosurgeons although it is ideally suited for navigating within the cerebral ventricles. Recent advances in optics and miniaturization make the application of endoscopy in neurosurgery more practical. The authors report eight children who underwent ventriculoscopic fenestration of symptomatic loculated cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) collections. These CSF collections were either isolated ventricular cysts or trapped lateral ventricles secondary to obstruction at the foramen of Monro. Cyst wall dissection was carried out with a "saline torch" dissector which was introduced through a working channel in the ventriculoscope. The torch was used to coagulate vessels and to sculpt large windows in cyst walls or in the septum pellucidum. Ventriculoscope-guided cyst fenestration can be performed safely and easily under direct vision. The technique may permit simplification of shunt systems in some patients and elimination of shunts in others.

Brain Diseases↗
PubMed1995

A time-based approach to agrammatic production.

A time-based approach to agrammatic speech is presented. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part, the literature which deals with agrammatic comprehension as a problem of disrupted timing, that is, as a slow-down of syntactic computation and/or a rapid decay of the results of syntactic processing, is reviewed. In a second part, the hypothesis that similar timing problems cause difficulties in production as well is discussed. Two possible ways in which this can happen are described. First, slow down or rapid decay can lead to desynchronization within the process of syntactic tree formation. Second, a slow down of syntactic processing can cause asynchrony between the production of a syntactic slot and the retrieval of the proper grammatical morpheme from the mental lexicon. This hypothesis predicts that morphemes which are dependent on a relatively complex part of the syntactic tree will elicit relatively many errors. Results from the literature which seem to confirm this prediction are discussed. In the third part of the paper, the possible ways in which a patient can adapt to the reduced temporal window that would result from a timing deficit are discussed. Message simplification will reduce the size of the required temporal window and will therefore have a beneficial effect on the error rate. Restart of the computational process will profit from previously reached activation levels so that synchrony is easier to reach and error rate is reduced. Empirical work which appears to support these hypotheses is reviewed.

Aphasia↗
PubMed1994

[Antigliadin, antireticulin, antiendomysium antibodies: value in the diagnosis and follow-up of celiac disease in children].

In recent years, the clinical spectrum of coeliac disease has changed and forms with mild aspecific symptoms are today frequent. Therefore many infants are submitted to jejunal biopsy in order to exclude coeliac disease or to allow an early diagnosis. This has led to a search for a simple and reliable diagnostic test of coeliac disease in order to limit the use of jejunal biopsy. Recent data suggest that the study of serum antigliadin, antireticulin and antiendomysium antibodies may possibly play the role. In this paper the working group on coeliac disease of the Groupe Francophone de Gastroentérologie et Nutrition Pédiatriques expresses its view on the place of the dosages of these antibodies in the diagnosis and follow up procedures of coeliac disease in infants and children. At the present time, although it allows a simplification of the procedures, these dosages are presently not sufficiently reliable to serve as a substitute of jejunal biopsy.

Autoantibodies↗
PubMed1979

[Treatment of obstruction of the lacrimal ducts (author's transl)].

The present attitude towards the treatment of obstruction of the lacrimal ducts should be based on traditional methods, but modified to take into account recent advances which allow "modern surgery" to be applied. These new procedures are based on two relatively recent new acquisitions: 1) A precise knowledge of the physiology of the lacrimal pump, mainly due to the work of Lester T. Jones. It is important to know hen this pump has been destroyed as any attempt at repair is doomed to fail. We do not yet know how to reconstruct this pump. If minor damage has occurred however, attempts at repair operations may be successful. 2) Simplification of the operative procedure, both for dacryocystorhinostomies and lacodacryocystorhinostomies. Complex reconstructive procedures which often failed have been replaced by the application of a tube made of an inert material, and this is much simpler and gives much more constant results.

Constriction, Pathologic↗
PubMed1981

[Features of memorization disorders in different variants of endogenous depression].

Under study there were psychological processes underlying the deterioration of the memorizing effectiveness in patients with manic-depressive psychosis and schizophrenia. The author examined 96 patients with melancholic, anxious and apathic depressions. For examining the qualitative peculiarities of the mnestic activity use was made of methods of memorizing 10 works and of pictograms. The results of the experiment were analyzed on the basis of the mnestic activity theory suggested by A. R. Luria. As a result, it has been shown that the deterioration of the memorizing effectiveness in the patients with the melancholic depressions was due to a simplification and impoverishment of the mnestic processes; in patients with the anxious depressions it was due to disturbances of the coordination of those processes, and in patients with the apathic depressions to a distortion of the mnestic process quality.

Anxiety↗
PubMed1984

Recent progress in the diagnosis of brucellosis.

Progress since 1975 in the development of methods for the diagnosis of brucellosis is summarized. Standard serological diagnosis improved with increased use of acidified antigen agglutination and complement fixation tests. Immunoassays, tests based on the lysis of lipopolysaccharide coated erythrocytes and tests using new antigens have increased the sensitivity and specificity of serological results. The field of cellular immunology has seen the development and field evaluation of a skin test using refined antigens and the assessment of in vitro assays of cellular activity using purified protein and crude brucella antigens. Potential diagnostic uses of these methods are discussed. Bacteriological procedures were improved by introduction of stomachers and improved culture media. The isolation of new Brucella phages and development of a thin layer chromatography method for the determination of oxidation metabolic profiles were advanced in the characterization of Brucellae. Progress was also made in the development of immunoassays for the detection of Brucella antigens in host tissues. The selection of control groups, quality control studies and problems of standardization are areas that require greater attention in future methods development work. Major achievements of the period were 1) demonstrations that diagnosis sensitivity can be increased by new assays for antibody and cellular responses, 2) new methods to discriminate between anti-Brucella abortus and anti-Yersinia enterocolitica 0:9 responses, 3) a radial immunodiffusion test that detects most actively infected cattle, and 4) the simplification and extension of oxidative metabolic and phage typing tests. Advances in clinical microbiology and molecular biology have created new opportunities to improve diagnostic methods in the next decade.

Animals↗
PubMed1978

Synthesis of L-cysteine derivatives of immunotropic activity.

Working on the problem entitled "Synthesis of cysteine derivatives of immunotropic activity" the following compounds were synthesized; cysteine hydrazide and its hydrochloride, S-methylcysteine hydrazide hydrochloride, S, N, N-trimethylcysteine and S-benzylcysteinyl-S-benzylcysteine. We modified the synthesis of cysteine hydrazide and prepared its hydrochloride. This way a better yield and simplification of the synthesis were achieved. The above compounds were obtained with good yields.

Anti-Inflammatory Agents↗
PubMed1976

[Possibilities for information processing and operations simplification in multidimensional tasks of morphokinetic synthesis].

The authors propose an iterative method for separating classes of objects by reduction of multidimentional space of sings, which describe objects by twodimentional space of two integral processings of the differences between sings. For this purpose the differences are evaluated by three steps rating: positive difference, negative difference and no difference. The proposed iterative algorhythm allows by finite and a small number of procedures to remove indeterminace which in the general case is contained in the so defined on the work integral processings. The application of the algorhythm does not require a special mathematical training. Represantation of the objects by integral characteristics is made in twodimentional space. In the paper the report the authors give a generalization for the case of M-steps rating for evaluation of the differences between the signs of the objects.

Information Theory↗
PubMed1981

Cortical anatomy, size invariance, and spatial frequency analysis.

In a recent application of an algorithm developed in computer and optical pattern recognition, Cavanagh has suggested that a composite of spatial frequency mapping and complex logarithmic mapping would provide translationally, rotationally, and size-invariant mechanism for human vision. In this work, Cavanagh has not made explicit the fact that this transformation is composite, that is, that the first step (global Fourier analysis) perceptually, anatomically, and physiologically inconsistent with primate vision, but that the second step (complex logarithmic mapping) is actually embodied in the anatomy of the primate retinostriate projection. Moreover, it is the complex logarithmic remapping step which is entirely responsible for the computational simplification of the symmetries of size and rotation invariance. These facts, which have been extensively discussed in a recent series of papers, are briefly reviewed and illustrated. Furthermore, it is shown that the architecture of the retinostriate map may provide an example of computational anatomy in vision, such that the spatial representation of a stimulus in the brain may be of direct functional significance to perception, and to the nature of certain visual illusions.

Afterimage↗
PubMed1976

Computer-aided investigations of respiratory data.

In the first part of this paper a computerised evaluation of plethysmographic signals is presented. The off-line processing described eliminates some erroneous simplifications that routine plethysmography is bound to involve. (1) A subtraction of the box pressure baseline permits measurements with perfectly sealed constant volume plethysmographs even in the case of thermal disequilibrium. (2) Alveolar pressure is computed from the box pressure signal, using instantaneous values of the intrathoracic gas volume. (3) This technique enables one to utilise all the measured data for determinations of airway resistance and viscous work, thus yielding more exact values as compared to the graphic evaluations. In Part 2 a three-parameter model of transpulmonary mechanics, applied to fit data of cat experiments, is described. The aim of this study is to demonstrate how transpulmonary parameters (static pleural pressure, compliance and resistance) are modified by the actual state of the pulmonary vascular bed.

Airway Resistance↗
PubMed1989

Ergonomic aspects of cold stress and cold adaptation.

In contrast to the simplified, unvarying, and rigidly controlled conditions that characterize laboratory studies of human responses to cold, normal work in cold regions is characterized by a complex and unstable thermal environment, intermittent cold exposure and exercise, and the freedom to adjust clothing and activity for comfort. These "ergonomic" aspects profoundly modify the impact of a cold environment on people's health, comfort, and performance. A review of recent field studies in the Antarctic shows that the supposed "tropical microclimate" of clothed people in the cold is an over-simplification. People tend to be alternately chilled and overheated, and the accompanying exercise of the vascular responses provides a potential stimulus for vasomotor adaptation. Significant and substantial changes in men's responses to standardized whole-body cold exposures, observed on eight Antarctic expeditions, show that general acclimatization to cold develops as an increase in tissue insulation, which is mediated by an enhanced vascular response to cold.

Acclimatization↗
PubMed1986

Quantitative affinity chromatography: increased versatility of the technique for studies of ligand binding.

The potential of affinity chromatography for the characterization of strong solute-ligand interactions is explored by studying the NADH-dependent elution of rabbit muscle lactate dehydrogenase from a column of trinitrophenyl-Sepharose in 0.067 M phosphate, pH 7.2. An interesting development is the simplification of the general affinity chromatography theory that emanates from the use of affinity matrices with a high concentration of immobilized reactant groups. The resultant expression allows evaluation of the intrinsic association constant for solute-ligand interactions from a single series of either zonal or frontal affinity chromatographic experiments conducted in the presence of a range of free ligand concentrations. Thus, contrary to previous belief, an affinity matrix designed for solute purification work should prove to be an asset for, rather than an impediment to, the study of solute-ligand interactions by quantitative affinity chromatography.

Adsorption↗
PubMed1994

Automated method for characterization of diastolic transmitral Doppler velocity contours: late atrial filling.

We develop an automated method of characterizing the late atrial filling phase of diastole by fitting a kinematic model for diastolic filling to the clinical Doppler A-wave contour. The result is a set of model parameters which completely characterizes the contour. We have previously derived a parameterized diastolic filling (PDF) model, which predicts the time-dependent transmitral blood flow velocity obtained by Doppler echocardiography. An automated method to determine the PDF model parameters for early rapid filling from the clinical Doppler E-wave has also been developed and validated. The method consists of digitizing the acoustic Doppler waveform, recreating the Doppler velocity profile, extracting the maximum velocity envelope, and fitting the PDF model for early filling to the envelope. In the current work, we apply the same general approach for PDF parameter determination for the late atrial filling phase of diastole. To assess the presence and significance of near-degeneracies in the model parameter set, numerical experiments (consisting of fitting the model to a model-generated contour to which Gaussian noise was added) were performed. These revealed a two-dimensional degeneracy in four-dimensional parameter space which could be removed by using two kinematic simplifications: critical damping and resonant forcing. We show that these degeneracy-eliminating approximations do not limit the ability of the model to predict clinical A-wave contours.

Atrial Function↗
PubMed1988

Radionuclide ventriculography (equilibrium gated blood pool scanning)--its present clinical position and recent developments.

Myocardial scanning (MS) and radionuclide ventriculography (RNV) are the foundation of nuclear cardiology. These procedures aim in two completely different directions: RNV tries to image heart motion, that is, mechanical (pump) function, and therefore belongs to the group of first-order functional imaging (FI, imaging mechanical function), whereas MS is based on myocardial metabolism, and therefore can be attributed to third-order functional imaging (metabolism). This statement is relevant for the assessment of the clinical position of RNV: Third-order (metabolism) functional imaging is the domain of nuclear medicine (NM), whereas first-order FI has to face the competition of alternative noninvasive procedures such as ultrasound (US), digital subtraction angiography (DSA), computer tomography (CT), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The domain of RNV includes stages two (acute infarction) and three (postinfarction period) of coronary arterial disease (CAD). The advantageous combination of quantitative data on global, left ventricular (LV) function and imaging of regional motion ensures the superiority of RNV over US. However, RNV is inferior to MS in physical examinations in the preinfarction stage of CAD, whereas US is clearly inferior to both NM procedures. Recent progress could be attained by gated SPECT (GASPECT). A proposal is presented for simplification of this time-consuming procedure. Technetium-labeled isonitriles offer the chance for the combination of "perfusion-motion" imaging of the myocardium. However, even standard RNV offers new possibilities. The multitude of parameters produced by quantitation has not yet been exploited completely. This can be done by discriminant analysis. The computer finds out an optimal subset from the whole set of parameters for the solution of a significant clinical problem. The software "learns" to find the "label" of a special pathognomonic entity. This computer work is supported by a relational data bank (Oracle) and an optical disk. Two examples for the effectiveness of the computer in problem solving are presented. It is concluded that RNV, even in the very competitive class of first-order functional imaging, enjoys a preferred position. The future indeed seems brighter because labeled isonitriles offer the chance for the combination of perfusion-motion imaging of the myocardium.

Coronary Disease↗
PubMed1994

Arm position constraints when throwing in three dimensions.

1. Overarm throwing is a skilled multijoint movement with potentially many degrees of freedom. Considering only the arm > or = 7 degrees of freedom are involved (shoulder 3, elbow 2, wrist 2). For each arm segment 3 degrees of freedom are potentially required to specify its angular position (orientation) at any moment during a throw. Simplification of the control problem for the CNS would occur if there were constraints on these degrees of freedom. The objective was to determine whether such constraints exist at ball release when throwing at targets in different directions using only the arm. 2. The angular positions in three dimensions of the distal phalanx of the middle finger, the hand, the forearm, and the upper arm were simultaneously recorded with search coils as subjects sat with a fixed trunk and threw balls at nine targets in an approximate +/- 40 degree work space. Ball release was signaled by microswitches on the proximal and distal phalanges of the middle finger (proximal and distal triggers). 3. On throwing at any one target the hand at ball release adopted a similar orientation for each throw, i.e., for a particular vertical and horizontal angular position the hand adopted a similar torsional position. On throwing at targets throughout the work space, angular position (rotation) vectors describing hand positions in space at ball release were confined to a two-dimensional surface rather than a three-dimensional volume. This constraint in hand torsion occurred near and at ball release but not throughout the entire throw. It was not due to mechanical factors because such a surface was not obtained when subjects deliberately twisted their arms when throwing. Thus at ball release during a "natural" throw the hand was constrained to 2 of its possible 3 angular degrees of freedom. 4. The same constraint was also found for finger, forearm, and upper arm angular positions in space at ball release as determined at both the proximal and distal triggers. A consequence is that at ball release the entire arm was constrained to 2 of its possible 7 degrees of freedom. 5. The two-dimensional position vector surface for each arm segment was similar to that obtained when pointing with a straight arm at the same targets. In both cases they showed torsion and were twisted like the surface obtained by rotations around the horizontal and vertical axes of a Fick gimbal. However, in some subjects the throwing surfaces were tilted from the vertical.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Adult↗