Prevention of postoperative adhesions by single intraperitoneal medication

Postoperative adhesions account for a significant morbidity after abdominal, gynecological, or cardiac surgery. A large number of compounds have been suggested to prevent such adhesions, but none is generally accepted. We have compared eight different substances that could be beneficial for the prevention of postoperative adhesions in a new standardized rabbit model with measurement of the areas of adhesion. In 10 groups of 20 rabbits an area of abrasion of the serosa of the ileum, the appendix, and the abdominal wall measuring 10,000 mm2 was created by an emery piston during celiotomy. The controls received no medication. The treatment groups received a single intraperitoneal administration of 1 ml per 100 g body wt of normal saline (NaCl), 5 mg taurolidine (T), 0.5 U plasmin/300 U DNase (PD), 2000 IU streptokinase/500 IU streptodornase (SS), 7 mg phosphatidylcholine (PC), 4 mg hyaluronic acid (HA), 7 mg sphingolipid (SL), 7 mg galactolipid (GL), or 0.5 ml tetrachlorodecaoxide (TCDO), respectively. Ten days later the extent of adhesions was quantified by morphometry. The total area of adhesions (+/- SEM) was found to be 1998 +/- 124 mm2 in controls. The application of NaCl reduced the adhesions to 1368 +/- 58 mm2, of T to 1012 +/- 48 mm2, of PD to 673 +/- 33 mm2, of SS to 360 +/- 44 mm2, of PC to 335 +/- 84 mm2, of HA to 328 +/- 76 mm2, of SL to 278 +/- 80 mm2, of GL to 261 +/- 67 mm2, and of TCDO to 240 +/- 45 mm2. The effects of PD, SS, PC, HA, SL, GL, and TCDO were significant in comparison to controls and NaCl. Our experimental data suggest that the two new lipid substances, SL and GL, are the most likely candidates for routine clinical use in the prevention of postsurgical adhesions.     

Session frequency, regressive intensity, and the psychoanalytic process.

Argues that in most analyses, an increase in frequency will lead to qualitative changes in the data obtained and in the ways each person can use the material. The analysand should generate more associations that focus on the dyadic here and now. Each participant should better understand the other's personalized use of language. More frequent sessions should increase the analysand's sense of the "holding environment" and make a deeper therapeutic regression more likely, thus allowing more frequent access to more archaic material. It should also reduce the analyst's press to intervene or introduce "parameters." Efforts to help the analysand acquire missing psychological skills are more likely to bear fruit in a maximally intensive therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New research opportunities in superconductivity IV

This report surveys the considerable progress made over the last five years—such as the marketing of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), cellular wireless filter systems, and high current leads—and assesses needs and opportunities in the areas of fundamental science, materials development, thin film and device applications, and wire and bulk applications. It examines the challenges facing high-temperature superconductivity: from the need to understand the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity and the unusual “normal” state to the need for new instrumentation for material characterization. Advances in thin film and bulk materials are reviewed, and obstacles impeding the commercialization of HTS materials are examined. A report on the workshop on research needs and opportunities in superconductivity, held in Monterey, California, February 10–12, 1997.     

Repressed memories and World War II: Lest we forget!

The war neuroses of World War II (WWII) provide ample evidence that repression does indeed occur, and that the recovery of these traumatic memories and their related affects led to remission of symptoms. Moreover, these recovered memories were of events that had occurred. An illustrative case history from WWII is described. This well-documented body of data, well-known at the time, seems to have been forgotten in current discussions concerning repressed memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of Castration and hormonal supplementation on cholesterol cholelithiasis in the male hamster

This study examined the effect of castration and dietary hormonal supplementation on cholesterol cholelithiasis in male hamsters. Animals fed a standard lithogenic diet developed cholesterol gallstones (17%) after 6 wk, while castrated hamsters did not form any stones. Addition of a synthetic androgen, methyltestosterone, to the lithogenic diet induced cholelithiasis in castrated animals (50%). The biles of normal and castrated-hormone supplemented hamsters had cholesterol saturation indices of 1.0 and 1.1, respectively, while the bile of the castrated animals remained unsaturated (0.6). The ratio of cholic acid/chenodeoxycholic acid in bile increased after castration, but returned to normal levels following hormonal supplementation. Biliary cholesterol carriers were separated by ultracentrifugation. Animals in the stone-forming groups (normal and castrated-hormone treated) had a significant proportion of their biliary cholesterol in vesicles (44 and 46%, respectively); castrated hamsters had less cholesterol in vesicle form (9%). The molar ratio of cholesterol/phospholipid in vesicles was reduced after castration (0.93 vs. 0.42) and increased by hormonal supplementation (1.89). In conclusion, when compared to normal male hamsters fed a standard lithogenic diet, castration reduced the cholesterol saturation of bile, lowered the vesicular/micellar ratio in bile, and inhibited cholesterol cholelithiasis. Dietary androgen supplementation increased the lithogenicity of bile, resulting in stone formation in castrated animals.     

Insights, Hope, Kindness, and Confusion: Odyssey of a Psychoanalyst.

Insights from the author's previous systematic research and psychoanalytic observations are summarized. In a nationwide Gallup sample, segregation was found destructive to African Americans and Whites, although differently so. Clinical experience delineated the number 4 as a symbol, the helpfulness of psychoanalysis, and meanings of schizophrenic symptoms. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) pathogenesis (unconsciously based hurtful parenting) differentiated both parents of schizophrenics and inadequate therapists. A controlled project demonstrated that 70 sessions of psychoanalytic therapy were more helpful than medication with respect to schizophrenic thought disorder, hospitalization, and living a more human life. Masked clinical judgments from Rorschachs, TATs, and interviews were found to be valid. Clinical papers described treating lower socioeconomic status patients, not eating, the 4 bases of delusions, and the necessity to be kind, tolerant, stubborn, and confused and to avoid abstractions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acute and critical care in neurology

When subjects select a prime from a visual display while leaving a distractor prime unselected, response time (RT) or response accuracy to a subsequent probe may be impeded if the distractor prime and probe are identical, or if they are related to one another. This phenomenon, negative priming (NP), has obvious implications for understanding perceptual selection. However, it is not known whether NP results from other kinds of selection processes. The present studies were designed to investigate whether NP occurs when primes are selected from working memory rather than from a visual display. In the two experiments, the subjects memorized two primes, selected one prime for further processing, and classified the contents of a probe display. Significant NP occurred in both Experiments. In Experiment 2, however, NP occurred only under easy-selection conditions; the effect was reversed under difficult-selection conditions. The findings indicate a role for NP in memory processing, but contrast with the results from perceptual selection studies showing greater NP under difficult-selection than under easy-selection conditions. The present finding suggests a complex and perhaps strategy-dependent relationship between memory selection difficulty and NP.     

Transition shape analysis from medium noise measurements

We present a technique to determine the transition shape in digital magnetic recording. The method involves analyzing both temporal and spectral transition noise measurements. This combined method simultaneously determines the transition parameter and the cross-track correlation width along with the transition shape.     

A type of transference based on identification with an abusing parent.

A type of transference is described in which the patient treats the therapist not as if the latter were his father or mother, but as if the therapist were the patient and the patient reenacts the role of mother and father. This usually occurs when the therapy session seems irritating, exhausting or anxiety-provoking; this is particularly frequent with borderline and schizophrenic patients. An awareness of the significance of this type of transference will allow the therapist to make an unpleasant therapeutic situation into a useful therapeutic intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Case systems for natural language

In many languages (e.g. Latin, Greek, Russian, Turkish, German) the relationship of a noun phrase to the rest of a sentence is indicated by altered forms of the noun. The possible relationships are called (surface) “cases”. Because (1) it is difficult to specify semantic-free selection rules for the cases, and (2) related phenomena based on prepositions or word order appear in apparently case-less languages, many have argued that studies of cases should focus on meaning, i.e. on “deep cases”.Deep cases bear a close relationship to the modifiers of a concept. In fact, one could consider a deep case to be a special, or distinguishing, modifier. Several criteria for recognizing deep cases are considered here in the context of the problem of describing an event. Unfortunately, none of the criteria serves as a completely adequate decision procedure. A notion based on the context-dependent “importance” of a relation appears as useful as any rule for selecting deep cases.A representative sample of proposed case systems is examined. Issues such as surface versus deep versus conceptual levels of cases, and the efficiency of the representations implicit in a case system are also discussed.