Anxiety, Defense and Cognition: A Theoretical Basis for Practical Handling of the Surgical Patient

Both the anxiety-defense model and the cognitive model provide a scientific basis for practical handling of the surgical patient. Emerging from both models is a humanistic approach to the patient based on understanding and a nonjudgmental attitude as well as on a knowledge of where the patient is psychologically and a willingness to meet him on his ground. The rewards in terms of a reduction of anxiety, depression, and human suffering can be enormous

Psi-floor diagrams and a Caporaso-Harris type recursion

Floor diagrams are combinatorial objects which organize the count of tropical plane curves satisfying point conditions. In this paper we introduce Psi-floor diagrams which count tropical curves satisfying not only point conditions but also conditions given by Psi-classes (together with points). We then generalize our definition to relative Psi-floor diagrams and prove a Caporaso-Harris type formula for the corresponding numbers. This formula is shown to coincide with the classical Caporaso-Harris formula for relative plane descendant Gromov-Witten invariants. As a consequence, we can conclude that in our case relative descendant Gromov-Witten invariants equal their tropical counterparts.Comment: minor changes to match the published versio

Computing the bounded subcomplex of an unbounded polyhedron

We study efficient combinatorial algorithms to produce the Hasse diagram of the poset of bounded faces of an unbounded polyhedron, given vertex-facet incidences. We also discuss the special case of simple polyhedra and present computational results.Comment: 16 page

Products of Foldable Triangulations

Regular triangulations of products of lattice polytopes are constructed with the additional property that the dual graphs of the triangulations are bipartite. The (weighted) size difference of this bipartition is a lower bound for the number of real roots of certain sparse polynomial systems by recent results of Soprunova and Sottile [Adv. Math. 204(1):116-151, 2006]. Special attention is paid to the cube case.Comment: new title; several paragraphs reformulated; 23 page

Do oral aluminium phosphate binders cause accumulation of aluminium to toxic levels?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Aluminium (Al) toxicity was frequent in the 1980s in patients ingesting Al containing phosphate binders (Alucaps) whilst having HD using water potentially contaminated with Al. The aim of this study was to determine the risk of Al toxicity in HD patients receiving Alucaps but never exposed to contaminated dialysate water.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>HD patients only treated with Reverse Osmosis(RO) treated dialysis water with either current or past exposure to Alucaps were given standardised DFO tests. Post-DFO serum Al level > 3.0 μmol/L was defined to indicate toxic loads based on previous bone biopsy studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>39 patients (34 anuric) were studied. Mean dose of Alucap was 3.5 capsules/d over 23.0 months. Pre-DFO Al levels were > 1.0 μmol/L in only 2 patients and none were > 3.0 μmol/L. No patients had a post DFO Al levels > 3.0 μmol/L. There were no correlations between the serum Al concentrations (pre-, post- or the incremental rise after DFO administration) and the total amount of Al ingested.</p> <p>No patients had unexplained EPO resistance or biochemical evidence of adynamic bone.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Although this is a small study, oral aluminium exposure was considerable. Yet no patients undergoing HD with RO treated water had evidence of Al toxicity despite doses equivalent to 3.5 capsules of Alucap for 2 years. The relationship between the DFO-Al results and the total amount of Al ingested was weak (R²= 0.07) and not statistically significant. In an era of financial prudence, and in view of the recognised risk of excess calcium loading in dialysis patients, perhaps we should re-evaluate the risk of using Al-based phosphate binders in HD patients who remain uric.</p

Mary's Powers of Imagination

One common response to the knowledge argument is the ability hypothesis. Proponents of the ability hypothesis accept that Mary learns what seeing red is like when she exits her black-and-white room, but they deny that the kind of knowledge she gains is propositional in nature. Rather, she acquires a cluster of abilities that she previously lacked, in particular, the abilities to recognize, remember, and imagine the color red. For proponents of the ability hypothesis, knowing what an experience is like simply consists in the possession of these abilities. Criticisms of the ability hypothesis tend to focus on this last claim. Such critics tend to accept that Mary gains these abilities when she leaves the room, but they deny that such abilities constitute knowledge of what an experience is like. To my mind, however, this critical strategy grants too much. Focusing specifically on imaginative ability, I argue that Mary does not gain this ability when she leaves the room for she already had the ability to imagine red while she was inside it. Moreover, despite what some have thought, the ability hypothesis cannot be easily rescued by recasting it in terms of a more restrictive imaginative ability. My purpose here is not to take sides in the debate about physicalism, i.e., my criticism of the ability hypothesis is not offered in an attempt to defend the anti-physicalist conclusion of the knowledge argument. Rather, my purpose is to redeem the imagination from the misleading picture of it that discussion of the knowledge argument has fostered

Grounding, Analysis, and Russellian Monism

Few these days dispute that the knowledge argument demonstrates an epistemic gap between the physical facts and the facts about experience. It is much more contentious whether that epistemic gap can be used to demonstrate a metaphysical gap of a kind that is inconsistent with physicalism. In this paper I will explore two attempts to block the inference from an epistemic gap to a metaphysical gap – the first from the phenomenal concept strategy, the second from Russellian monism – and suggest how the proponent of the knowledge argument might respond to each of these challenges. In doing so, I will draw on recent discussions of grounding and essence in the metaphysics literature

Prophylactic HPV vaccines: prospects for eliminating ano-genital cancer

Virtually all cases of cervical cancer and its precursor intra-epithelial lesions are a result of infection with one or other of a subset of genital human papillomaviruses (HPVs), suggesting that prevention of HPV infection by prophylactic vaccination would be a highly effective anticancer strategy. Two HPV L1 virus-like particle vaccines have been developed, a quadrivalent HPV16/18/6/11 product and a bivalent HPV16/18 product; both have been shown to be highly immunogenic with a good safety profile and 100% efficacy against HPV16/18-related high-grade cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia (CIN2/3), implying that they will be effective at preventing HPV16/18-related cervical cancer

Group G Streptococcal Bacteremia in Jerusalem

Recurrent group G Steptococcus bacteremia, associated with lymphatic disorders and possibly emm stG840.0, is described