A Case of Autoimmune Hepatitis Treated with Rituximab

Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a form of chronic hepatitis of unknown etiology. It was first described in the 1950s as a form of chronic hepatitis noted in younger women. It was later termed lupoid hepatitis due to its association with autoantibodies before being named AIH in 1965. Corticosteroids and azathioprine have been the standard therapy for AIH, but due to treatment failures and toxicities from these medications, new medications are being investigated as possible treatment options. Rituximab has been used in various autoimmune disorders with good success. We report the case of a 34-year-old Caucasian woman with a history of B cell lymphoma and concurrent AIH treated with rituximab. The diagnosis of AIH was made by classic serological and histological features. The patient was initially treated with steroids but had a progression of her disease as well as suffering toxicities from the steroids. She was then given eight weeks of rituximab with good improvement in both laboratory and histological findings

Working with Homeless Women and Children: Opportunities for Training

The diversity of the homeless population allows for unique training opportunities in psychiatry, especially for child and adolescent psychiatry fellows. The prevalence of psychopathology both existing in and as a result of displacement and disenfranchisement requires a specialized knowledge of this population and provides an extraordinary education in community outreach, emergency psychiatry and social service delivery systems. The authors review their experience of working with homeless women and children in the community. Possibilities for more comprehensive training and research are also presented

Characteristics of Effective GSS Facilitators

As businesses increase their use of groups to solve problems, the importance of strong group facilitation skills has increased. This paper investigates the characteristics of high-performing group facilitators versus low-performing group facilitators. The characteristics investigated represent two broad areas of interest: general facilitator background and skills possessed by the facilitator. The facilitator background factors that proved to be good predictors of high performance included: overall experience and number of computer-supported meeting facilitated. The skills possessed by high performers included: plans and designs meetings, demonstrates flexibility, and listens to, clarifies, and integrates information. The analysis provides a rule for accurately predicting whether a facilitator is a high-performer or a low-performer more than 77% of the time

The use of underactuation in prosthetic grasping

Underactuation as a method of driving prosthetic hands has a long history. The pragmatic requirements of such a device to be light enough to be worn and used regularly have meant that any multi degree of freedom prosthetic hand must have fewer actuators than the usable degrees of freedom. Aesthetics ensures that while the hand needs five fingers, five actuators have considerable mass, and only in recent years has it even been possible to construct a practical anthropomorphic hand with five motors. Thus there is an important trade off as to which fingers are driven, and which joints on which fingers are actuated, and how the forces are distributed to create a functional device. This paper outlines some of the historical solutions created for this problem and includes those designs of recent years that are now beginning to be used in the commercial environment. <br><br> <i>This paper was presented at the IFToMM/ASME International Workshop on Underactuated Grasping (UG2010), 19 August 2010, Montréal, Canada.</i&gt

Together forever? Explaining exclusivity in party-firm relations

Parties and firms are the key actors of representative democracy and capitalism respectively and the dynamic of attachment between them is a central feature of any political economy. This is the first article to systematically analyse the exclusivity of party-firm relations. We consider exclusivity at a point in time and exclusivity over time. Does a firm have a relationship with only one party at a given point in time, or is it close to more than one party? Does a firm maintain a relationship with only one party over time, or does it switch between parties? Most important, how do patterns of exclusivity impact on a firm’s ability to lobby successfully? We propose a general theory, which explains patterns of party-firm relations by reference to the division of institutions and the type of party competition in a political system. A preliminary test of our theory with Polish survey data confirms our predictions, establishing a promising hypothesis for future research

OpenScout: Open Source Hardware Mobile Robot

OpenScout is a low-cost open source hardware and software mobile robot that can be used for both indoor and outdoor tasks, transporting up to 15 kg of payload. It is designed to be easily and cheaply (350 USD) buildable and modifiable by non-specialists, and to function as a new standard physical platform for robotics research and real-world tasks, replacing current proprietary options. It uses four-wheel differential drive steering, and a hinged body which enables the wheels to drive over small obstacles without the need for suspension. Example applications include last mile and factory floor delivery, site survey and site monitoring