Vaginoplasty following vesicovaginal fistula repair: A preliminary report

Vaginal stenosis with severe dyspareunia or apareunia often remains following the  repair of a vesicovaginal fistula cal/sed by an obstructed labour. Five patients have undergone vaginoplasty operations using full-thickness labial skin flaps, all with  satisfactory results

The Heart And Pregnancy

A CAJM article on the close relationship between pregnancy and heart problems.Heart disease and pregnancy are two conditions that are handled commonly by a medical practitioner, and yet it is surprising to find that the influence which one has on the other is often not clearly understood. It would seem reasonable, therefore, to review briefly current concepts on the changes in haemodynamics that occur during pregnancy and labour, and thereafter consider the effects of pregnancy on the diseased heart

Enlightening cyclists:an evaluation study of a bicycle light communication system aimed to support older cyclists in traffic interactions

In the Netherlands, older cyclists run an increased risk of bicyclecrashes. Critical factors are low-speed interactions, stopping, (dis)mounting,and potentially misjudging riding speeds. A Bicycle Light CommunicationSystem (BLCS) was therefore developed that displayed riding speed, braking,and turning intentions. In an experiment, 21 older and 20 younger cyclistsobserved BLCS-signals of a lead cyclist and estimated speeds of anapproaching cyclist, with and without BLCS. Interviews were conducted toassess general opinions on BLCS and its influence on cycling behaviour. In a small follow-up study, twelve older cyclists used a BLCS-bicycle oneweek to explore first user-impressions. The majority evaluated the BLCSpositively, mainly the turning indicator and brake light components, eventhough interpreting the speed signals was difficult. Although the first userimpressions revealed that the direction indicator does not influence selfreported balance (positively or negatively), the majority reported that theywould like to use a BLCS themselves

Age Constraints on Brane Models of Dark Energy

Inspired by recent developments in particle physics, the so-called brane world cosmology seems to provide an alternative explanation for the present dark energy problem. In this paper, we use the estimated age of high-$z$ objects to constrain the value of the cosmological parameters in some particular scenarios based on this large scale modification of gravity. We show that such models are compatible with these observations for values of the crossover distance between the 4 and 5 dimensions of the order of $r_c \leq 1.67H_o^{-1}$.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Long-term neuropsychological outcomes in children and adolescents after cardiac arrest

Purpose: Research into neuropsychological functioning of survivors of cardiac arrest (CA) in childhood is scarce. We sought to a

Cardiac arrest in infants, children, and adolescents: long-term emotional and behavioral functioning

Very little is known about the psychological consequences of a cardiac arrest (CA) during childhood. Our aim was to assess long-term emotional and behavioral functioning, and its predictors, in survivors of CA in childhood. This long-term follow-up study involved all consecutive infants, children, and adolescents surviving CA in a tertiary-care university children’s hospital between January 2002 and December 2011. Emotional and behavioral functioning was assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), Teacher’s Report Form (TRF), and Youth Self-Report (YSR). Of the eligible 107 CA survivors, 52 patients, parents, and/or teachers filled out online questionnaires. Compared with normative data, parents and teachers reported significantly more attention and somatic problems (age range 6–18 years). Parents also reported more attention problems for age range 1.5–5 years. Twenty-eight percent of the children (n = 14) scored in the psychopathological range (i.e., for age range 1.5–18 years; p < 0.001) according to parent reports. Male gender, older age, and basic life support were significantly related to worse scores on the scales internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and total problems and subscale attention problems. Conclusion: Long-term deficits in attention and somatic complaints were reported. Attention problems after childhood CA can interfere with school performance. Long-term follow-up with neuropsychological assessment should be organized.(Table presented.

The Deformable Universe

The concept of smooth deformations of a Riemannian manifolds, recently evidenced by the solution of the Poincar\'e conjecture, is applied to Einstein's gravitational theory and in particular to the standard FLRW cosmology. We present a brief review of the deformation of Riemannian geometry, showing how such deformations can be derived from the Einstein-Hilbert dynamical principle. We show that such deformations of space-times of general relativity produce observable effects that can be measured by four-dimensional observers. In the case of the FLRW cosmology, one such observable effect is shown to be consistent with the accelerated expansion of the universe.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX, 3 figure

Application de la méthode des transformateurs saturés à la mesure et régulation du champ magnétique d'un spectromètre β à double focalisation π √2 avec noyau de fer

On décrit un nouveau magnétomètre pour mesurer les champs magnétiques constants ou lentement variables dans l'intervalle de variation entre 10 -4 et 3 x 102 Oe. La précision relative est supérieure à 2,5 X 10-5 entre 7 et 300 Oe. Le champ magnétique d'un spectromètre β à double focalisation π √2 du type Siegbahn-Svartholm est stabilisé par un servomécanisme. On utilise comme signal d'erreur la différence entre une tension proportionnelle au champ d'induction magnétique et une tension de référence

Gammaretrovirus-mediated correction of SCID-X1 is associated with skewed vector integration site distribution in vivo

We treated 10 children with X-linked SCID (SCID-X1) using gammaretrovirus-mediated gene transfer. Those with sufficient follow-up were found to have recovered substantial immunity in the absence of any serious adverse events up to 5 years after treatment. To determine the influence of vector integration on lymphoid reconstitution, we compared retroviral integration sites (RISs) from peripheral blood CD3(+) T lymphocytes of 5 patients taken between 9 and 30 months after transplantation with transduced CD34(+) progenitor cells derived from 1 further patient and I healthy donor. Integration occurred preferentially in gene regions on either side of transcription start sites, was clustered, and correlated with the expression level in CD34(+) progenitors during transduction. In contrast to those in CD34(+) cells, RISs recovered from engrafted CD3(+)T cells were significantly overrepresented within or near genes encoding proteins with kinase or transferase activity or involved in phosphorus metabolism. Although gross patterns of gene expression were unchanged in transduced cells, the divergence of RIS target frequency between transduced progenitor cells and post-thymic T lymphocytes indicates that vector integration influences cell survival, engraftment, or proliferation

Quasi-Monte Carlo rules for numerical integration over the unit sphere S2\mathbb{S}^2

We study numerical integration on the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^2 \subset \mathbb{R}^3$ using equal weight quadrature rules, where the weights are such that constant functions are integrated exactly. The quadrature points are constructed by lifting a $(0,m,2)$-net given in the unit square $[0,1]^2$ to the sphere $\mathbb{S}^2$ by means of an area preserving map. A similar approach has previously been suggested by Cui and Freeden [SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 18 (1997), no. 2]. We prove three results. The first one is that the construction is (almost) optimal with respect to discrepancies based on spherical rectangles. Further we prove that the point set is asymptotically uniformly distributed on $\mathbb{S}^2$. And finally, we prove an upper bound on the spherical cap $L_2$-discrepancy of order $N^{-1/2} (\log N)^{1/2}$ (where $N$ denotes the number of points). This slightly improves upon the bound on the spherical cap $L_2$-discrepancy of the construction by Lubotzky, Phillips and Sarnak [Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 39 (1986), 149--186]. Numerical results suggest that the $(0,m,2)$-nets lifted to the sphere $\mathbb{S}^2$ have spherical cap $L_2$-discrepancy converging with the optimal order of $N^{-3/4}$