Pachydermoperiostosis-Like Disease In Captive Red Ruffled Lemurs (Varecia Variegatus Rubra)

Pachydermatoperiostosis, a rare form of hypertrophic osteoarthropathy, is of unknown etiology and previously thought limited to humans. The only periosteal reaction previously reported in prosimians is related to renal disease. Notation of hypertrophic osteoarthritis in three prosimians led to recognition that this was the first non-human documentation of the disease. Three related red ruffed lemurs (Varecia variegatus rubra) had diaphyseal periosteal reaction classic for hypertrophic osteoarthropathy. Workup was negative for known underlying causes and for the secondary hyperparathyroidism which produces bone alterations in black Eulemur macao, black and white Varecia variegatatus varigatus and ringtail Lemur catta lemurs. Recognition of facial coarsening allows identification of the primary form of hypertrophic osteoarthropathy, categorized in humans as primary hypertrophic osteoarthropathy. This is the first recognition of the phenomenon in the order primates, exclusive of humans, and represents a new model for this rare disease

Comedies of Transgression in Gangsta Rap and Ancient Classical Poetry

First paragraph: The history of literature and art offers no shortage of works created to offend or shock an audience, but few have been as incendiary as gangsta rap. Apologists cannot deny the problematic content of this form of rap—the misogynistic posturing, themes of intense violence, freewheeling and gratuitous obscenity—and some detractors hold that even the attempt to analyze the genre bestows undeserved legitimacy on its practitioners. The transgressive and counter-hegemonic stance of gangsta rap has become so hreatening, in fact, that its origins as a complex poetic form with deep roots in a variety of literary and ritual traditions have, for the most part, been neglected or obscured. Indeed, it is difficult to think of any poetic form in the contemporary West in which politics, race and ideology have dictated so completely the terms of acceptable criticism. This is all the more remarkable for gangsta rap, insofar as so much foundational scholarship, some even decades old, already exists within fields such as folklore, psychology and anthropology which can articulate the nexus of literary and cultural forces that gave rise to it. As such approaches make clear, far from being an unprecedented art form that can only reflect the social pathologies idiosyncratic to American ghetto life, gangsta rap operates within a well-documented poetic tradition within African-American culture that ritualizes invective, satire, obscenity, and other verbal phenomena with transgressive aims

Use of technetium-99 myocardial scanning for identification of intraoperative myocardial infarctions

Technedum 99m stannous pyrophosphate (TcPyP) myocardial scans were obtained in 42 selected nonconsecutive patients within 12 days following open heart operations for both valve replacement (19 patients) and coronary bypass (23 patients) procedures. The scans were correlated with elevation of serum lactic dehydrogenase, glutamic oxalacetic transaminase and the electrocardiograms obtained serially in the postoperative period. TcPyP scan was more specific than enzyme studies and it was more sensitive than the electrocardiogram. All new Q waves were associated with a positive scan but there were five positive scans which were not associated with new Q waves. Myotomy and direct surgical trauma to the left ventricle did not cause positive scanning. Evidence for infarction by myocardial scan was observed in both valvular and coronary bypass patients. The technique has improved understanding of the occurrence of intraoperative myocardial infarctions

An Optoelectronic Implementation of the Adaptive Resonance Neural Network

A solution to the problem of implementation of the adaptive resonance theory (ART) of neural networks that uses an optical correlator which allows the large body of correlator research to be leveraged in the implementation of ART is presented. The implementation takes advantage of the fact that one ART-based architecture, known as ART1, can be broken into several parts, some of which are better to implement in parallel. The control structure of ART, often regarded as its most complex part, is actually not very time consuming and can be done in electronics. The bottom-up and top-down gated pathways, however, are very time consuming to simulate and are difficult to implement directly in electronics due to the high number of interconnections. In addition to the design, the authors present experiments with a laboratory prototype to illustrate its feasibility and to discuss implementation details that arise in practice. This device can potentially outperform alternative implementations of ART1 by as much as two to three orders of magnitude in problems requiring especially large input field

Individual Differences and Heritability of Thinking Styles and Working Memory Capacity: A Dual-process Perspective

Dual process theories propose that human decision-making involves the interplay of two distinct information processing systems, or modes of thinking: rational (logical) and experiential (intuitive). Previous research shows that individuals differ in their preferred modes of thinking and that these preferences for rationality and/or experientiality are believed to be predictive of a range of behaviours. Moreover, preference for rational thinking is believed to be intimately linked with working memory capacity (WMC). Three studies reported in this thesis investigated thinking styles, their relationship to WMC, their heritability and the extent to which they were associated with reasoning and decision-making performance across a range of tasks

Serum Dioxin Concentrations and Age at Menopause

2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorobenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), a halogenated compound that binds the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, is a by-product of numerous industrial processes including waste incineration. Studies in rats and monkeys suggest that TCDD may affect ovarian function. We examined the relationship of TCDD and age at menopause in a population of women residing near Seveso, Italy, in 1976, at the time of a chemical plant explosion. We included 616 of the women who participated 20 years later in the Seveso Women’s Health Study. All women were premenopausal at the time of the explosion, had TCDD levels measured in serum collected soon after the explosion, and were ≥ 35 years of age at interview. Using proportional hazards modeling, we found a 6% nonsignificant increase in risk of early menopause with a 10-fold increase in serum TCDD. When TCDD levels were categorized, compared with women in the lowest quintile (< 20.4 ppt), women in quintile 2 (20.4–34.2 ppt) had a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.1 (p = 0.77), quintile 3 (34.3–54.1 ppt) had an HR of 1.4 (p = 0.14), quintile 4 (54.2–118 ppt) had an HR of 1.6 (p = 0.10), and quintile 5 (> 118 ppt) had an HR of 1.1 (p = 0.82) for risk of earlier menopause. The trend toward earlier menopause across the first four quintiles is statistically significant (p = 0.04). These results suggest a nonmonotonic dose-related association with increasing risk of earlier menopause up to about 100 ppt TCDD, but not above

Instances and connectors : issues for a second generation process language

This work is supported by UK EPSRC grants GR/L34433 and GR/L32699Over the past decade a variety of process languages have been defined, used and evaluated. It is now possible to consider second generation languages based on this experience. Rather than develop a second generation wish list this position paper explores two issues: instances and connectors. Instances relate to the relationship between a process model as a description and the, possibly multiple, enacting instances which are created from it. Connectors refers to the issue of concurrency control and achieving a higher level of abstraction in how parts of a model interact. We believe that these issues are key to developing systems which can effectively support business processes, and that they have not received sufficient attention within the process modelling community. Through exploring these issues we also illustrate our approach to designing a second generation process language.Postprin

The Victorian Newsletter (Spring 1979)

The Victorian Newsletter is sponsored for the Victorian Group of the Modern Language Association by the University of Florida and is published twice annually.Déjà vu Inverted: the Imminent Future in Walter Pater's Marius the Epicurean / William E. Buckler -- Rights, Reason, and Redemption: Charlotte Brontë's Neo-Platonism / Sara Moore Putzell -- Tractarian Aesthetics: Analogy and Reserve in Keble and Newman / G. B. Tennyson -- Bruising the Serpent's Head: Typological Symbol in Victorian Poetry / George P. Landow -- High Tea and Matzo Balls: Religion in the Victorian Jewish Novel / Linda Gertner Zatlin -- Hardy, Barnes, and the Provincial / Donald Wesling -- Father and Mother in Father and Son / E. Pearlman -- Time in Nicholas Nickelby / Patricia Marks -- In Which a Poet is Frightened by a Lion: The Philosophical Context of Mill's Poetic Theory / Jonathan Loesburg -- Books Received -- Victorian Group New