Medium-term follow-up of ulcerative colitis in Cape Town

The 114 patients with ulcerative colitis diagnosed in Greater Cape Town between 1970 and 1979 were followed up 11 years later. Ninety per cent of those contacted were in remission or had mild symptoms only. Eleven patients had died; 3 deaths (in total colitis patients) were disease-related but the overall mortality rate in ulcerative colitis was not increased. There was only 1 case of carcinoma of the colon. The 5-year surgical rate was 5% increasing to 23% 10 years after diagnosis. Six patients (35%) had had a Park's pouch, 3 (18%) ileorectal anastomosis, and a (47%) panproctocolectomy or colectomy with an ileostomy. The incidence of surgery was higher in those with total colitis. In those patients who did not have the rectum removed, there was a 100% recurrence of proctitis. Park's pouch patients remained well and incontinence was not a problem. Thirty-one per cent of patients with proctitis at diagnosis had evidence of extension of disease to the colon at follow-up. Ulcerative colitis may be a more benign disease than often believed, with mortality from the disease and need for surgery being associated almost exclusively with extensive disease.S Afr Med J 1989; 76: 142·14

Ineffectiveness of colchicine for the prevention of restenosis after coronary angioplasty

AbstractColchicine, an antimitogenic agent, has shown promise in preventing restenosis after coronary angioplasty in experimental animal models. A prospective trial was conducted involving 197 patients randomized in a 2:1 fashion to treatment with oral colchicine, 0.6 mg twice daily (130 patients), or placebo (67 patients) for 6 months after elective coronary angioplasty. Treatment in all patients began between 12 h before angioplasty and 24 h after angioplasty. Compliance monitoring revealed that 96% of all prescribed pills were ingested. Demographic characteristics were similar in colchicine- and placebo-treated groups. A mean of 2.7 lesions/patient were dilated. Side effects resulted in a 6.9% dropout rate in the colchicine-treated patients.Complete quantitative angiographic follow-up was obtained in 145 patients (74%) with 393 dilated lesions. Quantitative angiographic measurements were obtained in two orthogonal views at baseline before angioplasty and immediately and at 6 months after angioplasty. The quantitative mean lumen diameter stenosis before angioplasty was 67% both in the 152 lesions in the placebo-treated group and in the 241 lesions in the colchkine-treated group; this value was reduced to 24% immediately after angio-plasty in the lesions in both treatment groups.At the 6-month angiogram, lesions had restenosed to 47% lumen diameter narrowing in the placebo-treated group compared with 46% in the colchicine-treated group (p = NS). Forty-one percent of colchicine-treated patients developed restenosis in at least one lesion compared with 45% of the placebo-treated group (p = NS). In conclusion, colchicine was ineffective for preventing restenosis after coronary angioplasty

SRTR Center‐Specific Reporting Tools: Posttransplant Outcomes

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106770/1/j.1600-6143.2006.01275.x.pd

Acoustic Emission from crumpling paper

From magnetic systems to the crust of the earth, many physical systems that exibit a multiplicty of metastable states emit pulses with a broad power law distribution in energy. Digital audio recordings reveal that paper being crumpled, a system that can be easily held in hand, is such a system. Crumpling paper both using the traditional hand method and a novel cylindrical geometry uncovered a power law distribution of pulse energies spanning at least two decades: (exponent 1.3 - 1.6) Crumpling initally flat sheets into a compact ball (strong crumpling), we found little or no evidence that the energy distribution varied systematically over time or the size of the sheet. When we applied repetitive small deformations (weak crumpling) to sheets which had been previously folded along a regular grid, we found no systematic dependence on the grid spacing. Our results suggest that the pulse energy depends only weakly on the size of the paper regions responsible for sound production.Comment: 12 pages of text, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. E, additional information availible at http://www.msc.cornell.edu/~houle/crumpling

catena-Poly[[silver(I)-μ-4-aminopyridine] perchlorate]: a 1-D staircase coordination polymer

Reaction of 4-amino­pyridine with silver(I) perchlorate leads to a one-dimensional coordination polymer, {[Ag(C5H6N2)]ClO4}n, in which the amino­pyridine binds through both N atoms. The perchlorate anion is hydrogen bonded to the amino H atoms and inter­acts weakly with the silver(I) atoms (Ag—O > 2.70 Å), both located on inversion centres, and some aromatic H atoms (O—H > 2.55 ÅA), thereby extending the dimensionality of the assembly. This is the first silver complex in which this ligand acts in a bridging mode

Weyl's law and quantum ergodicity for maps with divided phase space

For a general class of unitary quantum maps, whose underlying classical phase space is divided into several invariant domains of positive measure, we establish analogues of Weyl's law for the distribution of eigenphases. If the map has one ergodic component, and is periodic on the remaining domains, we prove the Schnirelman-Zelditch-Colin de Verdiere Theorem on the equidistribution of eigenfunctions with respect to the ergodic component of the classical map (quantum ergodicity). We apply our main theorems to quantised linked twist maps on the torus. In the Appendix, S. Zelditch connects these studies to some earlier results on `pimpled spheres' in the setting of Riemannian manifolds. The common feature is a divided phase space with a periodic component.Comment: Colour figures. Black & white figures available at http://www2.maths.bris.ac.uk/~majm. Appendix by Steve Zelditc

Gas emissions, minerals, and tars associated with three coal fires, Powder River Basin, USA.

Ground-based surveys of three coal fires and airborne surveys of two of the fires were conducted near Sheridan, Wyoming. The fires occur in natural outcrops and in abandoned mines, all containing Paleocene-age subbituminous coals. Diffuse (carbon dioxide (CO(2)) only) and vent (CO(2), carbon monoxide (CO), methane, hydrogen sulfide (H(2)S), and elemental mercury) emission estimates were made for each of the fires. Additionally, gas samples were collected for volatile organic compound (VOC) analysis and showed a large range in variation between vents. The fires produce locally dangerous levels of CO, CO(2), H(2)S, and benzene, among other gases. At one fire in an abandoned coal mine, trends in gas and tar composition followed a change in topography. Total CO(2) fluxes for the fires from airborne, ground-based, and rate of fire advancement estimates ranged from 0.9 to 780mg/s/m(2) and are comparable to other coal fires worldwide. Samples of tar and coal-fire minerals collected from the mouth of vents provided insight into the behavior and formation of the coal fires

Time-dependent wave selection for information processing in excitable media

We demonstrate an improved technique for implementing logic circuits in light-sensitive chemical excitable media. The technique makes use of the constant-speed propagation of waves along defined channels in an excitable medium based on the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, along with the mutual annihilation of colliding waves. What distinguishes this work from previous work in this area is that regions where channels meet at a junction can periodically alternate between permitting the propagation of waves and blocking them. These valve-like areas are used to select waves based on the length of time that it takes waves to propagate from one valve to another. In an experimental implementation, the channels which make up the circuit layout are projected by a digital projector connected to a computer. Excitable channels are projected as dark areas, unexcitable regions as light areas. Valves alternate between dark and light: every valve has the same period and phase, with a 50% duty cycle. This scheme can be used to make logic gates based on combinations of OR and AND-NOT operations, with few geometrical constraints. Because there are few geometrical constraints, compact circuits can be implemented. Experimental results from an implementation of a 4-bit input, 2-bit output integer square root circuit are given. This is the most complex logic circuit that has been implemented in BZ excitable media to date