Hepatic trisegmentectomy and other liver resections

Trisegmentectomy, extended right hepatic lobectomy, is the removal of the true right lobe of the liver in continuity with most or all of the medial segment of the left lobe. Some important features of the operation have not been well described previously. To perform trisegmentectomy, safely, a fusion of liver tissue covering the umbilical fissure at the level of the falciform ligament must first be split open in many patients. The left branches of the portal triad structures are mobilized from the undersurface of the liver nearly to but not into the umbilical fissure. The blood supply and duct drainage of the medial segment originate within the umbilical fissure and feed back toward the right side buried in liver substance. They are found with blunt dissection just to the right of the flaciform ligament, encircled and ligated. Failure to appreciate this switch back anatomic arrangement may lead to injury of the blood supply or biliary drainage of the residual lateral segment. Parenthetically, the mirror image operation of lateral segmentectomy could result in devascularization of the medial segment if dissection and ligation were performed within the umbilical fissure instead of well to the left of this landmark. In most trisegmentectomies, the left portion of the caudate lobe is not removed. This small piece of tissue is interposed between the lateral segment and the inferior vena cava into which it drains by small tributaries. If the left portion of the caudate lobe is to be excised, it is necessary to ligate the last two posteriorly running branches before the main left trunks of the portal triad structures reach the umbilical fissure. Once this step is taken and if the caudate removal is completed, the remaining lateral segment usually has only one remaining outflow, that of the left hepatic vein. The other principles of trisegmentectomy are the same as with less radical subtotal hepatic resection. These include vascular suture closure of the main outflow veins, avoidance of parasegmental planes that leave behind a strip of devitalized tissue, preservation of intersegmental or interlobar veins, omission of techniques that sew shut or otherwise cover the raw surface of the remnant and provision of adequate drainage of dead space. After trisegmentectomy and also after true lobectomy, this last objective is usually met by leaving part of the operative incision open. Using thse guidelines, there has been no mortality with 27 hepatic resections carried out since 1963, including 14 trisegmentectomies

Hepatic transplantation, 1975.

This report reviews experience with 97 patients given liver transplants. We regard out survival statistics as unsatisfactory, but fell they should encourage further work since 22 patients have survived at least one year with a maximum survival of 5 13 YEARS. The Achilles' heel of liver transplantation os bile duct reconstruction. We presently rely upon Roux-en-Y reconstruction, or alternatively, duct-to-duct anastomosis with a T-tube stent. The prime indication for liver replacement is non-neoplastic liver disease, but a favourable malignancy for treatment may prove to be small intrahepatic duct cell carcinomas

Social networks and labour productivity in Europe: An empirical investigation

This paper uses firm-level data recorded in the AMADEUS database to investigate the distribution of labour productivity in different European countries. We find that the upper tail of the empirical productivity distributions follows a decaying power-law, whose exponent $\alpha$ is obtained by a semi-parametric estimation technique recently developed by Clementi et al. (2006). The emergence of "fat tails" in productivity distribution has already been detected in Di Matteo et al. (2005) and explained by means of a model of social network. Here we show that this model is tested on a broader sample of countries having different patterns of social network structure. These different social attitudes, measured using a social capital indicator, reflect in the power-law exponent estimates, verifying in this way the existence of linkages among firms' productivity performance and social network.Comment: LaTeX2e; 18 pages with 3 figures; Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, in pres

Learners' decisions for attending Pediatric Grand Rounds: a qualitative and quantitative study

BACKGROUND: Although grand rounds plays a major educational role at academic medical centers, there has been little investigation into the factors influencing the learners' decision to attend. Greater awareness of attendees' expectations may allow grand rounds planners to better accommodate the learners' perspective, potentially making continuing education activities more attractive and inviting. METHODS: We used both qualitative (part A) and quantitative (part B) techniques to investigate the motivators and barriers to grand rounds attendance. Part A investigated contextual factors influencing attendance as expressed through attendee interviews. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed using grounded theory techniques. We created a concept map linking key factors and their relationships. In part B we quantified the motivators and barriers identified during the initial interviews through a survey of the grand rounds audience. RESULTS: Sixteen persons voluntarily took part in the qualitative study (part A) by participating in one of seven group interview sessions. Of the 14 themes that emerged from these sessions, the most frequent factors motivating attendance involved competent practice and the need to know. All sessions discussed intellectual stimulation, social interaction, time constraints and convenience, licensure, content and format, and absence of cost for attending sessions. The 59 respondents to the survey (part B) identified clinically-useful topics (85%), continuing education credit (46%), cutting-edge research (27%), networking (22%), and refreshments (8%) as motivators and non-relevant topics (44%) and too busy to attend (56%) as barriers. CONCLUSION: Greater understanding of the consumers' perspective can allow planners to tailor the style, content, and logistics to make grand rounds more attractive and inviting

Having a lot of a good thing: multiple important group memberships as a source of self-esteem.

Copyright: © 2015 Jetten et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedMembership in important social groups can promote a positive identity. We propose and test an identity resource model in which personal self-esteem is boosted by membership in additional important social groups. Belonging to multiple important group memberships predicts personal self-esteem in children (Study 1a), older adults (Study 1b), and former residents of a homeless shelter (Study 1c). Study 2 shows that the effects of multiple important group memberships on personal self-esteem are not reducible to number of interpersonal ties. Studies 3a and 3b provide longitudinal evidence that multiple important group memberships predict personal self-esteem over time. Studies 4 and 5 show that collective self-esteem mediates this effect, suggesting that membership in multiple important groups boosts personal self-esteem because people take pride in, and derive meaning from, important group memberships. Discussion focuses on when and why important group memberships act as a social resource that fuels personal self-esteem.This study was supported by 1. Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT110100238) awarded to Jolanda Jetten (see http://www.arc.gov.au) 2. Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (LP110200437) to Jolanda Jetten and Genevieve Dingle (see http://www.arc.gov.au) 3. support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being Program to Nyla Branscombe, S. Alexander Haslam, and Catherine Haslam (see http://www.cifar.ca)

Reciprocity as a foundation of financial economics

This paper argues that the subsistence of the fundamental theorem of contemporary financial mathematics is the ethical concept ‘reciprocity’. The argument is based on identifying an equivalence between the contemporary, and ostensibly ‘value neutral’, Fundamental Theory of Asset Pricing with theories of mathematical probability that emerged in the seventeenth century in the context of the ethical assessment of commercial contracts in a framework of Aristotelian ethics. This observation, the main claim of the paper, is justified on the basis of results from the Ultimatum Game and is analysed within a framework of Pragmatic philosophy. The analysis leads to the explanatory hypothesis that markets are centres of communicative action with reciprocity as a rule of discourse. The purpose of the paper is to reorientate financial economics to emphasise the objectives of cooperation and social cohesion and to this end, we offer specific policy advice