Hepatitis' C virus infection in urban and rural NatallKwaZulu

This study was undertaken to estimate the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in urban and rural blacks in NataUKwaZulu. Sera from representative community-based samples comprising 176 urban and 441 rural black adults were tested for the presence of anti-HCV. The prevalence of HCV infection was 1,7% (95% confidence interval 0 - 3,6%) among urban and 0,9% (95% confidence interval 0,1 - 1,7% ) among rural blacks. Four (0,9%) of the 466 subjects with evidence of current or past hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and 3 (2%) of the 151 with no evidence of HBV infection were anti-HCV-positive. The prevalence of HCV infection was low in contrast to the high prevalence of HBV infection among urban and rural blacks in Natal KwaZulu. This suggests that HCV does not have the same main routes of transmission as HBV in this region. Larger scale studies are needed to explore this hypothesis

Successful elimination of factor VIII inhibitor using cyclosporin A

No abstract available

The prevalence of medical reasons for non-participation in the Scottish breast and bowel cancer screening programmes

Objective: Increasing uptake of cancer screening is a priority for health systems internationally, however, some patients may not attend because they are undergoing active treatment for the cancer of interest or have other medical reasons that mean participation would be inappropriate. This study aims to quantify the proportion of non-participants who have a medical reason for not attending cancer screening.<p></p> Methods: Medical reasons for not participating in breast and bowel screening were defined a priori on the basis of a literature review and expert opinion. The notes of 700 patients at two GP practices in Scotland were reviewed, to ascertain the prevalence of medical reasons amongst non-participants. Simple proportions and confidence intervals were calculated.<p></p> Results: 17.4% of breast and 2.3% of bowel screening non-participants had a medical reason to not participate. The two most common reasons were previous breast cancer follow up (8.86%) and recent mammogram (6.57%).<p></p> Conclusion: These patients may not benefit from screening while also being distressed by receiving an invitation. This issue also makes accurate monitoring and target-setting for improving uptake difficult. Further work is needed to estimate robustly the extent to which medical reasons account for screening non-participation in a larger population.<p></p&gt

The characterisation of diesel nozzle flow using high speed imaging of elastic light scattering

Two identical, conventional six-hole, valve-covered orifice (VCO) diesel injectors have been modified in order to provide optical access to the region below the needle, and the nozzle-flow passages. This has been achieved through the removal of the metal tips, and their replacement with transparent acrylic tips of identical geometry. These two identical injectors were employed in order to offer comparability between the measurements. One of them had a dark, anodised inner surface at the base, while the other had a silvered inner surface at the base. Elastic scattering of incident white light from the internal cavitating flow inside the nozzle holes of the optically accessible diesel injector tips was captured on a high-speed electronic camera. The optical image data was obtained for three injector rail pressures ranging from 200 bar to 400 bar, and for five diesel fuels of varying density, viscosity, and distillation profile, in order to identify variations in cavitation flow behaviour inside the nozzle hole passages. A set of mean time-resolved diesel fuel flow images were obtained from 30 successive fuel injection pulses, for each operating condition, for each injector. The mean cavitation image occurring in the nozzle holes was converted to the mean proportion of nozzle hole area producing cavitation-induced optical scattering. The mean normalised area images were then analysed, and were able to demonstrate the anticipated inverse relationship between injected fuel mass and cavitation volume fraction (indicated by mean normalised area), and the effect of fuel viscosity and distillation profile on cavitation volume fraction (again indicated by mean normalised area)

Goal conflict and goal facilitation as predictors of accelerometer-assessed physical activity

Objective: To test whether perceptions of conflicting and facilitating personal goals, and actual daily time spent in their pursuit, predict accelerometer-assessed physical activity (PA). Methods: A prospective multilevel design with a daily accelerometer-based assessment of PA over 1 week was used (N = 106). Participants’ personal goals were elicited using personal projects analysis. Participants then rated their personal goals in terms of how they were perceived to facilitate and conflict with their regular PA. Items assessing PA-specific intention and perceived behavioral control (PBC) were also embedded within the baseline measures. For the subsequent 7 consecutive days, participants completed a daily diary based on the day reconstruction method, indicating the time spent in daily episodes involving each of their personal goals, and wore an RT3 tri-axial accelerometer. Main Outcome Measure: The main outcome was accelerometer-assessed daily time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Results: Random intercept multilevel models indicated that perceived goal facilitation, but not perceived goal conflict, predicted MVPA over and above intention and PBC. Daily time pursuing conflicting goals negatively predicted MVPA when subsequently added to the model and in so doing, attenuated the association between perceived goal facilitation and MVPA. Conclusion: Perceived goal facilitation predicts objectively measured PA over and above intention and PBC, but daily time spent in pursuit of conflicting personal goals provides a better account of how alternative goals relate to engaging in regular PA

On the generalized continuity equation

A generalized continuity equation extending the ordinary continuity equation has been found using quanternions. It is shown to be compatible with Dirac, Schrodinger, Klein-Gordon and diffusion equations. This generalized equation is Lorentz invariant. The transport properties of electrons are found to be governed by Schrodinger-like equation and not by the diffusion equation.Comment: 9 Latex pages, no figure

Staged celiac artery resection with pancreatosplenectomy (SCARPS) - a novel approach to pancreatic cancer encasing celiac axis trunk robotically

To avoid hepatobiliary and gastric ischaemia related directly to Appleby and Kondo’s procedures, a novel SCARPS procedure (Staged Celiac Artery Resection with PancreatoSplenectomy) for resection of pancreatic cancer involving celiac axis trunk is described here. A 67-year-old female with biopsy proven Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) encasing celiac and common hepatic artery underwent two stage robotic operation with Da Vinci Xi following 12 cycles of neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX and 45 Gy chemoradiation. Stage 1 consisted of diagnostic laparoscopy and ligation of Common Hepatic Artery (CHA) after a trial of vascular clamping with real time assessment of hepatic artery flow using laparoscopic / robotic intraoperative doppler ultrasound and stage 2 resection of celiac axis trunk and CHA with pancreatosplenectomy 2 weeks after stage 1 following a repeat CT abdomen/pancreas. Both procedures were performed robotically. Hepatic Artery Resistive Index (HARI) increased to 0.8 after ligation of CHA with preserved forward flows. The operative time was 80 min and 240 min for stage 1 and 2 respectively with minimal blood loss without perioperative blood transfusion. SCARPS offers a safe ligation of CHA following an intraoperative assessment of disease status and a real-time hepatic haemodynamic study prior to major pancreatosplenectomy with celiac axis trunk resection. Furthermore, it is described fervently as a minimally invasive approach to resection of pancreatic cancer with vascular involvement to benefit patients directly for quick recovery

Fatigue Crack Sizing of Skew and Thumbnail Cracks Using an AC Potential Drop System

ABSTRACT. A

Takeuti's Well-Ordering Proof: Finitistically Fine?

If it could be shown that one of Gentzen's consistency proofs for pure number theory could be shown to be finitistically acceptable, an important part of Hilbert's program would be vindicated. This paper focuses on whether the transfinite induction on ordinal notations needed for Gentzen's second proof can be finitistically justified. In particular, the focus is on Takeuti's purportedly finitistically acceptable proof of the well-ordering of ordinal notations in Cantor normal form. The paper begins with a historically informed discussion of finitism and its limits, before introducing Gentzen and Takeuti's respective proofs. The rest of the paper is dedicated to investigating the finitistic acceptability of Takeuti's proof, including a small but important fix to that proof. That discussion strongly suggests that there is a philosophically interesting finitist standpoint that Takeuti's proof, and therefore Gentzen's proof, conforms to