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Biomedical subjects

M Truszczynski

Publications and source records attributed to M Truszczynski.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Simulating patients with Parallel Health State Networks.

The American Board of Family Practice is developing a computer-based recertification process to generate patient simulations from a knowledge base. Simulated patients require a stochastically generated history and response to treatment, suggesting a Monte Carlo-like patient generation process. Knowledge acquisition experiments revealed that description of a patient's overall health as a node in a Monte Carlo model was difficult for domain experts to use, severely limited knowledge reusability, and created a plethora of awkwardly defined health states. We explored a model in which patients traverse several parallel health state networks simultaneously, so that overall health is a vector describing the current nodes from every Parallel Network. This model has a reasonable biological basis, more easily defined data, and greatly improved reuse potential, at the cost of more complex simulation algorithms. Experiments using osteoarthritis stages, weight classification, and absence or presence of gastric ulcers as three Parallel Networks demonstrate the feasibility of this approach to simulating patients.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1995

The role of international and regional organisations in the regulation of veterinary biologicals.

The authors discuss the role played by international and regional organisations in the registration and testing of veterinary biological products. International organisations which contribute significantly to this field include the Office International des Epizooties (OIE)--through the work of the Standards Commission and the publication of the Manual of standards for diagnostic tests and vaccines--, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO)--through the work of the Joint FAO/International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture in standardising enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) techniques, as well as through WHO Expert Committees. In Europe, the most important regional organisations are the European Commission and the European Pharmacopoeia. In the Americas, the most significant contribution is made by the two specialised institutes of the Pan American Health Organisation (namely INPPAZ [Pan American Institute for Food Protection and Zoonoses] and PANAFTOSA [Pan American Foot and Mouth Disease Centre]), and by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture. In Africa, PANVAC (the Pan-African Veterinary Vaccine Centre) continues to perform valuable work in testing veterinary vaccines. For the industrialised countries, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is involved in the regulation of biotechnology products and in standardising "good laboratory practice' for vaccine manufacture. A table is presented which summarises and compares the respective roles of these organisations in the harmonization of licensing and testing procedures, the distribution of reference reagents, vaccine testing and the creation of vaccine banks.

Africa↗
PubMed1993

Application of a blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for serological monitoring of hog cholera (classical swine fever) in Poland.

Between 1990 and 1992, serum samples from 55,478 domestic swine were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the presence of hog cholera virus (HCV) antibodies. The amount of antibody in the sera was expressed as the mean percentage inhibition (PI). For diagnosis, the tested sera were diluted 1:2 and considered positive if the PI was less than 25%. Sera giving PI values in the range of 25-50% were retested against HCV and bovine virus diarrhoea virus (BVDV), by neutralising peroxidase-linked assay. Comparison of the serum titres obtained was used for serological diagnosis of hog cholera; the tested sera were considered negative for hog cholera if the titre for BVDV was higher than that obtained for HCV. All sera with a PI higher than 50% were considered negative for HCV and BVDV. All sera were found to be free of antibodies to HCV. BVDV antibodies were demonstrated in 0.40% of the sera tested in 1990, in 1.80% in 1991 and 1.06% in 1992.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

The role of the Office International des Epizooties in the standardisation of biologicals.

The Office International des Epizooties (OIE) is the World Animal Health Organisation created in 1924 in Paris. The following activities have been started in order to promote standardisation of biologicals: a) preparation of the OIE Manual of Standards for Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines; b) organisation of Reference Laboratories for diseases of Lists A and B; c) establishment, in cooperation with WHO, FAO and IAEA, of international standards for diagnostic tests with particular reference to the ELISA. The Manual will be distributed worldwide in 1992 and 1993 and this will contribute to an internationally unified approach to diagnosis and immunoprophylaxis, in other words to international harmonisation of veterinary biologicals. It is planned that future OIE Reference Laboratories, now being organised, will supply the necessary standards.

Animal Diseases↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Rapid and specific differentiation of enterotoxin-producing Escherichia coli strains from other gram-negative enteric bacteria using multiplex PCR.

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) may produce heat-labile (LT) and heat-stable (STI or STII) enterotoxins. Differentiation between ETEC and other pathogenic and non-pathogenic E. coli as well as other Gram-negative bacteria responsible for induction of diarrhoea, requires isolation, biochemical identification and determination of toxins (or their genes--elt, estI, estII). A multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system for the rapid and specific detection of enterotoxin-gene-positive E. coli was developed. The primers described by other authors, specific for the universal stress protein A (UspA) of E. coli and enterotoxin genes were used and allowed a simultaneous amplification of the E. coli-specific uspA and the respective toxin genes. The specificity of this multiplex PCR system was confirmed by testing ETEC, non-ETEC and other non-E. coli bacteria. The specific 884 bp uspA gene and 280 bp (eltI), 166 bp (estI) or 278 bp (estII) amplification products were generated with the respective ETEC strains whereas no amplification was detected with non-E. coli bacteria. The multiplex PCR developed allowed the rapid and specific identification of enterotoxin-producing E. coli colonies directly grown from faecal samples of pigs with diarrhoea. The test may be used as a method for the determination of ETEC among other pathogenic groups of E. coli and other Gram-negative enteric isolates.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

A formal model of family medicine.

BACKGROUND: The American Board of Family Practice is developing a computer-based recertification process. An optimal implementation requires a formal model of family medicine, which will become the basis for a knowledge base. DESIGN: The proposed model of family medicine contains six entities: Population, Record, Agents of Change, Health States, Findings, and Courses of Action. The model illustrates 15 important relations between entities. For instance: Health States Lead to Health States, and Findings Associate with Health States. These two relations describe natural history, manifestations of disease, and the effects of medical interventions and risk factors. Because time is such an important aspect of primary care, nearly all numeric data are represented as graphs of possible values over time, called Patterns, which include details about periodicity. Patterns and other aspects of the model provide a means of describing covariance between observations, such as the influence of height on weight. RESULTS: The model reflects many family practice activities and suggests some formal descriptions of family practice. For instance, diagnostic activities focus largely on classifying early or short segments of Patterns in Findings. Most medical interventions attempt to alter either the probability distributions in a Lead-to relation or the impact of a Finding. CONCLUSION: The proposed model of family medicine could find uses in many applications, including computer-based tests, medical records, reference systems, and decision support tools.

Family Practice↗