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Heart rate variability in diabetic patients during orthostatic load--a spectral analytic approach.

Spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) was used to assess the autonomic nervous control of cardiac function during orthostatic load in insulin-dependent diabetic patients and healthy subjects. The diabetic patients were divided into three groups: diabetics without neuropathy (group 1), diabetics with peripheral neuropathy (group 2), and diabetics with peripheral and autonomic neuropathy (group 3). Resting mid-frequency (MF, 0.05-0.15 Hz) and respiration-related (RF, power around respiration rate) HRV were significantly lower in group 2 and 3 diabetics than in controls, indicating a reduced parasympathetic nervous system influence on the heart. Standing MF and RF spectral power data were significantly lower in all diabetic groups than in controls, suggesting marked alterations in the autonomic cardiovascular control during a mild physical load not only in symptomatic diabetics but also in patients with no signs and symptoms of neuropathy. The difference between supine and standing MF power, an estimate of beta-adrenergic influence on the heart, was significantly lower in all diabetic subject groups studied than in controls. This suggests a reduced sympathetic nervous system influence on the heart in diabetic patients. Our data suggest that computerized spectral analysis of HRV during orthostatic load seems to be a very sensitive method of evaluating of the autonomic nervous systems influence on the heart in patients suffering from diabetes mellitus.

Adult

Analytical approach to mathematical modelling of the isometric contraction of the hypertrophied myocardium.

It is attempted on the basis of the Hill two-element model to simulate mathematically the rising phase of the isometric mechanogram in the pressure-hypertrophied rat myocardium (Goldblatt II). The evaluation is based on the experimentally determined force-velocity relation as well as on the characteristic of the series-elastic stiffness. The changes in the isometric mechanogram of the hypertrophied heart muscle observed in the experiment can be mathematically predicted solely by means of the alterations in the force-velocity relationships induced by the hypertrophy, whereby the characteristic of the series-elastic stiffness is considered to be unchanged.

Cardiomegaly

The merging of participatory and analytical approaches to evaluation: implications for nurses in primary health care programs.

This paper addresses the need to make evaluation part of the nurse's expanded role within the Primary Health Care system. In a social policy and decision-making context, the nurse is an intermediary between political authorities and community groups. This requires diverse, but complementary, evaluation skills. The author proposes a dual method of evaluation for community health programs. The approach incorporates an objective-stance Logical Framework Analysis Model, to meet agencies' needs for program effectiveness and impact data, and a Participatory Evaluation approach, to recognize the ability of communities to judge whether health services are responsive to their needs. The nature and application of both methods within an International Primary Health Care context are explored. The paper concludes that access to a wide spectrum of evaluation data places the nursing profession in a challenging position to influence policy decisions related to health services.

Community Health Nursing

Toward an identification of mechanical parameters initiating periosteal remodeling: a combined experimental and analytic approach.

The ability of bone to adapt to its mechanical environment is well recognized, although the specific mechanical parameters initiating or maintaining the adaptive responses have yet to be identified. Recently introduced mathematical models offer the potential to aid in the identification of such parameters, although these models have not been well validated experimentally or clinically. We formulated a complementary experimental/analytic approach, using an animal model with a well-controlled mechanical environment combined with finite element modeling (FEM). We selected the functionally isolated turkey ulna, since the loading could be completely characterized and the periosteal adaptive responses subsequently monitored and quantified after four and eight weeks of loading. Known loads input into a three-dimensional, linearly elastic FEM of the ulna then permitted full-field mechanical characterization of the ulna. The FEM was validated against a normal strain-gaged turkey ulna, loaded in vivo in an identical fashion to the experimental ulnae. Twenty-four candidate mechanical parameters were then compared to the quantified adaptive responses, using statistical techniques. The data supported strain energy density, longitudinal shear stress, and tensile principal stress/strain as the mechanical parameters most likely related to the initiation of the remodeling response. Model predictions can now suggest new experiments, against which the predictions can be supported or falsified.

Adaptation, Physiological

Seasonal changes in mood and behavior: a cluster analytic approach.

We report on the cluster analysis of 416 subjects from Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, who responded to lay interviewers using a telephone version of the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). Eight clusters are described, the smallest of which is consistent with a pattern comparable to that seen in patients with winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD). A larger group of individuals seems to demonstrate patterns equivalent to that of subsyndromal winter SAD patients. Furthermore, it was apparent that a large percentage of the study group seems to be affected to some degree by the characteristics of the seasons. It was observed, perhaps for the first time, that feeling worse when there is a high pollen count appears to be associated with the symptom pattern seen in winter SAD patients. There is also evidence for the existence of a group of summer subsyndromal SAD subjects.

Adult

Seasonal variations in mood and behavior in the general population: a factor-analytic approach.

In a mailed survey conducted at four centers--Nashua, NH; New York, NY; Washington, DC; and Sarasota, FL--1,671 respondents provided information on monthly variations in 10 behavioral categories representing extremes in the areas of mood, socializing, appetite, weight gain/loss, and sleep length. A 10-factor solution revealed the following factors: (1) a winter weight gain factor; (2) a winter depression factor; (3) a winter hypersomnia factor; (4) a summer weight gain factor; (5) a summer hypersomnia factor; (6) a summer depression factor; (7) a winter socializing factor; (8) a winter weight loss factor; (9) a fall depression factor; and (10) a possibly mixed factor. Factors consistent with winter seasonal affective disorder were positively correlated with latitude, while those consistent with summer seasonal affective disorder were negatively correlated with latitude.

Affect

Radiotherapy or surgery for T2N0M0 glottic carcinoma? A decision-analytic approach.

Decision analysis was used to evaluate the results of treatment of T2N0M0 glottic carcinoma as presented in the literature. Based on mean values for recurrence, salvage eligibility after recurrence and salvage success, the 5-year survival after radiotherapy and surgery proved to be almost identical, 85 and 86%. If the recurrence rates and the salvage rates were varied, a marginal advantage for surgery in small tumours (T2a) and a major advantage in more extended (T2b) tumours was seen if only survival is considered. To take the quality of speech into account, a utility analysis was performed. A utility scale was defined ranging from 0.0 as the value for death, to 1.0 for a successfully irradiated patient with preservation of normal speech. A utility of 0.99 or less for the laryngectomized patient would favour radiotherapy over surgery for all T2 tumours. In patients with T2b tumours and in extreme circumstances, e.g. if failure rates of radiotherapy are extremely high or if recurrence rates after surgery are extremely low, an exact assessment of patient utilities may be pivotal. Under normal circumstances radiotherapy is preferred for T2N0M0 glottic carcinoma if both survival and the quality of speech are taken into account.

Carcinoma

An analytic approach to optimized retracted missing tissue compensators.

The introduction of an attenuating medium into a photon beam serves both to reduce the intensity of the primary beam and to create secondary radiation due to scatter. When retracted missing tissue compensators are employed to compensate for irregular surface contour or internal inhomogeneities, they are often fabricated without regard to the scattered radiation that they introduce into the system. The study of a mathematically describable conical geometry has clearly demonstrated the need for improved compensator design. Experimental results obtained with this geometry can be reproduced with good agreement, using theoretical calculations based on primary and first order scattered radiation. This method of analysis may be extended to predict the shape of a compensator which will produce an optimized dose distribution at a given depth in a phantom, equivalent to that which would be obtained when an irregular surface is filled with unit density material (bolus), producing a flat surface. An optimized compensator was constructed based on these theoretical considerations and excellent agreement was observed between theory and experiment. Dramatic improvement in the restoration of bolus dose is obtained with this optimized compensator. Finally, an anthropomorphic phantom of the neck region has been constructed and the performance of a compensator designed according to current clinical methods for this geometry has been evaluated. The performance of an optimized compensator specific to this geometry is presented and good agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental results is observed. Dramatic improvement in bolus dose restoration over that obtained with the clinically designed compensator is realized.

Humans

Hippuric acid and 3-carboxy-4-methyl-5-propyl-2-furanpropionic acid in serum and urine. Analytical approaches and clinical relevance in kidney diseases.

Hippuric acid (HA) and 3-carboxy-4-methyl-5-propyl-2-furanpropionic acid (FA) were determined in serum, plasma, ultrafiltrate and urine by gas chromatography (GC), high-performance liquid chromatography and GC with mass-selective detection, and the methods were compared. As determined by affinity chromatography and analysis of serum and ultrafiltrate, 0.5% of FA in serum occurs free and 99.5% is bound to albumin. In haemodialysed patients with chronic renal failure, the plasma levels of HA and FA are elevated in comparison with normal controls and hospital patients without kidney diseases: HA, 11.1 +/- 5.7 mg/dl (n = 86); FA, 1.9 +/- 1.2 mg/dl (n = 86). Gradual increases in HA in serum, depending on the creatinine concentrations, are found in non-dialysed patients with chronic renal failure. By haemodialysis and haemofiltration the HA levels are lowered (53-66 and 30-36%, respectively), whereas FA is not dialysable.

Chromatography, Gas

A systems-analytical approach to macro-evolutionary phenomena.

Two sets of evolutionary phenomena find no explanation through current theory. For the static phenomena (such as homology, homonomy, systematic weight, and "Type") there is no causal base, although these principles are responsible for all phenomena of predictable order in the living world. The dynamic phenomena (such as homodynamy, coadaptation, parallel evolution, orthogenesis, Cartesian transformation, typostrophy, hetermorphosis, systemic mutation, and spontaneous atavism) have no causal explanation, although they are responsible for all directed phenomena in macroevolution. These phenomena share one unifying principle which can be explained by a system theory of evolution based on, but extending, the current synthetic theory. This system theory envisages feedback conditions between genotype and phenotype by which the chances of successful adaptation increase if the genetic units, by insertion of superimposed genes, copy the functional dependencies of those phene structures for which they code. This positive feedback of the adaptive speed (or probability) within a single adaptive direction is compensated by negative feedback in most of the alternative directions. The negative feedback operates as selection not be environmental but by systemic conditions developed by the organization of the organism. The consequences are an imitatively organized system of gene interractions, the rehabilitation of classical systematics, the reality of the "natural system," and, in general, the resolution of the contradiction between neodarwinists and their critics, between reductionists and holists, between "a priori" and "a posteriori" views, between idealism and materialism, and between the notions of freedom and of purpose in evolution.

Biological Evolution