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PubMed1973

Phagocytic, opsonic and immunoglobulin studies in newborns.

Despite improved diagnositc and therapeutic measures, neonatal septicemia continues to be a major clinical problem. Improvement in the management of the septic neonate should result from application of the increasing information being learned of the neonatal host defense mechanisms. The earlier concept that the neonate was "immunologically null" can now be discarded. Evidence summarized in this review has established that the neonate can marshal an immune response to most antigens and infectious agents.A further major advance in recent years has been in understanding of the inflammatory response in the neonate, which includes such activities as chemotaxis, phagocytosis and bactericidal killing of ingested bacteria by phagocytes.

Antibody Formation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Statistical analysis of data from glaucoma examinations].

Early detection of glaucoma can be achieved through prophylactic screening of population. This leads to a sharp increase in the patients' flow and deprives the physician of a possibility to examine them by routine methods. Such examinations will be feasible if to reduce the procedure time by automation, or to cut the examination program after the analysis of the existing medical programs by mathematical methods. The authors have used the method of linear discriminant functions which permits one on the basis of the medical data statistical analysis to learn the informativeness of diagnostic symptoms and decisive rules to form risk-groups of the patients who need more thorough medical examination. The analysis accomplished has indicated that there is no closely interlaced symptoms. Among most informative there are signs considerably differing in their statistical characteristics. The diagnostic rules proposed in this article provide adequately high accuracy in selection of healthy people groups and, as well, the patients with suspected glaucoma or suffering this disease.

Glaucoma↗
PubMed1980

Computer-simulated laboratory experiments in food science. I. The model.

A computer model and instructional material provide the student with the opportunity to learn basic information and gain expertise in solving problems which occur in foods. The model covers twenty-five simulations over a range of food types, permitting a variety of experiments of differing complexity. The student is assigned a problem or activity which may be partially or completely answered by using one of the simulations. The simulations give answers to a series of treatments and tests, properties, recipes, characteristics, and/or sensory parameters being investigated.

Computer-Assisted Instruction↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Training for rural matrons in Ouahigouya Hospital (Upper Volta) (author's transl)].

In Ouahigouya District (Upper Volta), more than eight pregnant women out of ten have no chance to be supervised or delivered by a midwife or a nurse. This situation is the consequence of the poor facilities of the Public Health Service whatever attempts have been made to improve it. Consequently, the Province Medical Authority has considered the value of matron(s) selected by the village community. Practical and technical training is given in Ouahigouya hospital and dispensaries. The education programme envolves basic information and learning know-how for pre, per and post-natal periods. The importance of an early diagnosis of risks of dystocia is emphasized. Further training sessions are scheduled, but the follow-up and the evaluation of the training already carried out is still to be done.

Burkina Faso↗
PubMed1976

[Resistance to modification of dietary behavior].

There exist certain pathological eating behaviors (they deviate from the usual eating pattern in a given environment; ex.: hyperphagia, alcoholism, bulimia, nibbling sweets, etc.): there also exist certain pathogenic, though not pathological, eating behaviors (a "normal" behavior may induce an affection in given subjects; ex.: obesity in subjects with a normal caloric intake, hypercholesterolemia in subjects with a normal lipid intake, etc.). In the perspective of Public Health, the field of pathological behavior calls for specialized individual interventions, which can sometimes serve as research models; but the field of pathogenic behavior is now such a widespread social phenomenon (50% of the female population wishes to reduce, 50% of the male population dies from alimentary-linked cardiovascular diseases) that it must be systematically investigated. Such investigations would require: 1. A typology assessing the effectiveness of all the techniques aimed at a modification of eating behavior, whether preventive or therapeutic (through information, pressure, learning); 2. A typology of the resistance to change, whether physiological, psychological or psychosocial. A study of both typologies is necessary since until now all the attempts to induce a population as a whole to renounce food plethora have been unsuccessful, except when imposed by economic or political motivations. Moreover, in a society oriented toward consuming, a change in eating behaviors must be "consumable", that is, at once adequate and gratifying, in order to be accepted.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Two-phased oncology orientation program. A resource efficient teaching strategy.

Orientation is an important component in assuring the assimilation and adequate performance of new employees. In settings that require the integration of high-level technical skills and critical thinking, employees must learn essential information in a short time. In this article, the authors review the process used in a critical care oncology setting to develop a curriculum for a two-phased orientation program. Implementation and evaluation strategies are presented to assist others in the process of developing orientation programs that achieve desired objectives in a resource-efficient environment.

Curriculum↗
PubMed1993

School difficulties in childhood and risk of overweight and obesity in young adulthood: a ten year prospective population study.

Cross-sectional studies of adult males have shown that intelligence test score and educational level are inversely correlated to obesity. This study prospectively assessed whether school difficulties in the third school grade are related to the risk of overweight and obesity in young adulthood. In 1974, body weight, height and social background were ascertained in 987 randomly-selected Copenhagen third graders. For each child, information about learning difficulties, scholastic proficiency, special education received, scholarly difficulties, reduced hearing, speech handicap, and speech or hearing education received was obtained. When the subjects were 20-21 years old, they reported their height and weight. The risk of being obese (above the 95th percentile of body mass index distribution) in young adulthood was assessed by logistic regression analysis taking social background, body mass index in childhood, and gender into account. The risk of being obese in young adulthood, measured by the odds ratio (OR), was increased if the child had learning difficulties (OR = 4.2; P = 0.0003), scholastic proficiency below the class average (OR = 2.8; P = 0.006), had received special education (OR = 2.7; P = 0.007), or had scholarly difficulties in childhood (OR = 2.9; P = 0.006). Reduced hearing did not increase the risk (OR = 1.5; P = 0.4). The results of the analysis of being overweight (above the 90th percentile) showed statistically weaker odds ratios around two. None of the individuals either having speech handicap or having received speech or hearing training exceeded the 90th percentile of the body mass index distribution in young adulthood.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Induction of expert system rules based on rough sets and resampling methods.

Automated knowledge acquisition is an important research issue in developing medical expert systems. While several methods of symbolic inductive learning have been proposed, most of the approaches focus on inducing some rules to classify cases correctly. On the contrary, medical experts also learn other information important for medical diagnostic procedures from clinical cases. In order to acquire both kinds of knowledge, we developed a program that extracts not only classification rules for differential diagnosis, but also other medical knowledge needed for diagnosis. This system is based on a diagnosing model of a medical expert system RHINOS, which diagnoses causes of headache and facial pain. We apply this program to the same domain and compared the induced results with expert rules. The results show that the combination of a rule induction method with resampling methods is effective to estimate the performance of induced results, especially when only small training samples are available without domain knowledge.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

Systemic chemotherapy for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.

Several new treatment regimens for patients with metastatic melanoma have shown improved overall response rates when compared with the historical results with dacarbazine as a single agent. These regimens have included the addition of tamoxifen to cisplatin-containing regimens or the combination of chemotherapeutic agents with biologicals. Despite the seeming improved overall response rates, the complete remission rates remain less than 20%. Additionally, relatively few new agents have shown significant activity against melanoma cell lines, offering promise for future treatments. In the midst of all this pessimism, however, we should recognize that we have learned important information from these studies that will provide us with the basis for the next generation of clinical trials. We should continue our aggressive search for new agents or combinations of agents that will improve the outlook for our patients while continuing the laboratory studies that may provide insight into new mechanisms for attacking malignant cells.

Adjuvants, Immunologic↗
PubMed1996

Mother and adolescent knowledge of sexual development: the effects of gender, age, and sexual experience.

As part of a larger study on the impact of personal and family characteristics on adolescents' HIV risk and risk-reduction behavior, 90 adolescents and 73 mothers were asked to define in their own words seven terms related to sexual development: ejaculation, hormones, menstruation, ovulation, puberty, semen, and wet dreams. Mother and adolescent knowledge of sexual development terms and the effects of age and sexual experience on that knowledge were examined. Results suggest that the mothers were not able to adequately define the sexual development terms and thus may be ill-prepared to teach their children about sex or reinforce information they learn in school. Since adolescent knowledge did not significantly increase with age and sexual experience, the researchers suggest that continuing sex education about normal sexual development is needed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

A Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Center Injection Training Program.

Injectable treatments for Multiple Sclerosis inspire hope and challenges. Abilities, anxiety levels and acceptance of treatment modalities vary so a creative program and comprehensive care plan combined to meet individual needs. A flexible, two session program developed at the University of Pennsylvania MS Center includes planning, practice, and even "homework" before the initiation of drug therapy. Hints are given to manage anticipated side effects and written instructions supplement product literature. Training focuses on subcutaneous or intramuscular injection technique. Since IM injections require special skills, those prescribed Avonex (beta Interferon la) are given "anatomy lessons"; they ease tension and are fun. Learning is informal, stories are shared and expectations discussed. The patient is encouraged to maintain an informed, active role in his care, adopt a wellness lifestyle and participate fully in goals of treatment. Physical, psychological and cognitive capabilities are assessed. Safety, compliance, and relationship issues are evaluated. Rapport developed during training goes far to promote adherence to therapy, minimize lifestyle disruption and preserve an acceptable quality of life. The nurse as liaison to other professionals, particularly the prescribing physician, facilitates innovative management of treatment issues. Moving patients and carepartners toward self responsibility, informed choices and competent administration of treatments benefits all. New models of care develop and by empowering others, we empower ourselves.

Humans↗
PubMed1998

Regulation of arousal and attention in preschool children exposed to cocaine prenatally.

Four lines of evidence suggest a plausible link between prenatal cocaine exposure (CE) and specific effects on the mechanisms subserving arousal and attention regulation in infants and preschool-aged children. These are (1) the association of prenatal CE with alterations in monoaminergic system ontogeny; (2) neurobehavioral effects of prenatal CE in animals consistent with an enduring increased level of activity in response to novelty and inhibited exploration and altered responses to stress, suggesting overarousal in the face of novel/stressful situations and disrupted attention and exploration; (3) altered norepinephrine system function in cocaine-exposed human infants; and (4) neurobehavioral findings in infants and preschool-aged children suggestive of disrupted arousal regulation in the face of novelty, increased distractibility, and consequent impaired attention to novel, structured tasks. This paper summarizes findings on response to novel challenges from a cohort of prenatally cocaine-exposed infants and preschool-aged children followed longitudinally since birth. Arousal regulation in the face of novel challenges is operationalized behaviorally as state and emotional reactivity and neurophysiologically as the startle response and heart rate variability. Across different ages and tasks, behavioral and neurophysiological findings suggest that prenatally cocaine-exposed children are more likely to exhibit disrupted arousal regulation. Because the regulation of arousal serves as a gating mechanism to optimize orientation and attention, arousal regulation has important implications for ongoing information processing, learning, and memory. Furthermore, impaired arousal regulation predisposes children to a lower threshold for activation of "stress circuits" and may increase their vulnerability to the developmentally detrimental effects of stressful conditions particularly when such children are also exposed to the chaotic environmental conditions often characterizing substance-abusing families.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mentoring: women learning from others.

Informal mentoring allows a relationship to evolve naturally over time much like a friendship, without an official obligation or commitment to coach someone. However, some women prefer a more formal, organizationally driven approach to mentoring. In either case, both represent an opportunity to learn and grow. In Learning from Other Women, Carolyn Duff interviewed many women to understand their expectations, preferences, and experiences. Mentoring, Duff says, "begins with affinity between two people, but the focus remains around work. It's a magical thing that happens when one person sees something in another person and wants to help that person grow." This column explores some of the barriers, as well as how to ask for help and benefit from a mentor. Whether you like the word "mentoring" or not, whether your organization has a formal program or not, always be thinking about how you can learn from others. Keep your eyes and mind open, look around to see who is doing what you want to do.

Female↗
PubMed2006

Verbal learning and aging: combined effects of irrelevant speech, interstimulus interval, and education.

Older or lower educated individuals may be less able than younger or higher educated individuals to inhibit irrelevant speech when learning new visual information. In Experiment 1, we investigated the effects of age (four groups), educational attainment (low or high), and verbal noise (spoken words or silence) on word-learning performance in 230 individuals aged 24 to 76 years. Performance was negatively affected by age, lower education, and irrelevant speech, but there were no interactions between age group and noise condition. In Experiment 2, we increased the difficulty of the word-learning task by using both irrelevant speech and a short interstimulus interval (2 or 0.5 s). Age differences became more pronounced as the result of the simultaneous occurrence of irrelevant speech and a short interstimulus interval. This suggests that older individuals may need more time than younger individuals to learn new information in noisy environments.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Body-based senses enhance knowledge of directions in large-scale environments.

Previous research has shown that inertial cues resulting from passive transport through a large environment do not necessarily facilitate acquiring knowledge about its layout. Here we examine whether the additional body-based cues that result from active movement facilitate the acquisition of spatial knowledge. Three groups of participants learned locations along an 840-m route. One group walked the route during learning, allowing access to body-based cues (i.e., vestibular, proprioceptive, and efferent information). Another group learned by sitting in the laboratory, watching videos made from the first group. A third group watched a specially made video that minimized potentially confusing head-on-trunk rotations of the viewpoint. All groups were tested on their knowledge of directions in the environment as well as on its configural properties. Having access to body-based information reduced pointing error by a small but significant amount. Regardless of the sensory information available during learning, participants exhibited strikingly common biases.

Cues↗
PubMed2001

Ethanol-induced impairments in spatial working memory are not due to deficits in learning.

BACKGROUND: Acute ethanol administration impairs spatial reference memory and spatial working memory. However, the experimental designs previously used to test spatial working memory fail to make a distinction between the acquisition, or learning, of spatial information and the retention of this information. This study demonstrates that acute ethanol administration impairs spatial working memory, by using a novel experimental design that eliminates the confound between the learning of new spatial information and the testing of this information. METHODS: Long-Evans male rats received three forced trials to the same place for food reward on an elevated radial arm maze. Subjects were then given six free-choice trials in the first acquisition session, followed by a 30-min consolidation period before an additional six free-choice trials were administered-the retention session. Animals were trained to a criterion of five of six correct in both the acquisition and retention over 2 consecutive days. Once criteria were obtained, subjects received either saline or one of three ethanol doses immediately after the acquisition session to investigate whether ethanol alters retention of the learned spatial information. RESULTS: Acute ethanol administration impaired spatial working memory. Rats tested under saline and low-dose ethanol (1.0 g/kg) made significantly more place choices than rats tested under moderate- or high-dose ethanol (1.5 and 2.0 g/kg, respectively). Ethanol produced a temporary impairment in that no significant differences were found when subjects were retrained and retested 24 hr after initial testing. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that acute ethanol administration impairs spatial working memory and that such a deficit is not contingent on a learning impairment. These results support earlier findings that acute ethanol administration impairs spatial working memory but provide a significant advance by validating a novel training procedure that allows for direct investigation of working memory. Ethanol's impairment of both spatial working memory and spatial reference memory strengthens the similarities between memory impairments due to ethanol administration and memory impairments due to hippocampal lesions.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Comparison of nominal recall (standard) and multiple-choice methods for administration of WISC-R information subtest: a preliminary study indicating a learning effect of multiple-choice testing.

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised (WISC--R) Information subtest was administered to learning disabled children using two methods of administration, the standard (recall) method and a multiple-choice format. Those children who were tested first with the multiple-choice format and subsequently with the standard format did better on the standard format than expected. This preliminary study suggests a learning effect of such multiple-choice testing and the desirability of further research being undertaken.

Child↗