The principal pathways serving higher visual function comprise the dorsal stream and the ventral stream. The dorsal stream runs between the occipital lobes and the parietal lobes and subserves the ...ability to process the whole visual scene and carry out visually guided movement. The ventral stream runs between the occipital lobes and temporal lobe tissue and primarily subserves visual recognition and memory. These tissues are susceptible to dysfunction in children with brain damage. We report a series of 40 children in whom damage to the brain has led to a common symptom complex affecting vision. Lower visual field loss was frequently elicited. This was associated with impaired ability to make accurate visually guided movement (particularly of the lower limbs) accompanied by impaired simultaneous perception, and in some cases, with inaccurate saccades and in others, impaired perception of movement. These features are consistent with parietal/dorsal stream dysfunction. Difficulty recognising faces and problems with route finding (which are ventral stream functions) were also present in a number of the children. These visual difficulties can be manifest in the presence of normal visual acuity. Recognition of these problems leads to understanding of the child's visual difficulties and facilitates adaptation of curriculum delivery at school.
The leatherbacks nesting at Bird's Head Peninsula, Papua Barat, Indonesia, account for 75% of the total leatherback nesting in the western Pacific and represent the last sizeable nesting population ...in the entire Pacific. Sporadic nest counts at Jamursba Medi Beach at Bird's Head have indicated a declining trend from the 1980s through 2004, although a relatively high amount of nesting has recently been documented at Wermon Beach, located 30 km east of Jamursba Medi. We used expanded year-round nesting surveys from 2005 to 2011 at these two primary nesting beaches to obtain more robust estimates of the nesting population size and to evaluate long-term nesting trends. We found a 29% decline in nesting at Jamursba Medi and a 52% decline at Wermon from 2005 through 2011. We found that the estimated annual number of nests at Jamursba Medi has declined 78.3% over the past 27 years (5.5% annual rate of decline) from 14,522 in 1984 to 1,596 in 2011. Nesting at Wermon has been monitored since 2002 and has declined 62.8% (11.6% annual rate of decline) from 2,994 nests in 2002 to 1,096 in 2011. Collectively, our findings indicate a continual and significant long term nesting decline of 5.9% per year at these primary western Pacific beaches since 1984. Mark-recapture with PIT tags, initiated in 2003, resulted in the tagging of 1,371 individual nesting females as of March 2012. Observed clutch frequencies ranged from 3-10 per season with a mean of 5.5 ± 1.6 and, based on nest counts, provide an estimate of approximately 489 females nesting in 2011. The persistent and long term decline we report for the Bird's Head leatherback population follows other dramatic declines and extinctions of leatherback populations throughout the Pacific over the last 30 years. These findings highlight the urgent need for continued and enhanced conservation and management efforts to prevent the collapse of what might be the last remaining stronghold for leatherbacks in the Pacific.
AIM: Early diagnosis of acute intracranial hypertension is essential to enable prompt, optimal treatment. The optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD) is increased in raised ICP and there has been recent ...interest in the use of ultrasound to diagnose and indirectly monitor raised ICP by ONSD measurement. The advantages of the technique include its non-invasiveness, wide availability, portability, low cost and the absence of ionizing radiation. This prospective study was designed to establish the range of normal values for ONSD in infants and children up to 15 years of age.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: One hundred and two children attending the hospital for other reasons were recruited to the study. Three measurements of the ONSD were taken for each eye, 3 mm behind the optic nerve head using a 7 MHz sector probe.
RESULTS: The range for ONSD was 2.1–4.3 mm, mean 3.08 (SD 0.36). There were no significant differences on ONSD measurement between boys and girls (
P = 0.59) or between right and left eyes (
P = 0.66). When the data were grouped and analysed, a correlation between increasing age and increasing ONSD was seen (
r
2 = 0.48), with the greatest increase occurring in the first 2 months of life.
CONCLUSION: Using the technique described here, our results suggest that an ONSD of greater than 4 mm in infants less than 1 year, and 4.5 mm or greater in older children, should be regarded as abnormal.
The srtA gene product, SrtA, has been shown to be required for cell wall anchoring of protein A as well as virulence in the pathogenic bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. There are five major mechanisms ...for displaying proteins at the surface of gram-positive bacteria (P. Cossart and R. Jonquieres, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97:5013-5015, 2000). However, since many of the known surface proteins of gram-positive bacteria are believed to be exported and anchored via the sortase pathway, it was of interest to determine if srtA plays a similar role in other gram-positive bacteria. To that end, the srtA gene in the human oral commensal organism Streptococcus gordonii was insertionally inactivated. The srtA mutant S. gordonii exhibited a marked reduction in quantity of a specific anchored surface protein. Furthermore, the srtA mutant had reduced binding to immobilized human fibronectin and had a decreased ability to colonize the oral mucosa of mice. Taken together, these results suggest that the activity of SrtA plays an important role in the biology of nonpathogenic as well as pathogenic gram-positive cocci.
Objective‘Core information sets’ (CISs) represent baseline information, agreed by patients and professionals, to stimulate individualised patient-centred discussions. This study developed a CIS for ...use before colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery.DesignThree phase consensus study: (1) Systematic literature reviews and patient interviews to identify potential information of importance to patients, (2) UK national Delphi survey of patients and professionals to rate the importance of the information, (3) international consensus meeting to agree on the final CIS.SettingUK CRC centres.ParticipantsPurposive sampling was conducted to ensure CRC centre representation based upon geographical region and caseload volume. Responses were received from 63/81 (78%) centres (90 professionals). Adult patients who had undergone CRC surgery were eligible, and purposive sampling was conducted to ensure representation based on age, sex and cancer location (rectum, left and right colon). Responses were received from 97/267 (35%) patients with a wide age range (29–87), equal sex ratio and cancer location. Attendees of the international Tripartite Colorectal Conference were eligible for the consensus meeting.OutcomesPhase 1: Information of potential importance to patients was extracted verbatim and operationalised into a Delphi questionnaire. Phase 2: Patients and professionals rated the importance information on a 9-point Likert scale, and resurveyed following group feedback. Information rated of low importance were discarded using predefined criteria. Phase 3: A modified nominal group technique was used to gain final consensus in separate consensus meetings with patients and professionals.ResultsData sources identified 1216 pieces of information that informed a 98-item questionnaire. Analysis led to 50 and 23 information domains being retained after the first and second surveys, respectively. The final CIS included 11 concepts including specific surgical complications, short and long-term survival, disease recurrence, stoma and quality of life issues.ConclusionsThis study has established a CIS for professionals to discuss with patients before CRC surgery.
Several examples of genocide from Armenia, the Ukraine, and Rwanda, of systematic political slaughter (Cambodia), and of massacres in Nanking, My Lai, Viet Nam, and El Salvador are examined. Massacre ...typically occurs during wars, genocide, and political slaughter typically after a war has occurred and further conflict is feared. Political and historical factors shape the selection of a target group. One prominent feature is the belief that the target group obtained unfair advantage in the past. The social violence is then justified as revenge. Symbolic restructuring of the target group leads to their being viewed as viral or cancerous. This perception justifies the killing of nonviolent target group members on the basis of future risk.
Whereas most genocides emphasize “efficient” slaughter, massacres are generally more cruel. Rape, torture, and mutilation typically precede killing. Many soldiers engage in these actions, although no information suggests they have propensities for rape, sexual sadism, or sadistic violence in civilian life. The extreme cruelty is therefore hard to explain using forensic trait theories. Social psychological theories of state-determined violence explain the transition to violence, if not the extremity observed. A suggestion is made for a form of forensic ethology that examines human actions in war settings based on survivor reports and tribunal transcripts and combines these with existing corroborative information on perpetrators.
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