From any strongly unimodal density on the real line, it is possible to generate a one-parameter family of Lorenz curves. The resulting families of Lorenz curves are Lorenz ordered with respect to the ...indexing parameter. Symmetry of the unimodal density results in the generation of symmetric Lorenz curves. A related characterization of the normal distribution is presented.
We report here the development of an alternative limiting dilution assay (LDA) of T lymphocytes (T cells). Blood mononuclear cells were first stimulated for 60 hr with PHA and then cultured in ...microwells in the presence of recombinant interleukin-2 without feeder cells. After 4 days of culture, wells were scored for proliferation. Clonal expansion of T cells followed the single-hit model of the Poisson distribution. The progenitor frequency (f) in the mononuclear cells and E-rosette-positive cells from normal donors were 0.082 +/- 0.025 (n = 12) and 0.236 +/- 0.029 (n = 5), respectively, but this was markedly decreased in patients who underwent marrow-ablative chemotherapy and autografts with blood hematopoietic stem cells. This LDA system should be of value in routine use for the evaluation of T cell proliferative activities.
A variety of complications can occur following ventriculoperitoneal shunt. We report a case of extrusion of the catheter tip through the old scar of the percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) ...wound.
A 70-year-old male suffered from an intracerebral hemorrhage and then developed hydrocephalus. He required a ventriculoperitoneal shunt. This patient required a PEG for gastroenteric feeding. The PEG was removed 4 years after the insertion because of infection. The tip of the distal shunt tube extruded through the scar of the PEG wound 2 years later.
The catheter end of VP shunt can extrude through the weak point of an old PEG scar. This kind of complication should be brought to mind while performing abdominal surgery in patients with VP shunts.
This paper develops a model for the evolution of language that is consistent with semanticist and pragmaticist interpretations of the forms and functions of language and the processes of language ...acquisition and language change. The proximate aspect of the model emphasizes the social contexts of language acquisition and language change; its adaptive aspect emphasizes the sociobiological concept of communication as social manipulation. Both aspects emphasize the relationship between subsistence technology and social behavior. Specifically, the model suggests that the stages of evolution of the lexical and syntactical systems roughly parallel the stages of their acquisition; that primitive lexical forms of reference and request first arose among the earliest hominids for food location and food sharing in relation to extractive foraging on embedded foods; that simple syntax first arose among Homo erectus for encoding regulatory rules and procedures concerning recruitment, aggregation, and coordination of workers at resource sites in relation to big-game hunting; and that complex syntax arose among H. sapiens for encoding procedures for predicting resource distributions and constitutive rules for classifying relationships and performing ritual transformations of statuses and relationships, e.g., kinship terminological systems and rules of exogamy in relation to subsistence specialization.
