Cal Functions Research Articles

Asymptomatic Bacteriuria in Kisangani Gestational Women: Prevalence and Germs Involved

Introduction: Urinary tract infection is a real public health problem. Asymptomatic bacteriuria, when not detected and treated, turns into pyelonephritis in 30 to 40% of cases, leading to both maternal and fetal complications, which would explain its high morbidity during pregnancy, especially in developing countries. Our objective is to determine the prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria and to identify the germs involved in Kisangani.
 Methods: This is a descriptive, prospective, multi-site study conducted among 424 pregnant women in four health facilities in the city of Kisangani, all aged 14 to 45 years, received and followed in prenatal consultations from November 25, 2019 to June 25, 2020 and having given written informed consent to participate in the study. Cytobacteriological examination of urine was performed after collection of mid-morning urine in the laboratory of the University Clinics of Kisangani. The data collected were compiled using the Excel spreadsheet program (Microsoft, CDC, 2010) and then imported for analysis using the Epi Info software© 7.2.2.6 in its Stat Cal function.
 Results: The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria was 45.75%. Pregnant women between 20 and 34 years old had the most asymptomatic bacteriuria with 72.68%, pauci pares in 48.97% and in their second trimester of pregnancy in 61.34% of cases. 86.08% lived in a union, 60.82% were unemployed, 65.98% had secondary education, 50% had a low socioeconomic level and 48.97% had a history of cervico-vaginal infection. Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were the most frequently encountered germs.
 Conclusion: Asymptomatic bacteriuria is a reality among pregnant women in Kisangani. Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus are the most frequently encountered germs; screening and management on the basis of culture and antibiogram results are essential for maternal-fetal well-being.

A Novel Reliability Analysis Approach With Collaborative Active Learning Strategy-Based Augmented RBF Metamodel

Metamodels in lieu of time-demanding performance functions can accelerate the reliability analysis effectively. In this paper, we propose an efficient collaborative active learning strategy-based augmented radial basis function metamodel (CAL-ARBF), for reliability analysis with implicit and nonlinear performance functions. For generating the suitable samples, a CAL function is first designed to constrain the new samples being generated in sensitivity region, near limit state surface and keep certain distances mutually. Then by adjusting the adjustment coefficient of CAL function, the CAL-ARBF is mathematically modeled and the corresponding reliability analysis theory is developed. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is validated by four numerical samples, including global nonlinear problem, local nonlinear problem, nonlinear oscillator and truss structure. Through comparison of several state-of-the-art methods, the proposed CAL-ARBF is demonstrated to possess the computational advantages in efficiency and accuracy for reliability analysis.

О культурно-исторических источниках зарождения целеполагания в составе произвольно-преднамеренной и волевой регуляции

The paper discusses the patterns of development of voluntary and volitional organisation and regulation of actions and the corresponding features of goal-setting. The following central lines in the development of human forms of goal-setting in anthropogenesis can be traced: 1) the change in the ways of establishing motivational relations; 2) the need to distribute and coordinate goals and corresponding actions in time perspective; 3) the need to create sociocultural means of organizing individual motivation and goal-setting when performing actions that meet public expectations and requirements. It is shown that human forms of goal-setting are determined by the laws of cultural-historical development of higher mental functions and cannot be explained by constructing information processing models or by analysing neurophysiologi cal functions development. These functions are certainly necessary, but they cannot be considered as the sources or the reasons for the development of human goal-setting.

Healthy Behaviors and Incidence of Disability in Community-Dwelling Elderly.

In this paper and prospective study, we examine the number of healthy behaviors and the incidence of disability in community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years and older. Participants (N = 4483) were residents of Obu, Japan who were asked about regular exercise, smoking status, and sleep duration. Demographic variables, history of disease, physi- cal function, and cognitive function were measured as confounders. Information about disabil- ity was obtained from the Obu City Office. At 24 months after baseline assessment, 165 participants (3.7%) were certified as having disability. Participants with 2 healthy behaviors had a 1.61-fold increased risk of disability (95% CI: 1.08 -2.42) compared with those with 3 healthy behaviors; those with one or no healthy behaviors had a 2.01-fold risk (95% CI: 1.26-3.19) even though adjusting for confounders. The number of healthy behaviors was associated with the incidence of disability, with the hazard ratios increasing progressively as the number of healthy behaviors decreased.

Depletion of the “gamma-type carbonic anhydrase-like” subunits of complex I affects central mitochondrial metabolism in Arabidopsis thaliana

“Gamma-type carbonic anhydrase-like” (CAL) proteins form part of complex I in plants. Together with “gamma carbonic anhydrase” (CA) proteins they form an extra domain which is attached to the membrane arm of complex I on its matrix exposed side. In Arabidopsis two CAL and three CA proteins are present, termed CAL1, CAL2, CA1, CA2 and CA3. It has been proposed that the carbonic anhydrase domain of complex I is involved in a process mediating efficient recycling of mitochondrial CO2 for photosynthetic carbon fixation which is especially important during growth conditions causing increased photorespiration. Depletion of CAL proteins has been shown to significantly affect plant development and photomorphogenesis. To better understand CAL function in plants we here investigated effects of CAL depletion on the mitochondrial compartment. In mutant lines and cell cultures complex I amount was reduced by 90–95% but levels of complexes III and V were unchanged. At the same time, some of the CA transcripts were less abundant. Proteome analysis of CAL depleted cells revealed significant reduction of complex I subunits as well as proteins associated with photorespiration, but increased amounts of proteins participating in amino acid catabolism and stress response reactions. Developmental delay of the mutants was slightly alleviated if plants were cultivated at high CO2. Profiling of selected metabolites revealed defined changes in intermediates of the citric acid cycle and amino acid catabolism. It is concluded that CAL proteins are essential for complex I assembly and that CAL depletion specifically affects central mitochondrial metabolism.

Drug advertising, response shift in patients with hypertension, and medication error interception

concluded that dif- ferences in the Food and Drug Administra- tion (FDA) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulation of advertising affected the balance of risk and benefit informa- tion that appeared and the specificity of risk information available. Adequacy of information about a pharmaceutical prod- uct after switching from legend to over- the-counter (OTC) status is an important public health issue. Information abstract- ed from pre-and postswitch advertise- ments for loratadine (Claritin—Schering- Plough), cetirizine (Zyrtec—McNeil-PPC), and omeprazole (Prilosec—Procter & Gamble) was evaluated. Information was abstracted from 2,002 ads obtained from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive. Ads for the legend product were sig- nificantly longer than those for the OTC products. Compared with OTC advertise- ments, prescription ads had fewer asser- tions about the product's benefit and more about its risks, possibly because of their longer length. When equal length ads were examined, prescription ads had an equal number of assertions about the products' benefits and risks (1.5 vs. 1.8, P > 0.05) but OTC ads had significantly more as- sertions about benefits versus risk (6.6 vs. 1.2, P < 0.001). Moreover, toll-free numbers and Internet URLs were found more frequently in prescription (97% and 100%, respectively) than OTC (4% and 10%) ads. Implications. For instances in which the product must be prescribed by a health professional, the benefit-to-risk assertion ratio in ads was equal. In the case of OTC ads, where patients are left to their own devices to correctly interpret the mes- sage, the benefit-to-risk assertion ratio is heavily unbalanced toward the benefits. Pharmacists are among the most acces- sible and trusted of professionals. When it comes to self-care decisions based on pro- motional information for these products, pharmacists' counsel may be essential to offset an unbalanced presentation of ben- efit-to-risk information. Response shift in patients with hypertension Gandhi et al. 2 found that some hyperten- sive patients with CAD (coronary artery disease) experienced a response shift over a 1-year period in their physical functioning (n = 909). Recalibration re- sponse shift is based on changes in one's internal standards and not necessarily objective evidence. In the case of physi- cal functioning, the individual's standard of performance for important life tasks may be lowered for health reasons. Self- reported physical functioning was mea- sured using mailed surveys containing items from SF-36 at both baseline and 1 year later. Response shift was assessed using structural equation modeling sta- tistical techniques. Some patients recali- brated perceptions of their health, most likely because they changed their idea of how their health limited their physi- cal activity (e.g., walking, climbing stairs). Implications. After starting treat- ment, how many of you have asked a pa- tient, are you feeling? How do you explain it when the patient replies much better when they can't walk up a flight of stairs without gasping for breath? Are they lying? Identifying response shift is impor- tant to effectively monitoring health out- comes because patients may adjust their perceptions of the benefits of treatment or disease progression to maintain a sense of optimism or protect their self-image. Medication error interception

PATTERNS—A Model for Evaluating Trauma in NICU Music Therapy: Part 2—Treatment Parameters

While preterm infants are born with survival mechan- isms intact, they lack the protective buffering system of the intrauterine environment. Dysmature neurologi- cal functioning and the absence of coping strategies further impede the preterm infant’s capacity to manage the heightened states of arousal commonly linked to an NICU hospitalization. Music therapy offers a unique capacity to enhance healing across the spectrum of experience, and research in NICU music therapy has shown consistent benefit for infants, parents, and care- givers within this environment. Integrating current evidence across disciplines in developing new models of treatment is key to building fully informed and responsible practices. PATTERNS (Preventive Approach to Traumatic Experience by Resourcing the Nervous System) was developed to address this need by both identifying the broad-ranging potential for traumatic experience in a hospital environment and utilizing this scope of potential exposure to trauma as a construct for the formation of a preventive music therapy treatment model that is based on latent human resiliency and trauma renegotiation principles.

PATTERNS—A Model for Evaluating Trauma in NICU Music Therapy: Part 1—Theory and Design

While preterm infants are born with survival mechan- isms intact, they lack the protective buffering system of the intrauterine environment. Dysmature neurologi- cal functioning and the absence of coping strategies further impede the preterm infant’s capacity to manage the heightened states of arousal commonly linked to hospitalization in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Music therapy offers a unique capacity to enhance healing across the spectrum of experience, and research in NICU music therapy has shown consis- tent benefit for infants, parents, and caregivers in this environment. Integrating current evidence across disci- plines in developing new models of treatment is key to building fully informed and responsible practices. PAT- TERNS (Preventive Approach to Traumatic Experience by Resourcing the Nervous System) was developed to address this need both by identifying the broad- ranging potential for traumatic experience in the NICU and by utilizing this scope of potential exposure to trauma as a construct for the formation of a preventive music therapy treatment model that is based on latent human resiliency and trauma renegotiation principles.

Finite-Fault Analysis of the 2004 Parkfield, California, Earthquake Using Pnl Waveforms

We apply a kinematic finite-fault inversion scheme to Pnl displacement waveforms recorded at 14 regional stations (Δ < 2°) to recover the distribution of coseismic slip for the 2004 Parkfield earthquake using both synthetic Green's func- tions (SGFs) calculated for one-dimensional (1D) crustal-velocity models and empiri- cal Green's functions (EGFs) based on the recordings of a single Mw 5.0 aftershock. Slip is modeled on a rectangular fault subdivided into 2 × 2 km subfaults assuming a constant rupture velocity and a 0.5 sec rise time. A passband filter of 0.1-0.5 Hz is applied to both data and subfault responses prior to waveform inversion. The SGF inversions are performed such that the final seismic moment is consistent with the known magnitude (Mw 6.0) of the earthquake. For these runs, it is difficult to repro- duce the entire Pnl waveform due to inaccuracies in the assumed crustal structure. Also, the misfit between observed and predicted vertical waveforms is similar in char- acter for different rupture velocities, indicating that neither the rupture velocity nor the exact position of slip sources along the fault can be uniquely identified. The pattern of coseismic slip, however, compares well with independent source models derived using other data types, indicating that the SGF inversion procedure provides a general first- order estimate of the 2004 Parkfield rupture using the vertical Pnl records. The best- constrained slip model is obtained using the single-aftershock EGF approach. In this case, the waveforms are very well reproduced for both vertical and horizontal com- ponents, suggesting that the method provides a powerful tool for estimating the dis- tribution of coseismic slip using the regional Pnl waveforms. The inferred slip model shows a localized patch of high slip (55 cm peak) near the hypocenter and a larger slip area (∼50 cm peak) extending between 6 and 20 km to the northwest.

Lipoprotein(a) - Structure, Epidemiology, Function and Diagnostics of a Cardiovascular Risk Marker

Decades after its first description by Berg 1963 lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)) is an established risk marker of cardio- vascular diseases which is independent from other risk markers. The main difference of Lp(a) compared to LDL is the apo(a) residue which is covalently bound to apoB. Apo(a) is a glycoprotein which underlies a large genetic polymor- phism. The latter is caused by a variation of the kringle-IV-type-2 repeats of the protein which is characterized by a large structural homology to plasminogen. The Lp(a) plasma concentration in the population is highly skewed and determined to more than 90 % by genetic factors. In healthy subjects the Lp(a)-concentration is correlated to its synthesis and not to its metabolism. Plasma concentrations of Lp(a) are affected by different diseases (e.g. diseases of liver and kidney), hor- monal factors (e.g. sexual steroids, glucocorticoids, thyroid hormones), individual and environmental factors (e.g. age, cigarette smoking) as well as pharmaceuticals (e.g. derivatives of nicotinic acid) and therapeutic procedures (lipid aphere- sis). However, even though a large number of studies on Lp(a) were performed up to now many details of its physiologi- cal function and regulation of plasma concentration are not yet understood. In addition, studies showed contradictory re- sults because there were large differences of the included patients, use of not sufficiently validated tests as well as analysis of frozen samples. Aim of our review was to describe function and physiological regulation of Lp(a) as well as factors in- fluencing its plasma concentration.

Retención de plaguicidas en zonas amortiguadoras. Caso del isoproturon

The in stal la tion of buffer zones is one of the so lu tions pro posed to com bat sur face wa ter con tam i na tion by pes ti cides. Ex isting stud ies show that these zones can limit the trans fer of agro chemi cals to wa ter bod ies. How ever, very lit tle in for ma tion ex ists about what hap pens to the in ter cepted prod ucts. Their evo lu tion is re lated to the physiochemical and bi o log i cal func tion ing of these buffer zones. This study ex am ined the re ten tion of a her bi cide, isoproturon, in soils from grassed buffer strips, for est area and crop ped soil from the ARVALIS ex per i men tal site in La Jailliere, France. The ex per i ments were car ried out un der con trolled lab o ra tory con di tions us ing isoproturon marked with 14 C in the ben zene ring. The re sults show that the re ten tion of the isoproturon was greater in the soils from the buffer zones than in the soils from the crop ped soil, par tic u larly in sur face ho ri zons, which have a higher con tent in or ganic mat ter. In ad di tion, the desorption of the mol e cule is more dif fi cult in the sur face ho ri zons of the buffer zones than in the worked layer of the crop ped soil. These find ings con firm the po ten tial value of buffer zones in pro tect ing sur face wa ter from ag ri cul tural con tam i nants.

Reply to Commentary by Dr Peterson and Dr Groenvold

We agree with Drs. Peterson and Groenvold that use of the overall scores of the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (MQOL), the Symptom Dis tress Scale (SDS), and the Enforced Social Dependency Scale (ESDS), when investigating the extent of agreement between terminally ill cancer patients and their family caregivers, cannot eluci date the whole picture of concordance between the two respondents. We recognize that collapsing information on different symptoms or different subscales into an overall score will forfeit the dis tinct characteristics of each symptom and subscale within an instrument. However, the following two reasons led Dr Tang to conduct the analyses for identifying predictors of the extent of agreement between QOL assessments made by terminally ill cancer patients and their family caregivers solely by the absolute differences in overall scores of the three selected instruments rather than analyses for individual symptoms or domains. Firstly, the primary interest of the article [1] is to understand which factors will facilitate or impede the extent of agreement between "QOL" assess ments, over and above individual symptoms or psycho-social-spiritual concerns, made by termi nally ill cancer patients and their family caregivers. There is mounting evidence that, at the end of life, cancer patients suffer from multiple physical symptoms [2] and diverse psycho-social-spiritual distress [3]. The concept of "symptom cluster" further illustrates the phenomenon that different symptoms may intertwine together [4]. Researchers have also indicated that there are strong associa tions among a loss of meaning, depression, anxiety, feeling of being a burden on others, hopelessness, and even desire for death [5-6]. One specific symptom or psycho-social-spiritual concern could not adequately represent the overall suffering that cancer patients experience at the end of life. Quality of life, with its multidimensional characteristics, addresses the aforementioned important experi ences integratively. Correspondingly, achieving the best quality of life for terminally ill cancer patients by control of pain and other symptoms and satis fying patients' psychological, social, and spiritual needs has been recognized as the main goal of end of-life care [7]. In order to identify predictors for the extent of agreement between patients' and family caregiv ers' QOL assessments, the author adopts other scholars' [8-9] conceptualization of QOL as a multidimensional construct, encompassing physi cal function, distress resulting from diseaseand/ or treatment-related symptoms, and psycho social-spiritual concerns. The author therefore chose the SDS, the ESDS, and the MQOL to measure the aforementioned three discrete dimensions of QOL, respectively. The high inter nal consistency (Cronbach's alphas of the MQOL: 0.90 and 0.92 for patients and family caregivers, respectively, of the SDS were 0.850 and 0.846; and of the ESDS were 0.948 and 0.953) and high proportion of significant item-item correlations (SDS: 93.6% and 77% for patients and family caregivers (average correlation coefficient for pa tients and family caregivers: 0.33 and 0.30), respectively; ESDS: 100% and 100% (average correlation coefficient: 0.67 and 0.70); and MQOL: 93.9% and 100% (average correlation coefficient: 0.40 and 0.47)) of the three instruments indicate that items on the SDS, the ESDS and the MQOL all measure unique dimensions, namely symptom distress, functional dependency, and psycho-so cial-spiritual concerns.

Dissolution Fit Factors as Response Variables in Statistically Designed Experiments

Dissolution Fit Factors as Response Variables in Statistically Designed Experiments

The Social Character of Science: The Lessons of Positivism

It is commonplace to speak ill of positivism. "Is it possible that a positivist ever weeps?" the Russian philosopher Vasily Rozanov asked. "It is something as strange to imagine as a cow riding a cuirassier. ... In the secret depths of its soul, or rather, in its tough soulless hide, positivism reminds me of Puskin's lines: 'It leaves a senseless body to rot, without a thought, where'er it haps.' A philosophical mausoleum over a moribund mankind. I reject it, I refuse it! I despise it, fear it, hate it!"1 In basic agreement, when Frederich Nietzsche reproved Herbert Spen cer for having "a tin soul," he was much less emotional and philosophically more cautious. But it is probable that the antipositivism fashionable and dominant in Italian culture, especially after the start of this century, from Benedetto Croce to Guido de Ruggiero, was essentially equally factious and brusque. Now that polemical passions have cooled, it is time to take up the subject again with the dispassion due it. The term "positivism" describes a complex reality with a crucial histori cal and intellectual function. In Italian culture, thanks especially to Roberto Ardig?, or perhaps to his mental confusion, the positivist demand has long been changed from one of method to metaphysics. In other words, it has been crudely "reified," submitted to a process of absolutization that has traduced its significance. It has been made unverifiable. From that of field research it has been transferred to the level of simple doctrinal assertion. But toward the end of the last century, there were still more serious confu sions in Italy. In the name of a vaguely understood science, and only rarely applied empirical research, in the name of free thought and a cloudy evolutionism supposed to be based on positive research, there was a ten dency to equate radically diverse, and in some ways clearly incompatible worlds of thought, such as those of Darwin, Spencer, and Marx. This was the new "trinity" against which Antonio Labriola never

A Rough Set Approach To Hotel Expenditure Decision Rules Induction

Traditional hospitality research on relationship modeling has concentrated on mathemati cal functions. A major restriction of mathematical function-based modeling techniques is their inability to handle non-numeric data. This article presents a new approach that ap plies rough set theory to model the relations within a set of numeric and non-numeric hotel expenditure data. The output of relationship modeling from a rough set approach is a set of decision rules. A hospitality information table was established, using data from the Hong Kong Tourist Association in the period 1983 to 1996. Among the 82 entries in the estab lished information table, 65 were used to induce decision rules to model the data relation ship, and the remainder were used to test accuracy by comparing actual and forecasted ho tel expenditures. Empirical results indicated that 75% of the classified forecasting samples fell into the same categories as their actual counterparts, and there was no significant dif ference between the actual and forecasted data.

Copper transfer between Neurospora copper metallothionein and type 3 copper apoproteins

Metallothioneins are a class of low-M r, cysteine- rich proteins which bind unusually high amounts of Zn, Cd and/or Cu. These proteins occur ubiquitously in eukaryotic organisms where they are believed to play an important role in metal metabolism [ 1 ]. In contrast to the detailed knowledge on the molecular structure and the physical-chemical properties of the metal-binding sites of metallothioneins, their biologi- cal function is still a matter of controversy. Besides a metal detoxification and storage function [2], metal- lothioneins were also proposed to be involved in metal transfer to apometalloproteins. In particular, the zinc ions of metallothioneins were reported to reactivate a number of zinc-dependent enzymes [2]. Here, we have investigated the copper transfer between Neurospora copper metallothionein [3] and the apo-forms ofNeurospora tyrosinase and Carcinus hemocyanin. The reconstitution efficiency was found to be strongly dependent on the oxidation state of copper metallothionein.

Cal-sal Walsh-Hadamard transform

Walsh-Hadamard matrices are rearranged such that the first half of the rows represents cal functions in increasing order of sequency whereas the second half represents sal functions in decreasing order of sequency. The transform based on this rearrangement is called the Cal-Sal Walsh-Hadamard transform or (WHT) <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">cs</inf> . General expressions for developing the elements of these matrices are developed. These matrices are decomposed into sparse matrix factors which lead directly to the fast algorithms similar to those for other forms of the WHT. The (WHT) <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">cs</inf> is useful in mapping an even or odd sequence since, in this case, at least one-half of the transform components will be zero.

Logical Derivative and Integral Operators for Sequency Filtering

A new class of logical derivative and integral operators on sal and cal functions are introduced with a view to develop an analogy between the well known classical derivative and integral operators in the frequency domain and the new logical operators in the sequency domain. Matrix representation of these operators are obtained and their symmetry properties studied. A few typical input waveforms are derived by these operators, and corresponding outputs are obtained to examine the behaviour of the operators. In conclusion, the use of these operators for sequency filtering is discussed.

The effect of casework: a research note

Raymond M. Berger, MSSW, is a doctoral candidate and Irving Piliavin, DSW, is Professor, School of Social Work, University of Wisconsin, Madison. The authors greatly appre ciate the help given them by the late Margaret Blenkner, her research staff, and Mary Hemmy, Executive Director of the Benjamin Rose In stitute. All the analyses reported here made use of the data file originally developed by Dr. Blenkner and her staff. In a review of eleven controlled experimentais and controls other than studies, Fischer concluded that social that the experimentais were less likely casework services—defined broadly as to survive and more likely to be in the services provided by professional stitutionalized than were the controls, caseworkers—yielded no greater imAlthough institutionalization was re provement among a variety of client lated to poor survival for both groups, populations than did no intervention it did not account for the different at all.1 One of the studies reviewed by survival rates between experimentais Fischer was the Protective Services and controls. Statistical tests were not Project for Older Persons, a longitudireported but experimentais among nal study directed by Blenkner under both institutionalized and noninstitu the auspices of the Benjamin Rose Intionalized participants were said to be stitute in Cleveland, Ohio.2 Accordless likely to survive than the controls, ing to Fischer, the results of this study The reason for the poorer survival rate suggested that the special, enriched among experimentais remained some services of the institute in fact worked thing of a mystery, against the clients, since the mortality In reviewing the analytic procedures rate of the clients who received the utilized in the Rose Institute study, special services was higher than that the authors found two possible ex of the control clients. Three years planations for the findings reported after the beginning of the program, by Blenkner and her colleagues. The 47.4 percent of the special service first concerns the influence of im clients were still alive compared to portant covariates of survival. AI 64.9 percent of the controls.8 The though the original investigators implication that social services can found that pretest data on age, physi have debilitating effects is obviously a cal functioning, and mental status of matter of concern. participants were linked to survival This research note presents a more (see Table 1), these variables played elaborate statistical analysis of the only a limited role in the analysis of original data than that carried out by experimental and control survival the researchers of the Rose Institute rates.4 This was unfortunate, since study. Such analysis indicates that the these variables indicated that the ex apparently negative effects of the inperimentals were more debilitated stitute program are attributable to facthan the controls, tors other than the special services proThe second possible explanation for gram itself. Blenkner's findings involves the sub Participants in the Rose Institute stantial number of cases with missing study were 164 elderly persons who pretest data. The overall comparison were in need of protective services of control and experimental death and who had come to the attention rates included individuals for whom of various community agencies. Sevinformation on physical functioning enty-six persons were randomly asand mental status was lacking. Ad signed to an experimental group and mittedly, the percentage of such in received intensive casework and other dividuals was about the same for ex services for a period of one year, perimentals and controls, but it is Eighty-eight persons were assigned to possible that the health status of non a control group and received only assessed experimentais was worse than those incidental services normally that of nonassessed controls. Unfor provided by community agencies. The tunately, there is no way of directly effects of service were evaluated by confirming this possibility since the a variety of variables that measured original Rose Institute study provides mental and physical competence, envery little information on the proce vironmental protection, affect, and dures by which diagnostic information effect on family and close friends. on participants was obtained at the Analyses reported by the researchinception of the experiment. However, ers revealed few differences between there are data—the variables just dis

A mathematical model for the study of the mechanics of the human vertebral column

The construction of a mathematical model for studies of the mechan cal function of the human vertebral column is described. The column is modeled as a collection of rigid bodies, and equilibrium or geometrical configurations of the collection are sought to satisfy constraints imposed so as to simulate the action of a real spine. The initial studies conducted with the model demonstrate the geometry of three-dimensional motions of the spine in flexion, extension, lateral bending, and axial rotation. In each case, the predicted deformations of ligaments and intervertebral discs are anatomically reasonable. Agreement with in-vivo studies of other investigators is obtained. It is shown that the vertebral column is not geometrically constrained to have patterns of motion, but can achieve many configurations in a variety of ways.