Fish Hook Research Articles

Colorectal foreign bodies

A pictorial review of colorectal foreign bodies and their extraction. A prospective data-base and photographic record of patients who presented with retained colorectal foreign bodies at our institution has been maintained since 1995. Information regarding the foreign body, clinical presentation and extraction technique were documented. All 13 patients were male: age range 2-66 years. Seven were Caucasian, 4 African and 1 Asian. The foreign bodies included a penknife, an aerosol deodorant spray can, a blue plastic tumbler, a plastic bag containing two bank-notes and some marijuana, a plastic packet containing fish hooks, a penlight torch, a broomstick, a battery powered vibrator, a primus stove, a cap of an aerosol can, a piece of wire, a piece of hosepipe wrapped with wire and an iron bar. They entered the alimentary tract for a variety of reasons; anal autoeroticism (3), concealment (2), attention seeking behaviour (3), accidental (1), assault (2) and to alleviate constipation (2). Plain radiographs accurately demonstrated the site of the foreign body in 8 patients. Extraction was at laparotomy in 2 patients with peritonitis and in 3 who required extraction by colotomy. In 7 patients who had transanal extraction, four required general anaesthesia to facilitate extraction and extraction was possible under conscious sedation in the emergency room in three. The remaining patient extracted the foreign body himself and presented to hospital with a rectal perforation. The emergency room physician must confirm the presence of a rectal foreign body. Extraction in the emergency room is usually not possible and patient's with retained rectal foreign bodies should be referred to a colorectal surgeon.

Fishing: Pleasure or Pain?

Fishing is a common sport. Penetrating injuries of extremities due to fishing are common and have been widely reported. Ingestion of fish hooks is very rare. Ingestion of foreign bodies although infrequently seen in clinical practice, controversies remain with regards to conservative, endoscopic or surgical management. We report a case of accidental ingestion of 3 fish hooks, managed surgically after a failed trial of conservative management.

Improving Recipient Vessel Exposure During Microvascular Breast Reconstruction

Microvascular tissue transfer has become the gold standard for breast reconstruction. The primary drawback to these procedures is the technical expertise required for microsurgical anastomosis. This problem is compounded by the difficulties in the exposure of recipient vessels deep within the axilla. Previous techniques used for exposure of these vessels are difficult to setup, provide less than optimal exposure, and have been associated with brachial plexus injuries. The authors retrospectively review their experience using the pediatric OMNI retractor for exposure of recipient vessels during microvascular breast reconstruction. Patient demographics, flap choice, recipient vessels, the incidence of neuropraxia/brachial plexopathy, and microvascular complications were analyzed. Patients in whom more traditional methods of vessel exposure were used (ie, Gelpi retractors, arm positioning, fish hooks; 517 reconstructions in 392 patients) were compared with patients in whom vessel exposure was performed using the pediatric OMNI retractor (699 reconstructions in 571 patients). No differences were noted in comorbid conditions or the incidence of microvascular complications. However, the use of the pediatric OMNI was associated with a significant reduction in operative time in unilateral reconstructions (6:23 +/- 0.05 h vs 7:48 +/- 0.05 h; P <0.01) and decreased incidence of brachial plexus injury (0.17% vs 3.3%; P <0.01). The authors think the decreased neuropraxia rate is the result of better exposure afforded by the pediatric OMNI retractor, which improves exposure and eliminates the need for excessive arm abduction or awkward positioning during the dissection and anastomosis of axillary recipient vessels.

Stock structure of bluenose (Hyperoglyphe antarctica) off the north‐east coast of New Zealand based on the results of a detachable hook tagging programme

In late 1987, bluenose (Hyperoglyphe antarctica) were tagged with streamers attached to fish hooks, at six commercial fishing grounds between Gisborne and Cape Palliser, New Zealand. The tagged hooks were fished on commercial trot lines, but were attached with traces of 5.5 kg breaking strain nylon that broke when the fish took the hook and struggled to escape. Based on catches from full strength control lines fished simultaneously with the detachable gear, 1971 bluenose were tagged. In the subsequent 8.5 years, 44 tagged bluenose (where both the sites of tagging and recapture where known) were recaptured. All but seven of these returns occurred in the first year after tagging, indicating that the rate of long‐term tag retention was not good. Bluenose appeared to be relatively sedentary in the short term, but were capable of quite rapid and extensive movement. Four tagged fish had travelled distances in excess of 450 km, with movements to both the north and south of the tagging area. These data indicate that bluenose off the eastern coast of New Zealand between North Cape and Kaikoura probably comprise a single biological stock.

The diet of black-browed albatrosses at the Diego Ramirez Islands, Chile

The diet of black-browed albatrosses was studied at Gonzalo Island, Diego Ramirez, Chile, during the early chick-rearing periods of 2000, 2001, and 2002. Diet composition was determined by sampling chick-stomach contents during January and February of each year. Reconstituted meal mass was similar throughout the study, with diet being dominated by fish in all 3 years. Overall, the main items taken were the fishes Macruronus magellanicus (66–89% by mass) and Micromesistius australis (2.6–3.7% by mass), which are both fisheries-related species, and the squid Martialia hyadesi (8–20% by mass). The distribution of the prey species indicates that black-browed albatrosses obtained the bulk of their food over the South American continental shelf, but also foraged at the Antarctic Polar Front. The prevalence in the diet of fish species discarded from fishing operations, and the presence of fish hooks and fish bait species, indicate a strong association with fisheries in southern Chile.

Retrieval of an Esophageal Foreign Body (Fish Hook) Using Esophagostomy in an Olive Ridley Turtle, Lepidochelys olivacea

ABSTRACT We report the clinical treatment and surgery of an olive ridley turtle, Lepidochelys olivacea, that had been accidentally captured by a fisherman. Using radiography, we discovered a fishing hook lodged in the middle third of the esophagus. Following unsuccessful initial attempts to retrieve the hook using flexible endoscopy, we performed an esophagostomy, incising through the skin on the ventral neck aligned caudal to the occiput o f the skull to the top of the intergular scute of the plastron. After 2 m of recuperation in captivity, the turtle was judged fully recovered and released to the sea.

Surgical removal of a fish hook from the oesophagus of a turtle

An adult male Macquarie turtle was presented for examination after swallowing a fish hook. Radiographs taken to determine the position of this foreign body within the gastrointestinal tract revealed the fish hook lodged in the turtle's oesophagus. Surgical removal of the fish hook involved an approach through the soft tissues of the lateral neck. The turtle recovered well and was returned to the wild.

From Earaches to Fish Hooks

From Earaches to Fish Hooks

Modelling cement grinding circuits

Modelling and simulation studies were carried out at 26 cement clinker grinding circuits including tube mills, air separators and high pressure grinding rolls in 8 plants. The results reported earlier have shown that tube mills can be modelled as several mills in series, and the internal partition in tube mills can be modelled as a screen which must retain coarse particles in the first compartment but not impede the flow of drying air. In this work the modelling has been extended to show that the Tromp curve which describes separator (classifier) performance can be modelled in terms of d(50)(corr), by-pass, the fish hook, and the sharpness of the curve. Also the high pressure grinding rolls model developed at the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre gives satisfactory predictions using a breakage function derived from impact and compressed bed tests. Simulation studies of a full plant incorporating a tube mill, HPGR and separators showed that the models could successfully predict the performance of the another mill working under different conditions. The simulation capability can therefore be used for process optimization and design. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The fish hook retractor.

We describe a simple and easily adjustable method of retracting skin flaps during head and neck surgery. It involves the use of a modified fish hook and rubber band. The retractor is easily applied and adjusted, and inexpensive to manufacture.

(Serious) sadomasochism: a protected right of privacy?

Several adult male members of a sadomasochistic sex club were arrested for violating a U.K. statute passed in 1861--The Offences Against the Person Act. The sex acts spanned a 10-year period and were videotaped. They involved manipulation of the genitalia with hot wax, sand paper, fish hooks, and needles. The sexual interactions were consensual. This analysis tracks the case from trial, to the Court of Appeal, to the House of Lords, and on to the European Court of Human Rights. It examines whether or not these sexual behaviors should be protected under a right to privacy. It contrasts state concerns of bodily harm, albeit consented to, in sex with those incurred in sport.

Aboriginal fish hooks in southern Australia : Evidence, arguments and implications.

From time to time, in the wanderings of my imagination, I mull over the question of what should be my first course of action if I were the proverbial Martian archaeologist (Jones and Bowler 1980:26), just arrived on Earth to investigate its peoples, cultures and history. And in this imaginary quest, I ask myself, would my time be more productively spent observing and interrogating the natives, or simply heading for the nearest rubbish dump to begin immediate excavations, a la Rathje (1974)? But, having chosen the latter, what then would I make of such things, in my putative excavations, as discarded lava lamps, fluffy dice or garden gnomes? Phallic symbols perhaps, ear-muffs for protection from rap music, maybe cult figurines! While such musings are, of course, completely frivolous, nevertheless a serious issue lies at their heart, the interface between ethnography and archaeology. In this scenario the choice faced by the alien archaeologist is clearly a false dichotomy. We are not faced with an either/or situation and I think it unlikely, in the current multidisciplinary climate, that anyone today would seriously argue for precedence of one discipline over the other. In basic terms both disciplines make significant contributions to our understanding of Australian prehistory (Bowdler 1983:135), each providing a body of evidence from which models, theories and explanations are developed. Archaeology, for example, provides invaluable time depth and a spatial dimension in studies of change and development in cultures, whereas ethnography puts flesh on the bones of cultures, revealing their intrinsic complexity and contextualising archaeological findings in the process.

A critical analysis of the fish hook effect in hydrocyclone classifiers

Abstract The infrequently reported fish hook in hydrocyclone classifiers has been ignored by many or disputed due to its random and sporadic occurrence. The imprecision of measurement of the actual efficiency and the ‘uncertainty principle’/observer effect appear to be main factors in its evolution and partial acceptance. Significantly, fundamental models to date do not predict a fish hook. Current theories to explain it based on size dependent bypass mechanism are mere mathematical transformations. It may be of theoretical/academic interest only as its exclusion in simulation models does not appear to affect cyclone performance prediction. This paper attempts to show that it is still a long way before it could be universally accepted as a scientifically significant physical effect.

A Portable System for Reading Large Passive Integrated Transponder Tags from Wild Trout

Abstract This paper describes a system based on a commercial portable energizer–reader module and antennas and a hand-held programmable calculator for reading large (4 × 23 mm and 4 × 32 mm) passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags. Maximum tag-reading distances in water were 45 cm for ferrite-core stick antennas and 86 cm for a loop (gate) antenna; these distances varied with the size of the tags and their orientation to the antennas. The tags, tested on wild brown trout Salmo trutta and wild rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss, were either inserted into the peritoneal cavity with a hypodermic needle or attached externally at the base of the dorsal fin with a fish hook and monofilament line. The fish were held in artificial channels 1 m wide and 50 m long and in two 3–4 m-wide stream sections, one 70 m long and the other 90 m long. During a 5-week period we were routinely able to detect marked fish by (1) walking along the channels and stream sections probing the water with an antenna, and (2) by position...

Adhesion mechanism of human beta(2)-glycoprotein I to phospholipids based on its crystal structure.

Human beta(2)-glycoprotein I is a heavily glycosylated five-domain plasma membrane-adhesion protein, which has been implicated in blood coagulation and clearance of apoptotic bodies from the circulation. It is also the key antigen in the autoimmune disease anti-phospholipid syndrome. The crystal structure of beta(2)-glycoprotein I isolated from human plasma reveals an elongated fish-hook-like arrangement of the globular short consensus repeat domains. Half of the C-terminal fifth domain deviates strongly from the standard fold, as observed in domains one to four. This aberrant half forms a specific phospholipid-binding site. A large patch of 14 positively charged residues provides electrostatic interactions with anionic phospholipid headgroups and an exposed membrane-insertion loop yields specificity for lipid layers. The observed spatial arrangement of the five domains suggests a functional partitioning of protein adhesion and membrane adhesion over the N- and C-terminal domains, respectively, separated by glycosylated bridging domains. Coordinates are in the Protein Data Bank (accession No. 1QUB).

The phenomenon of apparent change of growth rate in gummy shark ( Mustelus antarcticus) harvested off southern Australia

Abstract The hypothesis of the `Phenomenon of Apparent Change in Growth Rate' caused by length-selective fishing mortality is adopted for explaining observed differences in published von Bertalanffy growth curves for gummy shark ( Mustelus antarcticus ) determined from length-at-age data. Three independent pieces of evidence are presented in support of this hypothesis to explain the differences in the curves between 1973–76 and 1986–87 in Bass Strait and between Bass Strait and South Australia during 1986–87: (1) Mean length of the sharks in each of the ages-classes 3–7 years are shown to be different between the two periods and the two regions, but not different for the 2-year age-class which is affected less than the older age-classes by the fishing gear deployed in the fishery. (2) Avoiding the pitfalls of `back-calculation', Rosa Lee's Phenomenon was detected by directly comparing the radii of growth-increment bands visible on the faces of the articular cups of vertebral centra from sharks of various ages caught in the two periods and the two regions. Statistical tests indicated that the degree of Rosa Lee's Phenomenon did not vary significantly between the periods or regions. (3) Through development of an appropriate model, the effects of length-selective fishing mortality on the mean length of sharks in the wild population for age-classes 2–16 years were simulated for a range of levels of hook and gillnet fishing effort, with separate mesh-sizes of 6 and 7 in. for the gillnets. Simulated changes in mean length for sharks older than two years tended to be smaller than the differences observed in the published von Bertalanffy growth curves but they were generally consistent with the observed trends. The simulations demonstrated how the magnitude of the von Bertalanffy growth parameters L ∞ and t 0 tend to increase and K tends to decrease as gillnet fishing effort increases, and hence explain how these types of biases, commonly appearing in the scientific literature for gillnet shark fisheries, can occur. The simulations also demonstrate that hook fishing effort in a fishery with legal minimum lengths has to be very high to cause distortion of growth curves.

A Rhetoric of Indeterminacy: The Poetry of Margaret Atwood and Robert Bly

A RHETORIC OF INDETERMINACY: THE POETRY OF MARGARET ATWOOD AND ROBERT BLY R. ALEXANDER KIZUK University of Lethbridge I n the poetry of both Margaret Atwood and Robert Bly, the reader may find that the most surprising tropic strategies are those that disrupt representa­ tions of gender. These disruptions are, however, instances that occur under a larger category of representations of relationships between the human and the non-human. In these poets’ work, gender is a powerful metaphor point­ ing toward an otherness that is other than we know. What we accept as “human” is always defined under some set of cultural codes; desire, how­ ever, being the one part of ourselves that always escapes cultural coding, remains for us our connection to alterity. Behind tropes of the woman-other and the man-other in this poetry lies a rhetoric of indeterminacy in which gender becomes the vehicle for rather than the object of signification. Atwood and Bly have been writing compelling poetry for North American audiences for over a quarter of a century. Readers of contemporary poetry in the Unites States and Canada have become acquainted with the strange and at times savage other-worldliness of these two poets. Both poets, however, have suffered in their reputations as poets by the too easy pigeon-holing of the professor and the cameraman — critics and the media.1 Robert Bly the protest poet, Margaret Atwood the feminist, these labels became attached to the poets and their work in the late 1960s and early 1970s. More specifi­ cally, the label for Atwood became popular with the publication of her novel The Edible Woman (1969) and her poetic sequence Power Politics (1971). The labelling process in Bly’s case started during his anti-war activities in the 1960s, which culminated poetically with The Light Around the Body (1967) and Teeth Mother Naked at Last (1970). Who could forget his Ac­ ceptance Speech on receiving the National Book Award for Poetry in 1968? As Bly was given the award and a $1000 check, he upbraided the National Book Committee and all American institutions for not taking their part in preserving the nation and not taking the risk of “committing acts of dis­ obedience” (15). After doing so, still on stage, Bly accepted the award but handed the check to one of the leaders of anti-war protest. More recently, of course, Bly has become a spokesperson and often a Master of Ceremonies for a male consciousness-raising movement in the United States and Canada— a English Stu d ies in Ca n a d a , 23, 2, June 1997 sort of Betty Friedman for 1990s’ males. Both Atwood and Bly have adopted writing as a man or writing as a woman as a rhetorical strategy. This gen­ dered rhetoric is not, however, devoid of ambivalence and an awareness of the limits that these discursive positions place on them politically and aes­ thetically. Many readers have come to associate Atwood’s poetic with an icily cruel gender-sensitivity of image that is readily demonstrated in the famous motto to Power Politics: you fit into me like a hook into an eye a fish hook an open eye (111)2 The speaker of Power Politics, a book-length series of anti-love poems, is caught in a relationship in which the male lover has control over the woman speaker: “You have the earth’s nets / I have only a pair of scissors” (141). The emotional contract between the lovers is continually under negotiation. The male lover is, or at least partakes of, the Other. In the sequence, the male lover represents what cannot be included in any definition of the fe­ male Self. He is not static, however. He evolves (or devolves) from relatively simple caricature in the beginning of the sequence — “you hang suspended above the city / in blue tights and a red cape, / your eyes flashing in uni­ son” (114)— to an ominous sense of nothingness or sheer being that robs the woman speaker not only of identity but also of any sense of being in the world: you are not a bird you do not fly you axe not an animal you do...

An alternative method of intraoperative skin retraction: the Walton fish hook.

A simple and versatile means of skin flap retraction is presented. The method uses blunt hooks made from stainless steel wire with traction provided by elastic bands. The Walton fish hook is routinely used to assist in head and neck dissections.

Philosophy, Rhetoric, Literary Criticism: (Inter)Views

Gary A. Olson presents six in-depth interviews with internationally prominent scholars outside of the discipline and twelve response essays written by noted rhetoric and composition scholars on subjects related to language, rhetoric, writing, philosophy, feminism, and literary criticism. The interviews are with philosopher of language Donald Davidson, literary critic and critical legal studies scholar Stanley Fish, cultural studies and African American studies scholar bell hooks, internationally renowned deconstructionist J. Hillis Miller, feminist literary critic Jane Tompkins, and British logician and philosopher of science Stephen Toulmin. Susan Wells and Reed Way Dasenbrock provide distinctly divergent assessments of the application of Donald Davidson s language theory to rhetoric and composition, and especially to writing pedagogy. Patricia Bizzell and John Trimbur explore how Stanley Fish s neopragmatism might be useful both to composition theory and to literacy education. And Joyce Irene Middleton and Tom Fox discuss bell hooks s notions of how race and gender affect pedagogy. In two frank and sometimes angry responses, Patricia Harkin and Jasper Neel take J. Hillis Miller to task for seeming to support rhetoric and composition while continuing to maintain the political status quo. Similarly, Susan C. Jarratt and Elizabeth A. Flynn express skepticism about Jane Tompkins s vocal support of composition and of radical pedagogy particularly. And Arabella Lyon and C. Jan Swearingen analyze Stephen Toulmin s thoughts on argumentation and postmodernism. Internationally respected anthropologist Clifford Geertz provides a foreword; literacy expert Patricia Bizzell contributes an introduction to the text; and noted reader-response critic David Bleich supplies critical commentary. This book is a follow-up to the editor s (Inter)views: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Rhetoric and Literacy, already a major work of scholarship in the field.

Ingestion of marine debris by juvenile sea turtles in coastal Florida habitats

Digestive tracts from 51 sea turtle carcasses that washed ashore on the east and west coasts of Florida were examined for the presence of anthropogenic debris. Debris was found in 24 of 43 green turtles (Chelonia mydas), 0 of 7 Kemp's ridleys (Lepidochelys kempi), and 1 of 1 loggerhead (Caretta caretta). Ingested debris included plastic, monofilament line, fish hooks, rubber, aluminium foil, and tar. For green turtles, ingestion of debris was not significantly affected by location of stranding, season, or body size. Debris ingestion was significantly affected by sex of the turtle. Frequency of occurrence of debris was significantly higher in females, but differences in the mass or volume of ingested debris were not significantly different between the sexes. Although frequency of occurrence of debris was high in green turtles (56%), the mass and volume of the debris were small—mean 0.52% of wet mass of gut contents and mean 0.72% of the volume of gut contents, respectively. However, small quantities of debris can kill sea turtles; the death of at least two turtles in this study resulted from debris ingestion. The debris in the two turtles represented 4.6% and 5.8% of wet mass and 3.2% and 9.8% of volume of the gut contents, respectively. In both turtles, the debris represented inflated percentages because the turtles had not been feeding normally prior to death because the debris affected gut function. Sublethal effects of debris ingestion (e.g. absorption of toxins) has an unknown—but potentially great—negative effect on the demography of sea turtles.