Old-fashioned Method Research Articles

Breaking Biomphalaria black box by in situ revelation of fluorescent Schistosoma mansoni parasites

Tissue clearing is an old-fashioned method developed in the 1900's and used to turn an opaque biological object into a 3D visualizable transparent structure. Developed and diversified over the last decade, this method is most of the time applied to mammals' tissues, and especially mouse and human tissues for cytological, histological and pathophysiological studies. Through autofluorescence, immunofluorescence, in situ hybridization, intercalating agents, fluorescent transfection markers or fluorescent particle uptake, optically cleared samples can be monitored to discover new biological structures and cellular interactions through 3D-visualization, which can be more challenging in some extend through classical histological methods. Most of the tissue clearing procedures have been developed for specific applications like endogenous fluorescence visualization, immunolabeling or for revealing specific organs. Thus, choosing the adapted protocol may be empirical for non-model species, especially for mollusks for which very little related literature is available. Herein, we suggest an effective optical tissue clearing procedure for the freshwater snail Biomphalaria glabrata, known as the intermediate host of the human parasite Schistosoma mansoni. This clearing procedure involves solvents with a minimal toxicity, preserves the endogenous fluorescence of labeled parasites inside snail tissues and is compatible with an immunolabeling procedure.

Design and Fabrication of Automatic Cattle Feeder System Using IOT

The old-fashioned method of physically feeding cattle takes time. Before feeding the animals along the side of the feed fence, the autonomous cow feeding system employed in this research travels a predefined path for a specified amount of time. The feed mechanism is operated over a predetermined time period by the prototype using an Arduino circuit. Considering that more than 40 percent of total work time is devoted to this activity, feeding constitutes one of the higher expenditures for farm owners in addition to being directly tied to the production of the cattle. Due to the lack of technological utilization, the dairy business has a significant Labor need. These labors are particularly expensive for the owner of the dairy farm since they are only required for 3 hours each morning and three hours in the evening, but they must be paid for the entire day. Hence, an automatic cow feeding equipment has been created to decrease the owner effort and expense. In this research we use two barrels to store the cattle food and a sensor is placed to open the barrel opening to fill the food in the collector in which the cattle eat their food. This process is done for period like morning once and evening once.

Ancient Futures of Teaching Novels: In Search of the Possibility of the (Im)possible Close Reading

This paper is an attempt to answer a simple but difficult question: how do we teach novels in the midst of the fierce competition in the current world. It has been a half century since the death of the novel was first declared; and now it is no longer news that literature courses―let alone novel reading classes―are rapidly disappearing from our university curriculum. In order to confront such a crisis, various analytical strategies have been suggested and tested in the recent literary studies, among which Franco Moretti’s timely proposal on “distant reading,” has become an attractive option for teaching novels. Handy summaries and video clips are flooding trendy high-tech university classrooms and subsequently drowning the old-fashioned method of traditional literary education. However, I would argue that the literary courses, in particular the fiction curriculum, ought to preserve the ancient methodology of close reading despite the unassailable pressure from the globally swiping neoliberal rat race. Close reading, as ancient it may sound, would let us see the novel futures of the novels as well as the novelty of the world.

Ancient Futures of Teaching Novels: In Search of the Possibility of the (Im)possible Close Reading

This paper is an attempt to answer a simple but difficult question: how do we teach novels in the midst of the fierce competition in the current world. It has been a half century since the death of the novel was first declared; and now it is no longer news that literature courses―let alone novel reading classes―are rapidly disappearing from our university curriculum. In order to confront such a crisis, various analytical strategies have been suggested and tested in the recent literary studies, among which Franco Moretti’s timely proposal on “distant reading,” has become an attractive option for teaching novels. Handy summaries and video clips are flooding trendy high-tech university classrooms and subsequently drowning the old-fashioned method of traditional literary education. However, I would argue that the literary courses, in particular the fiction curriculum, ought to preserve the ancient methodology of close reading despite the unassailable pressure from the globally swiping neoliberal rat race. Close reading, as ancient it may sound, would let us see the novel futures of the novels as well as the novelty of the world.

“Cameos of History” on the Landscape

This article explores one of the most ubiquitous methods of providing history for the public through a study of the Georgia Historical Marker Program. The marker program, begun in 1951, has undergone changes in stewardship, emphasis, and scholarly rigor in recent years. The evolution of the marker program to be more diverse and inclusive mirrors that of the profession more broadly. This study reveals that what seems like an old-fashioned method of presenting history to the public is still very visible and very much engages the public in discourse about Georgia’s history.

Anesthesia of laboratory animals in manufacturing of diagnostic and preventive biomedicines

Preparations such as XilaVet, Zoletil 100 as well as Aeranne (Isoflurane) are successfully applied for animal anesthesia in veterinary practice. We assessed a possibility of using parenteral narcosis with Zoletil 100 in combination with muscle relaxant Xila for producer-rabbits involved in manufacturing of natural rabbit serum subsequently deployed for production of diagnostic serum and immunoglobulin preparations. Administration of preparations into auricular vein is easy to do, while animals are sedated immediately allowing for safe fixation on restraining table and causing no additional stress for biomodels. This type of narcosis provides for expected depth of anesthesia and its maintenance until the end of blood-letting procedure. Parameters characterizing the state of cardiovascular system due to anesthetic products remained within the permitted limits. These preparations do not reduce heart beat rate allowing for collecting sufficient blood volumes. Application of inhalation anesthesia with Aeranne in laboratory animals provides for the specified depth of anesthesia and its maintenance until the end of the whole procedure. However, it requires specialized equipment and highly trained personnel with appropriate skills. Usage of Xila as a mono narcosis is not recommended as exhibits weak analgesic effects and strong hypotensive activity by decreasing quantity of collected blood volume. It was found that anesthetics such as Xila, Zoletil 100, Aeranne did not affect specific activity of immune sera in case of total dehematizing procedure. Moreover, antibody titers were not declined throughout entire observation (12 months) period and complied with the requirements of regulatory documentation. In addition, a feasibility of replacing old-fashioned anesthesia method with diethyl ether for a combination of safer contemporary preparations of Zoletil 100 and Xila was demonstrated while manufacturing tableted chemical cholera vaccine in experimental series with suckling rabbits used at diverse stages of raw material verification during surgical interventions. Xila, Zoletil 100, and Aeranne examined by us had no impact on the amount of blood obtained from donor-animals, immunological properties of the sera and ready-to-use diagnostic preparations. Such drugs were safe for all-age animals that comply with the requirements to anesthesia of animal biomodels and producer-animals in manufacturing of immunobiological preparations. Thus, our study allowed to conduct experiments with laboratory animals in a more humane manner.

Collards

Collards Maurice Manning (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Illustration by Phil Blank. Some people plant their collards in rowsfor a neat, predictable arrangement.Others, however—and this is reallythe old-fashioned method—planttheir collards in a jumble. They loosen [End Page 158] a little patch of ground and slingthe seed in a blur all over creation.All over creation—allowing the mindto contemplate a vastness is pleasing.And who would argue with creation?The result of the old-fashioned wayputs one in mind of a green seawith a bluish haze above it likea cloud. It looks like everythingthat is is there, a waist-highand leafy green eternity.I like to lose my sense of orderin the green world. That's what I call it.The green world, it's beautiful.The distinction between the rows and jumbleis probably a metaphor.A metaphor for what is the question,but I'm going to sit on it a while,give it a little time and seeif something illuminating comesto mind. Or not. It's strangely refreshingwhen nothing illuminating happens.You stand there in the green worldand it is what it is, nothing beyonditself, silently existing.Poetry is always surprising.Naively I've approached it, thinkingsome lofty thought to say, onlyto discover silence says it all.I've written of collard greens beforein a rather humorous little poem.It's a pretty inexhaustible subject,no wonder I've returned to itagain, and find that having lessand less to say is where the realpoem on the matter is,in the bluish haze above the green.Nothing more to say than that,but in it is a kind of love,and poetry relies on love. [End Page 159] Maurice Manning Maurice Manning's most recent collection of poetry is One Man's Dark. He lives with his family in Kentucky and teaches at Transylvania University and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Copyright © 2018 Center for the Study of the American South

Is the Grammar-Instruction Approach an Old-Fashioned Method in Comparison to the Communicative Approach in Non-Native Contexts? A Case Study of Students and Teachers’ Perceptions

With the height of the new and updated approaches in English Language Teaching (ELT), the communicative approach rises among them as the ultimate solution against the so-called oldfashioned methods. Therefore, in a globalized world, institutions in the non-native realms started to adopt the new trends to cope with the international change that occurred in the English teaching field. Grammar Translation was and is still used at an educational level because it is considered to be more effective in teaching a foreign level with restricted opportunities of use. Thus in English Foreign Language (EFL) circumstances, can a communicative approach fulfill its effectiveness in terms of proficiency without grammar instruction? Are EFL students fully adept to acquire a foreign language without a focus on its rules? Do teachers promote the communicative approach to be solely used in their classrooms? This paper examines this concern by taking into account those questions from students and teachers’ perceptions in an English language course in a private university in North Lebanon. This paper will discuss both students and teachers’ attitudes towards both the communicative and grammar approaches in terms of learning and teaching the English language in an EFL context

A Simple, Reproducible, Inexpensive, Yet Old-Fashioned Method for Determining Phagocytic and Bactericidal Activities of Macrophages.

Macrophages (Mϕ) play a pivotal role in the protection system by recognizing and eliminating invading pathogenic bacteria. Phagocytosis and the killing of invading bacteria are major effector functions of Mϕ. Although the phagocytic and bactericidal activities of Mϕ have been analyzed via several methods using a light microscope, a fluorescence microscope, or a fluorescence-activated cell sorter, expensive materials and equipment are usually required, and the methods are rather complicated. Moreover, it is impossible to determine both the phagocytic and bactericidal activities of Mϕ simultaneously using these methods. In this review, we describe a simple, reproducible, inexpensive, yet old-fashioned method (antibiotic protection assay) for determining the phagocytic and bactericidal activities of Mϕ.

Using the Literature to Test Pollination Syndromes — Some Methodological Cautions

“Pollination syndromes” are specific combinations of floral traits that are proposed to evolve convergently across angiosperm lineages in response to different types of animal pollinators. In spite of their long history, pollination syndromes have not been tested adequately–they rarely have been examined critically to determine how well they describe floral trait diversity or predict pollinators. In a recent meta-analysis of data from the literature, Rosas-Guerrero et al. (2014) provide a welcome test that draws on insights from past studies. At the same time, their study illustrates several difficulties of meta-analysis approaches in general, and for pollination biology in particular. Here we discuss those difficulties and propose some solutions. We first consider how to gather studies from the literature without introducing unintended bias, such as the old-fashioned method of working backward from cited literature. We next consider how to deal with difficulties that invariably arise when extracting and analyzing often-incomplete information from heterogeneous studies. Finally we discuss issues of interpreting and presenting the results in the most informative manner. We conclude that although Rosas-Guerrero et al. (2014) and other studies such as Ollerton et al. (2009) have arrived at different conclusions about the utility of pollination syndromes, their results are not necessarily incompatible.

Research and Design of a Short Message Services Management System for Mobile Devices

The last few years has seen a massive growth of applications for smart phone operating systems such as Android, IOS. Short message services (SMS) is one of them. Although SMS as an application has existed for a long time, the method for managing short messages is rather outdated and very inconvenient. The is partially because most of the SMS applications are inherited from old fashioned mobile platforms, in which users of mobile phone usually concentrate on basic phone service and demand less for SMS. With the introduction of smart phone operating system, the old-fashioned method of short messages management is not suitable. To cope with this problem, in this paper we first conduct research on modern ways of short messages management, and then a short message services management system for mobile devices is designed. In this new system, more advanced options, such as messages query by date, by sender and sending a message to many receivers at the same time, for short messages is provided. Moreover, to validate our research and design, we implement the system based on Android platform. And we conduct some experiments with this system and test results shows that our system works quite well. With the mobile Internet becoming increasingly important to life, our research is expected to improve work efficiency greatly.

How to judge a book by its cover? How useful are bibliometric indices for the evaluation of “scientific quality” or “scientific productivity”?

How to pre-select the most promising candidates for an open position out of several applications? One of the possibilities is to check the personal bibliometric indices of these candidates by looking into appropriate databases. In these databases the number of publications, the total number of citations, the average number of citations per paper and the h-index are easy to find. Thus, it is easy to use these parameters for a pre-election. First, the particular values for the several bibliometric indicators could be retrieved for scientists working in the field of Anatomy & Cell Biology. Next, an analysis of how useful and reliable these bibliometric indicators are is performed. Most of the indicators strongly depend on the seniority of a researcher. Thus, these indicators favour older scientists over younger ones. Based on that, these indicators are not well-suited to identify young and promising scientists. Therefore, it is proposed that indicators, which correct for the time a scientists spends working in the field, may be better suited for such a pre-election, such as the hy index (also known as m-index) or the Py index. In this context, it should be emphasized that these indicators may be useful for pre-selection. All available indicators are based on data obtained from the past achievements of the scientists and may not predict their future achievements. However, despite the availability of these indicators, the best method to gain an impression of the quality is currently still the old-fashioned method of reading the papers.

"You CAN Play Mathematical Equations on the Violin!": Quantifying Artistic Learning Outcomes for Assessment Purposes

THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHER OF SCIENCE Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912) once said, You cannot play mathematical equations on the violin. By that he meant simply that there was a decided difference between the sciences and the arts. Yet in today's academy, internal effectiveness reviews and external accreditation agencies require us to do just that-to play mathematical equations on the violin, so to speak-by insisting that film department administrators and faculty come up with measurable outcomes and results, as well as the means by which to evaluate artistic qualities such as talent; beauty; and good screenwriting, cinematography, directing, acting, editing, sound, and set design, and so on. This article demonstrates how the Florida State University Film School complied with this seemingly impossible task and how the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs have actually benefited from embracing mandated statistical assessment opportunities. To begin, I should note that I was not originally a proponent of such assessment strategies. The vast majority of professors in the arts disciplines are opposed to the ed-speak vocabulary and one size fits measurements that are being imposed on universities by state legislatures, regional accreditation boards, and internal quality enhancement initiatives. Initially, I tended to think that the professional judgment of a qualified faculty member (usually by means of a letter grade) was enough assessment for my taste. True, that sort of evaluation could be somewhat subjective, but I felt that a certain degree of subjectivity was part of the process of measuring students' work in the arts. After all, you cannot play mathematical equations on the violin. In fact, when I first confronted a mandated assessment process-at Georgia State University in 1996-we left most of the evaluation work in the hands of the faculty. We said that a faculty committee would review student films, as well as written term papers, scripts, and exams. We proposed a capstone course (which seems to be what so many accreditation agencies are after) and flirted with the idea of an exit examination. For the most part, we left the process qualitative-and in the hands of professors-through the old-fashioned method of grading. We just collectivized the process a bit more by fashioning a faculty committee. Then in 2004 I arrived at the FSU Film School, in the year that the Southeastern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) committee was performing its ten-year accreditation review. An elaborate computer portal was prepared that specifically required measurable (that is, quantifiable) outcomes. An evaluation instrument was developed that used a 1.0-10.0 Likert scale measurement for evaluating each of the key areas of filmmaking. A scale of this sort was originally the brainchild of Ken O'Donnellof Chapman University, but we wanted an assessment instrument that was specifically designed for the FSU Film School-one that was also planned and approved by the faculty. Originally, there were over fifty items represented, all to be rated on a 1-10 scale. These items were developed at a faculty retreat in which the faculty members from each area-writing, cinematography, directing, sound, editing, and set design-all wanted to have six to eight questions each. (See Appendix A.) These fiftyodd items were eventually boiled down to thirtyfive. But because the assessors of the students' films were going to be busy industry professionals, it was decided to consolidate some of the areas and eliminate others so that the number of times could be reduced down to a more manageable number: twenty-two. (See Appendix B.) We realized that each of our evaluators was going to be asked to view six MFA thesis films and six BFA theses, and we did not want to overburden them. Supplying them with DVDs of all the films and allowing them to fill out their ratings directly on the college's Web site, with a proper, secure password, made their work easier. …

The Slide of Education

I recently started graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley and have discovered that PowerPoint lectures have become ubiquitous across college campuses. Proponents of PowerPoint will argue that writing on the chalkboard takes too long and less material can be covered. I agree, and that is precisely why I prefer the old-fashioned method. With slides, it is all too easy to flip through a complex diagram or table in a matter of seconds, whereas writing on the board slows the instructor down and allows the students time to digest the material. Following PowerPoint lectures is difficult because they lack continuity; once a slide is advanced, it is gone. I surveyed 172 undergraduate students in Berkeley's introductory biology course, and 48% indicated that following and grasping material is easier with the chalkboard, with 40% preferring PowerPoint, and 12% ambivalent. Slides also facilitate copying and pasting from textbooks or other sources. Lectures should complement the reading, not duplicate it. Even for diagrams and figures, a simplified chalk drawing is often easier to grasp than a busy slide image. Not surprisingly, 60% of the surveyed students are more motivated to attend chalkboard lectures, compared with 10% who favor slides. And of the students who do attend, 60% find staying awake easier during a chalkboard lecture, while only 13% are more alert with PowerPoint. Some will accuse me of being a technophobe, but I am a computational biologist with a profound admiration of technology. I often use PowerPoint myself, but rarely when teaching. There are occasional instances when a slide may help to get a point across, but before making another one for your lecture, please ask yourself whether it is necessary and whether it will really help the students.

The Marriage of Okiku-San

Miss Kiku Taguchi was not an ordinary young lady. Her father, a pompous, important individual, entertained a distinct contempt for her insignificant sex. His wife was a mere nonentity, a puppet, who vaguely repeated, parrot-like, the paradoxes voiced by her lord. Hence, when this same lord emphatically expressed his opinion concerning the proper education for a female—this within twelve hours after the birth of Okiku-san, Lady Taguchi assented, and promised things. The result was a girl of naturally independent and original disposition, trammeled by the contracted rules common for women in Japan half a century before. Kiku knew by heart the great rules laid down by Confucius for her miserable sex. Aimlessly and dully, she would repeat them from day to day, while her vapid-faced mother, herself a product of the new Japan, mechanically kept time on the small box desk by which she was wont to squat. Okiku possessed an uncle who had been educated abroad, and through this medium she had come to know of many attractive things. His opinions were as emphatic as his brother's, but they were entirely different. The emancipation of Japanese women was his pet hobby, and so bitter was his denunciation of the old-time method of repression and education of the weaker sex, that he and his brother met only to argue and oftentimes politely quarrel. Okiku's uncle, however, was a man of real power and great wealth, and while Okiku's father, who was in modest circumstances, might despise and disagree with his opinions, he respected the aforesaid power and also the considerable fortune to which his own daughter would certainly succeed. The uncle was old, had no children of his own, and would have none. A widower, he was devoted, so he claimed, to the memory of his wife, and growled contempt at the notion of marrying again merely in order to have a progeny to pray for his soul after death. To him went Okiku, fretting under the home chains, and feeling, rather than knowing, the electrical change of thought among her sex in Japan. She wanted an education—a real one, as she expressed it. To her bluff and sympathetic uncle, at least, she dared to breathe her little hidden secret hope—a desire to go abroad, to enter a foreign school and college. This her uncle promised her she should do, and the following day he paid a visit upon his brother. Once alone with him, he went straight to the object of his call, barely giving the more outwardly courteous one a chance to run through [End Page 235] the long gamut of civilities, usually the rule—even with brothers. "Tomi, your girl is stupid, lazy, sleepy!" Tomi's lips became a straight line. Perfectly well he knew that the foregoing statement was not true, but he believed in the old-fashioned method of polite conversation, the humble admission of the inferiority of one's self and one's family. He said, in a tone that fiercely denied the words he uttered: "It is miserably true. She is a stupid worm!" "Let us put our heads together then," suggested Gonji solemnly, "and see if we cannot devise some means to rectify her unhappy imbecile condition." "I listen to your enlightened words of wisdom," said Tomi, grimly sarcastic and still fiercely polite. "To the point then. What do you say to my niece going abroad—say, to America—for a term of years?" In spite of himself, the father of Okiku leaped up in his seat. "What!" he fairly shouted. "Have my daughter sent to the country of barbarians, where civilization is only in its infancy!" "Quiet!" urged Gonji, pulling at a stubby little imperial he had carefully copied from a French diplomat. "Let us talk over the matter gently, reasonably." "There is nothing to talk over," said Tomi, controlling himself. "The matter is quite settled." Gonji arose, shrugging his shoulders slightly—a trick also...

Business is joined-up thinking

Usually, when letters arrive by the now old-fashioned method of snail-mail, I look forward to opening the envelopes, enjoying the fact that I can still look forward to receiving messages and communications in a more traditional manner, without knowing the title, subject or mail addresses of the senders. Coupled with this is the fact that getting letters delivered to you personally, brings an air of excitement to the letter-opening experience: not knowing whether you are receiving a letter from a loved one, a happy birthday card, a tax rebate from the government (a simple wish...) or even the dread of seeing the most recent phonebill. So it was with great interest, that I picked up a rather anonymous looking blue envelope this morning, with a cryptic return postal address written on the reverse of it. Hoping for a surprise, I opened the letter to find out that I had been “cordially” invited to apply for an internet banking account from my bank, who I have been with now for the last 10 years. Since the launch of their eBanking division and services approximately 5 years ago, I have been a regular user of all of their online services. Obviously, my customer details do not appear on some database somewhere for some unknown reason. Or in their wisdom, my bank has decided to carpet bomb me with marketing material in the hope that even if I have defected from them to a rival bank, they can lure me back with their services. All of this prompted me to ask the question of why they did not realise that I was already an online account holder in the first place? More importantly, why are they wasting time and money sending me marketing material when I know (and they probably know somehow, somewhere) that I am registered as an eBanking user ?

後期ポロツキー説における中エジプト語の文/節体系

The main subject of Middle Egyptian studies should be to seek its “langue” through careful analysis of the instances of “parole.” But many Egyptologists, such as Erman, Sethe, and Gardiner, did not fully recognize the importance of the “langue” of Middle Egyptian, instead they paid great attention to the study of morphological differences in the instances of “parole” themselves, and adapted the Semitic system to these differences. From the point of linguistics, however, morphological studies that are separated from the “langue” may possibly lead to misunderstandings of language.It was the linguist Hans Jakob Polotsky who first established the Middle Egyptian “langue” system through the analysis of grammatical categories and syntax. The German scholar Friedrich Junge also developed his grammatical study based on syntax and the “transformationsgrammatik” of Chomsky. By so doing, Polotsky and Junge disproved of the old-fashioned method of the Egyptologists' “Morphological Grammar, ” but there are also differences in the understanding of Middle Egyptian sentence system between Polotsky and Junge. Despite these differences, Leo Depuydt combined these two distinct studies and gave them the label “Standard theory.” Nowadays many scholars regard Polotsky's Idea as “Standard theory” according to Depuydt's terminology. It must be noted, however, that such a label is quite unsatisfactory since “Standard theory” does not equal to Polotsky's Idea, and that the very main point of Polotsky's Idea has been neglected by using such an unfortunate label. It is now clear that the subject with which we must grapple is to clarify the main point of Polotsky's Idea.In this paper I will examine Polotsky's Idea and point out the following Middle Egyptian sentence system explained by Polotsky. 1) There is a distinction of mode in Middle Egyptian. 2) The indicative mode of the main sentence is introduced by an auxiliary and has three tenses (i. e., present, past, future). 3) Some of the main sentences of indicative mode (1st tenses) have their counterparts in the emphasized adverbial sentences (2nd tenses). 4) The emphasized adverbial sentences in initial position (2nd tenses) begin with bare sdm. f/sdm. f form. 5) The prospective mode in the main sentence is expressed by bare sdm. f form.

The Second-Order Stationary Universal Kriging Model Revisited

Universal kriging originally was developed for problems of spatial interpolation if a drift seemed to be justified to model the experimental data. But its use has been questioned in relation to the bias of the estimated underlying variogram (variogram of the residuals), and furthermore universal kriging came to be considered an old-fashioned method after the theory of intrinsic random functions was developed. In this paper the model is reexamined together with methods for handling problems in the inference of parameters. The efficiency of the inference of covariance parameters is shown in terms of bias, variance, and mean square error of the sampling distribution obtained by Monte Carlo simulation for three different estimators (maximum likelihood, bias corrected maximum likelihood, and restricted maximum likelihood). It is shown that unbiased estimates for the covariance parameters may be obtained but if the number of samples is small there can be no guarantee of ‘good’ estimates (estimates close to the true value) because the sampling variance usually is large. This problem is not specific to the universal kriging model but rather arises in any model where parameters are inferred from experimental data. The validity of the estimates may be evaluated statistically as a risk function as is shown in this paper.

Update on electroconvulsive therapy

The patient is severely depressed, deluded, hallucinating, and has stopped eating. Major tranquilizers and antidepressants have not removed his symptoms, and psychotherapy is not appropriate. Treatment of choice: six 50-s grand mal seizures, to be induced by electrical stimulatinn of the brain three times a week for two weeks. Contrary to popular belief, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is still considered the most effective treatment for endogenous depression. Several refinements in recent years have made it more acceptable. And the old-fashioned method, conventional bilateral stimulation, still seems to be best. At a recent conference on affective disorders in Chicago, Richard Abrams, MD, professor and vicechairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Chicago Medical School, estimated that ECT removes or markedly improves severe endogenous depression in nine of ten cases. With the conventional method, introduced in the United States in 1939, placement of the electrodes is bifrontotemporal. With unilateral ECT, which came into

Update on electroconvulsive therapy

The patient is severely depressed, deluded, hallucinating, and has stopped eating. Major tranquilizers and antidepressants have not removed his symptoms, and psychotherapy is not appropriate. Treatment of choice: six 50-s grand mal seizures, to be induced by electrical stimulatinn of the brain three times a week for two weeks. Contrary to popular belief, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is still considered the most effective treatment for endogenous depression. Several refinements in recent years have made it more acceptable. And the old-fashioned method, conventional "bilateral" stimulation, still seems to be best. At a recent conference on affective disorders in Chicago, Richard Abrams, MD, professor and vicechairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Chicago Medical School, estimated that ECT removes or markedly improves severe endogenous depression in nine of ten cases. With the conventional method, introduced in the United States in 1939, placement of the electrodes is bifrontotemporal. With unilateral ECT, which came into