Successful Visits Research Articles

Effects of hippocampal lesions on acquisition and retention of spatial learning in zebra finches

We tested the role of the hippocampus in spatial memory of zebra finches. The birds were trained to find the location of a food site among four identical feeders arranged on the aviary floor. Extra-maze cues were present. The birds had to perform the task from four different starting points. Successful visits and the time to find the food were recorded. Hippocampal lesions made before acquisition led to a decrease in correct choices. Hippocampal lesions following training disrupted the retention of the spatial memory. Surprisingly, birds with hippocampal damage reached the food as quickly as intact birds, but they needed more visits to find the correct feeder. Therefore, the birds with hippocampal damage used an alternative, nonspatial memory-based strategy to find the food.

Lived experiences and reflections of joint NCATE‐state reviews

Teacher education faculty members, state certification officers, and NCATE staff share what they have learned from their NCATE‐state joint review and accreditation visits. Dilemmas concerning the joint review are addressed and include (a) proactive versus reactive measures for institutions of higher education and state affiliations of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, (b) issues of partnership versus separateness, and (c) process versus product frameworks in planning and documenting growth. Conceptual and practical suggestions are offered for working collaboratively to develop high quality teacher education programs and successful joint review and accreditation visits.

Home visits to elderly patients in Saudi Arabia.

The present study was conducted to examine the perception of participating physicians in hospital and primary health care (PHC) on the nature of illness that requires home visits, type and job description of health personnel that should make home visits and other prerequisites needed for successful home visits. A predesigned questionnaire consisting of demographic and professional characteristics of doctors was sent confidentially to randomly selected PHC and hospital doctors during the period January to June 1994. The respondents were asked to give their opinion on the categories of health problems that necessitate home visits, job descriptions of various professionals needed and the prerequisites for the successful running of home visits. Three hundred and ninety-six PHC and 238 hospital doctors participated in the study. PHC doctors were younger, having more females and less qualified than hospital doctors. Both PHC doctors and hospital doctors gave priority to bed-ridden patients and lowest priority to mobile chronically ill patients. PHC doctors were more keen on home visits than hospital doctors. More PHC doctors than their hospital counterparts would like nurses and health visitors to be involved in nursing procedures performed at home except when it comes to notifying doctors about patients' problems. In case of stroke more hospital doctors would like physiotherapists to be involved than PHC doctors and vice versa in the case of osteoarthritis. Most PHC doctors preferred occupational therapists involvement in training patients and the modification of their environment to lead independent lives. More hospital doctors than their PHC counterparts preferred afternoon sessions for home visits. The respondents' views in the present study can be made use of in establishing a home visit programme to the Saudi elderly to need of such services. In addition, the number, qualifications and responsibilities of the various professionals involved in the visit should be re-evaluated after adequate implementation.

WORK SITE RISK ASSESSMENT

Awareness of the connection between work and health can be reinforced by primary care practitioners through visits to community workplaces. Physicians can use observation skills to increase understanding of work processes, hazardous exposures, potential adverse health effects, and preventive principles and control measures during inspection of work sites. They can also use site visits to augment the office occupational history and to obtain a community industrial profile. Adequate advance planning is imperative to ensure successful visits. The use of site visits by physicians is one method of realizing the goal of increased physician awareness of the work-relatedness of disease.

‘Another Fresh Australian Tale’: The American Publication of Catherine Martin’s The Silent Sea

That the novel readers of colonial Australia took an interest in American fiction was abundantly demonstrated in contemporary sources—from the many direct and indirect references to writers such as Bret Harte, Hawthorne and Fenimore Cooper in the works of Australian novelists, to the later highly successful visits of Mark Twain, reported by the same Australian newspapers which serialised his stories. The existence of a reciprocal American interest in Australian colonial fiction is less obvious, although the Library of Congress National Union Catalogue (pre-1956) lists American editions, during the 1880s and 1890s, of Kingsley's The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn (1886) and Simpson Newland's Paving the Way (1899) as well as the ten Rolf Boldrewood titles which were printed by Macmillan in both London and New York between 1890 and 1897. However, the NUC also indicates that, during a period roughly spanning the fifteen years either side of Federation (albeit some thirty years after Hawthorne's famous complaint to W.D. Ticknor in 1855 that American literature had been 'given over to a d d mob of scribbling women' [qtd. Mott 122]) at least fifty novels by Australian women writers were published in the United States.

Treatment of decompensated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the emergency department — correlation between clinical features and prognosis

Patients with decompensated chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are at high risk of relapse after treatment in an emergency department. The purpose of this study was to determine if the risk of relapse correlates with the clinical features of the disease. Three hundred fifty-two patients with documented COPD who were treated for dyspnea in the ED of the Albuquerque Veterans Administration Medical Center over a three-year period. We reviewed the clinical features and pulmonary function tests of the patients, who were considered to have COPD if the baseline prebronchodilator one-second forced expiratory volume (FEV1) was less than 80% predicted, and less than 80% of the forced vital capacity and inhaled bronchodilators failed to increase the FEV1 to levels of more than 80% predicted. Visits for pneumonia, pneumothorax, pleural effusion, or pulmonary emboli were excluded. A relapse was defined as an unscheduled revisit to the ED within 14 days of initial treatment. Data were entered into a microcomputer data base and analyzed by a commercial statistical package. Of 877 visits in which the patient was treated and released from the ED, 281 (32.0%) resulted in relapse and were considered unsuccessful Compared with successful visits, unsuccessful visits were characterized by a shorter duration of dyspnea (P = .002), a lower entry FEV1 (P = .027), a lower discharge FEV1 (P = .040), a greater number of treatments with nebulized bronchodilators (P = .009), more frequent use of parenteral adrenergic drugs (P = .006), and less frequent use of oral prednisone on discharge (P = .016). Patients with one or more relapse visits during the study period (relapsers) differed from nonrelapsers in several respects. Relapsers had a greater bronchodilator response on baseline FEV1 than nonrelapsers (P = .047). Nevertheless, relapsers required more bronchodilator treatments in the ED (P less than .001); were treated more frequently with parenteral adrenergic drugs (P less than .001), IV glucocorticoids (P less than .001), and oral prednisone (P less than .001); and recovered less of their baseline FEV1 (P less than .014). Bronchodilator response on baseline pulmonary function testing appears to identify patients with COPD who have a poor prognosis after emergency treatment. Their poor response to intensive bronchodilator treatment suggests that loss of bronchodilator response may be involved in the pathogenesis of respiratory decompensation.

MOZART'S INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH MUSIC

BY the end of the eighteenth century the galant style of J. C. Bach, strengthened and enriched by Haydn, had become the everyday idiom for all instrumental music in England. The effect of Haydn's symphonies had been immense. Probably it was their orchestration which above all astonished an audience accustomed to the lightweight scoring of J. C. Bach, Abel, and the Italian operas popular in the 1780's. Haydn's popularity had been established partly as a result of two highly successful visits to London. It was vastly increased, in the eyes of the English, by the flattering facts that he first wrote twelve important symphonies specially for London, and later composed an oratorio on what was regarded as the English model. 'The Creation' was, indeed, the only work for over a century that was conceded a place beside Handel's oratorios, though it is an odd fact that after the first few performances it became the regular practice to perform only the first part. Several English oratorios were written in imitation of 'The Creation' and 'The Seasons'.' The few symphonies of the early I8oo's, notably those by S. Wesley2 and Crotch, imitate the plans and dimensions of Haydn's London symphonies, their tonality, and above all their orchestration. His piano sonatas were also a good deal imitated around the turn of the century. His chamber music had less direct influence, for English string quartets and piano trios were a rarity at this time. Haydn has remained a popular composer in England ever since. His music has never been difficult to listen to, and the attitude to it has not, on the whole, changed a great deal since I8oo. Naturally there was a decline in popularity as other composers became more fashionable, but his symphonies held their own all through the nineteenth century, while his chamber music increased in popularity with the advent of the chamber concert in 1835. He was thought of as the father of the modem school of instrumental music, and the senior member of that great trio of symphonists with whom all other composers were compared.