Spontaneous ureterocolic fistula secondary to calculous pyohydroureteronephrosis.

We report a case of ureterocolic fistula secondary to urolithiasis in a 70-year-old female imaged with both CT and an antegrade nephrostogram. The ureterocolic fistula was managed with insertion of an antegrade ureteral stent.

Effects of chronic administration of diphenylhydantoin on learning and offspring behavior.

An original parent group of 72 Sprague-Dawley albino rats was subdivided into four treatment groups that were administered 5, 10 or 15 mg/kg diphenylhydantoin and distilled water on days 5 to 55 after birth. At 85 days of age the drug females were bred to naive males to produce an F1 generation. In similar fashion, the F1 females were bred at maturity to produce and F2 generation. Neither offspring group received any drug administrations or experimental treatments. All three groups were tested on avoidance conditioning at 75 days of age for a total of 150 trials. The results of statistical analysis indicated no significant differences in number of correct responses in the parent group, a significant Drug effect in the offspring groups and a significant Dose effect in the F2 generation. This detrimental cross-generational effect on avoidance conditioning, caused by chronic diphenylhydantoin administration, is consistent with previously noted cross-generational effects of trifluoperazine, chlorpromazine, and methylphenidate.

Methylphenidate effects on avoidance learning at two ages in the rat.

The major purpose of this investigation was to assess the effects of methylphenidate on avoidance learning at two ages. The subjects were 96 naive albino rats, equally divided between the sexes. One-half received daily drug administrations beginning at 47 days of age; one-half began at 87 days of age. Both groups were divided into three drug dosage levels (0.5, 1.5 and 4.5 mg/kg) and a distilled water control group. Methylphenidate was administered s.c. for a total of 18 days. Following 3 days of drug administrations only, 10 daily trials on avoidance conditioning were administered approximately 10 min after drugging to a total of 150 trials. The major findings indicated that: (1) no significant difference in avoidance response acquisition was obtained in the comparison between drug and control groups, (2) a dose effect was obtained in that the M4.5 group made siginificantly more correct responses than the M1.5 group, and (3) animals drugged beginning at 87 days made significantly more correct responses than those drugged beginning at 47 days.

Improvement in quality of life of dialysis patients during six months of exercise.

Quality of life (QOL) assessment has rapidly become an integral variable of outcome in clinical research; over 1,000 new articles each year are indexed under "quality of life" (1). Despite the proliferation of instruments and the burgeoning theoretical literature devoted to QOL evaluation, no unified approach has been derived for its measurement, and little agreement has been attained on what it means (2). Lack of clarity regarding the definition of QOL has led to several related concepts, namely functional status, life-satisfaction, well-being, and health status, being used interchangeably with QOL (3), further contributing to ambiguity. Compared to the general population, patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) experience a poorer QOL (4). Questionnaire-based QOL measurement in ESRD has demonstrated that QOL is best in renal transplantation and worst in unit-based haemodialysis. The main determinants of difference are the physical function domains. QOL in ESRD has traditionally been measured by a number of disease-specific, domain-specific and generic instruments, all exhibiting a fixed design. However, the fixed nature of the aforementioned instruments, is problematic in that what is measured is predetermined and hence may not represent the free choice of the individual whose QOL is assessed (5). Questionnaire-based instruments may not reflect individual priorities.

Chronic methylphenidate effects on learning in an F2 generation.

This study investigated chronic methylphenidate effects on the learning of undrugged second generation offspring. Seventy-two albino rats were tested on avoidance conditioning. The results indicated that (a) the learning of the undrugged offspring was affected, (b) differential sex effects were obtained, and (c) some difficulty was encountered in reproduction.

Effects of methylphenidate on avoidance learning in the aged rat.

Twenty Sprague Dawley rats, aged 22 to 26 months were given subcutaneous injections of 4.5 mg/kg methylphenidate or distilled water. Twelve minutes after the single injection was given, rats began 90 trials of avoidance conditioning. Drug animals made significantly more correct responses than did the control animals. tresults indicate that use of methylphenidate in aged rats improved avoidance learning.

Maintaining adequate nutrition on dialysis.

Patients with kidney failure are at particular risk from malnutrition and they must be regularly monitored and assessed if it is to be avoided. This article examines a multidisciplinary approach in a dialysis unit and discusses methods of nutritional assessment and treatment that are available.

Prototype of Kepler Processing Workflows For Microscopy And Neuroinformatics.

We report on progress of employing the Kepler workflow engine to prototype "end-to-end" application integration workflows that concern data coming from microscopes deployed at the National Center for Microscopy Imaging Research (NCMIR). This system is built upon the mature code base of the Cell Centered Database (CCDB) and integrated rule-oriented data system (IRODS) for distributed storage. It provides integration with external projects such as the Whole Brain Catalog (WBC) and Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF), which benefit from NCMIR data. We also report on specific workflows which spawn from main workflows and perform data fusion and orchestration of Web services specific for the NIF project. This "Brain data flow" presents a user with categorized information about sources that have information on various brain regions.