ABSTRACT
The Mediterranean Intensive Oxidant Study, performed in the summer of 2001, uncovered air pollution layers from the surface to an altitude of 15 kilometers. In the boundary layer, air pollution standards are exceeded throughout the region, caused by West and East European pollution from the north. Aerosol particles also reduce solar radiation penetration to the surface, which can suppress precipitation. In the middle troposphere, Asian and to a lesser extent North American pollution is transported from the west. Additional Asian pollution from the east, transported from the monsoon in the upper troposphere, crosses the Mediterranean tropopause, which pollutes the lower stratosphere at middle latitudes.
Subject(s)
Air Pollutants , Air Pollution , Carbon Monoxide , Aerosols , Asia , Atmosphere , Climate , Europe , Mediterranean Region , North America , Ozone , WeatherABSTRACT
A prototype system optimized for automatic registration of CT scans and applications such as subtraction enhancement and CT angiography was evaluated. Co-registration was performed on 50 studies of various types, including CT angiograms. Mean registration speed was 109 s; accuracy was 2.0 mm. Examples of subtraction enhancement and automatic extraction of the vascular tree are provided. Unattended registration was demonstrated in routine application. Subtraction-enhanced images and extraction of the vascular tree may be useful in clinical practice.
Subject(s)
Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted/methods , Tomography, X-Ray Computed/methods , Electronic Data Processing , Humans , Medical Records Systems, Computerized , Retrospective Studies , Sensitivity and SpecificityABSTRACT
A 33-year-old pregnant woman at 26 weeks gestation, who had a history of bipolar mood disorder, type I, was admitted to the hospital for hypomania and poorly controlled diabetes mellitus. The patient had had her first episode of affective illness at age 28, after the birth of her second child. After an initial postpartum depression, she had cycled into a manic state. She had subsequently been hospitalized seven times for acute mania. A combination of valproate and chlorpromazine had proven effective in managing most of her manic episodes, while her two most severe episodes had been successfully managed with bilateral ECT.
Subject(s)
Bipolar Disorder/diagnosis , Pregnancy Complications/diagnosis , Adult , Bipolar Disorder/therapy , Chlorpromazine/therapeutic use , Comorbidity , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1/diagnosis , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1/epidemiology , Drug Therapy, Combination , Electroconvulsive Therapy , Female , Haloperidol/therapeutic use , Humans , Lorazepam/therapeutic use , Pregnancy , Pregnancy Complications/therapy , Valproic Acid/therapeutic useABSTRACT
We report a system for PET-MRI registration that is improved or optimized in several areas: (1) Automatic scalp/brain segmentation replaces manual drawing operations, (2) a new fast and accurate method of image registration, (3) visual assessment of registration quality is enhanced by composite imaging methods (i.e., fusion) and (4) the entire procedure is embedded in a commercially available scientific visualization package, thereby providing a consistent graphical user interface. The segmentation algorithm was tested on 17 MRI data sets and was successful in all cases. Accuracy of image registration was equal to that of the Woods algorithm, but 10 times faster for PET-PET and 4 times faster for PET-MRI. The image fusion method allows detection of misalignments on the order of 2-3 mm. These results demonstrate an integrated system for intermodality image registration, which is important because the procedure can be performed by technicians with no anatomic knowledge and reduces the required time from hours to about 15 min on a modern computer workstation.
Subject(s)
Brain Mapping/instrumentation , Brain/anatomy & histology , Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/instrumentation , Magnetic Resonance Imaging/instrumentation , Tomography, Emission-Computed/instrumentation , Algorithms , Computer Systems , Humans , Reference Values , SoftwareSubject(s)
Antipsychotic Agents/adverse effects , Clozapine/adverse effects , Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder/chemically induced , Schizophrenia/drug therapy , Antipsychotic Agents/therapeutic use , Clozapine/therapeutic use , Humans , Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder/diagnosis , Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder/psychology , Retrospective Studies , Schizophrenic PsychologyABSTRACT
Age at menarche was estimated using status quo techniques on a sample of 230 rural South African females aged 11 to 17 years. Mean age of menarche was 14.03 years (SD = 1.25 years). Compared with contemporary rural and well-off urban samples, these females experienced menarche 0.6 years earlier than did the rural sample and 0.8 years later than the well-off urban group. Data from 11 previously reported studies of menarcheal age in urban and rural girls were analyzed with these data to determine the existence and magnitude of secular trends and whether rates differed between urban and rural environments. Regression analysis demonstrated a clear secular trend in both urban and rural females since 1943. Menarcheal age decreased at a rate of 0.34, 0.73, and 0.46 years per decade for rural, urban, and combined groups, respectively. The decline in menarcheal age over the last 40 years is thought to be due to improving socioeconomic conditions, but differences between urban and rural groups remain. Within rural groups there appears to be considerable variation in menarcheal age.
ABSTRACT
Open channels in sea ice may be acting as sources of atmospheric ions.
