Constructed languages are processed by the same brain mechanisms as natural languages.

What constitutes a language? Natural languages share features with other domains: from math, to music, to gesture. However, the brain mechanisms that process linguistic input are highly specialized, showing little response to diverse non-linguistic tasks. Here, we examine constructed languages (conlangs) to ask whether they draw on the same neural mechanisms as natural languages, or whether they instead pattern with domains like math and programming languages.

Police as contributors to Healthy Communities: Aiken, South Carolina.

In Aiken, South Carolina, community policing has led to numerous innovative programs that have contributed to a healthy community. The MOMS and COPS (Managing Our Maternity System with Community Oriented Policing System) program has played a significant part in the county's 50% decrease in infant mortality since 1989 and contributed to Aiken's designation as an All-America City in 1997. Other programs include a mentoring program for at-risk teen girls; instant crime reporting with donated cellular phones; seminars for seniors to alert them to scams and common crimes; demolition of unsafe homes; free installation of smoke detectors; a child ID program; and parental education on child brain development.

Coronary Artery Surgery Study (CASS): comparability of 10 year survival in randomized and randomizable patients.

The Coronary Artery Surgery Study (CASS) includes 780 patients with mild or moderate stable angina pectoris or asymptomatic survivors of a myocardial infarction who were randomized to either medical or surgical therapy and 1,319 patients who were eligible for randomization but were not randomized (randomizable patients). There were no substantial aggregate differences observed in any of the survival comparisons after 10 years of follow-up study between the randomized and randomizable patients assigned to the medical (79% versus 80%) or surgical (82% versus 81%) groups or in patient subgroups stratified according to coronary artery disease extent and left ventricular ejection fraction. Cox regression analyses were done with independent variables known to be predictors of survival, including surgical versus medical therapy and randomized versus randomizable group, to test the null hypothesis of a mortality difference between medical versus surgical assignment according to group assignment (randomized versus randomizable).

Ethics in cardiovascular medicine. Task Force IV: Scientific responsibility and integrity in medical research.

Ethical standards are a set of affirmative responsibilities to which the investigator must subscribe; behavior that is incompatible with these responsibilities should be presumed unethical, whether or not it is explicitly proscribed. This Task Force sought to present these standards as principles or guidelines. In undertaking research an investigator must accept that publicly funded or supported research is intended to yield public benefit; personal gain should be only incidental to and not at the expense of the public benefit.

Nutrition education at the point of purchase: the foods for health project evaluated.

Foods for Health, a nutrition education and research program sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and Giant Food, Inc., was designed to demonstrate the feasibility of cardiovascular nutrition education at the point of purchase, specifically, in the supermarket. To evaluate the program's effectiveness, measures of consumer awareness, knowledge, and food purchases were determined before, during, and after the campaign.

Water absorption in the proximal tubule: effect of bicarbonate, chloride gradient, and organic solutes.

Simultaneous in vivo capillary and luminal microperfusion studies were performed in the superficial proximal convoluted tubule of the rat to determine the effect of intraluminal bicarbonate, the imposition of a transepithelial chloride gradient, and the addition of organic solutes to the luminal perfusion solution on the rates of water absorption (Jv). The capillary perfusion solution contained NaCl, NaHCO3, and KCl. Perfusion of both capillary and lumen with the same solution resulted in a Jv of 3.

[Operation for replacing coronary vessels: scientific and clinical aspects].

The paper discusses the modern status of the problem of aorto-coronary bypass in ischaemic heart disease. The good and the weak sides of both surgical and medicinal treatment are considered. The diagnostic value of invasive and noninvasive methods is discussed from the point of view of indications for aorto-coronary bypass.

Duration of hospitalization in "uncomplicated completed acute myocardial infarction". An Ad Hoc Committee review.

The clinical and laboratory findings diagnostic of acute myocardial infarction include at least two of the following: (1) a history of pain consistent with myocardial ischemia, (2) electorcardiographic findings consistent with infarction, and (3) a rise in the serum level of specific cardiac enzymes. By the 4th or 5th day of illness, specific criteria can be applied to assign certain patients to a subset with "uncomplicated completed acute myocardial infarction." These criteria include the absence of evidence of (1) continuing cardiac ischemia, (2) left ventricular failure, (3) shock, (4) important cardiac arrhythmias, (5) conduction disturbances, and (6) other serious illnesses in patients with an established acute myocardial infarction.