Postgenomics function monism.

The ENCODE project has made important new estimates of human genome functionality, now revising the percentage considered functional to more than 80%, which is in stark contrast to the received view, which estimated that less than 10% of the conserved parts of the human genome are functional. ENCODE's unorthodox use of the notion of biological function has stirred the so-called ENCODE controversy, involving conflicting views about the correct notion of function in postgenomics. The debate hinges on the traditional philosophical contrast between the causal role (CR) and selected effects (SE) approaches.

Changes in short-term memory processes in patients with multiple sclerosis.

In this study we compared the performance of 39 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with 28 age-, sex- and education-matched controls on both the Mini-Mental State Examination, a global cognitive assessment tool, and the Sternberg Short-Term memory scanning task, a standardized test of short-term memory (STM) processes. While the STM span of our MS patients did not differ from that of our controls, STM scanning time of the MS group was reliably slower than that of the controls and a significant correlation was observed between STM scanning time and duration but not severity of illness. Our results suggest that processing stages other than the manipulation of data within the STM buffer are also affected by MS.

Platelet serotonin, plasma cortisol, and dexamethasone suppression test in schizophrenic patients.

Background: Serotonin (5-HT) regulates hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. Abnormal response to the dexamethasone suppression test (DST) and altered platelet 5-HT concentration have been shown in some schizophrenic patients.

Methods: Platelet 5-HT and plasma cortisol concentrations were determined simultaneously in 86 male schizophrenic patients before and after DST.

Severe progression of ALS/MND after intervertebral discectomy.

We observed seven patients who developed their first signs and symptoms of motor neuron disease together with signs of protrusion/prolapse of intervertebral disc. The age of the patients was between 55 and 67, of which one female and six male patients. All of them suffered from cervical spine pain or low back pain.

[Management accounting in hospital setting].

The periodic income and expenditure accounts produced at the hospital and departmental level enable successful short term management, but, in the long run do not help remove tensions between health care demand and limited resources, nor do they enable optimal medical planning within the limited financial resources. We are trying to estabilish disease category costs based on case mixing according to diagnostic categories (diagnosis related groups, DRG, or health care resource groups, HRG) and calculation of hospital standard product costs, e.g.