Optimising magnetic sentinel lymph node biopsy in an in vivo porcine model.

Unlabelled: The magnetic technique for sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) has been evaluated in several clinical trials. An in vivo porcine model was developed to optimise the magnetic technique by evaluating the effect of differing volume, concentration and time of injection of magnetic tracer. A total of 60 sentinel node procedures were undertaken.

[Medical education in the digital era; opportunities for the Netherlands].

The next generation of physicians enters a job market of high-tech medicine; detailed technical knowledge of this technology is therefore a prerequisite. However, teaching on technology does not currently form an integral part of the medicine degree curriculum. We should consider if a generic medicine degree is still a valid framework, or whether students should be offered to move into different specialties at an earlier stage.

A cognitive framework for explaining serial processing and sequence execution strategies.

Behavioral research has produced many task-specific cognitive models that do not say much about the underlying information-processing architecture. Such an architecture is badly needed to better understand how cognitive neuroscience can benefit from existing cognitive models. This problem is especially pertinent in the domain of sequential behavior where behavioral research suggests a diversity of cognitive processes, processing modes and representations.

Learning a keying sequence you never executed: evidence for independent associative and motor chunk learning.

A substantial amount of research has addressed how people learn and control movement sequences. Recent results suggested that practice with discrete key pressing sequences results in two types of sequence learning: associative learning and motor chunk development (Verwey & Abrahamse, 2012). In the present study, we addressed whether in keying sequences of limited length associative learning develops also when the use of the chunking mode is prevented by introducing during practice random deviants.

[The effect of energy drinks on the cognitive performance of adolescents].

Background: Manufacturers of energy drinks claim that their drinks can have a positive effect on cognitive performance. So far, there is little evidence that energy drinks do in fact enhance the cognitive performance of adolescents.

Aim: To find out, via a series of tests, whether the manufacturers of energy drinks are justified in claiming that their drinks improve the cognitive performance of young people.

[Indicators for quality of care. Severe problems with methods of observation].

Recently, there has been increasing concern about indicators for quality of care systems. Much energy has been devoted to the development of these indicators, but after a couple of years many professionals in the care organizations are complaining that the validity is extremely doubtful. In this editorial a fundamental problem is discussed, namely the reliability of the observations.

[Reminiscence and mental health, empirical underpinning of interventions].

The relation between functions of reminiscence and mental health has been studied elaborately in older adults. In this paper a review of this research is first presented. Eight functions are distinguished: bitterness revival, boredom reduction, identity, problem solving, maintaining intimacy, preparing for death, teaching/informing and conversation.

[Effects of recollecting autobiographical memories on the emotional well-being of older adults].

This experiment examined the effect of different ways of recollecting autobiographical memories on emotional well-being. Participants between 65 and 80 years old (N = 70) were instructed to write about a memory from their life when they were 15 to 30 years old. They were asked to do this in a narrative way about a positive memory, in a narrative way about a negative memory or in an interpretative way about a negative memory.

Field-effect based attomole titrations in nanoconfinement.

This paper describes a novel capacitive method to change the pH in micro- and nanofluidic channels. A device with two metal gate electrodes outside an insulating channel wall is used for this purpose. The device is operated at high ionic strength with thin double layers.

[Dementia and technology. A study of technology interventions in the healthcare for dementia patients and their caregivers].

Purpose: To explore the possibilities for IT interventions in care of older persons with dementia.

Method: Inventory of international and national studies on implemented technology interventions for the care of persons with dementia and their caregivers. Three categories of technology are distinguished: (1) help with symptoms of dementia (2) social contact and company for the patient, and (3) health monitoring and safety.

Segmentation of short keying sequences does not spontaneously transfer to other sequences.

Previous research suggested that highly practiced discrete 6-key sequences are spontaneously segmented, sometimes even differently for different persons. This suggests there is some limit in the length of motor chunks that are assumed to underlie the segments in the sequence. The present experiment examined whether a segmentation pattern induced in one 6-key sequence (the prestructured sequence) determines segmentation in other 6-key sequences.

['Advanced triage' improves patient flow in the emergency department without affecting the quality of care].

Objective: To investigate whether 'advanced triage' improved patient flow among self-referred patients in the emergency department of a level 1 trauma centre and, most importantly, whether the quality of medical care was maintained. In advanced triage, the triage nurse initiates additional diagnostic investigations independently.

Design: Interventional study.

[Evidence isn't enough: some comments from the daily practice of acute psychiatry].

Randomised clinical trials (RCTs) generate knowledge that is useful in some situations but is of limited value when it comes to dealing with complex problems in clinical practice. By means of arguments drawn from acute psychiatry it is argued in this paper that a) the preconditions under which an intervention seems to work in a trial are all too often not met in the clinic; b) the problems that evidence-based interventions seek to solve tend to be unlike the problems that clinicians encounter in a day-to-day basis; and c) it is often impossible to ascertain the parameters against which the efficacy of intervention can be measured. Therefore, acute psychiatry, like all the other branches of healthcare, urgently needs not only information about 'proven efficacy' via RCTs but also other kinds of information derived from other methods of research.

[Overweight and obesity in preschool children (0-4 years): behaviour and views of parents].

Objective: Description of unhealthy behaviour and views regarding nutrition, physical exercise and education in families with young children, in relation to specific groups with a high risk of overweight.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Method: In wellbaby clinics for infants and toddlers in various sites in The Netherlands 534 parents were requested to fill in questionnaires on nutrition, physical exercise and education.

Asymmetrical learning between a tactile and visual serial RT task.

According to many researchers, implicit learning in the serial reaction-time task is predominantly motor based and therefore should be independent of stimulus modality. Previous research on the task, however, has focused almost completely on the visual domain. Here we investigated sequence learning when the imperative stimuli were presented tactilely to the fingers.

Context dependent learning in the serial RT task.

This study investigated the development of contextual dependencies for sequential perceptual-motor learning on static features in the learning environment. In three experiments we assessed the effect of manipulating task irrelevant static context features in a serial reaction-time task. Experiment 1 demonstrated impaired performance after simultaneously changing display color, placeholder shape, and placeholder location.

[Research into human problems: lower social strata and the aged underrepresented].

The quality of social science research is probably much lower than that of the sciences. Firstly, this is due to the quality of the observations. For example: the measurement of a temperature is encompassed in many more precautions than the measurement of attitudes, loneliness or even the number of friends.

Organisation of nucleosomal arrays reconstituted with repetitive African green monkey alpha-satellite DNA as analysed by atomic force microscopy.

Alpha-satellite DNA (AS) is part of centromeric DNA and could be relevant for centromeric chromatin structure: its repetitive character may generate a specifically ordered nucleosomal arrangement and thereby facilitate kinetochore protein binding and chromatin condensation. Although nucleosomal positioning on some satellite sequences had been shown, including AS from African green monkey (AGM), the sequence-dependent nucleosomal organisation of repetitive AS of this species has so far not been analysed. We therefore studied the positioning of reconstituted nucleosomes on AGM AS tandemly repeated DNA.

[Dissertations 25 years after date 14. The development of porous polymethylmethacrylate cement as potential implant material].

The development of polymethylmethacrylate bone cement with an open spongelike structure resulted as a spin-off from efforts to dampen the high exothermal peak during hardening of the cement. A cement formulation in which an aqueous gel was mixed through the organic dough showed the desired significantly reduced temperature peak and improved biocompatibility but also ingrowth of bone into the pores that had been formed by the resorbing aqueous gel in the polymerized matrix. The expectation that such a cement would provide a better fixation of total hip prostheses did not come true because of the diminished mechanical strength due to the same porosity.

Endogenous orienting modulates the Simon effect: critical factors in experimental design.

Responses are faster when the side of stimulus and response correspond than when they do not correspond, even if stimulus location is irrelevant to the task at hand: the correspondence, spatial compatibility effect, or Simon effect. Generally, it is assumed that an automatically generated spatial code is responsible for this effect, but the precise mechanism underlying the formation of this code is still under dispute. Two major alternatives have been proposed: the referential-coding account, which can be subdivided into a static version and an attention-centered version, and the attention-shift account.

[Aversion to spectacles and the diffusion of optical knowledge among early modern medical practitioners].

In this essay it is shown that eyeglasses were not highly recommended in medical treatises of the Early Modern times. They were often not mentioned amongst the therapeutical advices for eye disorders, or, if they were, not without a certain reluctance. It is shown how this can be understood in view of commonly held opinions about the diseased body, and the way vision takes place.

[The unbroken power of psychiatry as seen through the eyes of Michel Foucault].

Is the psychiatrist still a powerfulforce in society? Foucault, a 'historical philosopher' concerned with power relations, would have answered this question in the affirmative. Possibly, however, the psychiatrist's sovereign power is weaker than it was a century ago because some of the psychiatrist's tasks have been re-allocated. Some have been assigned to the growing number of specialist groups in the mental health service, others have been put in the hands of 'health managers' who form part of our country's growing bureaucracy and put a financial and economic burden on our health service.

Task-dependent exogenous cuing effects depend on cue modality.

Task-dependent exogenous cuing effects on reaction time in detection and discrimination tasks have been ascribed to delayed withdrawal of attention in discrimination tasks. Alternatively, these differences may be due to cue-induced response inhibition in detection tasks. Unimodal and crossmodal versions of the Posner paradigm were examined with short cue-target intervals.

Describing gait as a sequence of states.

Traditionally, gait analysis has been based on normalizing the stride time to a percentage and then averaging several strides measured under the same conditions. This procedure relies on the questionable assumptions that gait is a cyclic movement with superimposed noise and that there is no variability in the timing of activation or in the angles within the stride so no rescaling occurs during the percentage conversion. However, there is a fluctuation in the timings at which the peak values occur.