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Introduction: Wound complications following arthroplasty are associated with significant impact on the patient and healthcare system. Skin cleansing prior to surgical incision is a simple and effective method to prevent wound complications however, the question of which agent is superior for surgical skin antisepsis is unresolved. Methods and analysis: This cluster randomised controlled trial aims to compare the incidence of superficial wound complications in patients undergoing elective prosthetic hip or knee replacement surgery receiving surgical skin antisepsis with either: 0.5% chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) in 70% alcohol or 10% povidone in 70% alcohol. The trial will be conducted at an Australian tertiary, university affiliated hospital over a 3-year period involving 750 participants. Participants will be drawn from the surgical waiting list. Consent for this study will be 'opt-out' consent. On a given day, all eligible participants will have skin preparation either with 0.5% chlorhexidine in 70% alcohol or 10% povidone iodine in 70% alcohol. The primary outcome is superficial wound complications (comprised of superficial incisional surgical site infections (SSI) and/or prolonged wound ooze) in the first 30 days following prosthetic joint replacement surgery. Secondary outcomes will include the incidence of wound complications according to the joint replaced, assessment of the causative agents of SSI and cost-effectiveness analysis. The primary analysis is an intention-to-treat analysis including all participants who undergo randomisation and will be performed at the individual level taking into account the clustering effect. Ethics and dissemination: The study design and protocol was reviewed and approved by the St Vincent's Hospital Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC-A 016/14 10/3/2014). Study findings will be disseminated in the printed media, and learned forums. A written lay summary will be available to study participants on request. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Patients treated for early prosthetic joint infection ( PJI) with surgical debridement, prosthesis retention and biofilm-active antibiotics, such as rifampicin or fluoroquinolones have a rate of successful infection eradication that is similar to patients treated with the traditional approach of prosthesis exchange. It is therefore important to consider other outcomes after PJI treatment that may influence management decisions, such as function, quality of life ( QOL) and treatment-associated complications. Aims: To describe rates of successful treatment for patients with PJI undergoing surgical debridement, prosthesis retention and biofilm-active antibiotics and compare their functional outcomes, QOL and complication rates to patients without PJI. Methods: Nineteen patients treated for PJI after hip arthroplasty with debridement, prosthesis retention and biofilm-active antibiotics were matched to 76 controls who underwent hip arthroplasty with no infection. Results: Cumulative survival free from treatment failure at 2 years was 88% (95% confidence interval, 59-97%). PJI cases had significant improvement from pre-arthroplasty to 12-months post-arthroplasty in function according to Harris Hip Score and QOL according to the 12-item Short Form Health Survey Physical Component Summary. There was no significant difference in the improvement between controls and cases. PJI was not a risk factor for poor function or QOL. Medical complications occurred more frequently in cases (6/19 (32%)) than controls (9/76 (12%); P = 0.04), with this difference being accounted for by drug reactions. Surgical complications were the same in the two groups. Conclusions Treatment of PJI with debridement, prosthesis retention and biofilm-active antibiotics is successful, well tolerated and results in significant improvements in function and QOL, which are similar to patients without PJI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an investigation into the teaching of a programming language by methods of computer‐assisted instruction (CAI). The subjects were first‐year university students who were divided into groups to enable comparisons to be made first between CAI lessons and conventional lectures and secondly between on‐line examples sessions and the usual demonstration classes. The selection into groups were determined mainly on the student's performance in a programming aptitude test but other factors such as previous programming experience, availability and objections to the methods of instruction were considered. All students were given a post‐test in an effort to determine how much they had assimilated during the week. An analysis of covariance on these two scores gives estimates of the effects of placement in a particular group. Conclusions are drawn and suggestions made as to how future investigations should be made in the light of this experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

CAI course authors have been faced with the distinct problem of having to learn an instructional coding language before they can get their courses into the computer. A system has been devised so that an author may easily write his course in English on course planning forms and then a preprocessor will generate the coding which will be input for the machine assembler. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]