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Objective:Accurate outcome prediction is crucial for counseling parents and providing individualized treatment to extremely premature infants. We sought to improve upon existing prediction model by using a diverse population-based cohort of extremely premature live births (⩽28 weeks’ gestation) for survival and survival without severe neonatal morbidity at different times throughout the first week of life and to evaluate potential differences by race/ethnicity and maternal education.Study design:Retrospective cohort study of all California live births from 2007 through 2011 with linked birth, death and hospital discharge records.Results:A total of 6009 infants were included. In the validation data set at time of delivery, the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve for the model containing all predictors was 0.863 for survival and 0.789 for survival without severe morbidity. The marginal probability of survival without severe neonatal morbidity of an Asian infant born to a mother with <12 years of education compared with the reference (Caucasian infant, mother with ⩾12 years of education) was −0.23 (95% confidence interval (CI) −0.31 to −0.15) for all infants at time of birth and −0.28 (95% CI −0.39 to −0.18) for infants with attempted resuscitation. Notably, no other differences by racial/ethnic category and maternal education emerged.Conclusions:Probabilities of survival and survival without major morbidity change rapidly throughout the first week of life. Extremely premature infants born to Asian mothers with less than a high school education appear to have a lower probability to survive without significant morbidity compared with their Caucasian peers.

AbstractNeutrons for fusion applications stem not only from monoenergetic sources but also from “white” neutron sources. In this regard, the reaction 3H(t,n) is of particular interest. Continuous neutron spectra of the 3H(t,n) reactions were measured at 5.98-, 7.47-, 10.45-, 16.41-, and 19.14-MeV triton energy at typically seven angles between 0 and 145 deg. The spectra at the three lowest energies contain only neutrons from 3H(t,n)5He and 3H(t,2n)4He reactions and therefore can more easily be interpreted than the spectra at 16.41 and 19.14 MeV, which are too complex to allow a straightforward decomposition except for estimation of the neutron emission cross section following the reaction 3H(t,d)4H. Angle-dependent double-differential and neutron energy—integrated cross sections are given at the five energies. In most cases the peak of the two-body ground state transition could be deconvolved reliably resulting in cross sections of the reaction 3H(t,n)5He. Although the basic scale uncertainty is >5%, severe background, in particular, at the higher triton energies, increases the total uncertainty of integrated cross sections up to 9%. Naturally, the uncertainty of each energy bin of the double-differential cross sections, which depend on bin width, is considerably higher. As no previous data are reported at or near these energies, no direct comparison with other data was feasible. Evidence is provided of the formation of the short-lived neutron-rich nuclei 5He and at higher energies of 4H.

Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is a cytokine-inducible adhesion molecule expressed on cells of multiple lineages at sites of inflammation. Recently a truncated form of ICAM-1 has been discovered to be circulating in serum. This study reports on circulating serum (cICAM-1) levels in 132 uveitis patients (HLA-B 27 pos. acute anterior uveitis (AAU); HLA-B27 neg. anterior uveitis (AU); intermediate uveitis (IU); heterochromic cyclitis Fuchs (HCF); sarcoidosis; Toxoplasmosis).Measurement of circulating ICAM-1 serum levels was performed using a monoclonal antibody based ELISA, with healthy blood donors serving as the control group.Applying multiple variance analysis and the Student Newmann-Keuls test we found a statistically significant elevation of serum cICAM-1 level in the HLA-B 27 neg. AU group (n:31), in the IU group (n:25) and in patients with sarcoidosis (n:18). Serum levels of HLA-B27 pos. AAU patients, patients with HCF and patients suffering from ocular toxoplasmosis did not differ significantly from levels of the control group.

The continual exposure of outer hair cells (OHCs) to thermal noise causes vibrations in resonant frequency. As these vibrations are backprojected, they should be recordable as audiofrequencies in the outer ear canal. But even though they are likely to be amplified in some areas by clustering in terms of the chaos theory, they cannot be picked up in the outer ear canal by currently available recording technologies. Conditions change in the presence of pathology, e.g. loss of OHCs and fibrous replacement: Clusters grow in size and amplitudes become larger so that the vibrations can be picked up as spontaneous oto-acoustic emissions (SOAEs) in the outer ear canal. Efforts are needed to demonstrate the presence of physiological OHC vibrations (emission by incessant vibration, EIV) by processing auditory recordings with statistical methods.

Sicca syndrome consists of two major clinical findings: keratoconjunctivitis sicca and xerostomia due to destruction of the lacrimal and salivary gland parenchyma. Although it is most often due to Sjögren's syndrome, a variety of other diseases causes sicca syndrome. We report the rare case of a patient with gland infiltration in primary amyloidosis. Sonographic, computed tomographic and magnetic resonance findings are presented.

The continual exposure of outer hair cells (OHCs) to thermal noise causes vibrations in resonant frequency. As these vibrations are backprojected, they should be recordable as audiofrequencies in the outer ear canal. But even though they are likely to be amplified in some areas by clustering in terms of the chaos theory, they cannot be picked up in the outer ear canal by currently available recording technologies. Conditions change in the presence of pathology, e.g. loss of OHCs and fibrous replacement: Clusters grow in size and amplitudes become larger so that the vibrations can be picked up as spontaneous oto-acoustic emissions (SOAEs) in the outer ear canal. Efforts are needed to demonstrate the presence of physiological OHC vibrations (emission by incessant vibration, EIV) by processing auditory recordings with statistical methods.