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Meniere's disease (MD) and migraine associated dizziness (MAD) are two disorders that can have similar symptomatologies, but differ vastly in treatment. Vestibular testing is sometimes used to help differentiate between these disorders, but the inefficiency of a human interpreter analyzing a multitude of variables independently decreases its utility. Our hypothesis was that we could objectively discriminate between patients with MD and those with MAD using select variables from the vestibular test battery. Sinusoidal harmonic acceleration test variables were reduced to three vestibulo-ocular reflex physiologic parameters: gain, time constant, and asymmetry. A combination of these parameters plus a measurement of reduced vestibular response from caloric testing allowed us to achieve a joint classification rate of 91%, independent quadratic classification algorithm. Data from posturography were not useful for this type of differentiation. Overall, our classification function can be used as an unbiased assistant to discriminate between MD and MAD and gave us insight into the pathophysiologic differences between the two disorders.

Existence and extendability of continuous eigenvector branches and application of nonlinear programming algorithms to nonlinear heat generation and rotating string problems

A recent convergence theory of Elkin concerning methods for unconstrained minimization is extended to a certain class of nonlinear programming problems. As in Elkin's original approach, the analysis of a variety of step-length algorithms is treated entirely separately from that of several direction algorithms. This allows for their combination into many different methods for solving the constrained problem. These include some of the methods of Rosen and Zoutendijk. We also extend the results of Topkis and Veinott to nonconvex sets and drop their requirement of the uniform feasibility of a subsequence of the search directions.

Development of technique to clear blockages in hydraulic and pneumatic pipes is discussed. Technique consists of using dry ice plug to separate sensitive components from flushing fluid. Diagram of equipment and principles of operation are presented.