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Objectives To examine available data relating to the surgical management of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) in Australia before, during and after a well-publicized Senate Inquiry into transvaginal mesh use and to consider outcomes in the context of global guideline changes. Patients and methods The annual number of surgical procedures for the management of SUI by procedure type and age group for the years 2008/2009-2017/2018 was obtained from the Australian Government Department of Human Services database using Medicare Benefits Schedule item numbers. The data extracted were limited to women aged 25 years and older. These data were used to calculate age-specific and age-standardized rates, so as to accurately analyse trends in the usage of different procedures. Hospital Episode Statistics for mid-urethral sling (MUS) insertions were obtained for England's National Health Service from the Health and Social Care Information Centre for the years 2008/2009-2016/2017. These data were also used to calculate annual age-standardized rates for comparison purposes. Results Rates declined for most SUI procedures over time (MUS, colposuspension, fascial slings) except for urethral bulking agents. The absolute number of MUSs implanted in 2008/2009 was 5729, which decreased to 3127 in the 2017/2018 financial year. Over the decade, the annual rate for MUS implantation per 100 000 population halved from 78 to 36. Over this same period, the rate of usage of bulking agents doubled, although represented a low volume of procedures (overall numbers increased from 304 to 698, representing an increase from four to eight procedures per 100 000 population). The age-specific peak rate for MUS and Burch colposuspension changed over the decade from 55-64 years to 65-74 years, suggesting that women are deferring surgical treatment until later in life. Over the last decade, the total number of surgical procedures performed in Australia to treat SUI has decreased markedly from 6812 to 4279. This represents a decrease in the annual rate per 100 000 population from 93 to 49. Conclusions There are clear changes evident for SUI management in the past decade in Australia, including an overall decline in operative numbers, which correlate with international advisory notifications and local investigations. The results of the Australian Senate inquiry, including removal of single-incision mini-slings, greater availability of patient resources, and greater regulation of SUI procedures, will probably have ongoing effects. Surgeons need to ensure that sufficient training and patient education continue in order to maintain appropriate access to treatment of SUI in the future.

Acquired tracheomegaly is a rare condition associated with pulmonary fibrosis, connective tissue disease and the use of cuffed tracheal tubes. We describe the urgent tracheal re‐intubation and subsequent tracheal repair of a previously well 58‐year‐old man who developed tracheostomy‐related tracheomegaly during prolonged mechanical ventilation for coronavirus disease 2019 pneumonitis. Urgent tracheal re‐intubation was required due to a persistent cuff leak, pneumomediastinum and malposition of the tracheostomy tube. We describe the additional challenges and risks associated with airway management in patients with tracheomegaly, and discuss how even in urgent cases these can be mitigated through planning and teamwork. We present a stepwise approach to tracheal re‐intubation past a large tracheal dilatation, including the use of an Aintree catheter inserted via the existing tracheal stoma for oxygenation or tracheal re‐intubation if required. Computed tomography imaging was valuable in characterising the defect and developing a safe airway management strategy before starting the procedure. This report emphasises the role of planning, teamwork and the development of an appropriate airway strategy in the safe management of complex cases.

Introduction and Objectives: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) accounts for 2–3% of all cancers. With increasing use of Computer Tomography, a large proportion are detected earlier and amenable to focal therapies such as Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA). Our institution is unable to offer image‐guided percutaneous ablation (PA) through the public service due to lack of Interventional Radiology (IR) resources. Currently, patients with a small renal mass (SRM) are either actively observed, undergo radical nephrectomy (RN), partial nephrectomy (PN) or referred to another tertiary institution for focal therapy. Recent studies have demonstrated no difference in long‐term efficacy between RN, PN and PA treatment of SRMs in selected patients; but with significantly higher rates of morbidity in the surgical treatment groups. Our Urology Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) is supported by an interventional radiologist with Uroradiology specialisation who provides PA for our patients through a private facility and we assessed the cost‐effectiveness of our institution outsourcing PA . The aim of the study was to compare the costs associated with performing nephrectomies (RN, PN) in a public hospital with the costs of performing minimally invasive PA in a private hospital; and to assess the financial impact on the public system of the different treatment options for SRMs. Methods: The cost of performing PA at a large tertiary private hospital for patients with a SRM (

BACKGROUND Surgical operation notes are crucial for medical record keeping and information flow in continued patient care. In addition to inherent medical implications, the quality of operative notes also has important economic and medico-legal ramifications. Further, well-documented records can also be useful for audit purposes and propagation of research, facilitating the improvement of delivery of care to patients. We aimed to assess the quality of surgical operation notes written by junior doctors and trainees against a set standard, to ascertain whether these standards were met. METHOD We undertook an audit of Urology and General Surgery operation notes handwritten by junior doctors and surgical trainees in a tertiary teaching hospital over a month period both in 2014 and 2015. Individual operative notes were assessed for quality based on parameters described by the Royal College of Surgeons of England guidelines. RESULTS Based on the Royal College of Surgeons of England guidelines, a significant proportion of analysed surgical operative notes were incomplete, with information pertaining to the time of surgery, name of anaesthetist and deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis in particular being recorded less than 50% of the time (22.42, 36.36 and 43.03%, respectively).Overall, 80% compliance was achieved in 14/20 standards and 100% compliance was attained in only one standard. CONCLUSIONS The quality of surgical operation notes written by junior doctors and trainees demonstrated significant deficiencies when compared against a set standard. There is a clear need to educate junior medical staff and to provide systems and ongoing education to improve quality. This would involve leadership from senior staff, ongoing audit and the development of systems that are part of the normal workflow to improve quality and compliance.

Limited evidence exists on whether expanding home care saves money overall or how much institutional long-term care can be reduced. This paper estimates the causal effect of Medicaid-financed home care services on the costs and utilization of institutional long-term care using Medicaid claims data. A unique instrumental variable was applied to address the potential bias caused by omitted variables or reverse effect of institutional care use. We find that the use of Medicaid-financed home care services significantly reduced but only partially offset utilization and Medicaid expenditures on nursing facility services. A $1000 increase in Medicaid home care expenditures avoided 2.75 days in nursing facilities and reduced annual Medicaid nursing facility costs by $351 among people over age 65 when selection bias is addressed. Failure to address selection biases would misestimate the substitution and offset effects. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Context The patterns of health care utilization in the United States pose well-established challenges for public policy. Although economic and sociological research has resulted in considerable knowledge about what influences the use of health services, the psychological literature in this area is underdeveloped. Importantly, it is not known whether personality traits are associated with older adults’ use of acute and long-term care services. Methods Data were collected from 1,074 community-dwelling seniors participating in a Medicare demonstration. First they completed a self-report questionnaire measuring the “Big Five” personality traits: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. During the next two years, the participants maintained daily journals of their use of health care services. We used regression models based on the Andersen behavioral model of health care utilization to test for associations. Findings Our hypothesis that higher Neuroticism would be associated with greater health care use was confirmed for three services—probability of any emergency department (ED) use, likelihood of any custodial nursing home use, and more skilled nursing facility (SNF) days for SNF users—but was disconfirmed for hospital days for those hospitalized. Higher Openness to Experience was associated with a greater likelihood of custodial home care use, and higher Agreeableness and lower Conscientiousness with a higher probability of custodial nursing home use. For users, lower Openness was associated with more ED visits and SNF days, and lower Conscientiousness with more ED visits. For many traits with significant associations, the predicted use was 16 to 30 percent greater for people high (low) versus low (high) in specific traits. Conclusions Personality traits are associated with Medicare beneficiaries’ use of many expensive health care services, findings that have implications for health services research and policy. Accordingly, person-centered interventions, population-based translational effectiveness programs, and other personalized approaches that leverage the profound advances in personality psychology in recent decades should be considered.

Plant defences may negatively affect the oviposition behaviour of insect herbivores. We exposed adult female mountain pine beetles Dendroctonus ponderosae (Hopkins) to monoterpene vapours and assessed their subsequent oviposition in lodgepole pine Pinus contorta. Exposure to 31.25 and 125 p.p.m. of α-pinene and limonene for 24 h did not affect the survival or establishment of oviposition galleries compared with controls. Females had fewer, smaller eggs and therefore lower cumulative reproduction after exposure to 125 p.p.m. compared with the other treatments. Limonene negatively affected oviposition more than did α-pinene. Female body condition, a measure of energetic state, influenced the responses (i.e. significant interactions between condition and monoterpene concentration). With exposure to 31.25 p.p.m., females in better condition tended to have fewer, larger eggs, whereas females in poorer condition tended to have more, smaller eggs, compared with controls. Overall, reproductive investment declined with body condition when exposed to monoterpenes. Egg size and number increased with female body size. The findings of the present study may indicate the toxic effects of monoterpenes or may be a result of females choosing not to invest in adverse environments depending on body condition. In either case, reduced reproduction when exposed to high plant defences may be increasingly important as climate change affects plant defences.

This study examined whether children’s difficulties with stage-salient tasks served as an explanatory mechanism in the pathway between their insecurity in the interparental relationship and their disruptive behavior problems. Using a multimethod, multi-informant design, 201 two-year-old children and their mothers participated in 3 annual measurement occasions. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that coder ratings of children’s insecure responses to interparental conflict from a maternal interview predicted observer ratings of their difficulties with stage-salient tasks (i.e., emotion regulation, autonomy, resourceful problem solving) 1 year later after controlling for initial stage-salient task performance. Stage-salient task difficulties, in turn, predicted experimenter reports of children’s behavior problems 1 year later. Associations remained robust in the broader context of other pathways hypothesized in prevailing developmental cascade models.

Introduction Urologists, like any specialists within their field, consistently strive for the highest standards of clinical and research practice. Dissemination of clinical outcomes, basic research and ideas, both locally and internationally, through publications helps achieve this goal. The USANZ, recognising this, moved its official publication from the bi-nationally based ANZ Journal of Surgery (ANZJS) to the BJU International (BJUI) in 2009 [1]. This move consolidated an affiliation which started in 2005, when the BJUI became the journal used for publishing abstracts of the USANZ National Scientific Meeting [2]. The BJU International Australia and New Zealand Supplement was created as a platform for publications from USANZ members and trainees, with the first edition published in 2011 [3]. To date, there have been six editions of this supplement, which almost solely publishes the work of Australian and New Zealand authors, promoting their international exposure.

In an accompanying Commentary in this issue of Health Services Research, McWilliams et al. (2010) present a survival analysis of mortality using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). They find that, as the years on Medicare accumulate, the risk of death attenuates for seniors who were uninsured before becoming eligible for Medicare relative to the risk of death for seniors who were insured previously. This is an interesting new finding using the HRS that is motivated by the idea that, while the induced medical use as a result of insurance coverage can ultimately save lives, it might take time before the effects are realized. Based on this finding, they assert that it is this attenuation that is responsible for the discrepant findings between two recently published papers that studied the same phenomenon using the same dataset. In particular, the commenters' previous work using the HRS (McWilliams et al. 2007) found a significant effect of Medicare in improving the health of seniors who were uninsured previously; by contrast, our work (Polsky et al. 2009) found no such effect. Although we agree that resolving the discrepancy between these two papers is important, we do not agree with the explanation in McWilliams et al. (2010). In this rejoinder, we make two general methodological points and a concluding comment in response to the Commentary by McWilliams and colleagues. First, we clarify how our specification is indeed sufficiently flexible to appropriately model mortality in that it also captures a declining hazard rate for the previously uninsured in the post-65 period. Second, we show that the discrepancy in the results between McWilliams et al. (2007) and Polsky et al. (2009) is due to the decision (in McWilliams et al. 2007) to ignore death as an outcome when studying the health effects of Medicare coverage for the previously uninsured near elderly. Finally, we conclude that the HRS does not provide sufficient evidence that the population health trajectory of the previously uninsured is significantly altered by the acquisition of Medicare coverage at age 65.

While 25 percent of Americans in the 55–64 age group experience gaps in health insurance coverage (Baker and Sudano 2005), starting at age 65 virtually all Americans have affordable, comprehensive health insurance coverage through the Medicare program. By reducing the out-of-pocket costs for medical care including that which would be otherwise unaffordable, Medicare for the previously uninsured increases medical service use for the previously uninsured (McWilliams et al. 2007a). Whether this increase in medical care for the previously uninsured ultimately results in health status gains remains an open question (Ross and Mirowsky 2000; Card, Dobkin, and Maestas 2004; McWilliams et al. 2007b). A negative association between lacking health insurance and health has been well established in hundreds of studies reviewed by Brown, Bindman, and Lurie (1998), Hadley (2003), and the Institute of Medicine (2002). While many of these studies have been cross-sectional in design, this association has also been shown in longitudinal studies (Franks, Clancy, and Gold 1993; Sorlie et al. 1994; Baker et al. 2001). While the RAND Health Insurance Experiment (HIE), the only randomized experiment of the effect of health insurance, also examined this issue it is of limited use for our purposes because (1) it did not include a study group with no health insurance; and (2) it excluded the Medicare-eligible population and thus excluded the elderly population. In this paper, we use a quasi-experimental approach to establish the effects of Medicare insurance coverage on the health trajectories of the previously uninsured. Experimental designs are critical to the study of health and insurance because the observed association between health insurance and health may reflect the effects of health on health insurance (reverse causation/selection) or the effects of some other unobserved third factor on both health insurance and health (residual confounding) (Levy and Meltzer 2004). This is because individuals under age 65 who acquire or drop health insurance typically do so for a reason related to a recent or projected change in health status: for example, they may enroll in a health plan because of a predicted health expense, they may lose their job and its health insurance coverage as a result of a health event, or they may qualify for public coverage as a result of poverty or disability. By contrast, because government policy restricts entry into Medicare until age 65 for most Americans, those who take up Medicare insurance (at age 65, but not those before age 65) do so for reasons other than changes in health status (of eligible aged beneficiaries, 99 percent enroll in Medicare Part A and 94 percent enroll in Medicare Part B). Thus, aging into insurance at 65 creates the natural experiment to assess the effect of health insurance on the health of the previously uninsured. The previously uninsured may be particularly vulnerable to any contraction in Medicare coverage because Medicare arrives at an age when affordable coverage is difficult to find for those lacking health insurance, especially if they have existing health conditions. As a result, several policy proposals have emerged to address being uninsured in the 55–64 age group including providing them with early access to the Medicare program. Understanding whether there is a health benefit to the near-elderly uninsured from the Medicare program is an important aspect of policy debates regarding expanding and limiting Medicare coverage.

To examine whether explaining hypothetical childhood events makes people more confident that the events really happened, we used a method similar to the imagination inflation procedure devised by Garry, Manning, Loftus, and Sherman (1996). First, participants rated how confident they were that a list of events occurred in their childhood. Two weeks later, participants explained how four of the eight target events could have happened to them before the age of 10. Finally, participants made confidence ratings about the list of childhood events for a second time. Participants were more confident that the explained hypothetical childhood events really did happen compared to events they did not explain. We discuss both theoretical and practical implications of these results. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Language: en

The Java platform has many characteristics that make it very desirable for integrated continuous media processing. Unfortunately, it lacks the necessary CPU resource management facilities to support quality of service (QoS) guarantees for soft real-time multimedia tasks. In this paper, we present our new Java Virtual Machine, Q-JVM, which brings CPU resource management to the Java platform. Q-JVM is based on Sun's JVM version 1.1.5. It implements an enhanced version of the MTR-LS algorithm in its thread scheduler. Combined with admission control that could be implemented in an application-level resource manager, it is able to support QoS parameters such as fairness, bandwidth partitioning and delay bound guarantees, as well as the cumulative service guarantee. Our test results show that Q-JVM is backward compatible with the standard JVM from Sun, has low scheduling overhead, and is able to provide QoS guarantees as specified. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Recent research in cognitive science has demonstrated that when people vividly imagine or visualize personal childhood events, their subjective confidence increases in the probability that these visualized incidents actually occurred. This study seeks not only to replicate what has been called the imagination inflation effect in a sample of undergraduates and middle-aged factory workers but also to identify individual difference variables that could predict susceptibility to suggestibility. Drawing from Rotter's (1982) social learning theory and Benjamin's (1974) structural analysis of social behaviour (SASB) model for interpersonal behaviour, the two experiments reported test the extent to which locus of control for reinforcement, dissociability, and a hostile/self-controlling introject (self-concept) could predict the imagination inflation effect. Results indicate that: imagination inflation is a robust and replicable phenomenon with young adults, but did not occur in a non-college population; with undergraduates, both external locus of control and dissociability correlate in a positive, significant, and predicted way with suggestibility; introject variables correlate significantly with imagination inflation, but not in the predicted manner. Findings are discussed in terms of helping psychologists better understand potential iatrogenic processes in psychotherapy. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The perceived obligations of the two parties to the employment relationship, the employee and the organization, were explored using the critical incident technique. Incidents were elicited which exceeded or fell below the treatment which each party might reasonably expect from the other; obligations were then inferred from these incidents. Respondents were a representative sample of UK employees (n=184), and a sample of UK managers (n=184) (the organization group). Twelve categories of organization obligation and seven of employee obligation were inferred from these data. While the two groups identified the same content categories as each other, they did so with different relative frequency. The organization group quoted more relational than transactional forms of organizational obligation, the employee group the reverse. This finding was attributed to a lack of trust of the organization by employees, and to their job insecurity. The groups, however, did not differ in terms of the frequency of the most commonly cited employee obligations; timekeeping, good work and honesty. This was taken to indicate the prevalence of a traditional and input-oriented view of employee obligations. Examples were discovered of a reciprocal element to the contract. It was concluded that, despite the level of agreement between the two parties regarding the elements of the psychological contract, they were in danger of holding different perceptions of its balance; and that organizations should only expect employee commitment if they themselves have fulfilled their side of the contract.

Do memories change as we acquire new information? Recent research on memory distortion using implicit tests along with research using confidence is reviewed and new studies are presented. Two new studies asked misinformed subjects to provide reasons for their answers. In each study 15% to 27% of subjects said they remembered seeing items they had only read about. In another study subjects were asked to identify the source of misleading items they had seen in slides or read in misleading questions. Subjects were more likely to say they had seen in slides something they read about in the questions than they were to confuse information from two nearly identical sets of slides. Recent work shows that, not only is it possible to distort memory for events, it is possible to implant an entire memory for something that never happened. The evidence is now clear that we can become mentally tricked into making large as well as small changes in the way we recall the past.

In spite of the strong interest in brain-like or neuromorphic computation, relatively few devices have emerged whose neuromorphic behavior is embedded in the hardware itself and not reliant on external programming of synaptic weights. Here, a neuromorphic device is described based on a TiO2 nanowire that exhibits an associative memory response to the time correlation between voltage and optical stimuli. Memristive characteristics are also observed with current–voltage sweeps showing hysteresis loops and continuum resistance levels. The nanowire device responds to heterogeneous voltage and optical pulse stimuli with spike-like neuromorphic outputs. Moreover, uncorrelated pulses produce a weak response, consistent with the interaction of coincident pulses with adsorbed and bulk oxygen in the surface depletion region, leading to a nonlinear enhancement in conductance. The strength of this learned enhancement depends on both the time correlation and the number of pulse stimuli, consistent with spike timing dependent plasticity. The nanowire devices presented have neural synapse-like properties that could serve as a building block for neuromorphic computation.

The history of the use of money should be carefully distinguished from history of the use of coinage. Keywords: ancient Near East history; economic history; Egyptian history

Whether raised blood pressure precedes, follows or develops in parallel with the onset of microalbuminuria, remains unclear. Previous studies, using conventional blood pressure recordings, have yielded discrepant results. Ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring detects borderline hypertension more reliably, and correlates more closely with end-organ damage. We have therefore compared ABP and left ventricular dimensions in normotensive insulin-dependent diabetic patients with or without microalbuminuria, and matched nondiabetic control subjects. Those diabetic patients with microalbuminuria, and to a lesser extent those without, had higher 24 h mean arterial blood pressure than matched non-diabetic control subjects, with corresponding increases of left ventricular mass, interventricular septal width and posterior wall thickness. These observations suggest that raised arterial blood pressure is present at an early stage of 'incipient' microalbuminuria.

This study evaluated the utility of (S)-N-[(1-ethyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)methyl]-5-(3-[18F]fluoropropyl)-2,3-dimethoxybenzamide ([18F]fluoropropylepidepride), [18F]5-FPrEpid, as a ligar d for PET studies of cerebral dopamine D2 receptors. The in vitro affinity for the rat striatal dopamine D2 receptor, KD 138 pM, was determined by Scatchard analysis of in vitro binding to rat striatal homogenate. The apparent lipophilicity, log kw 1.6, was measured with reverse phase HPLC at pH 7.5. The receptor specificity was determined by competitive displacement of [18F]5-FPrEpid by a variety of neurotransmitter ligands. Only dopamine D2 ligands displaced [18F]5-FPrEpid with high affinity. Positron tomographic imaging studies in primates of [18F]5-FPrEpid demonstrated a stable striatal uptake. of 0.02% injected dose/ml for up to 5 h after injection. The striatal: cerebellar ratio increased from 2 at 15 min, to 7 at 200 min, and to 10 at 300 min. Striatal uptake was displaceable by haloperidol (1 mg/kg) or raclopride (2.5 mg/kg) to cerebellar levels with a t1/2 of washout of 9 or 15 min. Striatal uptake was mildly susceptible to displacement by d-amphetamine (1–2 mg/kg) released endogenous dopamine; d-amphetamine administration produced a 10%/h increase in the rate of striatal washout. Although uptake in the striatum is reversible, an equilibrium between receptor bound [18F]5-FPrEpid in striatum and [18F]5-FPrEpid in plasma is not reached within 5 h postinjection. © 1993 Wiley-Liss. Inc.

(S)-(−)-N-[(1-ethyl-2-pyrrolidinyl)methyl]-5-[123I]iodo-2,3-dimethoxybenzamide (TDP 517) (proposed generic name, [123I]epidepride) is the iodine-123 substituted analogue of isoremoxipride (FLB 457), both of which are very potent dopamine D-2 antagonists (epidepride KD 0.024 nM). [123I]Epidepride was radioiodinated in 60–70% radiochemical yields in 35 min from the corresponding 5-(tributyltin) derivative using Na123I with a specific radioactivity of 3000 Ci/mmol, and oxidized in situ with chloramine-T. The aryltin precursor was prepared from non-labelled epidepride by palladium-catalyzed stannylation using bis(tri-n-butyltin) in triethylamine. Alternatively, using no carrier-added Na125I as the radioisotope, [125I]epidepride at 2000 Ci/mmol specific radioactivity was prepared in 86% radiochemical yield and 99% radiochemical purity after purification by reverse phase HPLC in ethanolic phosphate buffer.

Positron emission tomography with simultaneous electroencephalographic monitoring was performed with [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose in 20 patients with complex partial seizures who had normal computed tomographic scans. Seven patients had only unilateral epileptiform discharges on the electroencephalogram, 3 had predominantly unilateral discharges, and 10 had nonlocalized epileptiform abnormalities. Positron emission tomography showed a hypometabolic lesion in 16 of the 20 patients. Pathological changes in the hypometabolic region were found in postoperative specimens in 4 of 5 patients studied. Positron emission tomography was unaffected by the seizure frequency, state of alertness, or number of spike discharges during the scan. There was a tendency for patients to have higher overall metabolic rates when taking less medication. Seizures occurring during [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in 3 patients produced a hypermetabolic area at the interictal hypometabolic focus. Positron emission tomography sometimes showed more widespread hypometabolism than suspected on the basis of the scalp-recorded electroencephalogram. The frontal lobe showed a greater degree of hypometabolism than the temporal lobe in 3 patients. Focal lesions may be identified by positron emission tomography even if the electroencephalographic abnormality is not well localized.

Brain oxidative metabolism was examined with positron emission tomography and [18F]2-deoxy-D-glucose in 40 healthy men aged 21 to 83 years, under conditions of reduced visual and auditory stimulation. The mean cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (CMRglc) equaled 4.6 to 4.7 mg X 100 gm-1 X min-1 and did not correlate significantly with age (p greater than 0.05). Regional cerebral metabolic rates for glucose (rCMRglc) and Q ratios (rCMRglc/CMRglc), which had lower coefficients of variation than did rCMRglc, also did not correlate with age. Hyperfrontality of cerebral metabolism was absent at all ages. Age decrements were demonstrated in the error score on the Benton Revised Visual Retention Test and in the Performance Subtest scaled score of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) but not in the Verbal Subtest scaled score of the WAIS. The cognitive test scores did not correlate with brain metabolic rates. The results indicate that brain oxidative metabolism, when measured under resting conditions with reduced sensory input, is not reduced in relation to age in healthy men. Furthermore, no significant relations between intelligence and resting cerebral metabolism are evident.

This investigation was concerned primarily with the forming of alumina, chromium-alumina, and nickel-titanium carbide powders by low-frequency vibration. The effect of a wide variety of particle-size distributions on the forming properties of these compositions was studied. An instrumentation system was developed for measuring the vibratory forces employed. Results obtained with various low-frequency vibratory forming procedures are reported. Similar compositions were formed by dry pressing followed by hydrostatic repressing, and the properties of the specimens formed by the two methods are compared. The vibratory forming method offers a number of advantages over the hydrostatic method.

Modified nuclear recoil techniques have been used to obtain accurate relative bimolecular rate coefficients for thermally induced hydrogen abstraction reactions by atomic fluorine. New results are reported for 12 hydrocarbons and partially fluorinated hydrocarbons studied at 303°K.