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We describe a system being developed for the transformational analysis of complex English sentences. The system is designed to be able to serve as a “front-end” for a variety of applications, such as question-answering, information retrieval, and command systems. It is a two-stage system, with the first stage being the Linguistic String Parser previously developed at New York University. The structure of the system and its relation to contemporary transformational parsers are considered. Several transformations, including those for nominalization, are described in detail, and several sentence analyses produced by the program are presented.

In order to determine the utility of a portable mass spectrometer equipped with a membrane separator as a detector of concealed explosives, the mass spectrum of dynamite effluent recorded by such an instrument has been identified. Necessary steps in this work were an analysis of the composition of the effluent and an examination of membrane penetration by oxides of nitrogen.

Initial stress finite element methods are applied to the analysis of slopes made of soil. The particular conditions considered apply to short-term loadings during which a significant proportion of the slope remains undrained, and a φu = 0 failure analysis would be appropriate. It is shown that the computations can incorporate a failure criterion which agrees well with that traditionally used in soil mechanics. The behaviour of many idealized slopes and of two embankment dams is predicted under two different loading conditions: that which applies during sequential construction in the field contrasted with that which applies during testing in the centrifuge laboratory. Pour l'analyse de talus en terre on utilise des procédés d'éléments finis de contraintes initiales. On consière les conditions particulières des chargements à court terme, pour lesquelles une part importante du talus reste non-drainée et une analyse de rupture de φu = 0 serait appropriée. Il est demontré que les calculs peuvent englober un critère de rupture qui correspond bien avec celui traditionellement utilisé dans les mécaniques du sol. Le comportement de plusieurs talus idéaux et de deux remblais de barrage est prédit sous deux conditions différentes de chargement: celle d'une construction séquentielle in situ opposée à celle qui s'applique aux tours des essais en laboratoire à la centrifugeuse.

Summary Twenty-two patients with severe hay fever unrelieved by antihistamines in previous years were slowly hyposensitized with alum-precipitated pyridine grass pollen extracts. Their responses were objectively assessed as very good (55%), good (18%) or improved (23%). Two mechanisms were detected: (i) an increase in serum blocking activity in 59% and (ii) the prevention in 59% of the serum IgE elevation expected in the pollen season.

In a contingency table one classification often corresponds to samples from different populations and the other classification to ordered categories. Methods for analyzing data of this type may be compared using recent extensions in the theory of rank tests by Conover (1973) and Vorlickova (1970) to non-continuous distributions. In this paper the Kruskal-Wallis Test and the Median Test are compared in those situations where the data are given in a contingency table with ordered categoriesf and where one test or the other is optimal. Some comparisons with the Pearson chi-square statistic are given.

SummaryA mild to severe respiratory infection was established in mice with reoviruses. In certain animals, the virus was detectable in the respiratory tissues although no evidence of illness was observed. In other animals, respiratory illness was evident early, became overt terminating with the death of the animals. Fluorescent antibody techniques both direct and indirect, correlated with other methods of virus detection. The FA-red cell technique proved to be a rapid, sensitive and highly specific method of reovirus detection and would seem to be applicable for detection of other hemagglutinating viruses.

Nine emotionally disturbed adolescent boys in an out-patient program appeared to benefit from a five-day camping and canoe trip with two counselors. The experience required considerable teamwork, and group pressure successfully overcame attempts by some to avoid responsibility. The boys developed better techniques for handling interpersonal problems and developed a greater respect for themselves and their abilities.

The immunoglobulin levels in the sera of 88 adult patients with autoimmune haemolytic anaemia were measured. Approximately half the patients whose anaemia was thought to be " idiopathic" had low levels of one or more classes of immunoglobulin. The same was true of those patients in whom the anaemia was associated with lymphoproliferative and autoimmune disorders. IgA was the immunoglobulin most frequently affected, but thirteen different combinations of immunoglobulin deficiency or excess were found. In contrast, the immunoglobulin levels in patients with methyldopa-induced haemolyric anaemia were normal.

In-vitro studies of breast-cancer tissues from a hundred and thirty patients demonstrated testosterone dependence in fourteen women, of whom thirteen were postmenopausal. Six could have been conditioned by prior androgen therapy. Anti-androgen measures were successful in six of eight patients, and adrenalectomy may be the best treatment of testosterone-dependent breast cancer. In two other patients oestrogen treatment failed (as predicted in vitro) because œstradiol and testosterone are not always antagonistic.

Summary: A study of the clinical and biochemical features of myelomatosis according to the immunochemical class of paraprotein found has revealed statistically significant difference between the classes. These are reviewed but it is stressed that they are chiefly of importance when comparing groups of patients.

Summary. Log-normal ranges for the incidence of immunoglobulin-bearing lymphocytes in human peripheral blood are described. Twenty-five cases of chronic lymphatic leukaemia have been investigated and absolute numbers of cells have been ascertained and related to clinical details. It is suggested that most CLL patients suffer from a disorder of the B cell population, including many in which non-immunoglobulin-bearing cells predominate.

Immunochemical investigations have been performed on the intestinal mucosa and secretions, serum, and bone marrow of a group of patients with adult celiac disease (treated and untreated). The results are compared with values observed in normal subjects and also with those obtained in two control groups: (1) patients with abnormalities of the small intestinal mucosa due to tropical sprue, Whipple’s disease, and dermatitis herpetiformis and (2) subjects with normal intestinal mucosa but with low serum levels of either IgA or IgM. In the majority of jejunal mucosal specimens plasma cells of the IgA class were the predominant variety and IgA was the predominant immunoglobulin found in jejunal juice and saliva. In the celiac jejunal mucosa the population density of IgA plasma cells tended to be decreased in comparison with those values that we have previously observed in specimens from normal subjects. Celiac patients also differed from the normal in having increased values for the population densities of the IgM plasma cells in jejunal mucosa, even those with low levels of serum IgM; this was paralleled by an increase in the concentration of IgM in jejunal juice. However, salivary IgM concentration was normal in these patients and the proportion of IgM cells was normal in the rectal mucosa and reduced in the bone marrow. In several celiac patients (who did not have IgA deficiency) the predominant immunocyte in the jejunal mucosa was of the IgM class. The population densities of IgM plasma cells returned toward normal with prolonged gluten restriction.

When an apparently identical HL-A donor can be found and satisfactorily checked by the mixed lymphocyte reaction, it is worth attempting simple bone marrow grafting in a patient with combined immune deficiency syndrome who otherwise would die. Immunocompetence was given in this way to a baby girl by her 4-year-old brother and was confirmed by the presence of Y-chromosome in most of the transforming lymphocytes. IgA was late to emerge, presumably owing to the immaturity for IgA of the donor's bone marrow.

An understanding of elastohydrodynamic lubrication of ball and roller bearings has made it possible to determine the grade of oil required to obtain a satisfactory bearing fatigue life. This article suggests a method of selecting suitable grades of oil, and describes methods of their practical application. Some operating characteristics are discussed, and some limitations of bearing performance are mentioned.

Before his death from cerebrospinal fever Dr. G. D. Heist showed that he was one of the rare individuals whose blood had no bactericidal action on meningococci (Heist et al., 1922). His father and four uncles also died of illnesses resembling meningococcal infections. We have observed two patients with fulminating meningococcal septicaemia who had abnormally low serum yM globulins. Noting the susceptibility of Dr. Heist and possibly his family to meningococcal infections, and the possibility of a causal relation between a deficiency of serum yM globulin and meningococcal infection, we carried out a survey of the immunoglobulin levels in the relatives of our two patients and made a study of antibodies to meningococci.

B lymphocytes from the peripheral blood of 15 melanoma patients and 14 normal adults were studied using immunofluorescence to IgA, IgG, IgD and IgM surface markers. The total number of peripheral blood B lymphocytes was increased in the melanoma patients (1048/mm3) compared with normal controls (504) (P

In-vitro dependence on growth hormone has been shown in the same 40% of twenty-six human breast cancers which also showed prolactin dependence. The human growth hormone used had less than 0·1% prolactin. This in-vitro finding best explains why, even when plasma-prolactin is much reduced by drugs, prolactin-dependent breast cancer often does not show regression and why hypophysectomy remains the first treatment of choice for such selected cancers.

We report a case in which mucoproteins from an adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, released into the ascitic fluid and serum, were filtered through the renal glomeruli to form very viscous casts which obstructed the renal collecting tubules and caused the patient's death from oliguria.

A method is described that allows heavy-chain disease proteins to be simply detected. The sample is electrophoresed in an agarose plate containing kappa and lambda antisera in the lower section, and the relevant heavy-chain antisera in the upper section. Light chains and immunoglobulins containing light chains are precipitated in the lower region. Free "heavy chains" migrate into the upper region, where they are precipitated as a separate rocket. The method is quick, sensitive, and requires little antiserum.

A study of 14 personal patients and 16 others in the literature shows that (1) IgD myelomatosis often presents at a significantly younger age than other forms of myelomatosis, and (2) during life extraosseous tumour can be detected in about two-thirds of these patients. The IgD form represents 1·5% of myelomatosis and shows an increased incidence of osteolytic lesions, hypercalcaemia, and renal failure, together with heavy Bence Jones proteinuria (90% type L). Like only Bence Jones myelomatosis, the IgD form seems to behave clinically in a more vicious manner.

An ascitic form of plasmacytoma (MP-5563) in C3H mice has proved stable on transplantation. A simple linear relationship was demonstrated between the serum level of the paraprotein produced and the total number of plasmacytoma cells within the ascitic fluid.

Immunological studies were performed on 12 patients with rheumatoid arthritis who developed reactions to gold. IgE levels were found to be raised in 10 of 11 patients tested at the time of the gold reaction, returning to normal on stopping therapy. Two of 12 patients with gold reactions had positive in-vitro lymphocyte transformation responses to gold. It is suggested that dermatological side effects in particular are mediated by a type I hypersensitivity response.

Prolactin dependence has been directly demonstrated in 32% of fifty human breast cancers. The pentose-shunt activity of the fresh-frozen tumour is compared to that of slices kept only 24 hours in culture media with and without added hormones (sheep prolactin, 17β-œstradiol, testosterone). Results may have predictive value for the individual patient.