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Olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) are glia reported to sustain the continuous axon extension and successful topographic targeting of the olfactory receptor neurons responsible for the sense of smell (olfaction). Due to this distinctive property, OECs have been trialed in human cell transplant therapies to assist in the repair of central nervous system injuries, particularly those of the spinal cord. Though many studies have reported neurological improvement, the therapy remains inconsistent and requires further improvement. Much of this variability stems from differing olfactory cell populations prior to transplantation into the injury site. While some studies have used purified cells, others have used unpurified transplants. Although both preparations have merits and faults, the latter increases the variability between transplants received by recipients. Without a robust purification procedure in OEC transplantation therapies, the full potential of OECs for spinal cord injury may not be realised.

Intestinal volvulus was recognized as the cause of death in 18 cetaceans, including 8 species of toothed whales (suborder Odontoceti). Cases originated from 11 institutions from around the world and included both captive ( n = 9) and free-ranging ( n = 9) animals. When the clinical history was available ( n = 9), animals consistently demonstrated acute dullness 1 to 5 days prior to death. In 3 of these animals (33%), there was a history of chronic gastrointestinal illness. The pathological findings were similar to those described in other animal species and humans, and consisted of intestinal volvulus and a well-demarcated segment of distended, congested, and edematous intestine with gas and bloody fluid contents. Associated lesions included congested and edematous mesentery and mesenteric lymph nodes, and often serofibrinous or hemorrhagic abdominal effusion. The volvulus involved the cranial part of the intestines in 85% (11 of 13). Potential predisposing causes were recognized in most cases (13 of 18, 72%) but were variable. Further studies investigating predisposing factors are necessary to help prevent occurrence and enhance early clinical diagnosis and management of the condition.

Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of death and disability in childhood. A retrospective study of all paediatric head injuries admitted to the neurosurgical unit for the West of Scotland over a 10-year period was performed to assess the impact of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence head injury guidelines on the admission rate and to determine the associated risk factors, causes, severity and outcomes of these injuries. There were 564 admissions between 1998 and 2007. The median age at presentation was nine years and two months. There was no change in the admission rate, injury mechanism or severity of head injury admitted over the period studied. A relationship was observed between the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation Score and the incidence of head injury ( P = 0.05). Alcohol was reported as a causative factor in only a small number of cases, and moderate to severe head injuries were more commonly identified as a result of road traffic accidents.

A previously beach-stranded, juvenile, male, bottlenose dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus) was diagnosed with vertebral osteomyelitis of unknown etiology. Antemortem serological testing suggested past or current Brucella sp. infection; however, this could not be confirmed prior to death despite multiple isolation attempts from aspirates, blood, and biopsies. Systemic antibiotics were administered for over a year to control the suspected infection; however, the animal succumbed peracutely to infection by a highly pathogenic, enterotoxin-secreting Staphylococcus sp. Gross necropsy findings included a fistulous tract leading to locally extensive osteomyelitis of a coccygeal vertebra with sequestra and osteophytes from which a Brucella species was isolated. Histopathological examination of intestine revealed pseudomembranous enteritis with a uniform population of intraluminal Gram-positive cocci. Staphylococcus aureus was isolated in pure culture from the intestine and tested positive for the staphylococcal enterotoxin A gene by polymerase chain reaction analysis. Serum taken shortly before death had endotoxin and elevated antibody titers to staphylococcal enterotoxin A when compared to samples collected during a period of apparent good health 18 months earlier. The isolation of a pyrogenic toxin superantigen-producing staphylococcal isolate, clinical signs, and diagnostic findings in this animal resembled some of those noted in human toxic shock syndrome. The present case highlights the clinical challenges of treating chronic illnesses, complications of long-term antibiotic use, and promotion of pathogenic strains in cases of prolonged rehabilitation of marine mammals.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the treatment of patients with acute diverticulitis in the inpatient setting using minimal intervention. This was a retrospective study of 75 patients admitted over a 3-year period with acute diverticulitis as evidenced by computed tomography (CT) and clinical scenario. Of the patients enrolled, 24 (32%) had abscesses identified on their initial CT scan. An additional four patients had abscesses noted on a subsequent CT scan obtained because of lack of complete improvement with medical management, thus raising the total number of abscesses to 28 (37%). Of the patients with abscesses, 10 (36%) underwent drainage using a CT-guided percutaneous or ultrasound-guided transrectal approach an average of 6 days after admission. Of the 75 patients, five (7%) required operative intervention during the initial hospitalization for failure of medical management, two (40%) of whom had abscesses on presentation. The overall median length of hospitalization was 5 (interquartile range [IQR] 4–9) days, and 18 patients (24%) had recurrences during the study period. Our conservative approach to percutaneous and surgical intervention resulted in relatively low percutaneous drainage, a low operative rate, and a reasonable length of hospitalization and recurrence rate.

A 16-year-old female white whale, Delphinapterus leucas, died after nearly 18 months of chronic lymphopenia and pyogranulomatous dermatitis. Necropsy revealed rupture of the aorta with hemorrhage into the cranial mediastinum and between fascial planes of the ventral neck musculature. Multiple foci of ulcerative dermatitis and panniculitis were present across the thorax and abdomen and surrounded the genital folds. In addition, there was a chronic proliferative pleuritis with over 20 liters of histiocytic exudate in the thoracic cavity. Acid-fast bacteria consistent with Mycobacterium sp. were identified in sections of skin lesions and in cytospins of pleural exudate. Cultures of pleura and 1 skin lesion collected at necropsy yielded sparse growth of an acid-fast bacillus with colony characteristics and morphology consistent with Mycobacterium marinum. Polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis confirmed the presence of M. marinum DNA in samples of skin. This is the first documented occurrence of mycobacteriosis in a white whale and is a unique presentation of mycobacterial dermatitis and panniculitis with chronic pleuritis in a cetacean. The improved PCR-RFLP protocol utilized in this case unifies techniques from several protocols to differentiate between species of Nocardia and rapidly growing mycobacteria clinically relevant to aquatic animals.

The Model Employment Termination Act (META) provides that most full-time employees may not be discharged without good cause. Workers in every other major industrial democracy in the world now enjoy that right. The act would also relieve employers of the threat of devastating multimillion-dollar jury verdicts under the existing common law system. For both employers and employees, the act would offer cheaper, faster, and less onerous enforcement procedures by substituting arbitration for court suits.

A belief that forms part of the lay, common-sense psychology of our culture holds that higher cognitive processes, such as the «strategies» used to solve problems and make decisions, are both conscious and under voluntary control. Two corollaries of this basic assumption are (1) that such processes are accessible to verbal report and (2) that the strategies may be altered by conscious decisons ― for example, by following verbal instructions

An experiment is reported to test the hypothesis that a non-logical tendency known as “matching bias”, which occurs in conditional reasoning tasks, is linguistically determined. It is argued that the bias occurs because items which are not mentioned in the conditional rules appear to be “irrelevant” since they do not conform to the linguistic “topic” of the sentence. Logical cases can, however, be produced which always “match” the items named in the rules by introducing explicit negatives into the descriptions of the instances. As predicted, when this was done, the usual “matching bias” effect was significantly reduced as compared with the normal use of affirmative instances which implicitly negate components of the rules. The results show that linguistic factors have an important influence on subjects’ processing of problem information, and not simply on their initial representations of the logical rules.

Two experiments are reported, in each of which subjects were asked to decide whether or not a number of statements, including the inverse, converse and contra-positive, followed logically from a given conditional rule of the form “if P then Q”. Rules referred to letter, number relationships, the linguistic form being manipulated by systematic negation of the antecedent and consequent components. The influence of logical validity on responses was investigated by examining differential frequencies with which inferences were drawn and by testing for consistent behaviour across inferences which depend upon the same logical principle. These analyses revealed little evidence for an influence of logic. Responses were found to be substantially influenced by a response bias, such that subjects showed a preference for agreeing with statements having affirmative antecedents and negative consequents. This finding was in part a replication of parallel findings on other inference tasks. In addition, correlational evidence suggested that subjects’ susceptibility to these biases was consistent across problems. A possible explanation of the non-logical biases, in terms of a “caution” effect, was proposed and it was argued that these, and other, findings indicate that logical validity plays little role in mediating behaviour regarding the consequent of a conditional rule.

Two experiments were undertaken to test the assumption that the outcome of an instrumental contingency depends on the acquisition of signalling properties by the response in the same sense that the acquisition of signalling properties by a stimulus is viewed as determining the outcome of a Pavlovian contingency. The presence coincident with a punished response of a stimulus either previously or preferentially correlated with shock was found to reduce the extent to which punishment suppressed the rate of responding. It was argued that these results, interpreted as indicating the blocking and overshadowing of the response-shock association, were consistent with the assumption tested.

An experiment is reported which attempts to demonstrate the effects of manipulating two linguistic variables on a propositional reasoning task, one relating to the linguistic form of the logical rule, and the other to the presence and absence of negative components. The results are discussed in relation to Evans' (1972a) distinction between interpretational and operational factors in reasoning. Problems arising from the application of this distinction are discussed in detail.

It is argued that the observed variability of responding in reasoning tasks might usefully be described by mathematical models based on stochastic processes. The data of a number of experiments employing Wason's selection task are reanalysed and it is shown that selection probabilities of individual cards are statistically independent. This is consistent with a class of simple stochastic models and renders conventional “insight” explanations of the data unparsi-monious. A provisional stochastic model is formulated and subjected to a limited parametric test with reasonably satisfactory results. Some general directions for future research along these lines are suggested.

Under the traditional doctrine of employment at will, contracts of hire can ordinarily be terminated by either party at any time for any reason. The Wagner Act of 1935 and union contracts provide some protection for employees. In addition, public employees enjoy constitutional and statutory safeguards. But about 70 percent of the total labor force still has no guarantee against arbitrary action by employers. A most significant development of the past decade has been increasing judicial modification of the at-will principle to prevent grosser abuses. Civil rights legislation has outlawed job discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, and age. Other statutes have been enacted to promote the physical safety and economic well-being of workers. Nevertheless, voluntarism remains the distinctive characteristic of American labor relations. Not even an employer's legitimate regard for profit making or the public's justified concern for a productive economy should totally override the workers' claim to a voice in the decisions of ongoing enterprises that will vitally affect their future job opportunities. The law should encourage the trend toward participative management.

Subjects were required to construct verifying and falsifying cases of conditional rules in which the presence and absence of negative components was varied. Their responses gave some indication of consistent interpretation of the rules, generally conforming to Wason's (1966) idea of a “defective” truth table. Much of their behaviour, however, seemed to be determined by a task variable in the form of a tendency to construct instances which matched, rather than altered, the values named in the rules.