Mastitis monitoring and control programs were instituted in 4 Illinois dairy herds for 12 months. Two herds had high mean monthly bulk tank somatic cell counts (> 490,000 cells/ml) and 2 had low mean monthly bulk tank somatic cell counts (< 260,000 cells/ml) at the start of the study. The ...

In summary, I believe that this program, although limited in scope, has been of value to our State in controlling the inappropriate prescribing of controlled substances. We have identified several problems that have been or are being addressed in order to make the program even more effective. The program targets ...

The validity of the Threat Index was examined in a study of 42 students and 15 HIV+ clients. When completing the Threat Index, subjects rate the self and death on 30 bipolar adjectives. A count is made of the number of times the same adjective poles are used to describe ...

OBJECTIVE: To compare the new macrolide antibiotic clarithromycin with erythromycin in terms of in vitro activity, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, clinical efficacy, and toxicity. DATA IDENTIFICATION: An English-language literature search employing MEDLINE (1987-91), Index Medicus (1987-91), Program and Abstracts of the 30th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (1990), Program and ...

The Italian Group for Epidemiological Research in Dermatology (GISED) collected a series of cutaneous adverse reactions following NSAID and/or antibiotics administered by topical and/or systemic route. Dermatologists from North and Central Italy took part in this survey by filling in 1457 case report forms during a four-month observation time in ...

The recent withdrawal of the HP41C* calculator from the market necessitated a translation of the HP41C* 'MLE2' program published earlier (Roussel and Husson, 1991) into a version for its successor, the HP48SX. The existence of the HP41CV emulator module for the HP48SX offers no solution for continued support of the ...

Many clinicians believe that allowing costs to influence clinical decisions is unethical. They are mistaken in this belief, because it cannot be ethical to ignore the adverse consequences upon others of the decisions you make, which is what 'costs' represent. There are, however, some important ethical issues in deciding what ...

The "Learning to Count" is a microprocessor controlled device constructed to help teach a developmentally disabled individual to learn to count to ten. The device has ten buttons, each with two numerical seven-segment LED's displaying a random number 1 through 10. The game's objective is for the student to press ...

There are many reasons for the variations in the rates and costs of general practitioner prescribing. This is a fruitful area for audit and for reconsideration of the teaching of prescribing at undergraduate level by general practitioners.

Efforts to reduce the prevalence of Staphylococcus aureus intramammary infection were monitored in 3 Ohio dairy herds. Bacteriologic culturing of milk from all lactating cows in each herd was completed multiple times to identify infected cows and monitor reduction. Partial budgeting techniques were used to determine the economic outcome of ...

A survey was sent to 114 oral and maxillofacial surgery residency programs to determine the prophylactic use of antibiotics with intraoral orthognathic procedures. Seventy-four percent of the programs responded. Review of the data showed that all programs used antibiotic prophylaxis for intraoral orthognathic procedures, and that penicillin or a cephalosporin ...

An ethnographic exploration of the social reality of a counselling and training institute points to the profound impact of the therapeutic paradigm on the 'patterned regularities', the general principles, rules and daily practices, in other words, the organizational morality. The limited house-rules or practices emerged mainly as 'enabling conditions' to ...

We established a casework approach to develop an antibiotic formulary for a large community hospital. The program consists of a combination of comprehensive clinical and administrative strategies designed to reduce antimicrobial expenditures and improve the quality of antibiotic prescribing. Strategies included a background document summarizing each pharmacologic group of antimicrobial ...

During the years 1983-1984, an educational program was given to all general practitioners on the island of Gotland. This report evaluates changes in prescription habits from 1982 to 1985. To correct for general trends that occurred simultaneously, the prescription habits were compared to the habits in the rest of Sweden. ...

Selected hematological parameters and erythrocyte deformability indexes for 16 young male military students were compared before and after a period of exposure to heavy pollution. These students lived in Ankara, which has a serious air pollution problem. The mean sulfur dioxide levels measured at a station proximal to the campus ...

The purpose of this literature review is to develop a model of methods to be used to influence prescribing. Four bodies of literature were identified as being important for developing the model: (1) Theoretical prescribing models furnish information concerning factors that affect prescribing and how prescribing decisions are made. (2) ...

A computerized scheduling program was developed to provide hospital anaesthetic coverage and yet still satisfy the complex workstyles of 30 anaesthetists. Hospital commitments required ten anaesthetists available each weekday and four each weekend day for after-hours coverage of the intensive care units and operating rooms. The workstyles included part-time arrangements, ...

Previously, single-chambered rate-adaptive and dual-chamber pacemakers have been considered as alternative methods of providing rate response. Neither can adapt to changing circumstances and each has its own benefits and limitations. The development of units combining both facilities expands the range of conditions for which atrioventricular sequential pacing is possible and ...

Seventy-five subjects, randomly assigned to one of five training conditions, were required to learn to make large-amplitude, high-tempo, fluent movements on a so-called ski-simulator over a period of four days. Subjects trained under different tempo conditions. In four of the conditions the tempo was prescribed ("preferred", high, low, or increasing), ...

A study was conducted to identify cefazolin prescribing practices prior to a pharmacy based educational program and to assess the effect of the educational program on cefazolin prescribing and costs. The educational program consisted of the circulation of a drug information bulletin, a letter from the Chairman of the Pharmacy ...

An adverse drug reaction (ADR) surveillance program implemented in a 472-bed acute care community hospital consists of three components: specific indicators that nurses and pharmacists can use to evaluate reactions for reporting, an ADR reporting form and procedure, and innovative computerized screening for ADRs. In the program's first year, ADR ...

Data are presented from a survey of 123 practicing psychologists in 36 states concerning attitudes and prescriptive practices with regard to self-help books. Tables are provided indicating those self-help works most frequently read and prescribed by responding psychologists, along with ratings of quality and helpfulness. Results indicate widespread readership and ...

BASIC programs have been written to analyse minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) antimicrobial susceptibility results for large numbers of organisms and a wide variety of antimicrobials. The output of the programs lists the numbers, percentages, cumulative numbers and cumulative percentages of organisms inhibited at different concentrations. The distribution of MICs are ...

The "epidemiology of knowledge" underlying clinical decision making related to antibiotic therapy is one of the most important determinants of how such therapy is used, misused, or not used. A growing literature describes how prescribers and patients acquire the information that influences them in their utilization of these agents. The ...

The salivary lactobacilli and Streptococcus mutans counts in 217 university students of 25.4-yr-old were studied with regard to the state of eruption of their third molar teeth. Statistically significantly higher counts of both bacterial species were found in students who had one or more third molars partly erupted, compared with ...

Description is given of a BASIC program running on inexpensive microcomputers (Commodore CBM 64, SX 64 and Apple II[e]) to facilitate and accelerate substantially the point-counting technique, one of the most widely used methods in the determination of such stereologic parameters as VV, AA, SV, BA, JV, KV and NV. ...

For determination of phagocytosis of Staphylococcus aureus 519 labeled with glycine-1-14C by guinea pig granulocytes, the third analytical program of LS 7500 counter was used. By measuring isotope radioactivity, the program enables evaluation of the percentage of a bound isotope in relation to the reference sample. In the present experiments ...

A program has been developed which derives classification rules from empirical observations and expresses these rules in a knowledge representation format called 'counting criteria'. Decision rules derived in this format are often more comprehensible than rules derived by existing machine learning programs such as AQ11. Use of the program is ...

The efforts involved in structuring and implementing a drug utilization review (DUR) program that was designed to assess the use of amitriptyline for depression when prescribed by internists and psychiatrists is described. In-depth audit criteria were used to identify deviations from the criteria for each group. An immediate goal of ...

A small reduction in prescribing costs is reported from a general practice that has been using a computer for repeat prescribing for three years. The possible reasons for this are discussed. The information available from the Prescription Pricing Authority (PPA) and from practice workload measurements was found to be inconclusive. ...

Fully automatic computer programs for the analysis of alpha-spectroscopy data have been developed and installed on a PDP-11/45 minicomputer at the Eastern Environmental Radiation Facility (EERF) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Montgomery, AL. The programs presently in use evaluate the activities of the U, Pu and Am ...

A programmable calculator program calculates loss of milk yield in dairy cows based on linear somatic cell count scores. The program displays the distribution of the herd by lactation number and linear score for present and optimal goal situations. Loss of yield is in pounds and dollars by cow and ...

A comprehensive antibiotic surveillance program conducted in cooperation with the Microbiology and Pharmacy departments in a teaching hospital is described. The program consists of a number of interrelated processes including the personal advice of specialists including a Clinical Microbiologist, Infection Control Nurse and Ward Pharmacists, re-educative strategies and non restrictive ...

A system is described for the quantification of neuronal activity utilizing a microcomputer as an alternative to a conventional hard-wired ratemeter. The system, which counts the number of action potentials occurring in successive epochs, consists of a microcomputer and a small number of external electronic components (e.g. D leads to ...

A FORTRAN program for computing the generalized Mantel-Haenszel chi 2-test statistic for multiple 2 X J tables is presented. The output contains the additional information of expected cell values and the individual odds ratios for each stratum. For the case of 2 X 2 tables, an internal check of the ...

Questionnaires requesting breeding information were mailed to 1,148 Illinois Holstein herds in the Dairy Herd Improvement program. A total of 591 questionnaires (51%) were returned. Dairy producers with herds producing over 7,100 kg of milk returned 64% of their questionnaires whereas 34% of dairy producers with herds producing less than ...

PCS-I is a versatile BASIC program designed to collect and process stereological point counting data from electron micrographs of cells. The program can accept the point counts from three sources: (i) a set of user-definable keys programmed as counters; (ii) a numeric pad that enters counts line by line; and ...

We evaluated the effectiveness of a structured educational program in improving the gentamicin prescribing pattern of physicians in the hospital. Predetermined criteria for acceptable use were based upon the specific indications for initiating the drug therapy, the dosage regimen, and the precautions taken to avoid toxicity. In the preeducation review ...

Mothers of first-born babies were selected on the basis of high salivary counts of Streptococcus mutans. All experimental subjects were given a basic caries preventive program in order to decrease the level of S. mutans in saliva. The program included dietary counseling, which stressed the role of sucrose in the ...

Antibiotic cost control programs are important; however, they may be difficult to implement if they include intensive involvement of infectious diseases specialists. In a large municipal hospital, review of antibiotic cost data indicated that 31 percent of the total antibiotic expenditure was for an oral cephalosporin, cephalexin. The requirement that ...

Ninety-eight directors of infectious disease training programs responded to a questionnaire about bacterial endocarditis prophylaxis for susceptible patients during colonoscopy. Although 54% recommended a penicillin and an aminoglycoside, antibiotics commonly used to protect against the enterococcus, there are no published data to support the use of prophylaxis. Most directors of ...

The decision of whether or not to prescribe minor tranquilizers becomes an apparent dilemma for mental health professionals working in jails. By dispensing anxiety-reducing drugs, they may help the inmate cope with existing hardship conditions, but they may also contribute to drug dependency. A survey of California county jail systems ...

A program to calculate the 24-h intravenous requirements of water, nitrogen, energy and six electrolytes on a card-programmable pocket calculator is described. Comparison of calculator-generated requirements with intravenous feeding regimens prescribed by junior clinicians for 8 ill patients suggests that the clinicians provide too much water and too little nitrogen ...

A programmable calculator procedure for the determination of dosage regimens and steady-state peak and trough levels of aminoglycoside antibiotics is described. The calculator is programmed based on a one-compartment open model and first-order elimination of aminoglycosides. A detailed description of the programs and user instructions are presented. The programs allow ...

The current Indochinese resettlement program in the United States has resulted in an increase in the number of persons with hemoglobin E trait. American physicians should be aware of the hematologic expressions of this innocuous condition. The hematologic manifestations of 21 persons with hemoglobin E trait were evaluated. The subjects ...

Amitriptyline hydrocholride (Elavil) is frequently used in treating mild to moderate depressive states. A survey of 346 persons enrolled in a methadone maintenance program showed that 86 (25%) had admitted taking amitriptyline with the purpose of achieving euphoria. Thin-layer chromatography of random urine specimens over five months showed that 34% ...

A rational approach to the proper use of antibiotics must include knowledge of microbial sensitivities to various agents, proper alternative choices, pharmacologic considerations, and the cost to patient and hospital of drugs prescribed. A logical program for analysis of use of antibiotics and proper administration is presented. Since the largest ...

In recording its poverty statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau ignores the impact of in-kind transfers on the extent of poverty. In this paper, we estimate that when in-kind food, housing, and medical care transfers are counted and measured at their cash-equivalent value, and when Census income is adjusted for underreporting, ...

A procedure to teach four mild and moderately retarded persons to sum the value of coin combinations was tested. Subjects were first taught to count a single target coin, and then to sum that coin in combination with coins previously trained. Five American coins and various combinations were trained. Modelling, ...

Thumb twitch in response to "train-of-4" nerve stimulation was observed in 34 anesthetized patients receiving d-tubocurarine. Over the range of 75 to 100 percent block of the 1st twitch in the train, the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st twitch become undetectable, in that order. The reappearance of twitch by spontaneous ...