Heinz-Dietrich Doebner — an accomplished octogenarian

Bochdalek hernia in an octogenarian.

An 81-year-old chronic smoker with known chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) presented with a 2-day history of dyspnoea and dry cough in January 2012. His oxygen saturation was normal, but physical examination revealed occasional expiratory wheezing and decreased air entry over the right lower zone. The complete blood picture showed no leukocytoses. The patient was initially managed as...

Heinz Nixdorf Institute Heinz Nixdorf

Eosinophilic esophagitis in an octogenarian

INTRODUCTION Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic, immune/antigen-mediated disease characterized clinically by symptoms related to esophageal dysfunction and histologically by a marked eosinophilic infiltrate in the esophageal mucosa. What was once considered a rare disease has nowadays become one of the most frequent esophageal diseases in the Western countries, occupying a place just n...

ALCAPA in an Octogenarian Woman: An Enigma

ALCAPA syndrome (anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery) is an exceedingly rare disease but lethal with clinical expression from myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure to death during early infancy and rare survival to adulthood. A 75-year-old woman with ALCAPA syndrome presented with angina (Canadian Cardiovascular Society functional class II) over past...

Heinz von Foerster An Appreciation (Revisited)

Reproduced below, with a few small edits, is a paper I wrote in 1979 for the International Cybernetics Newsletter, as part of its ‘founding fathers of cybernetics’ series (Scott, 1979). I offer it here as a contribution to this special issue of C&HK because (i) I believe my younger self did quite a good job of overviewing von Foerster’s career (recall, he ‘retired’ in 1976) and (ii) the article...