BACKGROUND Distal interlocking screw insertion in intramedullary nailing of long-bone fracture is a challenging task for orthopedic surgeons. It is difficult particularly when the surgeon is in his learning stage or when image intensifier is not available. We describe a radiation-free technique of distal interlocking screw insertion which is easy and practicable. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this...

Reports of malignant tumors of the fingers have appeared frequently in medical literature, but most of these have described cases of sarcoma, melanosarcoma, or carcinoma secondary to roentgen, radium, or acid burns. Primary carcinoma of the fingers with no demonstrable etiological factor has rarely been reported. . If chronic irritation is considered an important and definite factor in the orig...

Given a domain of related problem classes and a set of general decision-making procedures applicable to them, this paper describes AWL, an algorithm to filter out those procedures that prove irrelevant, selfcontradictory, or untrustworthy for a particular class. With an external model of expertise as its performance criterion, the algorithm uses a perceptron-like model to learn problem-class-sp...

Spatial Ilctcroscncit?(Sti). &ich is gcncrally d&cd as the cotnplcsicy and variabiiit:. of a systctn propcrty(c.g.. \&.ctation type. population density. plant biomass. soil nttlricnls) in space. is of grcal intcrcst lo ccologisls studying litnctions and proccsscs of ecological S~SICIIIS a(various scales (Risscr ct al 19X-l. Tttrncr 19X7. Turner ct al 1031. Kolasa CI al 1091). Howcvcr. qumtitati...

PROFESSOR SCADDING's definition of asthma (Scad-ding, 1969) i.e. 'a condition characterized by variable dyspnoea with wheezing and prolonged expiration wholly or partially reversed by bronchodilators', is a clinical definition. It would be premature at this stage to attempt to define asthma in relation to its pathogenesis as this is still not understood. For the purpose of this symposium, howev...

Introduction: In clinical practice, repaired cartilage is often assessed by visual inspection and probing using arthroscopy. Through an arthroscopic monitor, human eyes can differentiate color changes in repaired cartilage compared with surrounding intact cartilage, but cannot quantify these color changes. Therefore, there is a need for an objective method to evaluate the repaired tissue itself...

Dear Sir, We read with interest the article ‘‘Transpedicle Body Augmenter A Further Step in Treating Burst Fractures’’ by Li et al. [5]. This article addressed short-segment fixation well by comparing patients treated with a transpedicle body augmenter with a control group of patients treated with short-segment posterior instrumentation. The issue of short-segment versus long-segment fixation i...

Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) of the hands can be a frustrating and underdiagnosed condition. While plant based products are a common source of ACD, tea leaves have rarely been reported as a cause of dermatitis. We describe a case of contact dermatitis from Pu-erh black tea as a result of chronic handling of tea leaves. Patch testing of both the patient and 6 normal controls helped to ident...

Knowledge engineers qualified to build expert systems are currently in short supply. We propose that production of useful and trustworthy expert systems can be significantly increased by pursuing the idea of articulate apprenticeship independent of computer implementations. Making theoretical progress in artificial intelligence should also help. February 14, l984 c © Copyright 1984 by Jon Doyle...