TO THE EDITOR—We read with interest the recent article by Venkatesan et al [1], which proposes a consensus guideline of the International Encephalitis Consortium for case definition and diagnostic algorithms in encephalitis. The authors define encephalitis as inflammation of the brain parenchyma associated with neurologic dysfunction, diagnosed on the basis of selected clinical, laboratory, ele...

BACKGROUND Cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis has been extensively described in patients with advanced or late human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease under ineffective treatment of opportunistic infection and antiretroviral therapy (ART) failure. However, there is limited information about patients who develop active cytomegalovirus retinitis as an immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (...

In this note we propose an alternative definition for sliding block codes between shift spaces. This definition coincides with the usual definition in the case that the shift space is defined on a finite alphabet, but it encompass a larger class of maps when the alphabet is infinite. In any case, the proposed definition keeps the idea that a sliding block code is a map with a local rule. Using ...

Coccidioidomycosis is endemic to the southwestern United States; 60% of nationally reported cases occur in Arizona. Although the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists case definition for coccidioidomycosis requires laboratory and clinical criteria, Arizona uses only laboratory criteria. To validate this case definition and characterize the effects of coccidioidomycosis in Arizona, we...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the usefulness of World Health Organisation (WHO's) clinical case-definition (CCD) for AIDS in a private hospital. DESIGN A prospective study. SETTING Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. SUBJECTS A total of 601 patients (> 14 years) were studied from January 1995 to December 1997. METHODS Using HIV test results as a reference standard, sensitivity...

OBJECTIVE To assess the performance of the rubella suspect case definition among patients with rash diseases seen at primary care units. METHODS From January 1994 to December 2002, patients with acute rash, with or without fever, were seen at two large primary health care units and at a public general hospital in the municipality of Niterói, metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Data f...

We propose a conceptually and technically neat method to identify known semantic patterns close to a novel pattern. This occurs in the context of a system to acquire knowledge incrementally from systematically processed expository technical text. This semiautomatic system requires the user to respond to specific multiple-choice questions about the current sentence. The questions are prepared fr...

In Australia, progress towards measles elimination has recently seen a shift from an ’outbreak control‘ phase to an ’elimination phase‘ with the publication of supportive comprehensive guidelines; 5 this is encouraging. Strategies accompanying this change in policy are similar to those adopted in the Americas and include modification of the vaccination schedule to improve coverage rates through...

Unit testing of software requires the construction of large amounts of supporting software Test drivers and stubs are needed to isolate the unit under test from other units and test cases speci cations need to be translated into compilable code Constructing test software is as time consuming and as fault prone as any other software and sometimes more so To support testers there are tools that c...

Karen Quinlan, the American girl who has lain in deep coma for many months, is still 'alive', that is to say, her heart is still beating and brain death has not occurred. However, several other cases have raised difficult issues about the time of death. Dr Skegg argues that there is a case for a legal definition of death enshrined in statutory form. He suggests that many of the objections to a ...