Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of neurodegenerative disorders that are clinically characterized by progressive spasticity and weakness of the lower limbs. HSP genetic loci are designated SPG1-72 in order of their discovery. In 206 Japanese families with autosomal dominant HSP, SPG4 was the most common form, accounting for 38%, followed by...

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) was described for the first time in the 19th century by Silas Weir Mitchell. After the exclusion of other causes, CRPS is characterised by a typical clinical constellation of pain, sensory, autonomic, motor, or trophic symptoms which can no longer be explained by the initial trauma. These symptoms spread distally and are not limited to innervation territori...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Gout is a true crystal deposition disease, extremely painful and bone and tissue damaging if untreated. It is the only curable form of arthritis. Although we have many treatments to cure gout, it is a disease that is consistently undertreated/mismanaged and perceived by clinicians and the lay public as a 'laughable condition' with the patients' lifestyle often held erroneously...

Our editorial board member Philippe Kruchten has even formulated a rule of thumb—that the half-life of software engineering ideas is about fi ve years (www.computer.org/portal/web/ comput i ng now/ 0 4 09 / what snew/ software), which seems to imply a continual race to keep up with the latest ideas as the old ones become less relevant. But a generally tough economic climate seems to have made t...

detail and specific items such as the number of hospital referrals can be extracted fairly quickly by going down the appropriate column, in this case H, on each page. The material contained on the sheets can be used again by rearranging them. As an example, in this survey they were re-arranged in households by class and similar re-arrangements could be continued indefinitely. The flexibility is...

Cellular and tissue regeneration in the gastrointestinal tract depends on stem cells with properties of self-renewal, clonogenicity, and multipotency. Progress in stem cell research and the identification of potential gastric, intestinal, colonic stem cells new markers and the signaling pathways provide hope for the use of stem cells in regenerative medicine and treatments for disease. This rev...

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