A study population consisting of 66 mentally retarded individuals, 60 with and six without pica, was evaluated for iron status, and for plasma and hair zinc, copper, and magnesium levels within a month of known dietary intake. The parameters were all within the normal range for individuals without pica. In contrast, subjects practicing pica had low plasma zinc and elevated plasma copper values ...

Background: Pica is the compulsive eating of nonnutritive substances and can have serious medical implications. Although it has been described since antiquity, there has been no single agreed-upon explanation of the cause of such behavior. Methods: Databases from MEDLINE and PSYCH-Lit were searched from 1964 to the present to find relevant sources of information using the key words "pica," "obs...

Probabilistic packet marking (PPM) is a technique designed to identify packet traffic sources with low storage and processing overhead on network routers. In most previous PPM approaches, individual path messages carry only partial path information. These methods are susceptible to “path falsification” attacks, which greatly reduce their effectiveness. This work proposes a path-falsification-at...

A series of analyses was conducted to assess and treat the pica of cigarette butts by a young man with mental retardation and autism. First, we demonstrated that pica was maintained in a condition with no social consequences when the available cigarettes contained nicotine but not when the cigarettes contained herbs without nicotine. Second, a choice assessment (Fisher et al., 1992) confirmed t...

Oxycodone, a semisynthetic opioid analgesic, is frequently prescribed for the management of pain. Side effects of nausea and emesis affect patient compliance and limit its therapeutic use. The present study established that an antinociceptive dose of oxycodone (15 mg/kg; oral) induces the pica response. We found sex differences in the temporal course of pica, with females having a longer durati...

Stemflow from Japanese red cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) enters forest soil at a low pH. We evaluated the responses of the root system of Japanese red cedar saplings to acidic conditions, used to simulate this situation, in two different growth media, a brown forest soil (BS) and a Yahagi sand (YS). Soils were acidified by the addition of solutions at pH 2.0, 3.0 and 5.5 (control). Root morpholo...

Abstract The development of glufosinate-resistant soybean cultivars has created opportunities for use glufosinate applied postemergence weed control. Four field experiments were conducted in 2021 and 2022 to ascertain the effect rate addition ammonium sulfate on annual control glyphosate/glufosinate/2,4-D–resistant soybean. An increased 500 from 300 g ai ha −1 improved common ragweed, lambsquar...

The name pica is derived from the Latin word meaning magpie. In reviewing the literature no adequate definitions are to be found. Those of Hubrigkt (1562) and Schrey (1719), as quoted by Cooper (1957), are antiquated and of historical interest only. Pica could be described as a perversion of appetite with persistent and purposeful ingestion of unsuitable substances, seemingly of no nutrient val...