OBJECTIVE To evaluate the presence of IgG autoantibodies against the P0 antigen in patients affected by sudden hearing loss and Meniere's disease (MD). MATERIAL AND METHODS All patients underwent a tonal audiometric evaluation, tympanometry, evaluation of the stapedial reflex threshold with decay time, determination of auditory brainstem responses and a complete vestibular assessment involvin...

BACKGROUND Research has shown how academic emotions are related to achievement and to cognitive/motivational variables that promote achievement. Mediated models have been proposed to account for the relationships among academic emotions, cognitive/motivational variables, and achievement, and research has supported such mediated models, particularly with negative emotions. AIMS The study teste...

Sonoluminescence spectra from nonaqueous liquids under a variety of gases are presented. Ultrasonic irradiation of alkanes under Ar leads to emission from C2, C2H, and CH. When nitrogen is present, emission is seen from CN. When oxygen is present, emission from COz, CH, and OH is observed. Ultrasonic irradiation of tetrachloroethylene or CCI4 leads to emission from CI2. The intensity of sonolum...

Take two pins and touch them to the tip of your finger. If they are far apart, you’ll have no trouble feeling their two distinct pricks on your skin. But move them closer, and eventually that distinction is lost, and you feel only one point pressing into your finger. That threshold of tactile acuity averages around 1.6 millimeters, but it differs from person to person. Why? In this issue of PLo...

BACKGROUND Lateralization of horizontal semicircular canal benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (HSC-BPPV) is very important for successful repositioning. The directions of lying-down nystagmus (LDN) and head-bending nystagmus (HBN) have been used as ancillary findings to identify the affected sites. This retrospective study was performed to evaluate the lateralizing values of LDN and HBN using...

Because excised, washed roots of rice (Oryza sativa) immediately produce CH4 when they are incubated under anoxic conditions (P. Frenzel and U. Bosse, FEMS Microbiol. Ecol. 21:25-36, 1996), we employed a culture-independent molecular approach to identify the methanogenic microbial community present on roots of rice plants. Archaeal small-subunit rRNA-encoding genes were amplified directly from ...

VoriconazoleNPharmacokineticsNin Immunocompromized Children Voriconazole is increasingly used in pediatric patients, but only a few studies have reported on the pharmacokinetics in this population. Important pharmacokinetic differences exist between adults and children receiving voriconazole, primarily a higher elimination capacity in pediatric patients, likely due to their greater ratio of liv...

A 100-Hz bone-conducted vibration applied to either mastoid induces instantaneously a predominantly horizontal nystagmus, with quick phases beating away from the affected side in patients with a unilateral vestibular loss (UVL). The same stimulus in healthy asymptomatic subjects has little or no effect. This is skull vibration-induced nystagmus (SVIN), and it is a useful, simple, non-invasive, ...

Two experiments are reported examining the impact of recipients’ mood on the processing of simple, everyday persuasive communications andon subsequent behaviour. Consistent with the general assumption that affective states may inform an individual about the state of its current environment, it was found that positive (as compared to neutral or negative) mood reduced subjects’ motivation to syst...