OBJECTIVE: We compared patients with chronic schizophrenia and normal controls with respect to decision-making ability. Measures were implemented to control for the participants' intelligence levels as well as to ensure to use of a moderate sample size. The goal of this study was to confirm inconsistent results from previous studies which had stemmed from too small of a sample size, highly variable performance of normal controls, and not controlling for intelligence as a confounding factor. METHODS: Fifty-two chronic stable schizophrenic inpatients and 55 healthy controls participated in the study. We controlled for intelligence by including subjects with intelligence quotient's (IQ) between 80 and 120, examining any differences in decision-making performance between groups on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). We also addressed several issues relating to performance on the IGT, such as working memory and clinical symptoms. RESULTS: Schizophrenic patients were found to perform poorly on the IGT relative to normal controls (F(1,105)=17.73, p<0.001); however, more importantly, they also displayed the slow yet profitable shift from disadvantageous decks to advantageous decks over time. We also found that when compared with healthy controls, schizophrenic patients showed a poorer performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST)(t=-5.48, p<0.001 for perseverative error) which was not related to their performance on the IGT. CONCLUSION: Based on previous literature and the results of this study, impaired sensitivity to both reward and punishment might be a more plausible explanation for the poor performance on the IGT in the schizophrenic group. We speculated that this impairment seemed related more to the different responsiveness to the magnitude than to the frequency of punishment, and to the different interpretation of less informative verbal cues in the context of the reinforcing schedule.
Appointments and Schedules ; Cues ; Dietary Sucrose ; Gambling ; Humans ; Inpatients ; Intelligence ; Iowa ; Memory, Short-Term ; Punishment ; Reward ; Sample Size ; Schizophrenia ; Wisconsin

PURPOSE: Knee IVIR images were repeatedly obtained after intravenous administration of gadopentetate dimeglumine to evaluate the arthrographic effect and to determine the optimal scan timing and technique. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sagittal Tl-weighted (650/15) sequences were repeated before and after intravenous gadolinium enhancement in 26 patients who were divided into exercise (14/26) and nonexercise (12/26) groups. Fourteen patients in exercise group were allowed to move the affected knee joint actively for 10 minutes immediately after the first post-enhancement scan and before repeating scans. The signal intensities in central and peripheral portions of the joint were measured and compared between these two groups. RESULTS: In all cases, enhancement of joint fluid began at peripheral portion and progressed toward central portion. The diffusion rate in exercise group was far faster than that in nonexercise group and homogeneous arthrographic image was revealed within 10 minutes after completion of joint movement. The arthrographic effect continued and the rate of signal decrease was quite slow. CONCLUSION: MR arthrographic image of knee joint can be obtained within 10 minutes after completion of a few minute exercise following intravenous injection of gadopentetate dimeglumine. Intravenous MR arthrography is expected to become an useful method as a convenient alternative to direct MR arthrography.
Administration, Intravenous ; Arthrography* ; Diffusion ; Gadolinium ; Gadolinium DTPA ; Humans ; Injections, Intravenous ; Joints ; Knee Joint ; Knee*

PURPOSE: To report a case of bacterial keratitis caused by Hafnia alvei after using a contact lens in a patient with graft-versus-host disease. CASE SUMMARY: A 47-year-old male patient presented with a corneal ulcer. The patient had been wearing a therapeutic contact lens for a month because of severe dry eye syndrome and filament removal due to filamentary keratitis. The patient had been taking moxifloxacin to prevent infection, but had not for the previous 7 days. The corneal ulcer occurred at the 11 o'clock direction in the peripheral cornea accompanied by corneal epithelial defect and stromal infiltration. The corneal scraping and culture yielded Hafnia alvei, which is susceptible to ceftazidime, levofloxacin and moxifloxacin. There was no systemic signs or symptoms to suspect systemic infection. After treatment with a topical antibiotic agent, the patient's eye condition improved with only mild corneal opacity remaining. CONCLUSIONS: Hafnia alvei infection rarely occurs in humans but should be considered as a potential causal pathogen in immunosuppressed patients.
Aza Compounds ; Ceftazidime ; Cornea ; Corneal Opacity ; Corneal Ulcer ; Dry Eye Syndromes ; Eye ; Graft vs Host Disease ; Hafnia ; Hafnia alvei ; Humans ; Keratitis ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Ofloxacin ; Quinolines

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the results of AdvancedSurface Ablation (ASA) coupled with "smoothing" to smoothen ablation surface after covering masking fluid. METHODS: ASA was performed in 48 eyes that had myopic refractive error. The case with ablation depth over 100 microm was assigned into subgroup. Mean refractive error was -5.71 +/- 1.25D and mean ablation depth was 101.74 +/- 11.15 microm. Smoothing was performed in all patients (mean time 15.59 +/- 1.34 seconds, mean diameter 8.60 +/- 0.21 mm). RESULTS: Mean refractive error was -0.16 +/- 0.42D, -0.30 +/- 0.40D at postoperative 3 and 6 months. 92% and 96% of patients had an uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) of 1.0 or better at postoperative 3 and 6 months, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in magnitude of high order aberrations at postoperative 6 months. Cornea was maintained clear in the majority. CONCLUSIONS: Excellent results were obtained by ASA coupled with "smoothing" in high myopia patients. And subgroup with ablation depth over 100 microm was also obtained satisfactory results.
Cornea ; Eye ; Humans ; Masks ; Myopia ; Refractive Errors ; Visual Acuity

Recently completed mitochondrial genome databses from public resources provide us with a better understanding of individual mitochondrial genomes for population genomics. By determining the substitution rate of the genomic sequences, it is plausible to derive dates on the phylogenetic tree and build a chronology of events in the evolution of human species. MitGEN is specially designed as a mitochondrial genome browser for analyzing, comparing and visualizing single nucleotide polymorphism for human mitochondrial genomes between human races for comparative genomics.It is a standalone application and is available free for non-commercial work.
Computational Biology ; Continental Population Groups ; Genome, Mitochondrial* ; Humans* ; Metagenomics ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide*

No abstract available.
Humans ; Hyperplasia* ; Infant*

We report a case of nevus sebaceus associated with sebaceous epithelioma and basal cell epithelioma in a 48-year-old male patient. A 2.6 x 2.0cm orange-yellow erosive tumor and 1.5 x 1.0cm, l.0 x 0.8cm dark blue-yellow varigated nodules were intimately associated with a 4 x 3cm sized yellowish verrucous plaque on the parieto-occipital area of the scalp. Biopsy revealed sebaccous epithelioma, basal cell epithelioma and nevus sebaceus, respectively.
Biopsy ; Carcinoma* ; Carcinoma, Basal Cell* ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nevus* ; Scalp

In this paper, we propose 2D segmentation algorithm for 3D visualization using CT bone images. Kmeans algorithm and thresholding method are traditional methods that can detect human bone. But the noise appeared on segmented images generated by both Kmeans algorithm and thresholding method. To detect bone cluster, the two assumptions are considered, they are as follows; first, pixels that have high intensity can be merged into bone cluster. Secondly, because a bone cluster consists of large or small group, the ambiguous pixels can be merged into bone cluster by estimating segmentation function. With the proposed FSTB(Flexible Segmentation To Boundary) algorithm the noise didn't appeared on segmented CT bone images and the algorithm carried out effective segmentation to the ambiguous pixels.
Humans ; Noise

We experienced a case of a 30 year-old male with hyperlipoproteinemia associated with xanthoma tuberosum and xanthoma striatum palmare. The laboratory findings showed increased serum cholesterol and triglyceride on lipid profile, and widening of prep band on elec1rophoresis of lipoprotein. The biopsy specimens of orange yellow colored nodules on the elbow and yellow streaks on the palrnar creases showed characteristic findings of xanthoma. He had been treated with gempibrozil(lopid) for 1 month.
Adult ; Biopsy ; Cholesterol ; Citrus sinensis ; Elbow ; Humans ; Hyperlipoproteinemia Type IV* ; Hyperlipoproteinemias ; Lipoproteins ; Male ; Triglycerides ; Xanthomatosis*

The "flosting knee" is the term applied to the flail knee joint segment resulting from a fracture of the shaft of adiacent metanhysis of the ipsilateralfemur and tibia. The various methods of treatment of the "floating knee" were adapted by many authors according to degree of the comminution, degree of the soft tissue injury, general condition state of the fracture. Authors experienced the floating knee in 52 cases on 51 patients who were treated at Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital in the period of 4 years and 5 months from January 1985 to June 1989 and among them, 45 cases were treated by operative method and 7 cases by conservative methods at least one of the femur and tibia, The results were as follews;1. Floating Knee occured six times more in male and the peak age was third and fourth decades. 2. The most common cause of fractures was traffie aecident and there was difficulty in diagnosis of ligamentous disruption of the ipsilateral knee. 3. The common fracture site were middle one third and the most common fracture shape was comminuted in both femur and tibia. 4. A good or excellent functional result was aohieved in treated with open reduction and rigid fixation of both fracture and there were no significant difference in group of the internal fixation of both femur and tibia. 5. Intramedullary nailing on the femur and plate fixation on the tibia provided rigid fixation of fracture and the it made possible early joint motion exercise and ambulation and the average healing time of fracuture was much shortened. 6. The most common concomitant injury were soft tissue injury and delayed or nonuion and osteomyelitis were developed more frequently in the plate and screw fixation group of the open fracture.
Clinical Study ; Diagnosis ; Femur ; Fracture Fixation, Intramedullary ; Fractures, Open ; Humans ; Joints ; Knee ; Knee Joint ; Ligaments ; Male ; Methods ; Osteomyelitis ; Soft Tissue Injuries ; Tibia ; Walking