Most commentators on the stigma assodated with epilepsy have assumed that the psycho-social distress sufferers experience derives wholly or largely from the discriminatory attitudes and behaviour of normal people. This 'orthodox viewpoint' is assessed and found to be lacking in empirical support. A study of the impact of epilepsy upon the lives of sufferers is reported, special attention being paid to coping strategies developed in the family and at work. A distinction between 'enacted' and 'felt' stigma is introduced and utilized in the generation of a new model of people's responses to 'being epileptic' which appears to have more explanatory power than the orthodox viewpoint.

As the number of elderly and high risk patients subjected to the procedure increases, the number of cardiopulmonary complications rises in parallel.3 Sedation techniques are probably responsible for some of the medical complications seen, but operator inexperience, and lack of monitoring may also be important. This audit has been designed to investigate how often problems occur at the time of upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and for a 30 day period after the procedure, and to explore common variables in endoscopy practice when such complications occur. The audit has included all flexible diagnostic and therapeutic fibreoptic upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and has excluded rigid oesophagoscopy and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. It is hoped that the findings of this study will encourage endoscopists to examine their own practices and thus reduce complication rates associated with endoscopy.

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In many tissues, the presence of stem cells is inferred by the capacity of the tissue to maintain homeostasis and undergo repair after injury. Isolation of self-renewing cells with the ability to generate the full array of cells within a given tissue strongly supports this idea, but the identification and genetic manipulation of individual stem cells within their niche remain a challenge. Here we present novel methods for marking and genetically altering epithelial follicle stem cells (FSCs) within the Drosophila ovary. Using these new tools, we define a sequential multistep process that comprises transitioning of FSCs from quiescence to proliferation. We further demonstrate that integrins are cell-autonomously required within FSCs to provide directional signals that are necessary at each step of this process. These methods may be used to define precise roles for specific genes in the sequential events that occur during FSC division after a period of quiescence.

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