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Serum galactomannan antigen detection was used for the diagnosis and follow-up of cardiac aspergillosis after surgery in 2 nonneutropenic patients. The galactomannan index, developed in response to surgical and antifungal therapies, could prove to be a valuable method for the diagnosis and follow-up of fungal infections in such patients.

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The purpose of this paper is to describe a new sodium nitroprusside infusion controller. The algorithm uses a fuzzy logic and rule-based procedure as a means of capturing human expertize and dealing with uncertainty. This method is combined with an optimal dosage search algorithm. Closed loop control was tested with 30 dogs. A 30% decrease from basal pressure was performed during 4 hours as part of the protocol. During the last hour of control, animals underwent different types of perturbation (hypovolemia, noradrenalin infusion, change of nitroprusside concentration,etc), in order to prove the adaptability to system changes. The degree of control achieved was considered succesfull, even during the perturbation period, mantaining most of the time (90% of test time) the mean arterial blood pressure values within a narrow predefined margin ( 5 mmHg). INTRODUCTIONSeveral algorithms have been developed, for SNP blood pressure control [I]. Traditionally, analytical control schemes have been used, such as PID, Selftuning Control, model based algorithms, etc [ 2 , 31. In contrast with these purely quantitative methods, "Fuzzy" logic theory, originally advocated by Zadeh [ 4 1 , makes it possible a qualitative analysis, apparently very adequate for the handling of complex and hardly definible systems, which cannot easily accept a precise mathematical approach.Our work was to develop a SNP blood pressure controller. A Control algorithm has been implemented, which incorporates "Fuzzy" logic elements, combined with an analytical optimal search methodology, for dose infusion computation.