Actual and perceived social isolation are both associated with increased risk for early mortality. In this meta-analytic review, our objective is to establish the overall and relative magnitude of social isolation and loneliness and to examine possible moderators. We conducted a literature search of studies (January 1980 to February 2014) using MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Social Work Abstracts, and Google Scholar. The included studies provided quantitative data on mortality as affected by loneliness, social isolation, or living alone. Across studies in which several possible confounds were statistically controlled for, the weighted average effect sizes were as follows: social isolation odds ratio (OR) = 1.29, loneliness OR = 1.26, and living alone OR = 1.32, corresponding to an average of 29%, 26%, and 32% increased likelihood of mortality, respectively. We found no differences between measures of objective and subjective social isolation. Results remain consistent across gender, length of follow-up, and world region, but initial health status has an influence on the findings. Results also differ across participant age, with social deficits being more predictive of death in samples with an average age younger than 65 years. Overall, the influence of both objective and subjective social isolation on risk for mortality is comparable with well-established risk factors for mortality.

Results suggested that the prognosis for paraplegic dogs without DPP because of trauma was guarded, while dogs with disk herniation had a better chance of recovering motor function. A third of the dogs that recovered motor function had intermittent incontinence. Persistent loss of DPP did not preclude recovery of motor function, but such dogs remained incontinent.

Emerging technology now exists to digitize a gigabyte of information from a glass slide, save it in a highly compressed file format, and deliver it over the web. By accessing these images with a standard web browser and viewer plug-in, a computer can emulate a real microscope and glass slide. Using this new technology, the immediate aims of our project were to digitize the glass slides from urinary tract, male genital, and endocrine units and implement them in the Spring 2000 Histology course at the University of Iowa, and to carry out a formative evaluation of the virtual slides of these three units in a side-by-side comparison with the regular microscope laboratory. The methods and results of this paper will describe the technology employed to create the virtual slides, and the formative evaluation carried out in the course. Anat Rec (New Anat) 265:10 -14, 2001.

Chondrodystrophoid breeds of dog are prone to explosive herniation of mineralized disc material into the thoracolumbar spinal canal. The resulting acute spinal cord injury may represent an excellent spontaneous model of acute traumatic spinal cord injury. The aims of this study were to quantify the recovery of dogs following acute disc herniations, to evaluate external factors that influence recovery, and to identify a group of dogs suitable for use in clinical trials on neuroprotective drugs. The gait of 88 dogs with thoracolumbar disc herniations was scored at the time of injury and 2, 4, and 12 weeks after surgical decompression. Dogs were placed into four groups dependent on the severity of presenting signs; dogs in group 1 had the most severe injury severity. Group 1 dogs showed a variable but incomplete recovery by 12 weeks. Dogs in groups 2 and 3 recovered uniformly but more completely, while dogs in group 4 made a rapid and excellent recovery and were deemed unsuitable for clinical trials. Combining dogs in groups 1, 2 and 3 produced a population of dogs with incomplete recovery by 12 weeks. Power analysis revealed that 87 such dogs would be needed per treatment group to detect a 20% change in function with a power of 95%. The number needed reduced drastically to 19 by eliminating dogs in group 1, but this produced less room for functional improvement. External factors did not appear to influence outcome. We conclude that dogs with spontaneous disc herniations provide a useful model of acute spinal cord injury for clinical trials.

The use of adjuvant molecules that have the ability to restore the susceptibility of multi-drug resistant bacteria, such as MRSA, to clinically available antibiotics is a promising alternative to the development of novel antimicrobials. We report an extremely potent small molecule that, at sub-MIC levels, lowers the MIC of oxacillin against a number of MRSA strains by up to 512-fold. Preliminary mechanistic investigations indicate that the VraSR two-component system plays a role in the activity of this compound.