No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Methods for detection and control of cancer encompass a large area of today's research. Recent use of granulomas as a model for such detection and control may be a promising field, especially for monitoring tumor antigens and immune responses. These granuloma systems are increasingly becoming vehicles in the study of tumor immunology. Although granulomas may be induced naturally by means of foreign bodies i.e. viral, fungal, or bacterial agents, new methods are being established to produce artificial granuloma systems. These systems include chemical or foreign body implantations followed by tumor vaccine challenges.The research presented here involved the use of a golf ball-induced granuloma for the purpose of establishment of a detection system for immune responses. The use of a golf ball-induced granuloma provided a closed system for monitoring cell-mediated and humoral responses to tumor antigens. Immune responses were monitored by means of hematocrits (packed blood cell counts), white blood cell differential counts, and electrophoretic results.Hematocrit results indicated no great immune response to the closed vaccine injected granuloma systems. Observations made on differential white blood cell counts indicated decreasing neutrophil/lymphocyte ratios for cellular immune responses. Electrophoretic results for granuloma fluids indicated decreases in albumin levels concurrent with increases in peak two, and complete loss of peak three following vaccination. Responses to tumor specific antigens in the form of cell-mediated immune responses are indicated by the results presented in this research. Utilization of the golf ball-induced granuloma system provided a means of separating the cell-mediated and humoral immune responses.Tumor specific antigens elicited various immune responses and provide hope for future identification of tumors by this method. Future development and utilization of the golf ball-induced granuloma system may be potential means of monitoring cell-mediated immune responses to tumor malignancies.

No description available.

There is evidence that a sizeable proportion of adults distrust children's testimony. An analysis of individual expressions of this distrust suggests that it is based on four main ideas. These are that there are age trends in the reliability of children's testimony such that: firstly, the tendency to confabulate, or recall on the basis of what was probable rather than on what was seen, decreases with age; secondly, the tendency to confuse fact with fantasy decreases with age; thirdly, the tendency uncritically to accept misinformation about a witnessed event after the event decreases with age, and finally, susceptibility to social pressures which may distort testimony decreases with age. The experiments reported in this thesis were designed to test these hypotheses. Only the final hypothesis was supported in its simplest form, and even this hypothesis was not supported if subjects had already committed themselves to an account of the details of an event, prior to being exposed to social pressures on these details. These findings suggest that age is an unreliable predictor of distortions in children's event recall, and that problems with children's testimony may be specific to situations rather than to particular age groups. The results of the experiments are compared with traditional ideas about child witnesses, and the idea that it may be possible to enhance the reliability of children's testimony is considered.

Diese Publikation wurde im Rahmen des Seminars Psychometric Methods erstellt. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Lehrveranstaltung, die jedes Semester am Institut für Statistik und Mathematik der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien ­ mit wechselnden thematischen Schwerpunkten ­ abgehalten wird. Im Wintersemester 2009/2010 lag der Fokus auf der Anwendung von Item-Response-Software. Zur Anwendung psychometrischer Methoden steht eine Vielzahl von Programmen zur Verfügung, die jeweils unterschiedliche Verfahren und Modelle anbieten. In diesem Seminar ging es im Wesentlichen darum, einen Überblick über die vorhandene Software zu bekommen, sowie die Stärken und Schwächen der einzelnen Programme herauszuarbeiten. Weiters sollten die Teilnehmer in die Lage versetzt werden, verschiedene psychometrische Modelle bei unterschiedlichen Problemstellungen praktisch anzuwenden. Im Rahmen des Seminars wurden von verschiedenen Teilnehmergruppen jeweils ein bestimmtes Programm vorgestellt. Einerseits wurden die theoretischen Hintergründe und Modelle aufbereitetet und andererseits die jeweiligen Programme mittels Live-Präsentationen von Datenanalysen vorgeführt. Dadurch bekamen alle Beteiligten einen Einblick, welche Modelle in den unterschiedlichen Softwarepaketen umgesetzt sind, wie man sie anwenden und interpretieren kann und auch, wie man praktisch mit ihnen umgeht. Damit die gewonnenen Erfahrungen auch für andere nutzbar werden haben wir die Gruppenbeiträge gesammelt herausgegeben. Die einzelnen Kapitel sollen jeweils eine Brücke zwischen den theoretisch-technischen Aspekten und anwendungsorientierten-praktischen Aspekten der einzelnen Progamme schlagen. Wichtig war uns auch die Auswahl der vorgestellten Softwarepakete, wobei sich der Bogen von etablierten und weitverbreiteten Programmen (z.B. BILOG oder MULTILOG) bis zu eher selten verwendenten Programmen (bspw. GGUM oder ScoRight) spannt. Ohne Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit hoffen wir mit diesem Buch einen Einblick in die wichtigsten Softwarepakete zu geben, wobei wir auf eine verständliche Erklärung theoretischer Hintergründe und möglichst interessante Anwendungsbeispiele großen Wert legten. Unser Ziel war es, interessierten Anwenderinnen und Anwendern eine kleine ,Landkarte' durch den Dschungel verfügbarer IRT- Software bereitzustellen, die zur weiteren Vertiefung anregen soll. Unser Dank gilt den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern des Seminars, die ihre Beiträge mit viel Engagement und Durchhaltevermögen (für nicht wenige war dieser Artikel die erste Begegnung mit LaTeX) verfasst und überarbeitet haben, sodass dieses Werk zustande kommen konnte.(author's abstract) / Series: Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics

A study of the binocular accommodation response is presented for normal and amblyopic observers to selected stimulus conditions using a binocular infra-red optometer and a commercially-available autorefractor. The work reviews the neural control of the near triad and discusses the historical development of models of mutual interaction between accommodation and convergence, presenting experimental evidence to support or refute each proposition. The basic characteristics of the accommodation response are reviewed along with the influencing factors. A central feature of this work is the evaluation of the correlation present between the eyes for both step-wise changes in target vergence and steady-state viewing. Reaction times for visually normal subjects were found to be similar to those found by previous workers and were independent of both size and direction of the step change. Response times for a mean step size of approximately 2.5D exhibited a marked degree of intersubject variability, particularly for the decreasing response and were step-size dependent. Eye dominancy was not found to be a significant factor in the overall response time. The binocular accommodation responses were found to have a high level of correlation to step-wise changes in target vergence. This in, itself, is perhaps not surprising in view of the anatomical similarities between the eyes and the relatively large dioptric changes induced. To obtain a clearer picture of the control of accommodation assessment of the microfluctuations was necessary. A high degree of correlation between amblyopic eyes and their fellow normal eyes is reported for both reaction and response times, although response times are longer than those for normal eyes. Reaction times for four subjects were not significantly different to those of the dominant eye. The subject presenting with the deepest amblyopia did have a significantly increased reaction time and a relationship with minimum angle of resolution is considered. Steady-state viewing shows the microfluctuations to have a high level of coherence, suggesting the control of accommodation to be at or above the point at which the IIIrd nerves are conjoint. Increasing target vergence causes an increase in the rms amplitude of the microfluctuations, binocular viewing not influencing the response characteristics. As target luminance decreased, rms values and low frequency drifts increased. Amblyopic eyes show an increase in the magnitude of the low frequency components of the microfluctuations for moderate to high stimulus vergences. The presence of different behaviour to that observed in normals supports a role for the microfluctuations. The response of amblyopic eyes to coloured stimuli results in an increase of the low frequency component to targets at the extremities of the visual spectrum, furthering the argument for a positive role for the fluctuations. The steady-state response to coloured stimuli differed from that found in normal eyes in that the appropriate response to overcome the chromatic interval was not observed for moderate to high stimulus vergences. The overall anomalous response could not use the additional information provided by coloured targets. Finally the detectibility of defocus was tested with sine waves and using signals derived from the microfluctuations. The threshold of detection for the microfluctuations is similar to that for sine waves, but is thought to be due to the presence of discontinuities and abrupt shifts in the response level. This adds support to Crane's(1966) hypothesis of 'accommodative saccades'.