everal years ago, a patient startled me by saying, “I never thought that I’d think of asthma as a friend. Now it really is. I was on heavy medication and frequently had to go the emergency room. It was out of control. Now I do carry an inhaler, but ‘if seems to bother me, I know it is because I’m getting out of control-overdoing it, not eating right or resting, not clearing an argument with fam...

Nephrotic syndrome is an uncommon complication of tetralogy of Fallot and has been rarely reported in pediatric population. We describe a 4-year-old female Congolese child who was referred for investigation for persistent dyspnea, edema, and cyanosis and nephrotic range proteinuria. Our patient presented with a tetralogy of Fallot and nephrotic syndrome. Conclusion. This case reminds us that ch...

In the movie, “Dumb and Dumber,” Lloyd demonstrates how a person can hear what someone is saying without listening to what that person is saying. Lloyd’s lack of listening skills prevent him from understanding the other person’s point of view. Lloyd does not know he is a poor listener. The combination of these two deficits creates entertaining interpersonal conflicts. We laugh at Lloyd because ...

1. “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured f...

We herein report a case of unsuturable tracheoesophageal fistula developed after chemotherapy of a mediastinal lymphoma. Esophageal exclusion was primary performed to prevent continued contamination of the respiratory tract. In a second stage procedure the fistula was patched with the esophageal posterior wall and the digestive tract was restored by a substernal colic bypass. This case leads to...

"I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize and which we seek to convey by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring," wrote Vincent van Gogh in one of his celebrated letters. Hundreds of these were written mostly to his brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris who provided him with financial and emotional support throughout his brief b...

The case of a 13-year-old girl given permission by the Family Court of Australia to begin a sex-change process involves complex issues. Nevertheless, the ethical justification for the decision is not complicated. In this case, it can be argued that the net benefit eclipses concerns about competence, autonomy and the appropriateness of the intervention. The debate this case generated in the medi...

The issue of synchronization has been analyzed from many points of view since it was first described in 17th century. Nowadays the theory that stands behind it is so developed, it might be difficult to understand where it all comes from. This paper reminds the key concepts of synchronization by examination of two coupled Duffing oscillators. It describes also the origins of Duffing equation and...

As information databases we consider all the collections of data records indexed by key-words, stored and delivered by computer systems. In previous research works we demonstrated the interest to design a conceptual model, in the conceptual graphs formalism, and to implement a computational model for information retrieval in large information databases. These models are based on the UMLS knowle...

This paper describes a hands-off therapist robot that assists, encourages, socially interacts, monitors and reminds post-stroke users to use the weaker, stroke-affected limb. We investigate the role of the robot’s personality in the hands-off therapy process, focusing on the relationship between the level of extroversion-introversion of the robot and the user. The experimental results show the ...