【正文】 intervening within seconds. These devices take on a range of functions, such as that of pacemaker. Heart specialists at Freiburg’s University Clinic have now achieved a breakthrough with an implanted defibrillator capable of generating a sixchannel electrocardiogram (ECG) within the body. This integrated system allows early diagnosis of acute bloodflow problems and a pending heart attack. It will be implanted in patients for the first time this year. Meanwhile, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Mathematics in Kaiserslautern have developed new puter software that renders of ECG data more precise. The overwhelming majority of patients at risk will not have an implanted defibrillator and must for this reason undergo regular ECGs. “Many of the current programs only get into account a linear correlation of the data. We are, however, making use in a nonlinear process that reveals the chaotic patterns of heart beats as an open and plex system,” Hagen Knaf says, “In this way changes in the heart beats over time can be monitored and individual variations in patients taken into account.” An old study of ECG data, based upon 600 patients who had suffered a subsequent heart attack, enabled the researchers to pare risks and to show that the new software evaluates the data considerably better. *14 Homosexuals Many homosexuals prefer to be called gay or, for women, lesbian. Most of them live quiet lives just like anyone else. Some gay people have always raised children, alone or with partners, and the use of artificial insemination is increasing among lesbians. Gay persons are in every kind of job. Some are very open about their homosexuality, and some are more private. Some view their sexual orientation as a biological given and others as a choice. For those women who see it as a choice, one reason often given is the inequality in most heterosexual relationships. Homosexuality has been mon in most cultures throughout history and generally condemned. As a result, homosexual activity became a crime, for which the penalty in early courts was death. Homosexual behavior is still illegal in many countries and . states. Homosexuality later came to be viewed widely as less a sin than a sickness, but now no mentalhealth profession any longer considers homosexuality an illness. More recent theories to account for homosexuality have included those based on biological and sociological factors. To date, however, there is no conclusive general theory that can explain the cause of homosexuality. Attitudes toward homosexuality began to change in the second half of the 20th century. Gays attribute this, in part, to their own struggle for their rights and pride in their orientation. Some large panies now extend healthcare benefits to the life partners of their gay employees. Many cities also have officially appointed lesbian and gay advisory mittees. While some attitudes have changed, however, prejudice still exists, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s there were considerable shouts against homosexuals, with attempts to pass laws forbidding the granting of basic civil rights to gays. The AIDS epidemic, which started in the 1980s, has devastated the gay munity and brought it together as never before. The anized gay response to the lack of government financial support for fighting AIDS and to the needs of the thousands of AIDS victims, whether they be gays or not, has been a model of munity action. AIDS, however, has also provided people with another reason for their prejudice. *15 Is Your Child39。m on, as far as the vitamins, the diet, and the fitness. And I can39。 20 percent to 40 percent of the men rated it as severe, pared to 61 percent of women Men who reported experiencing domestic violence had more emotional and mental health problems than those who had not, especially older men, the researchers found. *6 Oncedaily Pill Could Simplify HIV Treatment BristolMyers Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences have bined many HIV drugs into a single pill Sometimes the best medicine is more than one kind of medicine. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS,2 for example, are all treated with binations of drugs. But that can mean a lot of pills to take. It would be simpler if drug panies bined all the medicines into a single pill, taken just once a day. Now, two panies say they have done that for people just starting treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The panies are BristolMyers Squibb and Gilead Sciences. They have developed a single pill that bines three drugs currently on the BristolMyers Squibb sells one of them under the name of Gilead bined the others, Emtriva and Viread, into a single pill in two thousand four. Combining drugs involves more than technical issues. It also involves issues of petition if the drugs are made by different panies. The new oncedaily pill is the result of what is described as the first joint venture agreement of its kind in the treatment of HIV In January the New England Journal of Medicine5 published a study of the new pill. Researchers pared its effectiveness to6 that of the widely used bination of Sustiva and Combivir. Combivir contains two drugs, AZT7 and The researchers say that after one year of treatment, the new pill suppressed HIV levels in more patients and with fewer side Gilead paid for the study. Professor Joel Gallant at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, led the research. He is a paid adviser to Gilead and BristolMeyers Squibb as well as the maker of Combivir, GlaxoSmithKline. Glaxo Smith Kline reacted to the findings by saying that a single study is of limited value. It says the effectiveness of Combivir has been shown in each of more than fifty studies. The price of the new oncedaily pill has not been