SUMMARY During an 18 month period, 120 preterm infants of 34 weeks' gestation or less were prospectively examined for periventricular leucomalacia (PVL) by cerebral ultrasound. Neurological and developmental assessment was carried out at 18 months of age corrected for prematurity in 82 surviving neonates. The developmental outcome (Griffiths development quotient) was above 80 and similar in infants with normal scans (n=41), isolated periventricularintraventricular haemorrhage (n=13), and post-haemorrhagic hydrocephalus (n=4), and no major handicap was diagnosed in these groups. By contrast, the prognosis was variable and poorer in infants with PVL (n=24) and depended on the extent and site of the lesion. Infants with frontal PVL (n= 13) developed normally. Major sequelae (n=8) were closely related to frontal-parietal PVL and frontal-parietal-occipital PVL and could be ascribed to the presence of cysts as well as to a persistent hyperechogenic ultrasonographic PVL appearance. A relation between size and site of the lesion and type and severity of the handicap was established.

The Panton-Valentine leukocidin is associated with staphylococcal skin and pulmonary infections. We describe a school outbreak of skin infections and the public health response to it. Nasal carriage of a Panton-Valentine leukocidin–positive Staphylococcus aureus clone was detected only in previously ill classmates and their family members.

In this paper, we propose a honeypot architecture for detecting and analyzing unknown network attacks. The main focus of our approach lies in improving the "significance" of recorded events and network traffic that need to be analyzed by a human network security operator in order to identify a new attacking pattern. Our architecture aims to achieve this goal by combining three main components: 1. a packet filter that suppresses all known attacking packets, 2. a proxy host that performs session-individual logging of network traffic, and 3. a honeypot host that executes actual network services to be potentially attacked from the Internet in a carefully supervised environment and that reports back to the proxy host upon the detection of suspicious behavior. Experiences with our first prototype of this concept show that it is relatively easy to specify suspicious behavior and that traffic belonging to an attack can be successfully identified and marked.

Difficulties with the acceptance of immunization recommendations by physicians have been documented. A recommendation for universal hepatitis B vaccination was published in 1998 for Switzerland. We conducted a qualitative study of pediatricians and family physicians in the fall of 1996 with eight focus groups stratified by region of the country and medical specialty. Sixty-two physicians participated. Most participants felt that universal hepatitis B immunization would be useful. Pediatricians in the French-speaking part of the country were more willing to implement such a recommendation, while family physicians in the German-speaking regions were least willing. Before supporting universal hepatitis B immunization, physicians stated that they need more information about the epidemiology of the infection, the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine, and the perceived high cost of an immunization program. Participants felt that two injections per visit was the maximum tolerable for infants and young children. Many preferred to immunize older children or adolescents against hepatitis B, both because fewer injections are currently recommended at that age and because adolescence is a developmentally appropriate age to address sexuality and drug abuse. Physicians expected the population to be reluctant to accept universal hepatitis B vaccination, partly because of a lack of understanding of the disease and partly because of a feeling that children already receive more than enough immunizations. While the general sentiment for a universal hepatitis B immunization recommendation in Switzerland seems to be positive among physicians, concerns regarding its implementation linger. It remains to be seen how hepatitis B will be perceived in the population, and how willing parents and adolescents will be to get their children and themselves vaccinated. Helping physicians to understand the importance of this measure, in addition to convincing them to immunize their patients, will be an important first step towards achieving sufficient hepatitis B immunization coverage.

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