HRP 214: Homework due Feb 7
Revise the following paragraphs for clarity and readability:
Our findings agree with the results of other studies that have evaluated the efficacy of treating RSV-associated respiratory tract infections with ribavirin and corticosteroids in preventing progressive decline in lung allograft function [10,20]. Although the declines in FEV1 among our patients were less pronounced when compared with these studies, the recovery of FEV1 followed a similar pattern. The smaller FEV1 declines at the time of infection in our study may have resulted from the identification of RSV- and PIV-infections at an earlier stage, before progression to the lower respiratory tract. Oral and intravenous ribavirin formulations, used in these studies, may be equally effective as a component of our treatment protocol and could increase ease of use; however, they may also be associated with additional side effects [16]. Although some report that inhaled ribavirin is difficult to tolerate, during treatment our patients had no evidence of respiratory distress.
Large earthquakes along a given fault segment do not occur at random intervals because it takes time to accumulate the strain energy for the rupture. The rates at which tectonic plates move and accumulate strain at their boundaries are approximately uniform. Therefore, in first approximation, one may expect that large ruptures of the same fault segment will occur at approximately constant time intervals. If subsequent main shocks have different amounts of slip across the fault, then the recurrence time may vary, and the basic idea of periodic mainshocks must be modified. For great plate boundary ruptures the length and slip often vary by a factor of 2. Along the southern segment of the San Andreas fault the recurrence interval is 145 years with variations of several decades. The smaller the standard deviation of the average recurrence interval, the more specific could be the long term prediction of a future mainshock.