Bilateral lateral geniculitis associated with severe diarrhea

PURPOSE: We examined a 28-year-old woman who developed incongruous binasal and bitemporal visual field defects one week after having a febrile gastroenteritis characterized by severe diarrhea while traveling in Mexico. METHODS: The patient was treated with intravenous methylprednisolone sodium succinate, 1 g daily for three days, followed by an eight-week course of oral prednisone. RESULTS: Neuroradiologic examination demonstrated bilaterally increased signal intensity within the lateral geniculate bodies. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis disclosed isolated protein increase. CONCLUSION: Severe diarrhea may be associated with an aseptic bilateral lateral geniculitis resulting in hourglass-shaped visual fields. Corticosteroid therapy may provide mild improvement.     

Disclosure of traumas and immune function: Health implications for psychotherapy.

Can psychotherapy reduce the incidence of health problems? A general model of psychosomatics assumes that inhibiting or holding back one's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is associated with long-term stress and disease. Actively confronting upsetting experiences—through writing or talking—is hypothesized to reduce the negative effects of inhibition. Fifty healthy undergraduates were assigned to write about either traumatic experiences or superficial topics for 4 consecutive days. Two measures of cellular immune-system function and health center visits suggested that confronting traumatic experiences was physically beneficial. The implications for psychotherapy as a preventive treatment for health problems are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context effects in Stroop-like word and picture processing.

Presents a series of 6 experiments in which Stroop-like effects were generated by modally pure color–color, picture–picture, and word–word stimuli instead of the usual modally mixed color–word or picture–word stimuli. Naming, reading, and categorization tasks were applied. The Stroop inhibition was preserved with these stimuli but unexpectedly showed a semantic gradient only in the naming and not in the reading task. Word categorizing was slower and more interference prone than picture categorizing. These and other results can be captured by a model with two main assumptions: (a) semantic memory and the lexicon are separate, and (b) words have privileged access to the lexicon, whereas pictures and colors have privileged access to the semantic network. Such a model is developed and put to an initial test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strenge Berechnung der elektronenoptischen Aberrationskurven eines typischen Magnetfeldes

Zusammenfassung In der Arbeit sind für das magnetische AbbildungsfeldH=H ₀/[1+(z/a)²], welches den typischen Feldverlauf gut wiedergibt, wie er in den Objektiven des Übermiskroskops nach Ruska und v. Borries und Konstruktionen ähnlicher Bauart vorhanden ist, sphärische Aberration, isotrope und anisotrope Koma, Verzeichnung, Astigmatismus meridionaler und sagittaler Bildfeldradius als Funktion des Systemparametersk ²=e H ₀ a ²/8m U und von Ding- und Blendenort streng berechnet worden. Die Blendenorte, für welche eine der angeführten Bildfehlerkonstanten verschwindet, wurden bestimmt.     

Phospholipid regulation of a cyclic AMP-specific phosphodiesterase (PDE4) from U937 cells

The regulation of phosphodiesterase-4 (PDE4) by various phospholipids was explored using PDE4s partially purified from U937 cells. Preincubation (5 min, 4 degrees C) of the large molecular weight PDE4 denoted "Peak 2 PDE4" with mixed phosphatidic acids (PAs) produced a 2-fold increase in its Vmax without changing its Km (approximately 2 microM) for cyclic AMP. This "activation" was not limited to PAs with specific fatty acid substituents: Synthetic PAs containing saturated and/or unsaturated fatty acids 16-20 carbons long produced similar effects. Lysophosphatidic acids (LPAs) and phosphatidylserines (PSs) also induced PDE4 activation, whereas phosphatidylcholines (PCs), phosphatidylethanolamines (PEs) and diacylglycerol did not. Antibodies to a peptide region near the PDE4 catalytic site specifically inhibited PA-induced activation. The data demonstrate that anionic phospholipids can act as non-essential activators of a leukocyte PDE4, and suggest biochemical crosstalk between phospholipid-dependent and cyclic AMP-dependent signalling pathways in human leukocytes.     

Characterization and oxidation behavior of MTCVD Ti–B–N coatings

In this work, Ti–B–N coatings have been prepared by moderate temperature chemical vapor deposition (MTCVD). The effect of a varying boron concentrations (9.6 and 55.4 at.%) on the chemical composition and the oxidation behavior was investigated by XRD, SEM, WDS, XPS and Raman spectroscopy. The results clearly demonstrate a good correlation between the different techniques. The same transition trends were observed in the examined Ti–B–N system in the progression from TiN to TiB₂ by the addition of boron. At boron concentrations ≥ 18 at.%, the coatings reveal a two phase structure comprising a nanocrystalline TiN phase embedded in an amorphous TiB₂ matrix. In Ti–B–N coatings with boron concentrations ≤ 18 at.%, the high sensitivity of Raman spectroscopy enabled the identification of an amorphous TiB phase.The oxidation behavior of Ti–B–N coatings was found to be affected by the boron concentration as well. Boron concentrations ≤ 18 at.% improve the thermal stability compared to TiN, most likely due to the TiB phase present in these coatings. Ti–B–N coatings with a high boron concentration show a higher degree of oxidation compared to TiN manifested in a higher oxide layer thickness. In addition, these coatings tend to form boron oxides on their surface, which lead to the formation of metastable anatase rather than the thermodynamically stable rutile.