Link between heart disease, cholesterol, and Alzheimer's disease: a review

Increased prevalence of Alzheimer's disease-like beta-amyloid deposits in the neuropil and within neurons occurs in the brains of non-demented individuals with heart disease. Heart disease is a prevalent finding in Alzheimer's disease, and may be a forerunner to the dementing disorder. In the cholesterol-fed rabbit model of human coronary heart disease there is production and accumulation of beta-amyloid in the brain. This accumulation of beta-amyloid can be reversed by removing cholesterol from the rabbits' diet. In culture cells, a cholesterol challenge has been shown to increase production of beta-amyloid, and dramatic reductions of cholesterol produced by HMG Co-A reductase inhibitors decrease production of beta-amyloid. Increased beta-amyloid production is also produced by dietary cholesterol in a number of transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. Administration of HMG Co-A reductase inhibitors may block beta-amyloid production caused by dietary cholesterol in rabbits. Clinical trials testing the benefit of HMG Co-A reductase inhibitors in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease are underway.     

Edge-guided boundary delineation in prostate ultrasound images

Accurate detection of prostate boundaries is required in many diagnostic and treatment procedures for prostate disease. In this paper, a new paradigm for guided edge delineation is described, which involves presenting automatically detected prostate edges as a visual guide to the observer, followed by manual editing. This approach enables robust delineation of the prostate boundaries, making it suitable for routine clinical use. The edge-detection algorithm is comprised of three stages. An algorithm called sticks is used to enhance contrast and at the same time reduce speckle in the transrectal ultrasound prostate image. The resulting image is further smoothed using an anisotropic diffusion filter. In the third stage, some basic prior knowledge of the prostate, such as shape and echo pattern, is used to detect the most probable edges describing the prostate. Finally, patient-specific anatomic information is integrated during manual linking of the detected edges. The algorithm was tested on 125 images from 16 patients. The performance of the algorithm was statistically evaluated by employing five expert observers. Based on this study, we found that consistency in prostate delineation increases when automatically detected edges are used as visual guide during outlining, while the accuracy of the detected edges was found to be at least as good as those of the human observers. The use of edge guidance for boundary delineation can also be extended to other applications in medical imaging where poor contrast in the images and the complexity in the anatomy limit the clinical usability of fully automatic edge-detection techniques.     

A design for low-flow sheathless electrospray emitters

An extremely simple design has been developed for producing durable sheathless electrospray emitters that give highly stable electrospray for unlimited lifetimes. The emitters can be fashioned from any style fused-silica capillary and are ideally suited for generating "all-in-one" microcolumn-emitter systems thus eliminating unwanted void volumes. The emitters give stable electrospray at low (30 nL/min) as well as high (1 mL/min) flow rates without the aid of nebulizing gas. Fabrication of these emitters (aka the "fairy dust" technique) does not involve the use of a metallized coating but rather the adherance of 2-μm gold particles to the capillary tip resulting in a robust approach to the problem of making an electrical contact with the electrospray solvent.     

Radiative, collisional, and predissociative effects in CH laser-induced-fluorescence flame thermometry

Laser-induced fluorescence of the CH radical is used to determine the flame-front temperature of an 8-Torr premixed CH(4)/O(2) flame. The A (2)D-X (2)Delta (0, 0) and B (2)Sigma- - X (2)II (0, 0) bands give values of 1960 +/- 60 and 1920 +/- 70 K, respectively. This is an improvement over a previous study that found discrepancies up to 20% between these bands. New rotational-level-dependent transition probabilities are the main reason for this improvement. The weaker off-diagonal bands A-X (0, 1) and B-X (0, 1) yield temperatures of 1930 +/- 90 and 1830 +/- 100 K, respectively. The influence of rotational transfer on the predissociated levels that have N' > in B (2)Sigma-, v'= 0 was investigated with fluorescence scans and a statistical power-gap law model of the relaxation; deviations up to 8% in temperature can occur because of this process.     

Spatiotemporal phase unwrapping for the measurement of discontinuous objects in dynamic fringe-projection phase-shifting profilometry

A spatiotemporal phase-unwrapping method is presented that combines the dynamic fringe-projection method and the phase-shifting technique and extends the phase-unwrapping method, which measures two phase maps at different sensitivities. The most important feature of the method is that it makes possible the automatic three-dimensional shape measurement of discontinuous objects with large dynamic range limits and high precision because the effective wavelength of the fringe-projection profilometry can be continuously varied over several orders of magnitude by rotation of the projection grating in its own plane. Only one grating and several steps of rotating the grating are required; therefore the method is inherently simple, fast, and robust. In the experiment, choosing the rotation angle was crucial for optimizing the measurement speed and the measurement accuracy. A criterion is presented for the choice of the minimum number of rotational steps for a given accuracy. The experimental results demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.     

Rotational superposition: a review of methods

Rotational superposition is one of the most commonly used algorithms in molecular modelling. Many different methods of solving superposition have been suggested. Of these, methods based on the quaternion parameterization of rotation are fast, accurate, and robust. Quaternion parameterization-based methods cannot result in rotation inversion and do not have special cases such as co-linearity or co-planarity of points. Thus, quaternion parameterization-based methods are the best choice for rotational superposition applications.     

Survey of shell egg processing plant sanitation programs: effects on non-egg-contact surfaces

To successfully implement a hazard analysis critical control point plan, prerequisite programs are essential. Sanitation standard operating procedures are an important part of such a plan and can reduce contamination levels so that food safety and quality are not adversely affected. Noncontact surfaces in the shell egg processing plants can serve as a reservoir of cross-contamination. The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of sanitation programs used in a variety of shell egg processing facilities (in-line, off-line, and mixed operations). Fourteen different noncontact surfaces were sampled in nine commercial facilities across the southeastern United States. Non-egg-contact surfaces were defined as those where the shell egg does not come into direct contact with the surface or with the fluid from that surface. Gauze pads soaked in sterile phosphate-buffered saline were used for sampling at the end of a processing day (POST) and again the next morning prior to operations (PRE). Aerobic plate counts (APCs) and numbers of Enterobacteriaceae were determined. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were found between POST and PRE counts for either population recovered from the 14 sampling sites. Only samples from the floor under the farm belts, nest-run loader, washers, and packer heads were reduced by 1 log CFU/ml of rinsate for APCs or Enterobacteriaceae counts. APCs of more than 10(4) CFU/ml of rinsate were recovered from many samples. Highest APCs were found on the floor under the farm belt and on shelves of the nest-run carts. High APCs were found on the wheel surface for off-line carts and on the loading dock floor. Highest Enterobacteriaceae counts were found in samples from the floor, drain, and nest-run egg cart shelves. A lack of significant difference between POST and PRE counts indicates that current sanitation programs could be improved. These data suggest that traffic patterns for the movement of eggs and materials through the plant should be reevaluated so that cross-contamination is reduced.