Cellular glutathione peroxidase is the mediator of body selenium to protect against paraquat lethality in transgenic mice

A case-control study was conducted between 1992 and 1996 in six Italian areas. It included 537 women with colon cancer, 291 women with rectal cancer and 2081 control women in hospital for acute conditions, unrelated to hormonal or gynaecological diseases. A higher age at menopause was associated with increased colon cancer risk (odds ratio (OR) for > or = 53 years compared with < 50 years = 1.39, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.04-1.87). Among parous women, a significant trend of decreasing colon cancer risk with increasing number of births was seen for colon (OR for > or = 4 births compared with 1 birth = 0.62, 95% CI 0.42-0.90), but not for rectal cancer. Nulliparous women, however, were at lower risk than women with a single birth, and age at first birth was directly associated with risk. While oral contraceptive use showed no significant influence, ever users of hormone replacement therapy had a reduced risk of rectal cancer (OR = 0.56, 95% CI 0.31-1.01). Thus, the association of colorectal cancer with reproductive and menstrual factors is neither strong nor consistent.     

Stationary discrete-time covariance factorization using Newton-Raphson iteration

The solution to the problem of factorization of the covariance function of a stationary, discrete-time process is obtained by using a Newton-Raphson procedure which converges quadratically inl ₁ provided the initial iterate is chosen suitably. The existence of a suitable initial iterate is guaranteed by an approximation result. An application to error localization in spectral factorization is suggested.     

Syndromes and arthritis

There are many questions and no clear answers raised by these children. These syndromes, however, seem to be biologic experiments of nature and present unique opportunities to study the various elements involved in the pathogenesis of arthritis. Pediatric rheumatologists are in a unique position to study these syndromes.     

Radiotherapy in stage IIA and IIB testicular seminoma with reduced portals: a prospective multicenter study

PURPOSE: A prospective multicenter study was carried out to estimate the treatment outcome of radiotherapy in Stage II seminoma after the application of modern staging and radiotherapy techniques. The lower margin of the iliac field was positioned on the upper rim of the acetabulum to reduce the amount of scattered irradiation to the remaining testicle. METHODS AND MATERIALS: The study was carried out in 25 centers in Germany. Patients with pure seminoma, negative AFP-values, and retroperitoneal lymph node metastases of less than 5 cm in diameter were entered into the study. All patients received a ventrodorsal opposed field irradiation of the para-aortic and the ipsilateral iliac lymph nodes. The fields extended from the top of the 11th thoracic vertebra to the top of the acetabulum. Patients in Stage IIA (lymph nodes <2 cm ) received 30 Gy, and patients with Stage IIB (lymph nodes between 2 and 5 cm) 36 Gy total dose. RESULTS: 39 patients in Stage IIA and 19 patients in Stage IIB were evaluated. After a median observation time of 37 months all patients are alive and disease free. Recurrence free survival in stage IIA was 100%. Two patients in Stage IIB experienced a recurrence 10 and 17 months after the end of radiotherapy. The actuarial recurrence free survival estimate in Stage IIB was 94.1% for 1 year and 87.4% for 2 years. One recurrence in Stage IIB occurred in the mediastinum, one in the mediastinum, and one the lung. Both patients could be salvaged by chemotherapy. There were no pelvic recurrences. The treatment was well tolerated, with nausea being the most common side effect (56.9% Grade 1, 15.5% Grade 2, and 8.6% Grade 3). Diarrhea occurred in 15.5% (Grade 1), 15.5% (Grade 2), and 5.2% (Grade 3) of the patients. CONCLUSIONS: The outcome of para-aortic and ipsilateral iliac irradiation in Stage IIA/B testicular seminoma is excellent with the currently available staging methods and treatment facilities. The treatment is well tolerated. The lower margin of the iliacal field can be placed at the acetabulum.     

Use of human visual attention cues by olive baboons (Papio anubis) in a competitive task.

The ability of 4 olive baboons (Papio anubis) to use human gaze cues during a competitive food task was investigated. Three baboons used head orientation as a cue, and 1 individual also used eye direction alone. As the baboons did not receive prior training with gestural cuts, their performance suggests that the competitive paradigm may be more appropriate for testing nonhuman primates than the standard object-choice paradigm. However, the baboons were insensitive to whether the experimenter could actually perceive the food item, and therefore the use of visual orientation cues may not be indicative of visual perspective-taking abilities. Performance was disrupted by the introduction of a screen and objects to conceal food items and by the absence of movement in cues presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electron pumping through quantum dots defined in parallel etched quantum wires

We present the first results on electron transport through a tuneable-barrier double quantum dot electron pump. This device could yield twice the current to a single-dot pump previously reported [M.D. Blumenthal, B. Kaestner, L. Li, S. Giblin, , T.J.B.M. Janssen, M. Pepper, D. Anderson, G. Jones, D.A. Ritchie, Gigahertz quantized charge pumping, Nat. Phys. 3 (2007) 343], at the same operating frequency. The two quantum wires forming the device were not sufficiently homogeneous for pumping to be observed through both dots simultaneously, but sufficient homogeneity should be attainable in future batches of devices.     

Database Optimizations for Modern Hardware

Databases are an important workload for modern commodity microarchitectures. Achieving the best performance requires that careful attention be paid to the underlying architecture, including instruction and data cache usage, data layout, branch prediction, and multithreading. Specialized commodity microarchitectures, such as graphics cards and network processors, have also been investigated as effective query coprocessors. This paper presents a survey of recent architecture-sensitive database research. The insights gained from optimizing database performance on modern microarchitectures are also applicable to other domains, particularly those that are similarly data intensive.     

Technological and flavour potential of cultures isolated from traditional Greek cheeses – A pool of novel species and starters

This study explored the microbiota of Formaella, Kopanisti, Feta and Mana cheeses. A total of 133 wild lactic acid bacteria were isolated and classified phenotypically. Mesophilic lactobacilli were the most abundant group. Thermophilic lactobacilli and thermophilic cocci were the best milk acidifiers, whereas thermophilic lactobacilli were the most proteolytic isolates. Higher peptidolytic and esterolytic activities were obtained with thermophilic cocci. Only five isolates were lipolytic, whereas none was able to catabolize citrate. Fast gas chromatography−mass spectrometry analysis of the metabolites produced and subsequent principal components analysis revealed segregated groups of isolates in accordance with the phenotypic ones. Electronic nose analysis revealed similar results. Lactobacillus rennini and Lactobacillus acidipiscis were found to be the sole microbial species in Kopanisti cheese and Mana. These isolates produced alcohols and aldehydes as major volatile compounds, as a result of secondary amino acid catabolism.