IQ as a protective factor for subjects at high risk for antisocial behavior.

The current project compared the characteristics of four groups of men from a Danish birth cohort: (a) those at high risk for serious criminal involvement (with severely criminal fathers) who nevertheless succeeded in avoiding criminal behavior; (b) those at high risk who evidenced serious criminal behavior; (c) those at low risk (with noncriminal fathers) who did not evidence criminal behavior; and (d) those at low risk who nevertheless evidenced serious criminal behavior. We examined the possible role of high IQ (as tested by an abbreviated version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) in protecting high-risk men from criminal involvement. As hypothesized, the first group evidenced a mean IQ score that was significantly higher than that of the other risk groups. The results are interpreted in terms of the reinforcing effect of success in the school system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Specific stabilization of the 4F7 molecule on dendritic cells by contact allergens

Our laboratory has recently developed the monoclonal antibody 4F7 which recognizes a molecule on dendritic cells in the dermis of mice that is upregulated after application of contact allergens in vivo. Furthermore, this antibody detects an antigen on dendritic cells in spleen, lymph nodes and colon. In order to study the influence of contact allergens on the surface expression of the 4F7 molecules on dendritic cells, FACScan analysis of splenic dendritic cells was carried out after in vitro application of contact allergens. Freshly isolated splenic dendritic cells were found to be positive for 4F7, 33D1, N418 (CD11c) and MHC class II. After overnight culture the expression of the dendritic cell-specific molecules 4F7 and 33D1 was decreased. This downregulation was not inhibited by the addition of the cytokines TNF-alpha or GM-CSF during in vitro culture. However, in vitro treatment of freshly isolated dendritic cells with the contact allergen 2,4-dinitrofluorobenzene prevented this downregulation of the 4F7 surface molecules. The same effect was observed after treatment with other contact allergens (1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene or potassium dichromate). Treatment with the irritant substance sodium dodecyl sulphate, the lectins concanavalin and lipopolysaccharide or the phorbol ester PMA did not prevent the downregulation of 4F7 and 33D1. Moreover, the influence of contact allergens on the expression of the molecules 4F7 and 33D1 was not inhibited by the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide. No effects of contact sensitizers were detectable on the expression of MHC class II molecules or the costimulatory molecules B7 and heat-stable antigen. Our results show a specific stabilizing effect of contact allergens on the dendritic cell-specific molecules 4F7 and 33D1 independent of de novo protein synthesis.     

Ventral interbody spondylodesis in injuries of the cervical spine. Indications, surgical technique and results

OBJECTIVE: To consider evidence for the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in reducing the risk of infection with HIV of injecting drug users. METHOD: We reviewed 19 published studies of the effectiveness of individual counselling, HIV testing, group interventions, street outreach, and a 'social' intervention designed to change norms for safer behaviours. RESULTS: Eight of 15 studies that examined behavioural outcomes provided evidence of the effectiveness of an experimental intervention, compared with a control or comparison group. In four of these studies, however, serious design limitations made results difficult to interpret. In the other four studies without design limitations, the success of the experimental interventions may have been due to their greater length and intensity as well as to having been conducted with stable and well-motivated populations. Nine of the 15 studies showed evidence of marked behaviorial changes in both experimental and comparison group(s), with the changes in many cases being sustained for upwards of 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: A close examination of the evidence and competing hypotheses for the pattern of results suggests that participating in evaluation research may itself be a valuable intervention. Implications for the development of interventions include the potential efficacy of health risk assessment. Implications for evaluation of interventions include the need for developing unobtrusive measures and for assessing the impact of behavioural assessments. Despite the large behavioural changes reported in most of the studies, a substantial proportion of subjects receiving interventions reported unacceptably high levels of risk behaviours. New, more potent interventions are needed, such as those designed to change the norms of entire communities of drug users concerning safer injection and safer sex.     

Reduction and positioning of cervical spine injuries

Prerequisites for successful reduction of cervical spine injuries are an exact analysis and classification of every lesion. In locked dislocations disc protrusion should be excluded prior to reduction by MRI or CT-scan. For manual reduction and closed manipulation by the trauma surgeon we use a halo-ring which is applied in local anaesthesia and fluoroscopic control. The anatomic position is maintained by a halo-fixator until surgery. Skeletal traction is used mainly for locked dislocations and late malalignements. Traction is provided by a halo-ring and weights up to 20 kg. Repeated clinical and neurological examinations are necessary to rule out overdistraction of the spine or neurologic deterioration. The weight may be reduced after reduction to 2 kg. For intraoperative positioning and reduction of cervical spine injuries we designed a special device which is connected to the halo ring and allows to fix the head and spine in any desired position. It may be used in prone or supine position of the patient. Operative reductions are rarely necessary on the cervical spine. Typical indication are fractures of posterior elements of the spine preventing closed reduction. Reduction manoeuvers depend on the kind of injury and are mainly composed of traction and a reversal of the trauma mechanism. The most severe complication is a neurologic deterioration. Reports in literature about 13 patients having sustained such a fate are showing the following: In most cases disc material dislocated in the spinal canal during reduction could be made responsible for the catastrophic course. Especially at risk are patients with open reduction from a posterior approach.     

Parallel Labeling of Three-Dimensional Clusters on Networks of Workstations

Cluster algorithms have application in diverse areas, including statistical mechanics of polymer solutions, spin models in physics, and the study of ecological systems. Most parallel cluster labeling algorithms are designed for SIMD and MIMD multiprocessors and based on relaxation methods. We present a parallel 3-D cluster labeling algorithm based on mapping tables, for distributed memory environments. The proposed algorithm focuses on minimizing interprocess communication to enhance execution performance on workstation networks. We implemented the algorithm with the aid of theEcliPSeparallel replication toolkit, exploiting special tree-combining and data reduction features of the system. We report on performance results for experiments conducted on workstation clusters.     

On the front to back ratio of a parabolic dish antenna

Adopting the earlier work of Kouyoumjian's Ohio State group, as recently reviewed and extended by Rusch, an explicit expression for the radiation field in the back zone of a typical parabolic dish antenna is obtained. Evaluation of this expression directly in the back for both the ideal 100 percent aperture efficiency feed and for an arbitrary, feed gives (in conjunction with the known front field for the 100 percent case) the front to back (f/b) ratio for the arbitrary feed case of(f/b) = G + T + K - Ghorn. HereGis the gain of the dish with the arbitrary feed,Ghornis the on axis gain of the feed,Tis the feed's average pattern edge taper relative to on axis,K = 20 log_{10}{sqrt{1 + 16(F/D)^{2}}/4(F/D)}(all being in decibels), andF/Dis the ratio of the focal length to the dish diameter. Comparison of this result with measured values for dishes ranging from 6 to 15 ft in diameter operating over a 920 MHz to 14 GHz range gives an agreement within several decibels in most cases.     

A versatile toolbox for PCR-based tagging of yeast genes: new fluorescent proteins, more markers and promoter substitution cassettes

Tagging of genes by chromosomal integration of PCR amplified cassettes is a widely used and fast method to label proteins in vivo in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This strategy directs the amplified tags to the desired chromosomal loci due to flanking homologous sequences provided by the PCR-primers, thus enabling the selective introduction of any sequence at any place of a gene, e.g. for the generation of C-terminal tagged genes or for the exchange of the promoter and N-terminal tagging of a gene. To make this method most powerful we constructed a series of 76 novel cassettes, containing a broad variety of C-terminal epitope tags as well as nine different promoter substitutions in combination with N-terminal tags. Furthermore, new selection markers have been introduced. The tags include the so far brightest and most yeast-optimized version of the red fluorescent protein, called RedStar2, as well as all other commonly used fluorescent proteins and tags used for the detection and purification of proteins and protein complexes. Using the provided cassettes for N- and C-terminal gene tagging or for deletion of any given gene, a set of only four primers is required, which makes this method very cost-effective and reproducible. This new toolbox should help to speed up the analysis of gene function in yeast, on the level of single genes, as well as in systematic approaches.     

Fail-safe concurrency in the EcliPSe system

Local or wide-area heterogeneous workstation clusters are relatively cheap and highly effective, though inherently unstable operating environments for long-running distributed computations. We found this to be the case in early experiments with a prototype of the EcliPSe system, a software toolkit for replicative applications on heterogeneous workstation clusters. Hardware or network failures in computations that executed for over a day were not uncommon. In this work, a variety of features for the incorporation of failure resilience in the EcliPSe system are described. Key characteristics of this fault-tolerant system are ease of use, low state-saving cost, system scalability and good performance. We present results of some experiments demonstrating low state-saving overheads and small system-recovery times, as a function of the amount of state saved.