Workshop report. National initiative to improve cancer survival information

The relationship between psychological morbidity in caregivers and depression in patients with dementia was examined using data collected on 193 patient-caregiver dyads attending a memory disorders clinic. Caregivers had high rates and levels of psychological morbidity which were associated with the severity of dementia (but neither the type nor duration), with the caregiver being a spouse and female and living with the person with dementia. A logistic regression analysis identified clinician-rated patient depression score and demanding problem behaviors as being independently and significantly associated with caregiver psychological morbidity. This new finding of a link between patient depression and caregiver psychological morbidity has implications for more focused treatment programs for both caregivers and patients.     

Colored components of processed palm oil

The compounds responsible for the colors of palm oils at various stages of processing have been isolated by gel permeation chro matography. The isolated colored compounds have been characterized by visible spectroscopy and, in some cases, further fractionated by high performance liquid chromatography. All palm oils studied contained colored compounds of both higher and lower molecular weight than triglycerides. Oils at different stages of processing contained different proportions of these high and low molecular weight, colored compounds. While the color of crude palm oils was primarily due to the low molecular weight carotenoids, the color of finished oils was due to compounds other than carotenoids. High molecular weight compounds were significant, sometimes predominant, contributors to finished oil colors. These results demonstrate the importance of high molecular weight, colored compounds to the color of finished palm oils. Further, these results suggest that the difficulties associated with decolorization of certain crude palm oils may be due either to the presence of high molecular weight, colored compounds or to the presence of precursors capable of generating these compounds during the decolorization process.     

A device driver for display terminals

The special editing ability of display terminals is seldom exploited outside of display-based text editors. Tailoring a device driver in the operating system kernel to display terminals makes display editing available whenever the terminal is used and makes display editors simpler and terminal-independent. This paper describes such a device driver.     

An Ogden-like iteration lemma for rational power series

Summary An Ogden-like iteration lemma for languages that are support of rational power series is proved; it is a generalization of Jacob's iteration lemma. The new bound we obtain is much smaller than the one of Jacob and does no more depend on the cardinality of the alphabet. The proof consists in studying how pseudo-regular matrices appear as subproducts of long products of square matrices.     

The influence of nucleation density and cooling rate on crystallization of polyethylene from the melt

Different samples of high-density polyethylene provided different nucleation densities which were assessed by optical microscopy and light scattering. Crystallizations were carried out under controlled cooling rates using a microscope hot stage and DSC from which crystallization temperatures were obtained. It is shown that the effective crystallization temperature is a function of the nucleation density, and a quantitative fit is found with theoretical predictions based on crystallization kinetics. The melting point was, in turn, found to be dependent on nucleation density, through the agency of lamellar thickness as assessed by low-frequency Raman spectroscopy. The effect of cooling rate on melting point is also explained in terms of variation of supercooling. The implications of these effects together with considerations of surface and interior nucleation and sample size are discussed for the industrial processing of polyethylene.     

Tolerance to lead in the freshwater isopod asellus aquaticus

Samples of the fresh-water crustacean Asellus aquaticus were taken from three sites in the River Trent basin, subjected to different amounts of lead pollution. The survival rate of large and small animals were compared experimentally in a series of different concentrations of lead. Differential survival was recorded between the size classes and the sites that could be explained in terms of genetic adaptation. The significance of the results is discussed in terms of adaptation to environmental pollution.