Influence of job strain and emotion on blood pressure in female hospital personnel during workhours

A homogeneous sample of 56 women who were between the ages of 20 and 59 years and worked in acute emergency care, child psychiatry, or a pediatric outpatient clinic comprised the subjects of this study to determine the relationship between job strain and blood pressure. Job strain was measured with a standardized questionnaire, and blood pressure during workhours with self-triggered equipment. Endocrine factors (morning concentration of plasma prolactin, cortisol, and dehydroepiandrosterone) and emotional states recorded in diaries were also studied. Significant interrelationships occurred among perceived job strain, plasma prolactin, and diastolic blood pressure during workhours even when body mass index, age, family history of hypertension, level of education, and mood state were adjusted for in a multiple regression analysis. Thus job strain of female care givers was associated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure during workhours and also with diastolic blood pressure at rest, but not with blood pressure during leisure time.     

Epstein-Barr virus genomes in undifferentiated and squamous cell nasopharyngeal carcinomas in Italian patients

Three antigens of Candida albicans were comparatively evaluated to their ability to elicit delayed hypersensitivity (DH) responses in the mouse footpad test, using alloxan-diabetic and normal mice which were primed with heat-killed C. albicans in complete Freund adjuvant. These antigens were: (1) a preparation of sonically disrupted heat-killed cells; (2) a preparation of soluble cytoplasmic material remaining in the supernatant of a broken-cell suspension centrifuged at 100,000 g; (3) a preparation obtained by extraction of pulverized defatted cells with dilute phenol and sodium bicarbonate in water. After separation by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, the major components of soluble cytoplasmic material and dilute phenol extract were identified as a 43-kD protein, and glycoproteins of 21, 27 and 38 kD, respectively. Fifty-eight CD-1 outbred mice, which had received a single intravenous injection of alloxan followed by a 28-day rest period, were randomized with normal littermates to distinct experimental groups. Seven days after sensitization, mice were injected with one of the antigens in the right rear footpad and saline in the left rear footpad and the net specific increase in footpad thickness determined 24 and 48 h later. All three antigens elicited significant responses in sensitized normal mice. The responses of sensitized diabetic mice were clearly inferior to those of sensitized normal mice when heat-killed cells and soluble cytoplasmic material were used. Dilute phenol extract elicited equivalent responses at 24 and 48 h in both primed diabetic and normal mice.     

Preseasonal intranasal immunotherapy in birch-alder allergic rhinitis. A double-blind study

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study was carried out to test the clinical efficacy and safety of local nasal immunotherapy (LNIT) in powder form. Twenty-two patients suffering from allergic rhinitis strictly associated with early spring symptoms, with positive skin prick tests and RAST for birch-alder, all responders to a specific nasal provocation test (NPT), received randomly active or placebo treatment for 4 months. Immunotherapy consisted of administration of a set of capsules containing progressively increasing amounts of birch (Betula pendula) and speckled alder (Alnus incana) allergens in powder form with controlled granulometry. The active (birch-alder) and placebo (lactose) group completed the treatment according to a similar schedule. During the pollen season (March-April), the patients who took the active treatment reported less sneezing and rhinorrhea than the placebo group, on the basis of a symptoms score, and the differences were statistically significant; the need for drugs (terfenadine) was also significantly reduced. These findings agreed well with the results of specific NPT after the treatment; only patients in the active group had a higher threshold dose of nasal specific reactivity to birch-alder allergens than in tests before the LNIT.     

Discretization errors in numerical micromagnetic models

Numerical micromagnetic models attempt to determine coercive force, reversal modes, the number of stable magnetic states of particles, and the effect of particle interaction. These models can have considerable discretization error. In some cases, the calculated equilibrium states change considerably when the number of elements is increased. An analysis of three types of discretization errors suggests a measure of the accuracy of the models     

A one-million-year-old Homo cranium from the Danakil (Afar) Depression of Eritrea

One of the most contentious topics in the study of human evolution is that of the time, place and mode of origin of Homo sapiens. The discovery in the Northern Danakil (Afar) Depression, Eritrea, of a well-preserved Homo cranium with a mixture of characters typical of H. erectus and H. sapiens contributes significantly to this debate. The cranium was found in a succession of fluvio-deltaic and lacustrine deposits and is associated with a rich mammalian fauna of early to early-middle Pleistocene age. A magnetostratigraphic survey indicates two reversed and two normal magnetozones. The layer in which the cranium was found is near the top of the lower normal magnetozone, which is identified as the Jaramillo subchron. Consequently, the human remains can be dated at approximately 1 million years before present.     

Acute abdomen in the third trimester

The authors report a case of acute abdomen in the third trimester of pregnancy as observed at the II Obstetrics and Gynecologic Department of Florence University. Emphasis is laid on the frequent abnormality of the symptomatology and therefore the difficult of early diagnosis. The conclusion is reached that a greater semeiologic accuracy on behalf of the specialist as well as memorization of the several clinical charts responsible for such pathology, allow an earlier diagnosis with consequent improvement of maternal and fetal prognosis.     

Theoretical aspects of demagnetization tensors

A magnetometric demagnetization tensor is defined for uniformly-magnetized samples of arbitrary geometry. It is shown that this is a real symmetric tensor with non-negative diagonal elements and unit trace. Diagonalization of the magnetometric demagnetization tensor yields the Brown-Morrish equivalent ellipsoid and the conclusion that Stoner-Wohlfarth particles of any surface geometry have only two easy directions of magnetization. Transformation of the tensor, subject to periodicity constraints, leads to the conclusion that uniformly-magnetized samples with rotational periodicity, of ordern geq 3about a single axis, have isotropic behavior perpendicular to that axis. It is also shown that if a sample has spherical periodicity with four or more vertices it does not exhibit shape anisotropy. Various methods for determining the numerical values of the tensor elements are presented.