Differences in virulence for mice among Streptococcus pneumoniae strains of capsular types 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are not attributable to differences in pneumolysin production

We observed that differences in the in vivo growth kinetics of pneumococcal strains of capsular types 3, 4, 5, and 6 were reminiscent of differences that we had previously reported for type 2 strain D39 and its pneumolysin-deficient mutant, PLN. Capsular type 2 Streptococcus pneumoniae D39 exhibits exponential growth in the blood of XID mice until the death of the mice at 24 to 36 h. In contrast, PLN reaches a plateau in growth that is maintained for several days. Capsular type 3 and 5 strains exhibited exponential growth and caused rapid death of XID mice following intravenous challenge, similar to the observation with D39. Strains of capsular types 4 and 6 exhibited growth kinetics reminiscent of PLN. Since the observed differences in the pathogenesis of types 3 and 5 compared to 4 and 6 were reminiscent of the effects of pneumolysin deficiency in type 2, we examined the levels of in vitro pneumolysin production for the entire panel of strains. The onset of pneumolysin production in most strains was rapid and occurred near the end of log-phase growth. Differences in in vivo growth patterns of capsular type 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 strains were not found to be associated with differences in the levels of pneumolysin.     

Social skills training with schizophrenics: A meta-analytic evaluation.

A meta-analytic review of 27 studies on social skills training with schizophrenics was conducted to address 3 critical issues in the literature: (1) the magnitude of treatment effects relative to different outcome measures; (2) the extent of the generalization and maintenance of treatment effects; and (3) the impact of 2 methodological issues: diagnostic clarity and training variations. Social skills training has a strong, positive impact on behavioral measures of social skill, self-rated assertiveness, and hospital discharge rate, and a moderate impact on relapse rate. In addition, when behavioral measures are used, the data support generalization and maintenance of skill gains. However, effects are only marginally significant for broader ratings of symptoms and functioning. Diagnostic homogeneity, the number of techniques used, and the amount of training do not appear to be significantly associated with outcome. Specific directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The contamination of a major water supply by gulls (Larus sp.): A study of the problem and remedial action taken

In recent years one of the storage reservoirs supplying Loch Katrine water to Glasgow exhibited a serious deterioration in bacterial quality. This was associated with the winter nocturnal roosting habits of gulls (Larus sp.) on the reservoir. Investigations showed a significant correlation between the numbers of gulls roosting and the numbers of E. coli present in the water. Salmonellae organisms of identical serotypes were isolated from the gulls, from the untreated water and, on three occasions, from the treated water. Broadcasting species specific distress calls of Larus gulls proved to be an effective measure for discouraging gulls from roosting on the reservoir. The routine use of this bio-acoustic method of gull scaring reduced the bacteria in the water to numbers typical of an upland unpolluted reservoir.     

Evaluating a Modified Heuristic for the Multiple-Vehicle Scheduling Problem

This paper outlines a modified heuristic procedure for solving the multiple vehicle scheduling problem. The solution method alternates between a time saved heuristic and Little's Sequential Tour Building method [12]. The major impact of the heuristic procedure breaks the problem into feasible tours solving each of the tours with an optimizing procedure. To demonstrate how the modified heuristic works, a state wide bakery example was used. A comparison of the modified heuristic and two well known routing heuristics resulted in the selection of the modified heuristic as the method of choice. Given these preliminary results, a more complete testing of the heuristic and the well known Clark and Wright heuristic was performed. In this formal experiment both methods were modified to achieve route balance. The results indicated that the modified routing method showed an overall average improvement over the Clark and Wright heuristic. The results also showed a significant trade off between the number of customers and the mean savings between the two routing methods. The practical implications of the experimental results are promising. Vehicle schedulers facing scheduling situations where travel time (mileage) constraints are imposed can easily apply the modified procedure for manpower planning purposes.     

Sth1p, a Saccharomyces cerevisiae Snf2p/Swi2p homolog, is an essential ATPase in RSC and differs from Snf/Swi in its interactions with histones and chromatin-associated proteins

The essential Sth1p is the protein most closely related to the conserved Snf2p/Swi2p in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Sth1p purified from yeast has a DNA-stimulated ATPase activity required for its function in vivo. The finding that Sth1p is a component of a multiprotein complex capable of ATP-dependent remodeling of the structure of chromatin (RSC) in vitro, suggests that it provides RSC with ATP hydrolysis activity. Three sth1 temperature-sensitive mutations map to the highly conserved ATPase/helicase domain and have cell cycle and non-cell cycle phenotypes, suggesting multiple essential roles for Sth1p. The Sth1p bromodomain is required for wild-type function; deletion mutants lacking portions of this region are thermosensitive and arrest with highly elongated buds and 2C DNA content, indicating perturbation of a unique function. The pleiotropic growth defects of sth1-ts mutants imply a requirement for Sth1p in a general cellular process that affects several metabolic pathways. Significantly, an sth1-ts allele is synthetically sick or lethal with previously identified mutations in histones and chromatin assembly genes that suppress snf/swi, suggesting that RSC interacts differently with chromatin than Snf/Swi. These results provide a framework for understanding the ATP-dependent RSC function in modeling chromatin and its connection to the cell cycle.     

Ozonolysis Post-Treatment of Anaerobically Digested Distillery Wastewater Effluent

ABSTRACT

In this study, the ozonolysis of real anaerobically digested distillery wastewater (DWW) was carried out. The effect of operating parameters, such as pH, initial concentration, and ozone dosage, on the efficiency of ozone utilization, color removal, and sludge solubilization was studied. The highest ozone utilization of 99% was observed at the highest initial concentration (COD of 3000 mg/L) and lowest ozone flowrate (22.5 mg O₃/L/min), but with a very low color reduction of 20%, after 60 minutes of ozonolysis. To achieve a higher color reduction >80% and at ozone utilization >95%, the DWW had to be diluted twice (COD 1500 mg/L), and the flowrate doubled to 45 mg O₃/L/min. The reduction in color signified the oxidation of the color causing biorecalcitrant aromatic melanoidin compounds. This was confirmed by the 47% reduction in ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm indicating the breakdown of the complex aromatic compounds into low molecular weight organics. Moreover, increases in average oxidation state from ?0.6 to ?0.2 suggested a decline in aromaticity and formation of easily biodegradable aliphatic compounds. The ozonolysis process was found to follow the first-order reaction kinetic model with the highest rate constant of 0.0326 min^?1 obtained. A reduction in suspended COD by 88% indicated solubilization of the sludge contained in the effluent.     

Intra- and interlaboratory reproducibility of ultra performance liquid chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry for urinary metabolic profiling

Liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is a major platform in metabolic profiling but has not yet been comprehensively assessed as to its repeatability and reproducibility across multiple spectrometers and laboratories. Here we report results of a large interlaboratory reproducibility study of ultra performance (UP) LC-MS of human urine. A total of 14 stable isotope labeled standard compounds were spiked into a pooled human urine sample, which was subject to a 2- to 16-fold dilution series and run by UPLC coupled to time-of-flight MS at three different laboratories all using the same platform. In each lab, identical samples were run in two phases, separated by at least 1 week, to assess between-day reproducibility. Overall, platform reproducibility was good with median mass accuracies below 12 ppm, median retention time drifts of less than 0.73 s and coefficients of variation of intensity of less than 18% across laboratories and ionization modes. We found that the intensity response was highly linear within each run, with a median R(2) of 0.95 and 0.93 in positive and negative ionization modes. Between-day reproducibility was also high with a mean R(2) of 0.93 for a linear relationship between the intensities of ions recorded in the two phases across the laboratories and modes. Most importantly, between-lab reproducibility was excellent with median R(2) values of 0.96 and 0.98 for positive and negative ionization modes, respectively, across all pairs of laboratories. Interestingly, the three laboratories observed different amounts of adduct formation, but this did not appear to be related to reproducibility observed in each laboratory. These studies show that UPLC-MS is fit for the purpose of targeted urinary metabolite analysis but that care must be taken to optimize laboratory systems for quantitative detection due to variable adduct formation over many compound classes.     

Construction of a cytosolic firefly luciferase reporter cassette for use in PCR‐mediated gene deletion and fusion in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Monitoring promoter response to environmental changes using reporter systems has provided invaluable information regarding cellular state. With the development of in vivo luciferase reporter systems, inexpensive, sensitive and accurate promoter assays have been developed without the variability reported between in vitro samplings. Current luciferase reporter systems, however, are largely inflexible to modifications to the promoter of interest. To overcome problems in flexibility and stability of these expression vectors, we report the creation of a novel vector system which introduces a cytosol‐localized Photinus pyralis luciferase [LUC*(?SKL)] capable of one‐step, in vivo measurements into a promoter–reporter system via PCR‐based gene deletion and fusion. After introduction of the reporter under HUG1 promoter control, cytosolic localization was confirmed by fluorescence microscopy. The dose–response of this novel construct was then compared with that of a similar HUG1Δ::yEGFP1 promoter–reporter system and shown to give a similar response pattern. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preface: Volume 59, Issue 1

This volume contains the proceedings of BABEL'01, the First International Workshop on Multi-Language Infrastructure and Interoperability. Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in multi-language tools and intermediate languages, and in interoperability between programs and components written in different programming languages. Shared infrastructure such as code generators, analysis tools and garbage collectors can greatly ease the task of producing a high-quality implementation of a new programming language, whilst being able to interoperate easily with code written in existing languages is essential for such an implementation to be useful in practice. The BABEL workshop brought together researchers and developers working on multi-language integration.BABEL was sponsored by ACM SIGPLAN and took place on September 8th, 2001 as part of PLI'01, the Colloquium on Principles, Logics, and Implementations of High-Level Programming Languages.The programme committee selected 10 papers from 22 submissions. Each paper was reviewed by three or more committee members or their subreferees.The members of the BABEL'01 programme committee were:     

Breakfast, blood glucose, and cognition

This article compares the findings of three studies that explored the role of increased blood glucose in improving memory function for subjects who ate breakfast. An initial improvement in memory function for these subjects was found to correlate with blood glucose concentrations. In subsequent studies, morning fasting was found to adversely affect the ability to recall a word list and a story read aloud, as well as recall items while counting backwards. Failure to eat breakfast did not affect performance on an intelligence test. It was concluded that breakfast consumption preferentially influences tasks requiring aspects of memory. In the case of both word list recall and memory while counting backwards, the decline in performance associated with not eating breakfast was reversed by the consumption of a glucose-supplemented drink. Although a morning fast also affected the ability to recall a story read aloud, the glucose drink did not reverse this decline. It appears that breakfast consumption influences cognition via several mechanisms, including an increase in blood glucose.