Transmission electron microscopic analysis of kidney glomeruli obtained by fine-needle aspiration

Aspiration biopsy of tumors and transplanted organs is a popular atraumatic method for diagnosis and also for the management of patients. Apart from the cytological analyses, it is clear that large aggregates of cells are obtained and these may be examined by electron microscopy. A study was carried out with dogs to assess the yield of intact glomeruli and tubules, resulting from a standard fine-needle aspiration procedure. Employing a 20-gauge needle, yields of approximately ten intact glomeruli were obtained with a tissue processing protocol that utilized filtration through a nylon mesh and backwashing, to resuspend the trapped aggregates. Processing for electron microscopy was carried out in microcentrifuge tubes. The ultrastructural preservation was excellent and the extension of these studies to investigations of not only renal transplantation, but also for diagnosis in human renal diseases of a broad spectrum, is suggested.     

Identification of the blood-borne somatotroph-differentiating factor during chicken embryonic development

Somatotrophs become a significant population by day 16 of chicken embryonic development. We have previously demonstrated that an earlier induction of GH cell differentiation is possible with the addition of day 16 embryonic serum to cultures of day 12 pituitary cells, an age when somatotrophs are rare. The present study was designed to identify the blood-borne signal(s) responsible for the serum activity, using reverse hemolytic plaque assays to identify individual GH-secreting cells. The activity was found to be a heat-stable, ether-soluble compound(s) that is bound or inhibited by a trypsin-sensitive protein. The extent of GH cell differentiation was greater (P < 0.05; n = 3) in response to the ether phases of heated day 16 (14.1 +/- 0.4% of all cells) and day 12 sera (9.3 +/- 0.4%) than with untreated serum from days 16 and 12 (6.1 +/- 0.4% and 0.82 +/- 0.4%, respectively). Furthermore, ether-extracted day 16 serum was more effective than ether-extracted day 12 serum, which was also different from basal (0.85 +/- 0.4%; P < 0.05). Based on this biochemical profile, the abilities of various steroids to stimulate differentiation were tested. Three steroids were found to stimulate somatotroph differentiation in vitro: 17beta-estradiol, corticosterone, and progesterone. However, the estradiol receptor antagonist, tamoxifen, while abolishing the effect of estradiol, had no effect on the induction of differentiation by day 16 serum. In contrast, RU486, a specific glucocorticoid receptor antagonist in chickens, blocked the stimulatory effects of corticosterone, progesterone, and day 16 serum on somatotroph differentiation. We next tested whether the active compound in day 16 embryonic serum was corticosterone, the predominant glucocorticoid in chickens. Incubation of day 16 serum with corticosterone antiserum, but not control antiserum, suppressed day 16 serum-induced GH cell differentiation. Therefore, we conclude that corticosterone is the blood-borne signal capable of stimulating somatotroph differentiation in vitro. The present findings together with previous reports indicate that somatotroph differentiation during embryonic development may result from an increase in circulating glucocorticoid concentrations.     

Structural plasticity in RNA and its role in the regulation of protein translation in coliphage Q beta

We have analyzed both conformational and functional changes caused by two large cis-acting deletions (delta 159 and delta 549) located within the read-through domain, a 850 nucleotide hairpin, in coliphage Q beta genomic RNA. Studies in vivo show that co-translational regulation of the viral coat and replicase genes has been uncoupled in viral genomes carrying deletion delta 159. Translational regulation is restored in deletion delta 549, a naturally evolved pseudorevertant. Structural analysis by computer modeling shows that structural features within the read-through domain of delta 159 RNA are less well determined than they are in the read-through domain of wild-type RNA, whereas predicted structure in the read-through domain of evolved pseudorevertant delta 549 is unusually well determined. Structural analysis by electron microscopy of the genomic RNAs shows that several long range helices at the base of the read-through domain, that suppress translational initiation of the viral replicase gene in the wild-type genome, have been destabilized in delta 159 RNA. In addition, the structure of local hairpins within the read-through region is more variable in delta 159 RNA than in wild-type RNA. Stable RNA secondary structure is restored in the read-through domain of delta 549 RNA. Our analyses suggest that structure throughout the read-through domain affects the regulation of viral replicase expression by altering the likelihood that long-range interactions at the base of the domain will form. We discuss possible kinetic and equilibrium models that can explain this effect, and argue that observed changes in structural plasticity within the read-through domain of the mutant genomes are key in understanding the process. During the course of these studies, we became aware of the importance of the information contained in the energy dot plot produced by the RNA secondary structure prediction program mfold. As a result, we have improved the graphical representation of this information through the use of color annotation in the predicted optimal folding. The method is presented here for the first time.     

An explanation of disproportionate growth using linear 3-dimensional informetrics and its relation with the fractal dimension

Summary We study new and existing data sets which show that growth rates of sources usually are different from growth rates of items. Examples: references in publications grow with a rate that is different (usually higher) from the growth rate of the publications themselves; article growth rates are different from journal growth rates and so on. In this paper we interpret this phenomenon of &ldquo;disproportionate growth&apos; in terms of Naranan&apos;s growth model and in terms of the self-similar fractal dimension of such an information system, which follows from Naranan&apos;s growth model. The main part of the paper is devoted to explain disproportionate growth. We show that the &ldquo;simple&apos; 2-dimensional informetrics models of source-item relations are not able to explain this but we also show that linear 3-dimensional informetrics (i.e. adding a new source set) is capable to model disproportionate growth. Formulae of such different growth rates are presented using Lotkaian informetrics and new and existing data sets are presented and interpreted in terms of the used linear 3-dimensional model.     

Boys and violence: A gender-informed analysis.

This article discusses the phenomenon of youth violence from a psychology of gender perspective. Although other factors are discussed--including gun availability, violence-related media influence, family and caretaker factors, and effects of teasing and bullying--the intention is to highlight new thinking on the potential relationship between boys' traditional masculine socialization experiences and violence. In this new perspective, traditional masculine socialization estranges and isolates many boys from their genuine inner lives and vital connections to others, which is theorized to heighten their risk of engaging in acts of violence. The authors identify school and community programs that may be helpful in counteracting damaging socialization experiences and supporting boys' healthier emotional and psychological development. Finally, the article discusses approaches that psychologists and other mental health professionals can use to help address this vital issue. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A novel method to study fluorescein staining of the ocular surface using the fluorescein angiogram setting of the fundus camera.

We present a case of a failed penetrating keratoplasty (PKP), comparing the fluorescein staining of the cornea with the conventional technique, and the new technique using the fluorescein filters of a standard fundus camera.     

The tail of localized states in the band gap of the quantum well in the In0.2Ga0.8N/GaN system and its effect on the laser-excited photoluminescence spectrum

Semiconductors - It is established experimentally that the peak in the photoluminescence spectrum of the In0.2Ga0.8N/GaN heterostructure with a quantum well shifts by ～150 meV as the power...     

Syntactic mismatches in machine translation

This paper addresses one of the central problems arising at the transfer stage in machine translation: syntactic mismatches, that is, mismatches between a source-language sentence structure and its equivalent target-language sentence structure. The level at which we assume the transfer to be carried out is the Deep-Syntactic Structure (DSyntS) as proposed in the Meaning-Text Theory (MTT). DSyntS is abstract enough to avoid all types of divergences that result either from restricted lexical co-occurrence or from surface-syntactic discrepancies between languages. As for the remaining types of syntactic divergences, all of them occur not only interlinguistically, but also intralinguistically; this means that establishing correspondences between semantically equivalent expressions of the source and target languages that diverge with respect to their syntactic structure is nothing else than paraphrasing. This allows us to adapt the powerful intralinguistic paraphrasing mechanism developed in MTT for purposes of interlinguistic transfer.