Translation of RNAIII, the Staphylococcus aureus agr regulatory RNA molecule, can be activated by a 3''-end deletion

A case of enteropathy associated T-cell lymphoma (EATCL) in a 62-year-old female with a previous history of coeliac disease, complicated during the clinical course by massive blood and tissue eosinophilia is described. The patient's serum contained a factor capable of stimulating the in vitro growth of eosinophilic colonies (CFU-Eo), that was absent in the serum of normal donors. We suggest that such factor was Interleukin-5 (IL-5), as indicated by the presence in the monoclonal tumor T cells of IL-5 encoding mRNA, usually absent in the normal enterocytes of the jejunum.     

Cleveland Clinic experience with adrenal Cushing's syndrome

PURPOSE: Cushing's syndrome due to adrenal adenoma or adrenocortical carcinoma is rare. To understand better the clinical and biochemical presentation of this disorder, as well as therapy efficacy and patient survival, we conducted a retrospective review. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between August 1971 and April 1994, 40 patients presented to our institution with adrenal Cushing's syndrome (27 adenomas and 13 carcinomas). These groups were analyzed with respect to clinical signs and symptoms preoperatively and postoperatively, biochemical analysis, length of postoperative steroid replacement therapy, disease recurrence and patient survival. Followup was obtained by chart review and telephone interviews and averaged 59.6 +/- 66.4 and 47.6 +/- 56.2 months for adenoma and carcinoma patients, respectively. RESULTS: Women predominated in both groups (26 of 27 adenomas, 11 of 13 carcinomas), and tumors affected the left adrenal gland more frequently (19 of 27 adenomas, 9 of 13 carcinomas). Adenoma patients were younger than carcinoma patients (39.6 +/- 14.4 versus 51.5 +/- 16.6 years, p = 0.026) and presented with smaller tumors (3.3 +/- 1.0 versus 8.6 +/- 4.5 cm., p = 0.001). There was a trend toward increased incidence of glucose intolerance among carcinoma patients but no significant differences in clinical signs or symptoms between adenoma and carcinoma patients could be made. Similarly, while there was no significant difference in biochemical evaluation of adenoma versus carcinoma patients, 24-hour urinary free cortisol and serum lactate dehydrogenase levels tended to be higher among carcinoma patients. In addition 17-ketosteroid and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate levels were more elevated in carcinoma than in adenoma patients, and several adenoma patients actually had subnormal levels. Among adenoma patients mean length of steroid replacement therapy was 16.8 +/- 9.1 months. However, 7 adenoma patients (25.9%) required greater than 24 months of exogenous steroids, and only 1 of these patients was subsequently weaned off steroid replacement. There were no recurrences among adenoma patients, although there was 1 perioperative death due to hypoglycemia. Ten (76.9%) carcinoma patients had recurrences at a mean followup of 33 months. The 3 and 5-year survival rates were 41.5 and 31.2%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: While presenting signs and symptoms and hormonal analysis may suggest benign or malignant disease, only tumor size and patient age are reliable preoperative indicators of adrenal adenoma versus adrenocortical carcinoma among patients with adrenal Cushing's syndrome. Surgery is curative for adenoma patients, but lifelong steroid replacement may be required. Survival remains poor among carcinoma patients.     

Symptomatic treatment of acquired and persistent enuresis.

2 groups of latency-age male enuretics were given symptomatic treatment consisting of routine supportive contact followed, if necessary, by the wetting-alarm treatment for enuresis. 1 group was composed of 22 persistent enuretics (those who have wet since birth) and the other of 23 acquired enuretics (those who have started to wet after a period of continence). In contrast to the persistent enuretics the acquired enuretics responded more favorably to routine contact alone, took less time, wet less frequently, and showed a faster rate of decrease in the course of symptomatic treatment. However, they had a higher rate of relapse, and had more symptoms and more deterioration in other areas of behavior in general after treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Photon-induced current changes in a CO2laser amplifier

Experiments have been conducted with a CO2laser amplifier and various mixtures of the active gas media. It has been found that there is a decrease in the current through the amplifier concurrent with transmission of the incident laser beam. A correlation exists with the gain of the amplifier and decrease in current. A possible mechanism is suggested.     

Local and regional coherence utility assessment procedures

Summary Novick and Lindley (1978, 1979) have dealt with the use of utility functions for applications in education and have advocated the use of the standard gamble (von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1953) elicitation procedure with the addition of coherence checking using overspecification and a least squares fit. In this procedure utilities are inferred from probability judgements offered by the assessor. This paper describes local and regional coherence procedures which seek utility coherence in successive restricted domains of the parameter space as preludes to overall coherence checking. These procedures and some others are viewed as possible ways of avoiding anchoring and certainty effect biases found in earlier fixed probability methods, and presumably present in current fixed state procedures.     

Desmoid tumour of the thoracic outlet: an unusual cause of thoracic outlet syndrome

Several electrocardiographic anomalies have been described in association with hypoglycaemia. We report the case of a 70-year-old woman with hypoglycaemic coma whose electrocardiogram showed significant conduction anomalies, including atrioventricular block and intraventricular conduction disturbances, and repolarization abnormalities. These electrocardiographic changes disappeared after intravenous glucose administration.     

Homologs of the synaptobrevin/VAMP family of synaptic vesicle proteins function on the late secretory pathway in S. cerevisiae

The yeast S. cerevisiae possesses two genes, SNC1 and SNC2, that encode homologs of vertebrate synaptic vesicle-associated membrane proteins, also known as synaptobrevins. Here we describe the cloning of SNC2 and demonstrate that yeast lacking both SNC genes are deficient in normal bulk secretion, accumulate large numbers of post-Golgi vesicles, and display a variety of conditional lethal phenotypes. In addition, we show that yeast Snc proteins localize to post-Golgi transport vesicles that accumulate in a late-acting sec mutant. Our findings clearly place the Snc proteins on the late secretory pathway in S. cerevisiae and provide direct in vivo evidence that synaptobrevin-like proteins mediate the targeting and transport of secretory proteins.     

Equal opportunity in educational and employment selection.

Some currently proposed strategies for educational and employment selection are based on a group-parity concept of fairness toward groups of persons identifiable by race, ethnicity, or other variables. Technical weaknesses in these strategies have been previously discussed by N. S. Petersen and M. R. Novick, L. J. Cronbach, and R. B. Darlington in the Journal of Educational Measurement (13:1, 1976). The present paper reviews and extends those discussions and examines the social and legal foundations of the group-parity concept. Because this concept is viewed as socially undesirable and its consistency with basic constitutional principles is questioned, this paper suggests that a socially desirable and constitutionally acceptable selection strategy can be fashioned more readily by the use of the formalism of statistical decision theory. Consideration would thus be given not to a person's race, sex, or ethnic group (except in a very few narrowly defined cases), but to the relative advantage or disadvantage experienced by a person and to the utility of the contribution to society that can be expected from that person as a result of any particular allocation of resources or comparative advantage. The major implication of this analysis is that the field of educational and psychological measurement needs to be broadened to include the measurement of individual disadvantage and individual utilities. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)