Treatment outcome as a function of follow-up difficulty in substance abusers.

Studied 150 consecutive male alcoholic and drug addict admissions to inpatient treatment at a VA medical center to determine if Ss who were more difficult to follow up also had poorer posttreatment outcomes. Of the original sample, 144 Ss were successfully followed up 6 mo from the date of admission, for an overall completion rate of 96%. Of that total, 2 were found to be deceased, leaving complete and valid information for 142 (95%). Ss were grouped according to the number of attempts necessary to complete follow-up. Comparisons on 18 measures indicated essentially no difference in the outcome status of Ss harder to follow up than those more easily contacted. Subsequent analyses of the alcoholic and drug addict samples individually yielded similar results. Further analyses indicated that the results obtained were not a function of the length of time spent in treatment or the length of time between treatment discharge and follow-up. Results are discussed in light of their importance in the interpretation of follow-up evaluations. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

L-fucose metabolism in cystic fibrosis fibroblasts

The capacity of skin fibroblasts from cystic fibrosis (CF) and non-CF individuals to incorporate exogenous L-fucose into various metabolic pools was compared. Incorporation into intracellular acid-soluble pools and extracellular glycopeptides was measured by a dual-label co-chromatographic technique, whereas total macromolecular incorporation was measured by a single-label procedure. Although CF and normal fibroblasts incorporate exogenous fucose into intracellular acid-soluble and high molecular weight compounds in a similar manner, CF cells appear to be characterized by an increased incorporation of label into low molecular weight extracellular glycopeptides.     

Circadian rhythmic plaque-forming cell response of spleens from mice immunized with SRBC

Studies under controlled conditions of lighting and temperature revealed clear evidence of circadian periodicity with respect to the number of PFC present in the spleens of BALB/c mice 3 or 4 days after immunization with SRBC. Striking differences in proliferative responses of spleen lymphocytes to PHA or Con A were also observed at two different circadian times. Large proliferative responses occurred at the time when injection of antigen and/or sampling for PFC yielded a low PFC formation (early in the daily dark span) and small proliferative responses occurred at the time when antigen injection and sampling yielded high formation of PFC (early in the daily light span). These findings indicate that care should be taken to control the circadian timing of stimulation and sampling in studies of immune responses, and that rhythmically varying aspects constitute a new dimension of immunologic processes awaiting further analysis in both the circadian and weekly spectral regions.     

Edge-spreading lithography: use of patterned photoresist structures to direct the spreading of alkanethiols on gold

Edge-spreading lithography (ESL) has been extended to fabricate gold structures with different geometries and feature sizes on silicon substrates. In the present variant of ESL, we used photoresist structures patterned on a thin film of gold to transport alkanethiol molecules from an elastomeric stamp to the gold surface where they formed a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) along the edge of each resist feature. The emerging SAM could expand laterally on the gold via reactive spreading, during which the footprints of the resist structures were enlarged in the same fashion. Upon removal of the photoresist, selective etching of gold revealed those regions that were protected by the SAM, yielding accurate outlines of the resist features on the substrate. The width of resultant gold structures was determined by the distance over which the monolayer expanded during spreading, and could be conveniently controlled well below 200 nm by varying the contact time and/or the concentration of alkanethiol in the ink.     

Noninvasive predictors of sudden cardiac death in men with coronary heart disease. Predictive value of maximal stress testing

In a follow-up study of 1,852 men with coronary heart disease, 195 deaths occurred within the first 3 years (33 +/- 13 months [mean +/- standard deviation]). Analysis of these cases indicated that the risk of sudden cardiac death in ambulatory men with clinical manifestations of coronary heart disease may be readily estimated from noninvasive clinical and exercise criteria. The important predictors are indexes of the severity of coronary heart disease and impairment of peak left ventricular function demonstrated with symptom-limited maximal exercise. The advantages of these predictors are that they may be elicited on the initial study as well as on follow-up noninvasive examinations of ambulatory patients. The appearance of nonelectrocardiographic predictors in serial examinations may provide an indication for invasive studies and be a more important finding than the ischemic S-T reponse to exertion.