UV resonance Raman-selective amide vibrational enhancement: quantitative methodology for determining protein secondary structure

We have directly determined the amide band resonance Raman spectra of the "average" pure alpha-helix, beta-sheet, and unordered secondary structures by exciting within the amide pi-->pi* transitions at 206.5 nm. The Raman spectra are dominated by the amide bands of the peptide backbone. We have empirically determined the average pure alpha-helix, beta-sheet, and unordered resonance Raman spectra from the amide resonance Raman spectra of 13 proteins with well-known X-ray crystal structures. We demonstrate that we can simultaneously utilize the amide I, II, and III bands and the Calpha-H amide bending vibrations of these average secondary structure spectra to directly determine protein secondary structure. The UV Raman method appears to be complementary, and in some cases superior, to the existing methods, such as CD, VCD, and absorption spectroscopy. In addition, the spectra are immune to the light-scattering artifacts that plague CD, VCD, and IR absorption measurements. Thus, it will be possible to examine proteins in micelles and other scattering media.     

Cancer pain management in developing countries: a mosaic of complex issues resulting in inadequate analgesia

OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation and the symptomatic profile as well as to identify the sociodemographic characteristics highlighting female adolescents with the highest scores on suicidal ideation in adolescents living in Mexico City: students and suicidal patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional and ex-post-facto study was carried out in order to analyze information from two samples: 1,712 junior and junior high school women students (representative student sample in Mexico City), and 30 adolescents inpatient hospitalized for her suicide attempts (clinical sample). RESULTS: Prevalence of presence as well as persistence of suicidal ideation were higher in the clinical sample, nevertheless 11.8% of the school sample had everyone of the symptoms in a range of 1 to 7 days. The most persistent of the ideation symptoms was: "My family would be better if I were dead"; and in the clinical sample it was "I thought about killing myself". Finally, the sociodemographic characteristics that best matched the student girls having the highest scores in suicidal ideation were: to be on junior high school, to get low grades, to acknowledge school performance as bad and to have interrupted her studies. The characteristics that highlight the girls with a first attempt were analyzed in the clinic sample in comparison with those ones with two or more attempts. It was significant that girls in the second group were living only with one parent and they thought in the last attempt that their dead would be possible or certain. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of suicidal ideation was important in the school sample. If it is considered that this psychological construct has a strong association with suicidal attempt, and multiple suicide conduct, then is a priority to detect adolescents in risk and to make preventive efforts, considering the sociodemographic characteristics that configurate in risk for suicidal ideation.     

Somatic mosaicism in a patient with neurofibromatosis type 1

Using loss of heterozygosity analysis, a method designed to detect moderate to large gene deletions, we have identified a new-mutation neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) patient who is somatically mosaic for a large maternally derived deletion in the NF1 gene region. The deletion extends at least from exon 4 near the 5' end of the gene to intron 39 near the 3' end. The gene-coding region is, therefore, mostly or entirely deleted, encompassing a loss of > or = 100 kb. We hypothesize that the deletion occurred at a relatively early developmental timepoint, since signs of NF1 in this patient are not confined to a specific body region, as seen in "segmental" NF, and since both mesodermally and ectodermally derived cells are affected. This report provides the first molecular evidence of somatic mosaicism in NF1 and, taken together with a recent report of germ-line mosaicism in NF1, adds credence to the concept that mosaicism plays an important role in phenotypic and genetic aspects of NF1 and may even be a relatively common phenomenon.     

基于Heritrix与Lucene的垂直搜索引擎研究

垂直搜索是针对某一个行业的专业搜索引擎,是搜索引擎的细分和延伸,是对网页库中的某类专门的信息进行一次整合,定向分字段抽取出需要的数据进行处理后再以某种形式返回给用户。该文结合使用Heritrix与Lucene对学校新闻网站网页进行抓取并建立索引,建立相对应的新闻垂直搜索引擎系统。     

Laparoscopic vs. open wedge biopsy of the liver

The number of people smoking free-base cocaine, or "crack," has increased dramatically in recent years. Concomitantly, the literature describing complications of such use has grown as well. Adverse pulmonary effects are being increasingly noted, such as respiratory symptoms, pulmonary hemorrhage, pulmonary edema, asthma, and pulmonary barotrauma. These and other pulmonary effects are reviewed.     

基于多元目标的主成分分析的热岛效应成因研究——以西安市为例

城市热岛效应作为城市化进程的负效应,其成因具有复杂性和地域性特征.以西安市为例,基于多元目标分析的主成分方法定量计算了不同影响因子对西安市热岛效应的贡献度大小,并以此为基础,最终筛选了城市人口、人均拥有道路面积、人均拥有机动车数、人均绿化面积、建成区面积、降水量及平均风速7个主要因素作为西安市热岛效应的主要成因;最后,从调整城市规划思路、控制工业热源、调控民用热源等三个方面为出发点构建了应对西安市热岛效应的宏观调控体系,其内容由3个一级指标、12个二级指标和5个三级指标构成.对应对和缓解西安市热岛效应具有积极的指导意义,也为其它城市应对热岛效应提供范式参考.     

Histochemical light microscopic study of catecholamine containing paraganglia in the human pelvis

Histological and histochemical techniques have been employed to determine the structure and autonomic innervation of paraganglia located in the human pelvis. In foetal and early postnatal tissues, paraganglia formed rounded cellular masses which were frequently in company with the autonomic nerves and ganglia of the urinary bladder and other pelvic viscera. The constituent cells contained only small amounts of cholinesterase and were unrelated to enzyme positive autonomic nerves; acetylcholinesterase containing nerves were occasionally observed in the capsule and the fibrous septa of the pelvic paraganglia. In early postnatal specimens, pelvic paraganglia frequently contained single or multiple "pacinian-like" corpuscles, each possessing a central region which was rich in both acetyl and pseudocholinesterase. These structures were rarely observed within autonomic ganglia and were absent 4 1/2 years post partum. By means of a histochemical technique, pelvic paraganglia were found to contain catecholamine which was attributed to the presence of relatively large quantities of noradrenaline. These observations have been discussed with particular reference to the results of other studies on the autonomic innervation of paraganglia.     

Choroidal neovascular membrane in Best's vitelliform macular dystrophy

The right eye of a 9-year-old white boy with Best's vitelliform macular dystrophy had an intact egg-yolk lesion and a retinal pigment epithelial defect superiorly, suggesting an early pseudohypopyon stage. The disruptive phase of the left eye showed subretinal hemorrhages, a "signet ring," and a subretinal neovascular membrane.     

A Machine Learning Approach for Identification Thesis and Conclusion Statements in Student Essays

This study describes and evaluates twoessay-based discourse analysis systems thatidentify thesis and conclusion statements fromstudent essays written on six different essaytopics. Essays used to train and evaluate thesystems were annotated by two human judges,according to a discourse annotation protocol. Using a machine learning approach, a number ofdiscourse-related features were automaticallyextracted from a set of annotated trainingdata. Using these features, two discourseanalysis models were built using C5.0 withboosting: a topic-dependent and atopic-independent model. Both systemsoutperformed a positional algorithm. While thetopic-dependent system showed somewhat higherperformance, the topic-independent systemshowed similar results, indicating that asystem can generalize to unseen data – thatis, essay responses on topics that the systemhas not seen in training.