Intravascular lymphomatosis: a case presenting with encephalomyelitis and reactive haemophagocytic syndrome diagnosed by renal biopsy

OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of characteristics associated with unprotected heterosexual intercourse in HIV infected adults in an urban area. DESIGN: Retrospective comparison of sexual risk transmission behaviour between HIV infected men and women from a drug treatment site and between women from the drug site and HIV infected women from an urban medical centre. METHODS: HIV infected women and men were asked questions on sexual behaviour for a 1 year period before enrollment. The outcome variable was heterosexual risk behaviour (HRB) defined as having vaginal sex at least once in the previous year and not always using condoms. RESULTS: 73% of the drug clinic females, 72% of the drug clinic males, and 42% of the medical centre female engaged in HRB. Using logistic regression analysis, women and men in drug treatment engaged in similar rates of HRB; however, women in drug treatment were four times (95% CI = 2.0-8.3) more likely to engage in HRB risk behaviour than women from the medical centre. CONCLUSION: The data suggest that a surprisingly large portion of HIV infected patients under treatment engaged in HRB, especially former drug users. Without specifically targeted interventions, the heterosexual spread of HIV in urban areas will continue to be a serious problem.     

Effects of hyperthyroidism and radioactive iodine given to ablate the thyroid on the composition of whole stimulated saliva

In recent years, a growing interest in the study of peptide antigenicity in relation to the role of flanking sequences and protein topology in processing, presentation, and recognition has been observed. However, the information available on the antigenicity of recombinant fusion proteins and their effect on the selection of antigen receptor repertoires is limited. To analyze the role of molecular topology of T epitopes in a system relevant to human pathology, we have used the bacterially expressed Schistosoma japonicum glutathione S transferase (GST) to construct recombinant antigens containing HIV-1 derived T cell determinants, and human T cell clones specific for these determinants. We found that antigenicity of a given GST-peptide combination was not the same when T cells and antigen presenting cells from different individuals were tested. Our results show that differences in processing and presentation of chimeric proteins are not dictated by the use of diverse restriction elements. We also found that the context in which an antigenic peptide is delivered affects the recruited repertoire as defined according to T cell receptor V beta usage and fine specificities of selected T cells.     

X-ray computed tomography of a gas-sparged stirred-tank reactor

X-ray computed tomography (CT) is used to explore the differences in gas dispersion in a stirred-tank reactor (STR) for different operating conditions by varying the impeller speed and gas flow rate. X-ray imaging has been carried out in a 0.21 m ID acrylic STR equipped with a nylon Rushton-type impeller. From the CT images, major differences in local gas holdup are observed for different operating conditions. Completely dispersed conditions have a relatively uniform holdup profile while flooded conditions show a high gas holdup near the impeller shaft. The high resolution of the X-ray system allowed fine details such as recirculation regions behind the baffles to be visualized.