Orientation and Crystallinity Measurements in Film Casting Products

Summary Film casting experiments were carried out with iPP under processing conditions causing the crystallization process to occur under orienting flow. Draw ratio and cooling rates were changed by varying mass flow rates and die thickness. The effect of processing conditions on film crystallinity was investigated by combining WAXS and FT-IR transmission methods, while orientation of both phases was measured by IR dichroism (according to Fraser's method) and successfully compared to birefringence measurements on final films. Crystallinity appears to be almost insensitive to draw ratio and cooling rate. Moreover the crystallinity profile turned out to be also constant along the transverse film direction. Phases orientation were found relatively low and no dependence on draw ratio was detected.     

Time since last use of oral contraceptives and risk of invasive cervical cancer

OBJECTIVE: To review our experience of surgical staging for residual masses after chemotherapy in patients with nonseminomatous germ cell tumour (NSGCT) and positive tumour markers. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Of 107 patients with metastatic NSGCTs treated surgically after chemotherapy from 1978 to 1995, 30 (median age 30.5 years, range 20-52) had positive tumour markers. These patients were reviewed and the outcome compared with 77 patients who had normal tumour marker values. RESULTS: Of the 77 patients with negative markers undergoing surgical/pathological staging, 71 (92%) became continuously disease-free, including 37 of 50 (74%) with viable NSGCT in excised specimens. Seventeen of 30 (57%) with raised marker levels undergoing similar surgery for chemotherapy-resistant tumour became disease-free, including 11 of 22 with viable NSGCT in the excised specimens. CONCLUSION: Although the outcome after surgery is better in patients with negative tumour markers, it is clear that surgery is curative for patients with localized chemotherapy-resistant masses. There is a need for continued debate on the timing of salvage surgery and subsequent chemotherapy.     

Establishing the Cryptosporidium parvum karyotype by NotI and SfiI restriction analysis and Southern hybridization

Endo-observers can be described and classified on the basis of a novel two-dimensional scheme. One axis stands for the observer's style of knowledge acquisition, whereas the other axis corresponds to the observer's style of knowledge representation. In this way several problems concerning the relation between the endo-observer and the exo-system can be studied more systematically. Among other things, it is shown that there are two complementarity relations which restrict the observer's capacity of information gain: a duality between structure and dynamics (an increased information gain on the structure of the endo-system implies a reduced information gain on its dynamics, and vice versa), and a duality between the predictive and the explanatory power of a model. Connections with the problem of hermeneutics are outlined.     

Developmental consequences of karyokinesis without cytokinesis during the first mitotic cell cycle of bovine parthenotes

Bovine parthenogenetic embryos and bovine embryos produced by in vitro fertilization were compared for chromosomal complement and developmental potential. Oocytes (n = 1885) were matured in vitro, fertilized (n = 1151) or activated (n = 734) by exposure to 5 microM ionomycin for 4 min, and then treated with 1.9 mM 6-dimethylaminopurine for 5 h to inhibit protein kinase functions and promote mitosis. Mean cleavage rates at 48 h were 76.3+/-4.7% for fertilization and 60.1+/-4.2% for activation (p < 0.05). A similar percentage of embryos had reached the blastocyst stage on Day 8 post fertilization/postactivation (16.4+/-3.3%) and (15.8+/-1.0%), respectively. Blastocysts (n = 53) produced by in vitro fertilization had higher total cell numbers (116.9+/-5.5) than parthenotes (n = 71, 67.2+/-3.5 cells, p < 0.05). Differential staining indicated a significant reduction in the number of blastomeres allocated to both the inner cell mass and trophectodermal lineages in parthenotes (p < 0.05). All parthenotes (n = 65) were polyploid or mixoploid, with observed karyotypes of 4n (61.53%), 2n/4n (30.76%), 2n/8n (4.61%), and 3n (3.07%). In contrast, only 9 control blastocysts (n = 53) revealed abnormal metaphases (16.9%). At 6 h postactivation (hpa), 70.7% of parthenotes (n = 65) demonstrated a fully formed pronucleus; and at 10 hpa (n = 86), 89% had completed pronuclear formation. Pronuclear DNA replication was observed by 6 hpa and resulted in the formation of a second pronucleus in 76.9% of activated oocytes (n = 104) by 24 hpa. These pronuclear kinetics lead to a high number of embryos with binucleate blastomeres upon cleavage. Thus, alterations in the DNA content (ploidy) of bovine parthenogenetic blastocysts reflect ongoing karyokinesis without cytokinesis during the first mitotic cell cycle after exposure to a protein kinase inhibitor.     

Low-risk diet for breast cancer in Italy

To define a low-risk diet for breast cancer in Italy, a multicentric case-control study of 2569 incident cases of breast cancer and 2588 controls from Italy was analyzed. A logistic regression model was applied to the estimated intake of five macronutrients and used to compute a diet-related risk score (RS). The pattern of macronutrient and food group intake across RS deciles was defined. The mean of diet-related RSs across subsequent risk deciles ranged from 0.83 to 1.44. Total energy intake first decreased slightly, from the first to the second decile, and then increased, mostly in the last three risk deciles. Intake of starch increased in absolute and relative terms, whereas saturated fat intake rose in absolute terms but remained stable as a proportion. A relative decline was observed for unsaturated fat and sugars, with a hint, however, of U-shape effect. From a food group viewpoint, there was a marked increase in the intake of bread and cereal dishes, cakes and desserts, and refined sugar across subsequent deciles, whereas the consumption of vegetables, olive and seed oils, and fruit decreased.     

Repetition priming of nonwords in young and older adults.

In 3 experiments, a pronunciation task was used to examine repetition priming of novel nonwords in young and older adults. The contributions of item and associative priming to the total repetition priming effect were assessed. In Experiment 1, age consistency was found in both components of repetition priming after 9 repetitions of nonwords. Experiment 2 established that young and older adults were similar in item and associative priming after as few as 2 repetitions of nonwords. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated that associative priming persists for at least 3 min and that it is dissociable from cued recall. The overall pattern of results strongly argues that elaborative processing is not necessary to obtain associative priming in indirect memory tasks and that young and older adults show similar magnitudes of associative priming. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hepatocellular carcinoma in mixed cryoglobulinemia patients

Rosacea is an uncommon disease of the eye and facial skin. Ocular rosacea is often undiagnosed by the ophthalmologist especially when skin manifestations are not evident yet. Early diagnosis and treatment is important to decrease morbidity of this potentially blinding disease. A case of ocular rosacea in a 14-year-old Chinese girl is reported. Our patient presented with chronic non-specific keratoconjunctivitis. Only much later did the characteristic corneal and facial skin lesions appear. She responded to guttae prednisolone, oral and guttae tetracycline. This case illustrates the difficulty of early diagnosis when ocular manifestations precede those of the skin. We believe this is the first case of ocular rosacea reported in Singapore.