Motor nerve terminal degeneration provides a potential mechanism for rapid recovery in acute motor axonal neuropathy after Campylobacter infection

We investigated the possible mechanisms of paralysis and recovery in a patient with the acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN) pattern of the Guillain-Barré syndrome. The AMAN pattern of GBS is characterized clinically by acute paralysis without sensory involvement and electrodiagnostically by low compound motor action potential amplitudes, suggesting axonal damage, without evidence of demyelination. Many AMAN patients have serologic or culture evidence of recent Campylobacter jejuni infection. Pathologically, the most severe cases are characterized by wallerian-like degeneration of motor axons affecting the ventral roots as well as peripheral nerves, but some fatal cases have only minor changes in the roots and peripheral nerves, and some paralyzed patients with the characteristic electrodiagnostic findings of AMAN recover rapidly. The mechanism of paralysis and recovery in such cases has been uncertain. A 64-year-old woman with culture-proven Campylobacter upsaliensis diarrhea developed typical features of AMAN. She improved quickly following plasmapheresis. Her serum contained IgG anti-GM1 antibodies. The lipopolysaccharide of the organism bound peanut agglutinin. This binding was blocked by cholera toxin, suggesting that the organism contained the Gal(beta1-3)GalNAc epitope of GM1 in its lipopolysaccharide. Motor-point biopsy showed denervated neuromuscular junctions and reduced fiber numbers in intramuscular nerves. In contrast, the sural nerve biopsy was normal and skin biopsy showed normal dermal and epidermal innervation. In AMAN the paralysis may reflect degeneration of motor nerve terminals and intramuscular axons. In addition, the anti-GM1 antibodies, which can bind at nodes of Ranvier, might produce failure of conduction. These processes are potentially reversible and likely to underlie the capacity for rapid recovery that characterizes some cases of AMAN.     

Using higher-level failure data in fault tree quantification

This paper presents a Bayesian method which can simultaneously combine basic event and statistically independent higher event-level failure data in fault tree quantification. Such higher-level data could correspond to train, subsystem or system failure events. In fact, because highest-level data are usually available for existing facilities, the method presented here allows such data to be propagated to lower levels. The method has two stages: (1) a top-down propagation scheme which allocates the higher event-level information to the basic events, at a cost of making them dependent; and (2) a scheme for sampling the probabilities of the dependent basic events. A simple example illustrates the performance of the method.     

Bacteremia and fungemia in patients with advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Taiwan

To understand the etiology and clinical outcome of bacterial and fungal sepsis in patients with advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in Taiwan, we conducted a prospective study of nonmycobacterial bacteremia and fungemia in HIV-infected patients with fever who were admitted to a university hospital in Taiwan during a 42-month period. Of 210 patients, 41 (19.5%) had a total of 52 episodes of sepsis due to nonmycobacterial bacteria or fungi, or both (15.5% of 336 episodes of fever). All but one patient had acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and the mean CD4 lymphocyte count was 29/microL (range, 0-321/microL). A total of 57 pathogens (39 bacteria and 18 fungi) were isolated from blood; polymicrobial sepsis due to both bacteria and fungi occurred in four episodes. Nontyphoid Salmonella (NTS) was the most common cause of community-acquired bacteremia (24/30, 80%). Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia was diagnosed in three episodes while Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteremia was found in only one. Cryptococcus neoformans was the most common cause of fungemia and was responsible for 12 episodes, while fungemia due to Penicillium marneffei and Histoplasma capsulatum, two emerging fungi in Taiwan, were diagnosed in four cases and one case, respectively. Nine episodes, eight of bacteremia and one of candidemia, were nosocomial. The overall in-hospital mortality was 29%, and nosocomial sepsis was associated with a higher mortality rate (56%, p = 0.02). The mean duration of survival after recovery from initial sepsis was 426 days. We conclude that NTS bacteremia was the most common cause of sepsis in patients with advanced HIV infection in Taiwan and clinicians caring for such patients should watch for emerging fungal infections. Nosocomial sepsis was associated with a high mortality rate. The mean survival duration after recovery from sepsis of our patients was short.     

Oxygen Nonstoichiometry and Defects in Mn-Doped Gd2Ti2O7+x

The oxygen nonstoichiometry in Mn-doped Gd₂Ti₂O₇, Gd₂(Ti_0.975Mn_0.025)₂O_7+x, was measured electrochemically, as a function of temperature and oxygen partial pressure, with the aid of an oxygen titration cell. The analysis of the data shows that the defect equilibrium can be described by considering the dominant point defects to be neutral oxygen interstitials, doubly charged oxygen vacancies, and trivalent and quadrivalent Mn ions substituted in the Ti sites. The enthalpies for the formation of neutral oxygen interstitials and trivalent Mn are determined.     

Modification of an in-vitro method for estimating the bioavailability of zinc and calcium from foods

A continuous flow in-vitro method for estimating the bioavailability of minerals and trace elements was modified. This modified method includes a simulated gastric digestion with pepsin, gradual pH change during the first 30 min of dialysis in an Amicon stirred cell, and a further 2 h of continuous dialysis accompanied by intestinal digestion with pancreatin-bile extract. The percentage of continuously dialysed minerals or trace elements (dialysability) is used to express the bioavailability. Comparison of different in-vitro methods by using the dialysability of zinc and calcium from milk- and soy-based formula samples revealed that with the modified method the results are closer to the in-vivo situation and could be used as a relative index for predicting the bioavailability of some minerals and trace elements.

---

Modifikation einer in-vitro-Methode zur Bestimmung der Bioverfügbarkeit von Zink und Calcium aus Lebensmitteln

Zusammenfassung Eine continuous-flow-Methode zur in-vitro-Bestimmung der Bioverfügbarkeit von Mineralien und Spurenelementen wurde verbessert. Die Proben werden mit Pepsin in einer Dialysezelle verdaut, der pH-Wert dabei graduell verändert und bei der nachfolgenden Verdauung mit Pankreas-Galle-Extrakt die freigesetzten Mineralstoffe kontinuierlich durch Dialyse abgezogen. Der dialysierbare Anteil gilt als Maß für die Bioverfügbarkeit. Ein Vergleich der so erhaltenen Daten für Zink und Calcium aus Milch- und Soja-Formulanahrung zeigt gute Übereinstimmung mit in-vivo-Messungen. Die Methode dürfte sich zur Vorhersage der Bioverfügbarkeit für Mineralstoffe eignen.

     

The effect of roll and clad sheet geometry on the necking instability during rolling of clad sheet metals

Experimental evidence is presented showing that the rolling strain required to produce internal necking in clad sheet depends both on the volume fraction of each constituent in the clad and the geometry of the rolls. This result was not predicted by earlier localization analysis that approximates the stress/strain field in rolling with that of plane strain compression. The evolution of hardness during rolling and complementary finite element results point to redundant shearing of the soft phase as the reason for this behavior. Such redundant shear differentially strengthens the softer component of the clad and reduces the induced tensile stress in the harder component, delaying the localization. Therefore, unwanted strain localization in rolling of clad sheets can be delayed significantly by the use of small radius rolls in configurations such as a Sendzimir mill.     

Design and fabrication of the suspended high-Q spiral inductors with X-beams

In this paper, deep sub-micron CMOS process compatible high Q on-chip spiral inductors with air gap structure were designed and fabricated. In the design the electromagnetic solver, SONNET, and the finite element program, ANSYS, were used for electrical-characteristics and maximum mechanical strength, respectively. The copper wires were capped with electroless Ni plating to prevent the copper from oxidizing. A Si₃N₄/SiO₂ X-beam was designed to increase the mechanical strength of the inductor in air gap. The enhancement of maximum mechanical strength of a spiral inductor with X-beams is more than 4,500 times. Among these structures, the measured maximum quality factor (Q) of the suspending inductor and frequency at maximum Q are improved from 5.2 and 1.6 GHz of conventional spiral inductor to 7.3 and 2.1 GHz, respectively.     

Editorial.

In the 6 years since the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology was divided into three sections, Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes (IRGP) has come to be the impoverished sibling in the family. This weakness seems curious in a discipline that concentrates on human interrelatedness as its central theme. Indeed, Gordon Allport's definition in the Handbook of Social Psychology (1968) acknowledged the social core of social psychology: "an attempt to understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others." Perhaps the short rations to which many readers have become accustomed reflected a reluctance of researchers to engage these phenomena in the individualistic Zeitgeist of the 1970s and early 1980s. Nevertheless, 1986 brings a renewed interest in the scientific study of human social bonds. It is to the dissemination of the very best of this work that this editorship is dedicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self and social behavior in differing cultural contexts.

Three aspects of the self (private, public, collective) with different probabilities in different kinds of social environments were sampled. Three dimensions of cultural variation (individualism–collectivism, tightness–looseness, cultural complexity) are discussed in relation to the sampling of these 3 aspects of self. The more complex the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the public and private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. The more individualistic the culture, the more frequent the sampling of the private self and the less frequent the sampling of the collective self. Collectivism, external threat, competition with outgroups, and common fate increase the sampling of the collective self. Cultural homogeneity results in tightness and in the sampling of the collective self. The article outlines theoretical links among aspects of the environment, child-rearing patterns, and cultural patterns, which are linked to differential sampling of aspects of the self. Such sampling has implications for social behavior. Empirical investigations of some of these links are reviewed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)