Aureobasidium pneumonia in a post liver transplant recipient: a case report

This is the first report of Aureobasidium (A.) pullulans as an opportunistic pulmonary infection in a liver transplant recipient. A 46-year-old caucasian man had an orthotopic liver transplant in 1988. His liver disease was primary sclerosing cholangitis. He required 2 subsequent liver re-transplants for primary graft non-function and acute rejection. The patient had been living in the California desert for two months prior to admission and presented with ventilator-dependent acute respiratory failure and hemodialysis-dependent acute renal failure. Imaging studies revealed severe bilateral infiltrates. His initial bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and brushings grew A. pullulans. Pancultures, including sputum and throat cultures, were negative for bacterial or other fungal organisms. The patient responded to pulmonary support and aggressive systemic antifungal agents while being maintained on cyclosporine and prednisone for immunosuppression. He was discharged to a skilled nursing facility 37 days after hospitalisation. Delay in discharge was primarily due to severe malnutrition and renal impairment. Opportunistic fungal infections continue to be a major problem in immunosuppressed patients including liver transplant recipients. Here we report a pulmonary infection with Coccidioides (C.) immitis and superinfection with A. pullulans. Opportunistic infections such as A. pullulans can be treated successfully with systemic fluconazole when amphotericin B is not well tolerated.     

An 11000-fuse electrically erasable programmable logic device(EEPLD) with an extended macrocell

A high-performance electrically erasable programmable logic device (EEPLD) has been designed and fabricated using a 1.5-μm n-well CMOS technology. The chip has 11040 fuses which are used not only in the logic array but also in the input/output macrocell. Typical access time for the nonregistered version is 35 ns with a power dissipation of 450 mW. There are 16 input/output macrocells which are architecturally defined by 128 electrically programmable fuses. Die size is 130×230 mils     

Pharmacokinetic evaluation of a 1,3-dicyclohexylurea nanosuspension formulation to support early efficacy assessment

Time and resource constraints necessitate increasingly early decisions to advance or halt pre-clinical drug discovery programs. Early discovery or “tool” compounds may be potent inhibitors of new targets, but all too often they exhibit poor pharmaceutical and pharmacokinetic properties that make early assessment of in vivo efficacy difficult. 1,3-Dicyclohexylurea, a potent and selective inhibitor of soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), reduces blood pressure in hypertensive preclinical animal models when administered intraperitoneally using DMSO/corn oil as a delivery vehicle. However, the poor aqueous solubility of DCU poses a challenge for in vivo dosing in a multiple dose situation. Therefore, we developed a nanosuspension formulation of DCU to support oral, intravenous bolus and intravenous infusion dosing. Use of the nanosuspension formulation maintained DCU free plasma levels above the sEH IC50 and demonstrated that the application of formulation technology can accelerate in vivo evaluation of new targets by enabling pharmacodynamic studies of poorly soluble compounds. This study was supported by Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics and Metabolism at Pfizer.     

The Seville Statement on Violence.

Presents the Seville Statement on Violence, which was drafted by an international committee of scholars at the 6th International Colloquium on Brain and Aggression held at the University of Seville, Spain, in May 1986. The statement's purpose is to dispel the belief that human beings are inevitably disposed to war as a result of innate, biologically determined aggressive traits. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of job evaluation methods: A "policy-capturing" approach using the Position Analysis Questionnaire.

Used a policy-capturing method of job evaluation, which involved the multiple regression weighting of numerical job analysis data obtained using the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ), to predict compensation rates in 2 studies. In Study 1 compensation rates were derived and compared for 19 municipal government jobs using the policy-capturing and 4 conventional methods. The rates derived using the 5 methods intercorrelated between .82 and .95. In Study 2 PAQ data and job evaluation points previously determined using a point method were obtained for 131 jobs in a utility company. A stepwise regression analysis, used to select and weight PAQ factor scores to predict the job evaluation points, yielded a multiple correlation of .90. Because of comparable results and lower cost, the policy-capturing method was adopted in both organizations. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Simulation of patient specific cervical hip fracture surgery with a volume haptic interface

The interest for surgery simulator systems with anatomical models generated from authentic patient data is growing as these systems evolve. With access to volumetric patient data, e.g., from a computer tomography scan, haptic and visual feedback can be created directly from this dataset. This opens the door for patient specific simulations. Hip fracture surgery is one area where simulator systems is useful to train new surgeons and plan operations. To simulate the drilling procedure in this type of surgery, a repositioning of the fractured bone into correct position is first needed. This requires a segmentation process in which the bone segments are identified and the position of the dislocated part is determined. The segmentation must be automatic to cope with the large amount of data from the computer tomography scan. This work presents the first steps in the development of a hip fracture surgery simulation with patient specific models. Visual and haptic feedback is generated from the computer tomography data by simulating fluoroscopic images and the drilling process. We also present an automatic segmentation method to identify the fractured bone and determine the dislocation. This segmentation method is based on nonrigid registration with the Morphon method.     

Computers and writing: Casting a broader net with theory and research

Today, teachers of English are faced with the problem of developing new vantage points from which to consider the use of computers in writing programs, writing classrooms, and individual writing processes. Until this time, the profession has subscribed to a limited view of computers and their effects on writing — a view circumscribed by the paradigms of other disciplines or by our own past experiences with teaching machines and paper-and-pencil composing. These visions are not capable of accommodating the larger and more radical changes wrought by the electronic medium we are now using. By subscribing to them, English teachers may, as Coleridge says, have created a tacit compact not to pass beyond a certain limit in speculating about computers. This paper suggests four overlapping areas of exploration, four points of departure that might help us spark creative re-formations of our thinking about computers and their relationship to writing: 1.) Computers and teaching writing, 2.) Computers and language theory, 3.) Computers and learning from the past, 4.) Computer research in other fields.Cynthia Selfe has been chair of the NCTE assembly of Computers in English and a member of the CCCC Committee on Instructional Technology. Billie J. Wahlstrom is chair of the Graduate Program in Rhetoric and Technical Communication at Michigan Technological University and a consultant on interactive videodisc design for Michigan Tech Software.     

Molecular structure of a functional Drosophila centromere

Centromeres play a critical role in chromosome inheritance but are among the most difficult genomic components to analyze in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a highly detailed molecular structure of a functional centromere in a multicellular organism. The centromere of the Drosophila minichromosome Dp1187 is contained within a 420 kb region of centric heterochromatin. We have used a new approach to characterize the detailed structure of this centromere and found that it is primarily composed of satellites and single, complete transposable elements. In the rest of the Drosophila genome, these satellites and transposable elements are neither unique to the centromeres nor present at all centromeres. We discuss the impact of these results on our understanding of heterochromatin structure and on the determinants of centromere identity and function.     

Designing and managing virtual learning communities

There is a tendency to view education on the Internet as simply a more efficient way to access information and to communicate, but the Internet is much more than just another tool. The Internet has the potential to create communities where students participate in robust discourse and rituals of communication, establish their identities, and traverse community boundaries. We believe we need to design on-line courses with sound pedagogical frameworks and with a sense of promoting community values of diversity, connectedness, and civic responsibility. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to describe a framework that we use to design virtual learning communities. We explain community activities to consider, describe how we used our framework for designing three classes, and pose issues that arose when using this framework. We hope our thoughts will direct discussion toward the creation of innovative learning communities