Adoption and usage of Academic Social Networks: a Japan case study

Scientometrics - Engaging in the international academic environment is now facilitated by a range of Academic Social Networks (ASNs) that are being used by an increasing number of early career and...     

Failure to cure Mycobacterium gordonae peritonitis associated with continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis

Nontuberculous mycobacteria are increasingly recognized as important pathogens in peritonitis associated with continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD). Mycobacterium gordonae rarely causes human infection and is the least likely mycobacterium to produce clinical infection in CAPD patients. We describe a patient with persistent M. gordonae peritonitis acquired while undergoing CAPD. During 18 months of treatment, clinical improvement occurred but a microbiological cure could not be achieved. Principles of therapy for mycobacterial peritonitis developing during CAPD are reviewed, and potential explanations for our patient's failure to respond to therapy are discussed.     

The role of perspective in the accessibility of goals during reading.

An implicit assumption of several causal reasoning models is that readers adopt the goals of a narrative's protagonist during text comprehension. In apparent violation of this assumption, readers participating in Experiment 1 of the present study drew inferences relevant to a protagonist's goal even when that goal was already satisfied from the perspective of the protagonist. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants were explicitly asked to view the text situation from the point of view of the protagonist. In this case, the goals of the reader and the protagonist should be the same. In these experiments, participants focused on the goals of the protagonist only when those goals had not been satisfied from the perspective of the protagonist. These results are discussed in terms of reader- and character-based perspectives and in terms of text characteristics that cue perspective taking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reaction of cytochrome P450 with cumene hydroperoxide: ESR spin-trapping evidence for the homolytic scission of the peroxide O-O bond by ferric cytochrome P450 1A2

ESR spin trapping was used to investigate the reaction of rabbit cytochrome P450 (P450) 1A2 with cumene hydroperoxide. Cumene hydroperoxide-derived peroxyl, alkoxyl, and carbon-centered radicals were formed and trapped during the reaction. The relative contributions of each radical adduct to the composite ESR spectrum were influenced by the concentration of the spin trap. Computer simulation of the experimental data obtained at various 5,5-dimethyl-1-pyrroline N-oxide (DMPO) concentrations was used to quantitate the contributions of each radical adduct to the composite ESR spectrum. The alkoxyl radical was the initial radical produced during the reaction. Experiments with 2-methyl-2-nitrosopropane identified the carbon-centered adducts as those of the methyl radical, hydroxymethyl radical, and a secondary carbon-centered radical. The reaction did not require NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductase or NADPH. It is concluded that the reaction involves the initial homolytic scission of the peroxide O-O bond to produce the cumoxyl radical. Methyl radicals were produced from the beta-scission of the cumoxyl radical. The peroxyl adduct was not observed in the absence of molecular oxygen. We conclude that the DMPO peroxyl radical adduct detected in the presence of oxygen was due to the methylperoxyl radical formed by the reaction of the methyl radical with oxygen. At a higher P450 concentration, a protein-derived radical adduct was also detected.     

Genetic marking shows that Ph+ cells present in autologous transplants of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) contribute to relapse after autologous bone marrow in CML

Relapse after autologous bone marrow transplantation for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) can be due either to the persistence of leukemia cells in systemic tissues following preparative therapy, or due to the persistence of leukemia cells in the autologous marrow used to restore marrow function after intensive therapy. To help distinguish between these two possible causes of relapse, we used safety-modified retroviruses, which contain the bacterial resistance gene NEO, to mark autologous marrow cells that had been collected from patients early in the phase of hematopoietic recovery after in vivo chemotherapy. The cells were then subjected to ex vivo CD34 selection following collection and 30% of the bone marrow were exposed to a safety-modified virus. This marrow was infused after delivery of systemic therapy, which consisted of total body irradiation (1,020 cGy), cyclophosphamide (120 mg/kg), and VP-16 (750 mg/m2). RT PCR assays specific for the bacterial NEO mRNA, which was coded for by the virus, and the bcr-abl mRNA showed that in two evaluable CML patients transplanted with marked cells, sufficient numbers of leukemia cells remained in the infused marrow to contribute to systemic relapse. In addition, both normal and leukemic cells positive for the retroviral transgenome persisted in the systemic circulation of the patients for at least 280 days posttransplant showing that the infused marrow was responsible for the return of hematopoiesis following the preparative therapy. This observation shows that it is possible to use a replication-incompetent safety-modified retrovirus in order to introduce DNA sequences into the hematopoietic cells of patients undergoing autologous bone marrow transplantation. Moreover, this data suggested that additional fractionation procedures will be necessary to reduce the probability of relapse after bone marrow transplantation in at least the advanced stages of the disease in CML patients undergoing autologous bone marrow transplantation procedures.     

Study of 18-cm long single-sided AC-coupled silicon microstripdetectors

The SSC GEM silicon Central Tracker design incorporated 18-cm long single-sided AC-coupled silicon microstrip ladders. Compared to the 12-cm long ladders considered in the preliminary stages of the tracker design, the 18-cm long ladders have the advantage of reduced cost, channel count and overall power consumption, and led to a simplified tracker assembly. However, such long ships also present the challenge of maintaining satisfactory performance. The increased capacitance and series resistance contribute to lower signal-to-noise ratios, longer time walk, higher power consumption per channel and increased probability of crosstalk to neighboring channels. In this paper, an accurate method to calculate the geometric capacitance of the AC-coupled microstrips is presented and the calculated results are compared with measurements, SPICE simulations are performed to predict the noise, the extent of interstrip capacitive coupling and the dispersion of the detector signal due to the finite series resistance of the metal strips and the long length of the detector. The influence of the preamplifier current and the shaping time on the signal and noise levels is also presented. The study concludes that the 18-cm long ladders can successfully satisfy the performance goals of the GEM silicon Central Tracker