Expression of peroxisome proliferator activated receptor mRNA in normal and tumorigenic rodent mammary glands

PURPOSE: To evaluate the usefulness of Doppler ultrasonography (US) in the diagnosis of hyperfiltration in patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eighty-one consecutive patients with IDDM were studied. All patients were normotensive and had normal creatinine and blood urea nitrogen levels. The glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was evaluated by means of plasma clearance of chromium-51 ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, urinary albumin excretion, US evaluation of renal volume, and Doppler evaluation of resistance index (RI) in the renal interlobar arteries. The patients were divided according to GFR into the following groups: those with hyperfiltering kidneys (group 1, n = 40) and those with normofiltering kidneys (group 2, n = 41). RESULTS: The median renal volume was 351 mL (95% CI = 337 mL, 379 mL) in group 1 and 318 mL (95% CI = 300 mL, 335 mL) in group 2 (P = .005). The number of patients with microalbuminuria was significantly lower in group 1 than in group 2 (P = .02). The median RI was significantly lower in group 1 (0.55; 95% CI = 0.53, 0.57) than in group 2 (0.57; 95% CI = 0.56, 0.59) (P = .04). An RI of less than 0.5, a renal volume greater than 410 mL/m2, and the absence of microalbuminuria were independent predictors of hyperfiltration. An RI of less than 0.5 and a renal volume greater than 410 mL/m2 showed high specificity (98% and 95%, respectively) and poor sensitivity (25% and 23%, respectively) in the diagnosis of hyperfiltration in IDDM patients. CONCLUSION: Both RI and renal volume showed correlation with GFR, but neither parameter is sufficiently sensitive in screening for hyperfiltration in IDDM patients.     

Rapid, specific detection of Salmonella Enteritidis in pooled eggs by real-time PCR

An assay was developed for the specific detection of Salmonella Enteritidis in eggs with the use of an application of the fluorogenic 5' nuclease assay (TaqMan). In this assay, a segment of the gene sefA specific to Salmonella group D strains such as Salmonella Enteritidis was used. The amplification of the target gene products was monitored in real-time by incorporating a fluorescent dye-labeled gene-specific probe in the PCR reaction. This method correctly detected and distinguished Salmonella Enteritidis from nearly 50 of non-group D Salmonella and other non-Salmonella strains. Detection of the sefA gene was linear for DNA extracted from approximately 10(2) to 10(9) CFU/ml in phosphate-buffered saline and 10(3) to 10(8) CFU/ml in raw egg. In two trials, when applied to detection of Salmonella Enteritidis in homogenized egg pools and compared with conventional culture methods, the newly developed PCR method yielded a 100% correlation with results obtained by a conventional culture method. However, the PCR method required only 2 days, compared to the 5 days required by the culture method. The sensitivity of this assay was approximately less than 1 CFU/600 g of egg pool. The real-time PCR assay proved to be a rapid, highly sensitive test for detection and quantification of low concentrations of Salmonella Enteritidis in egg samples.     

Efficacy of electrolyzed water in inactivating Salmonella enteritidis and Listeria monocytogenes on shell eggs

The efficacy of acidic electrolyzed (EO) water produced at three levels of total available chlorine (16, 41, and 77 mg/ liter) and chlorinated water with 45 and 200 mg/liter of residual chlorine was investigated for inactivating Salmonella Enteritidis and Listeria monocytogenes on shell eggs. An increasing reduction in Listeria population was observed with increasing chlorine concentration from 16 to 77 mg/liter and treatment time from 1 to 5 min, resulting in a maximal reduction of 3.70 log CFU per shell egg compared with a deionized water wash for 5 min. There was no significant difference in antibacterial activities against Salmonella and Listeria at the same treatment time between 45 mg/liter of chlorinated water and 14-A acidic EO water treatment (P > or = 0.05). Chlorinated water (200 mg/liter) wash for 3 and 5 min was the most effective treatment; it reduced mean populations of Listeria and Salmonella on inoculated eggs by 4.89 and 3.83 log CFU/shell egg, respectively. However, reductions (log CFU/shell egg) of Listeria (4.39) and Salmonella (3.66) by 1-min alkaline EO water treatment followed by another 1 min of 14-A acidic EO water (41 mg/liter chlorine) treatment had a similar reduction to the 1-min 200 mg/liter chlorinated water treatment for Listeria (4.01) and Salmonella (3.81). This study demonstrated that a combination of alkaline and acidic EO water wash is equivalent to 200 mg/liter of chlorinated water wash for reducing populations of Salmonella Enteritidis and L. monocytogenes on shell eggs.     

A large ATM switch based on memory switches and optical starcouplers

The authors propose a large asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch architecture based on memory switches of the type being developed by several research groups and on optical star couplers. Fast contention resolution makes it possible to combine a number of these modules, memory switches, and optical stars in order to attain a capacity of 2.5 Tb/s. This switch architecture has a relatively small failure group size of 128 STS-3 lines out of a total of 16384. The scaling of the switch to smaller capacities is discussed, showing how tradeoffs in the various parameters can be used to overcome particular technological limitations. Fault tolerance and recovery schemes are presented, showing that with minimal increase to the switch complexity and cost, a very reasonable fault recovery scheme is available for almost every sort of failure     

Cycles in wavelength routed optical networks

Signals in wavelength routed optical networks can oscillate in closed cycles resulting in adverse effects on network operation. In particular, amplified spontaneous emission from erbium doped fiber amplifiers can form recirculating loops that lead to amplifier saturation and oscillations. Searching, enumerating and eliminating these closed cycles becomes a problem that the network designer must address. A variety of cross-connect technologies are studied and shown to result in oscillating cycles in the network. Topological and technological approaches based on Eulerian network theory and other methods are proposed to eliminate these cycle problems     

Gender and support for creativity at work

Although innovation is vital for the success of organizations, many may not be capitalizing on the creativity of all workers. Gender bias in attributions of creativity may lead to an imbalance in the extent to which organizations support the creativity of men and women. Because organizational support for creativity is positively associated with creative outcomes, this may undermine the creativity of women in the workplace. To determine if gender influences creative workplace behavior through support for creativity, conditional process models were used to analyze the survey responses and external employment data of workers (N = 14,590) across industries in the US. Our analyses demonstrate that men report greater support for creativity in the workplace than women, and greater support for workplace creativity leads to more frequent creative workplace behaviors. The proportion of women employed in an industry influences this relationship, such that differences between men and women become smaller as the proportion of women in an industry increases. However, the level of creativity required in an occupation does not influence the relationship between gender and creativity. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Hierarchical remeshing strategies with mesh mapping for topology optimisation

This work investigates the use of hierarchical mesh decomposition strategies for topology optimisation using bi‐directional evolutionary structural optimisation algorithm. The proposed method uses a dual mesh system that decouples the design variables from the finite element analysis mesh. The investigation focuses on previously unexplored areas of these techniques to investigate the effect of five meshing parameters on the analysis solving time (i.e. computational effort) and the analysis quality (i.e. solution optimality). The foreground mesh parameters, including adjacency ratio and minimum and maximum element size, were varied independently across solid and void domain regions. Within the topology optimisation, strategies for controlling the mesh parameters were investigated. The differing effects of these parameters on the efficiency and efficacy of the analysis and optimisation stages are discussed, and recommendations are made for parameter combinations. Some of the key findings were that increasing the adjacency ratio increased the efficiency only modestly – the largest effect was for the minimum and maximum element size parameters – and that the most dramatic reduction in solve time can be achieved by not setting the minimum element size too low, assuming mapping onto a background mesh with a minimum element size of 1. © 2016 The Authors. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of divalent cations and chelators on aflatoxin B1 degradation by Flavobacterium aurantiacum

The influence of divalent cations (Mg2+ and Ca2+) and chelators (EDTA and 1,10-phenanthroline) on aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) degradation by Flavobacterium aurantiacum was determined in an effort to elucidate the possible manner by which this organism degrades AFB1. AFB1 (10 microg/ml) was added to 72-h cultures of F. aurantiacum that had been washed and resuspended in phosphate buffer (pH 7.0). High-performance liquid chromatography was used to determine AFB1 concentration in these cultures. Incubating cells with 0.1, 1, and 10 mM Ca2+ for 48 h significantly increased AFB1 degradation by 11.8, 13.5, and 14.0%, respectively, compared with F. aurantiacum cells alone. Likewise, incubation with 0.1, 1, and 10 mM Mg2+ for 48 h significantly increased AFB1 degradation by 13.8, 13.3, and 13.1%, respectively. Incubating the bacterium with either divalent cation for 16 and 24 h did not significantly affect AFB1 degradation (P < or = 0.05). Addition of 0.1, 1, and 10 mM EDTA and 0.1 and 1 mM 1,10-phenanthroline resulted in significant increases in AFB1 degradation after 24 h. Significantly less AFB1 degradation was observed using 10 mM 1,10-phenanthroline after 24-h incubation. These results suggest the involvement of Mg2+ and Ca2+ cations in AFB1 degradation by F. aurantiacum.