Stress appraisal in women with spinal cord injury: Supplementary findings through mixed methods.

A study was conducted to examine how women with spinal cord injury (SCI) perceive the stressors they encounter, and how cognitive appraisal is associated with coping and life satisfaction. Fifty women with SCI were interviewed regarding their experience with stress and coping. The interviews were then coded using a framework based on stress and coping theory (transactional model). The systematic application of quantitative methods to the coded interview data allowed for statistical analyses, which demonstrated that the context in which the women spoke about their experiences with various stressors was associated with coping strategies, time since injury, and life satisfaction. Although stress and coping are commonly seen as interacting constructs that influence quality of life outcomes, current findings suggest that appraisal of stressors in the context of loss (more common among women more recently injured) may have a direct impact on life satisfaction apart from any coping strategies put into effect. Interventions designed to facilitate coping with loss and enhance problem-solving skills, along with education about available resources, may foster a sense of empowerment after SCI and ultimately change how stressors are perceived and managed in order to dampen their negative impact on life satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Studies on the β-glucosidase and endo-1, 4-glucanase activities from Clostridium papyrosolvens

Activities of endo-β-4-glucanase and β-glucosidase from Clostridium papyrosolvens (CECT 747) were studied under different conditions. No indications were found for the presence of more than one β-glucosidase after ion exchange and ammonium sulphate fractionation. β-Glucosidase showed activity against p-nitrophenyl-β-D-glucopyranoside and cellobiose but was not inhibited by δ-gluconolactone. Independent cellobiose phosphorylase activity could also be detected. The β-glucosidase was essentially intracellular. By the use of stationary phase culture assays, enzyme induction at low concentrations of cellobiose was observed, whilst glucose had no effect. Regulation of endo-β-1,4-glucanase and β-glucosidase were compared.     

Partial purification and characterization of the cellulases from clostridium cellulolyticum h10

The extracellular cellulolytic complex from Clostridium cellulolyticum H10 has been isolated and partially characterized. Through application of gel filtration and ion exchange chromatography techniques it has been established that in its native state this complex essentially consists of highly stable macromolecular structures (M^r c. 20 000 kDa) (similar to those described for different cellulolytic bacteria and currently termed cellulosomes) exhibiting avicelase, carboxymethylcellulase (CMCase) and xylanase activities. Furthermore, immunoaffinity assays show that this extracellular cellutosomal form of the complex is immunochemically similar to the cell-associated form. Another feature of the C. cellulolyticum H10 complex is that the Avicel-adsorbed fraction consists essentially of three major components, two of them (those of 160–170 and 72 kDa) having no detectable activity and one (that of 95 kDa) being associated with strong CMCase activity.     

Improvement of vehicular communications by using 3G capabilities to disseminate control information

Cellular networks have gained a lot of popularity in the context of vehicular communication within the last few years. Existing reference architectures such as CALM already consider them to provide enhanced connectivity to vehicles for data communication. Their capabilities, especially 3G and next-generation, translate into great potential in the vehicular environment, far beyond the provision of data connectivity. In this context we present a solution that uses 3G cellular networks not only as a backup for data communication among vehicles, but also and especially as an efficient mechanism for the dissemination of relevant control information for multiple applications, services, and protocols. Our simulation results demonstrate that by using our 3G-based solution to disseminate connectivity information, vehicular ad hoc routing protocols improve their route selections, which results in a higher packet delivery ratio in urban scenarios.     

Psychometric properties of the rehabilitation therapy engagement scale when used among individuals with acquired brain injury.

Objective: To examine the properties of the Rehabilitation Therapy Engagement Scale (RTES), a new scale developed to assess patient engagement in physical and occupational therapies in the acute rehabilitation setting quantitatively. Design: Psychometric analysis to test the reliability and validity of the RTES in a Midwestern acute rehabilitation facility. Participants: 75 individuals with acquired brain injury admitted to an acute rehabilitation program in a Midwestern urban setting. Main Outcome Measures: Physical therapists (PTs) and occupational therapists (OTs) completed a rating scale designed to measure each patient's level of engagement, or involvement, in therapy. Functional status at admission and discharge was measured with the Motor and Cognition scales of the Functional Independence Measure (FIM; J. M. Linacre, A. W. Heinemann, B. D. Wright, C. V. Granger, B. B. Hamilton, 1994). Results: The RTES showed high internal consistency in both physical therapy and occupational therapy settings, as well as significant correlation across those settings (r = .56, p = .001). Conclusions: The RTES appears to be a reliable and relatively unidimensional measure to identify and describe issues affecting patient engagement in rehabilitation therapies. Additional research is suggested to better understand and define the construct of engagement and to provide additional evidence of convergent and discriminant validity in the RTES. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of scanning electron microscopy techniques in the biocatalyst immobilization

Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) has become a routine technique for the characterization of inert support materials for biocatalyst immobilization as well as for the observation of immobilized cells, especially cell colonization and cell-support interaction. SEM is expected to have important future applications in the observation of immobilized enzymes and will prove a useful technique in the engineering design and scale-up of immobilized biocatalyst systems.