A survey of seroprevalence of human papillomavirus types 16, 18 and 33 among children

The importance and natural history of HPV infections in childhood is incompletely understood. We performed a survey for presence of serum antibodies to HPV capsids among 1031 children aged 0 to 13 years, resident in Stockholm, Sweden. The HPV seroprevalence among these children was 3.0% for HPV16, 0.6% for HPV18 and 2.7% for HPV33. By comparison, among simultaneously analyzed positive control panels comprising women with CIN or healthy women with type-specific cervical HPV DNA, seroprevalence of HPV 16, 18 and 33 was 69%, 58% and 63% respectively. The results suggest that HPV infection in childhood is not common.     

A prospective, seroepidemiological study of the role of human papillomavirus in esophageal cancer in Norway

Infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV), notably HPV type 16, has been associated with esophageal cancer in seroepidemiological studies. To evaluate the consistency of the association, we performed a nested case-control study of HPV seropositivity and risk of esophageal cancer within a prospectively followed cohort of 300,000 Norwegian men and women who had donated blood samples to a serum bank. The data file of the serum bank was linked with the nationwide Cancer Registry of Norway to identify esophageal cancers diagnosed after donation of the serum sample. Fifty-seven cases and 171 matched controls were analyzed for antibodies to specific microorganisms, and odds ratios for developing esophageal cancer were calculated. There was an increased risk of developing esophageal cancer among HPV 16-seropositive subjects (odds ratio = 6.6; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-71) but not among Chlamydia trachomatis-seropositive subjects. Adjustment for the presence of serum cotinine, a marker of smoking habits, did not affect the estimates substantially. The seroepidemiological association between HPV 16 and esophageal cancer seems to be consistent in different countries.     

Planar Dynode Multipliers for High-Speed Counting

The WX 30006 and WX 5009, whose characteristic are summarized in Table I, are just two representatives of a whole family of high-speed tubes which can be constructed using the building blocks at hand. Many trade offs ar possible allowing one to design a tube tailore to a specific application. All tubes incorporating planar dynode multipliers have several features in common, some of which are enumerate below: 1. Uniform and close spacing of dynodes in a plane parallel geometry, combined with high voltage per stage, allowing a substantial reduction in transit time fluctuations as wel as total transit time. 2. Absence of positive ion feedback (owing to the compartmentalized structure of the tube) resulting in virtual eliminatio of after pulses. 3. Ability to operate in the presenc of relatively intense magnetic fields because of the close spacings, high voltages, and guardring effect of the kovar mounting flanges. All TSE tubes have operated effectively in axial fields in excess of 1200 gauss, and there is no reason to suspect that the gain would suffe appreciably even in axial fields of 20 Kilogauss. There are, however, two possible limitation n the usefulness of these tubes which frankly require further investigation: 1. At present the life of these devices is only imperfectly understood. 2. The high voltage required for operating these tubes will in many cases pose problems which require some imagination for their solution.     

提高DC-DC变换器效率用高单元密度屏蔽栅功率MOSFET

本文介绍了飞兆半导体公司最新开发的高单元密度、屏蔽栅功率MOSFET的结构。这种屏蔽栅结构有助于建立电荷平衡,从而减少MOSFET的通态电阻和栅电荷。这种新技术能使通态电阻比前一代减少50%以上。为进一步改善器件特性,一种肖特基器件也被单片集成在这种新型MOSFET中,使得反向恢复电荷减少了将近20%。上述措施直接减小了在高频、大电流和高输入电压下非常关键的体二极管损耗。该新型器件在典型的同步降压变换器应用中,能提供1.5%的最高效率改进。     

Analysis of Huntingtin-associated protein 1 in mouse brain and immortalized striatal neurons

Huntingtin, the protein product of the Huntington's disease (HD) gene, is expressed with an expanded polyglutamine domain in the brain and in nonneuronal tissues in patients with HD. Huntingtin-associated protein 1 (HAP-1), a brain-enriched protein, interacts preferentially with mutant huntingtin and thus may be important in HD pathogenesis. The function of HAP-1 is unknown, but recent evidence supports a role in microtubule-dependent organelle transport. We examined the subcellular localization of HAP-1 with an antibody made against the NH2-terminus of the protein. In immunoblot assays of mouse brain and immortalized striatal neurons, HAP-1 subtypes A and B migrated together at about 68 kD and separately at 95 kD and 110 kD, respectively. In dividing clonal striatal cells, HAP-1 localized to the mitotic spindle apparatus, especially at spindle poles and on vesicles and microtubules of the spindle body. Postmitotic striatal neurons had punctate HAP-1 labeling throughout the cytoplasm. Western blot analysis of protein extracts obtained after subcellular fractionation and differential centrifugation of the clonal striatal cells showed that HAP-1B was preferentially enriched in membrane fractions. Electron microscopic study of adult mouse basal forebrain and striatum showed HAP-1 localized to membrane-bound organelles including large endosomes, tubulovesicular structures, and budding vesicles in neurons. HAP-1 was also strongly associated with an unusual large "dense" organelle. Microtubules were labeled in dendrites and axonal fibers. Results support a role for HAP-1 in vesicle trafficking and organelle movement in mitotic cells and differentiated neurons and implicate HAP-1B as the predominant molecular subtype associated with vesicle membranes in striatal neurons.     

Occurrence of aflatoxins in milk thistle herbal supplements

Milk thistle (MT) dietary supplements are widely consumed due to their possible liver-health-promoting properties. As botanicals they can be contaminated with a variety of fungi and their secondary metabolites, mycotoxins. The aflatoxigenic fungus Aspergillus flavus has been previously isolated from these commodities. Currently, there is no published method for determining aflatoxins (AFs) in MT. Therefore, a liquid chromatography (LC) method validated for aflatoxin analysis in botanicals was evaluated and applied to MT. The method consisted of acetonitrile/water extraction, immunoaffinity column clean-up, LC separation, post-column photochemical reaction derivatisation and fluorescence detection. The average recoveries for AFs added to MT seeds, herb, oil-based liquid extract and alcohol-based liquid extract were 76% or higher. The mean relative standard deviation was <10%. The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.01 μg kg(-1) and the limit of quantification (LOQ) was 0.03 μg kg(-1). The method was used to conduct a small survey. A total of 83 MT samples from the US market were analysed. AFs were detected in 19% of the samples with levels ranging from 0.04 to 2.0 μg kg(-1). Additionally, an aflatoxigenic A. flavus strain from ATTC and an A. parasiticus strain isolated from MT herb powder were found to produce high amounts of aflatoxins (11,200 and 49,100 μg kg(-1), respectively) when cultured in MT seed powder. This is the first study reporting on aflatoxin contamination of MT botanical supplements and identifying methodology for AF analysis of these commodities.     

"Current topics in health sciences librarianship": a pilot program for network-based lifelong learning

The long-term objective of this project is to make health sciences librarians more effective in their role by using emerging technologies to deliver timely continuing education (CE) programs to them regardless of their physical location. The goals of the one-year planning project at the William H. Welch Medical Library are to plan, implement, and evaluate a pilot CE program that includes (1) a three-day general-interest session organized in four tracks: Market Forces and Management, Information Technology and the Internet, Publishing and Copyright, and Education; (2) a one-day special topic session on the Informatics of the Human Genome Project; and (3) an electronic poster session in parallel with the general-interest session. The program will be offered in three simultaneous formats: (1) on-site, in a distance-learning classroom in Baltimore; (2) as a telecourse, in a similar classroom outside Washington, DC; and (3) online, via the World Wide Web. An electronic proceedings of the entire program will be published on the Web to serve as a continuously available CE resource for health sciences librarians. This paper gives an overview of the planning process, presents a status report on the programmatic and technical implementation of the pilot project at its midpoint, and discusses future directions for the program.