Estrogenic personal care products in a greywater reuse system.

The occurrence and fate of parabens in a greywater system was assessed. The potential for removal of residual paraben concentrations in effluent greywater with chlorine dioxide was also investigated. The influent to the greywater plant was characterised by considerable variation, with concentrations from below the detection limit to 40 microg/L and the five commonly used parabens in consumer products were frequently detected. After the biological treatment only two paraben were detected with concentration from 65-120 ng/L. Chlorine dioxide treatment of the biologically treated effluent with dosages down to 0.75 mg/L resulted in more than 97% reduction of all parabens. Formation of the by-product chloroform was insignificant from the chlorine dioxide treatment.     

Delayed onset of malignant hyperthermia induced by isoflurane and desflurane compared with halothane in susceptible swine

BACKGROUND: Desflurane (difluoromethyl 1-fluoro 2,2,2-trifluoroethyl ether) is a new inhalational anesthetic currently under investigation for use in humans. Recently, the authors showed that desflurane is a trigger of malignant hyperthermia (MH) in susceptible swine. To date, there has been no in vivo comparison of the relative ability of inhalational anesthetics to trigger MH. The effects of desflurane, isoflurane, and halothane on six MH-susceptible purebred and six MH-susceptible mixed-bred Pietrain swine were examined. METHODS: The animals were exposed to 1 MAC and 2 MAC (if MH was not triggered after 1 MAC hour) doses of each of the three volatile anesthetics in random sequence at 7-10-day intervals and changes in end-tidal CO2, arterial blood gases, serum lactate, core and muscle temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate were measured. RESULTS: There was a statistical difference between anesthetics in the time required to trigger MH; halothane exposure resulted in the fastest onset of an MH episode (20 +/- 5 min), compared with isoflurane (48 +/- 24 min) and desflurane (65 +/- 28 min), both of which required significantly longer exposures. There was no statistical difference between the MH purebred and mixed-bred swine in the time required to trigger MH (defined as a PaCO2 of 70 mmHg) with a given agent, and time to triggering was also independent of the order of exposure to the three anesthetics. Malignant hyperthermia susceptibility was confirmed in ten surviving animals, by both in vivo succinylcholine challenge and in vitro contracture testing. CONCLUSIONS: Although all three volatile anesthetics triggered MH, exposure to halothane resulted in significantly shorter times to MH triggering when compared with desflurane and isoflurane.     

Charge storage and its dynamics in porous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film electrets

The outstanding space charge storage stability of porous polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) film electrets is studied by isothermal surface potential decay measurements and open-circuit thermally stimulated discharge (TSD) experiments after corona charging at room and elevated temperatures, or corona charging at RT and then aging at different temperatures. Charge storage properties of porous PTFE, nonporous PTFE (Teflon/spl reg/ PTFE) and nonporous FEP (Teflon/spl reg/ FEP) electrets are compared. The results show that porous PTFE has the best charge storage stability of organic materials for both negative and positive charges, especially at high temperatures. The structure of porous PTFE, investigated by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), is important for understanding the electret properties of this material. Charge dynamics, including the influence of environmental humidity and temperature on charge stability and shift of mean charge depth, and the kinetics of detrapped charges for the porous PTFE film electrets were also investigated by means of isothermal surface potential decay measurements and analysis of the TSD current spectra in combination with the heat pulse technique. It is found that from about RT to 200/spl deg/C slow retrapping plays a dominant role; from about 200/spl deg/C to 300/spl deg/C fast retrapping controls the transport.     

Platelet-Released Growth Factors Influence Wound Healing-Associated Genes in Human Keratinocytes and Ex Vivo Skin Explants

Platelet-released growth factors (PRGFs) or other thrombocyte concentrate products, e.g., Platelet-Rich Fibrin (PRF), have become efficient tools of regenerative medicine in many medical disciplines. In the context of wound healing, it has been demonstrated that treatment of chronic or complicated wounds with PRGF or PRF improves wound healing in the majority of treated patients. Nevertheless, the underlying cellular and molecular mechanism are still poorly understood. Therefore, we aimed to analyze if PRGF-treatment of human keratinocytes caused the induction of genes encoding paracrine factors associated with successful wound healing. The investigated genes were Semaphorin 7A (SEMA7A), Angiopoietin-like 4 (ANGPLT4), Fibroblast Growth Factor-2 (FGF-2), Interleukin-32 (IL-32), the CC-chemokine-ligand 20 (CCL20), the matrix-metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), the chemokine C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10) and the subunit B of the Platelet-Derived Growth Factor (PDGFB). We observed a significant gene induction of SEMA7A, ANGPLT4, FGF-2, IL-32, MMP-2 and PDGFB in human keratinocytes after PRGF treatment. The CCL20- and CXCL10 gene expressions were significantly inhibited by PRGF therapy. Signal transduction analyses revealed that the PRGF-mediated gene induction of SEMA7A, ANGPLT4, IL-32 and MMP-2 in human keratinocytes was transduced via the IL-6 receptor pathway. In contrast, EGF receptor signaling was not involved in the PRGF-mediated gene expression of analyzed genes in human keratinocytes. Additionally, treatment of ex vivo skin explants with PRGF confirmed a significant gene induction of SEMA7A, ANGPLT4, MMP-2 and PDGFB. Taken together, these results describe a new mechanism that could be responsible for the beneficial wound healing properties of PRGF or related thrombocytes concentrate products such as PRF.     

CHEOPS: A tool-integration platform for chemical process modelling and simulation

A large number of modelling tools exist for the construction and solution of mathematical models of chemical processes. Each (chemical) process modelling tool provides its own model representation and model definition functions as well as its own solution algorithms, which are used for performing computer-aided studies for the process under consideration. However, in order to support reusability of existing models and to allow for the combined use of different modelling tools for the study of complex processes, model integration is needed. This paper presents a concept for an integration platform that allows for the integration of modelling tools, combining their models to build up a process model and performing computer-aided studies based on this integrated process model. In order to illustrate the concept without getting into complicated algorithmic issues, we focus on steady-state simulation using models comprising only algebraic equations. The concept is realized in the component-based integration platform CHEOPS, which focuses on integrating and solving existing models rather than providing its own modelling capabilities.     

Attention switching during scene perception: How goals influence the time course of eye movements across advertisements.

Eye movements across advertisements express a temporal pattern of bursts of respectively relatively short and long saccades, and this pattern is systematically influenced by activated scene perception goals. This was revealed by a continuous-time hidden Markov model applied to eye movements of 220 participants exposed to 17 ads under a free-viewing condition, and a scene-learning goal (ad memorization), a scene-evaluation goal (ad appreciation), a target-learning goal (product learning), or a target-evaluation goal (product evaluation). The model reflects how attention switches between two states--local and global--expressed in saccades of shorter and longer amplitude on a spatial grid with 48 cells overlaid on the ads. During the 5- to 6-s duration of self-controlled exposure to ads in the magazine context, attention predominantly started in the local state and ended in the global state, and rapidly switched about 5 times between states. The duration of the local attention state was much longer than the duration of the global state. Goals affected the frequency of switching between attention states and the duration of the local, but not of the global, state. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alterations of the enteric nervous system in neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis revealed by whole-mount immunohistochemistry

We report the results of a comprehensive search of Drosophila melanogaster DNA sequences in GenBank for di-, tri-, and tetranucleotide repeats of more than four repeat units, and a DNA library screen for dinucleotide repeats. Dinucleotide repeats are more abundant (66%) than tri- (30%) or tetranucleotide (4%) repeats. We estimate that 1917 dinucleotide repeats with 10 or more repeat units are present in the euchromatic D. melanogaster genome and, on average, they occur once every 60 kb. Relative to many other animals, dinucleotide repeats in D. melanogaster are short. Tri- and tetranucleotide repeats have even fewer repeat units on average than dinucleotide repeats. Our WorldWide Web site (http://www.bio.cornell.edu/genetics/aquadro/+ ++aquadro.html) posts the complete list of 1298 microsatellites (> or = five repeat units) identified from the GenBank search. We also summarize assay conditions for 70 D. melanogaster microsatellites characterized in previous studies and an additional 56 newly characterized markers.     

Stimulation and suppression of PCR-mediated recombination

Recombination, or chimera formation, is known to occur between related template sequences present in a single PCR amplification. To characterize the conditions under which such recombinant amplification products form we monitored the exchange of sequence between two homologous templates carrying different restriction sites separated by 282 bp. Using a typical cycling program the rates of recombination between the two restriction sites were 1 and 7% using Taq and Vent polymerases respectively over 12 doublings. However, by using long elongation times and cycling only to the mid-point of the amplification recombination could be suppressed below visual detection with both polymerases. Conversely, cycling programs designed to promote incomplete primer elongation and subsequent template strand exchange stimulated recombination to >20%.     

Lipoprotein changes and reduction in the incidence of major coronary heart disease events in the Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S)

BACKGROUND: The Scandinavian Simvastatin Survival Study (4S) randomized 4444 patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) and serum cholesterol 5.5 to 8.0 mmol/L (213 to 310 mg/dL) with triglycerides < or =2.5 mmol/L (220 mg/dL) to simvastatin 20 to 40 mg or placebo once daily. Over the median follow-up period of 5.4 years, one or more major coronary events (MCEs) occurred in 622 (28%) of the 2223 patients in the placebo group and 431 (19%) of the 2221 patients in the simvastatin group (34% risk reduction, P<.00001). Simvastatin produced substantial changes in several lipoprotein components, which we have attempted to relate to the beneficial effects observed. METHODS AND RESULTS: The Cox proportional hazards model was used to assess the relationship between lipid values (baseline, year 1, and percent change from baseline at year 1) and MCEs. The reduction in MCEs within the simvastatin group was highly correlated with on-treatment levels and changes from baseline in total and LDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, and less so with HDL cholesterol, but there was no clear relationship with triglycerides. We estimate that each additional 1% reduction in LDL cholesterol reduces MCE risk by 1.7% (95% CI, 1.0% to 2.4%; P<.00001). CONCLUSIONS: These analyses suggest that the beneficial effect of simvastatin in individual patients in 4S was determined mainly by the magnitude of the change in LDL cholesterol, and they are consistent with current guidelines that emphasize aggressive reduction of this lipid in CHD patients.