Winner of the 2010 Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in PsychologyWinner of the 2010 Susan Koppelman Award for the Best Edited Volume in Women's Studies from the Popular ...Culture AssociationWe have all seen the segments on television news shows: A fat person walking on the sidewalk, her face out of frame so she can't be identified, as some disconcerting findings about the "obesity epidemic" stalking the nation are read by a disembodied voice. And we have seen the movies - their obvious lack of large leading actors silently speaking volumes. From the government, health industry, diet industry, news media, and popular culture we hear that we should all be focused on our weight. But is this national obsession with weight and thinness good for us? Or is it just another form of prejudice - one with especially dire consequences for many already disenfranchised groups?For decades a growing cadre of scholars has been examining the role of body weight in society, critiquing the underlying assumptions, prejudices, and effects of how people perceive and relate to fatness. This burgeoning movement, known as fat studies, includes scholars from every field, as well as activists, artists, and intellectuals. The Fat Studies Reader is a milestone achievement, bringing together fifty-three diverse voices to explore a wide range of topics related to body weight. From the historical construction of fatness to public health policy, from job discrimination to social class disparities, from chick-lit to airline seats, this collection covers it all.Edited by two leaders in the field, The Fat Studies Reader is an invaluable resource that provides a historical overview of fat studies, an in-depth examination of the movement's fundamental concerns, and an up-to-date look at its innovative research.
Previous studies have reported an increase in psychiatric symptoms in seriously ill patients who were placed in resistant organism isolation. We conducted this study to assess whether there is an ...increase in symptoms of anxiety and depression in patients who are not critically ill and are placed in isolation.
Patients hospitalized with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus species infections were evaluated with the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale at baseline and again during hospitalization. The results were then compared with the results of patients who were hospitalized for infectious diseases that did not require isolation.
Patients in isolation had significantly higher scores on both the anxiety and depression scales at the time of follow-up than did patients who were not isolated. There was no significant difference between the scores of the two groups before isolation.
The results of this preliminary study suggest that placement in resistant organism isolation may increase hospitalized patients' levels of anxiety and depression.
This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of nurse practitioner service on key emergency department indicators. A pragmatic randomized controlled trial was conducted. Patients were randomly ...assigned to standard emergency department care or nurse practitioner care. The outcome measures reported were comparisons on key service indicators. There were 260 patients enrolled in the study, 128 receiving standard emergency department medical care and 130 receiving nurse practitioner care. There were no significant differences between the 2 groups regarding waiting times, length of stay, numbers of patients who left, patient representations within 48 hours, and the use of evidence-based guidelines.
•The impact of nurse practitioners on service indicators showed equivalence with standard emergency department care.•This result validates nurse practitioner service in being able to show comparable outcomes.•These results provide an evidence base that nurse practitioner service is an integral part of health system reform.
cueO encodes a periplasmic multicopper oxidase, which is known to be involved in copper homeostasis and protection against oxidative stress in Escherichia coli K12. Transcriptional profiling showed ...that expression of genes associated with motility was lowered in a cueO mutant while expression of genes associated with autoaggregation was elevated. Increased aggregation was correlated with increased expression of cell surface proteins antigen 43 and curli. Changes in gene expression caused by the deletion of cueO were essentially independent of SoxR and OxyR, the global regulators of oxidative stress response.
An optimized DNA extraction protocol for animal tissues coupled with sensitive PCR methods was used to determine whether trace levels of feed-derived DNA fragments, plant and/or transgenic, are ...detectable in animal tissue samples including dairy milk and samples of muscle (meat) from chickens, swine, and beef steers. Assays were developed to detect DNA fragments of both the high copy number chloroplast-encoded maize rubisco gene (rbcL) and single copy nuclear-encoded transgenic elements (p35S and a MON 810-specific gene fragment). The specificities of the two rbcL PCR assays and two transgenic DNA PCR assays were established by testing against a range of conventional plant species and genetically modified maize crops. The sensitivities of the two rbcL PCR assays (resulting in 173 and 500 bp amplicons) were similar, detecting as little as 0.08 and 0.02 genomic equivalents, respectively. The sensitivities of the p35S and MON 810 PCR assays were approximately 5 and 10 genomic equivalents for 123 bp and 149 bp amplicons, respectively, which were considerably less than the sensitivity of the rbcL assays in terms of plant cell equivalents, but approximately similar when the higher numbers of copies of the chloroplast genome per cell are taken into account. The 173 bp rbcL assay detected the target plant chloroplast DNA fragment in 5%, 15%, and 53% of the muscle samples from beef steers, broiler chickens, and swine, respectively, and in 86% of the milk samples from dairy cows. Reanalysis of new aliquots of 31 of the pork samples that were positive in the 173 bp rbcL PCR showed that 58% of these samples were reproducibly positive in this same PCR assay. The 500 bp rbcL assay detected DNA fragments in 43% of the swine muscle samples and 79% of the milk samples. By comparison, no statistically significant detections of transgenic DNA fragments by the p35S PCR assay occurred with any of these animal tissue samples. Keywords: Biotechnology; DNA; maize; PCR; transgenic feed
Quality control of cell cultures used in new in vitro toxicology assays is crucial to the provision of reliable, reproducible and accurate toxicity data on new drugs or constituents of new consumer ...products. This chapter explores the key scientific and ethical criteria that must be addressed at the earliest stages of developing toxicology assays based on human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) lines. It also identifies key considerations for such assays to be acceptable for regulatory, laboratory safety and commercial purposes. Also addressed is the development of hPSC-based assays for the tissue and cell types of greatest interest in drug toxicology. The chapter draws on a range of expert opinion within the European Commission/Cosmetics Europe-funded alternative testing cluster SEURAT-1 and consensus from international groups delivering this guidance such as the International Stem Cell Banking Initiative. Accordingly, the chapter summarizes the most up-date best practices in the use and quality control of human Pluripotent Stem Cell lines in the development of in vitro toxicity assays from leading experts in the field.
Ultraviolet matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry has been employed with time-lag focusing to explore its utility for the characterization of synthetic polymers with broad ...distributions. Mixtures of five polymer standards with narrow molecular weight distributions were analyzed. The spectra were found to be broadly those expected for three different types of polymer systems—poly(styrene), poly(methyl methacrylate), and poly(ethylene glycol)—when equimass mixtures were used. Large changes in the apparent molecular weight distribution of poly(ethylene terephthalate) were observed when the cation was varied. The shift in the envelope was found to be related to the size and the ability of the oligomers to solvate the cation.
The chiral complexes PtMe{cis-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NCHPh)C6H10}, 1, and PtMe{trans-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NCHPh)C6H10}, 2, react with protic acids HBF4 or H(OEt2)2BAr4 (Ar = 3,5-(CF3)2C6H3) in the presence of ...olefin, with loss of methane, to give complexes of the type Pt(η2-CH2CHR){cis/trans-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NCHPh)C6H10}BX4 (R = H, Me, Ph, 4-Me-C6H4; X = F, Ar). For prochiral olefins, R = Me, Ph, and 4-Me-C6H4, highly stereoselective (90−95%) olefin coordination was demonstrated by using 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy, and for the complex Pt(η2-CH2CHPh){cis-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NCHPh)C6H10}BF4 by an X-ray structure determination. Olefin dissociation from Pt(η2-CH2CHPh){trans-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NCHPh)C6H10}BAr4 occurred in CD2Cl2 to give the dinuclear complex Pt2(μ-Cl){trans-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NCHPh)C6H10}2BAr4, and hydrolysis of Pt(h2-CH2CH−C6H4-4-Me){trans-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NCHPh)C6H10}BF4 gave PhCHO and Pt(η2-CH2CH−C6H4-4-Me){trans-1-(NCHC6H4)-2-(NH2)C6H10}BF4. These are useful model compounds for intermediates in stereoselective alkene polymerization since they contain mutually cis alkenes and M−C σ-bonds.
The authors report the first case of levetiracetam-induced diffuse interstitial lung disease. The patient is a 9-year-old girl who was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit for aspiration ...pneumonia. She has a history of epilepsy, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, asthma, and repeated hospitalizations for presumed aspiration pneumonia, which resolved with conventional medical treatment. She has been on low-dose levetiracetam for her epilepsy over the past 2 years, and the dosage was increased just prior to this admission. However, this time, with conventional treatment, the patient's aspiration pneumonia did not improve, which led to a lung biopsy. The biopsy demonstrated a diffuse interstitial process of relatively recent onset, with features consistent with diffuse lung disease. Levetiracetam was implicated in the pathogenesis of the interstitial pneumonitis. The patient improved clinically after the discontinuation of levetiracetam and with the treatment of steroids.
The cluster Os
4
(µ-η
2
-C
2
Ph
2
)(CO)
14
(
1
) has been prepared from the reaction of Os
4
(CO)
14
and C
2
Ph
2
in CH
2
Cl
2
at 25 °C. Other minor products include the known clusters Os
3
(µ
3
-η
2
...-C
2
Ph
2
)(CO)
10
and Os
3
(µ-η
4
-C
4
Ph
4
)(CO)
9
. The structure of
1
reveals an approximately planar C
2
Os
4
skeleton with a dimetallacyclobutene ring (CC = 1.32(4) Å) and a flat butterfly Os
4
unit (OsOs range = 2.859(2)2.916(2) Å). The
13
C{
1
H} NMR spectrum of
1
indicates the carbonyl ligands are rigid at room temperature. Stirring
1
in CH
2
Cl
2
for 2 days (ambient temperature) afforded Os
4
(µ
3
-η
2
-C
2
Ph
2
)(CO)
13
(
2
). The Os atoms in
2
also have an almost flat butterfly arrangement (OsOs range = 2.7392(7)2.8947(6) Å) with the alkyne ligand located over one of the Os
3
triangles. The
13
C NMR data for
2
are consistent with rapid rotation on the NMR timescale of the hinge Os(CO)
3
units at 21 °C, but slow rotation at 50 °C. Heating
2
at 40 °C gave Os
4
(µ
4
-η
2
-C
2
Ph
2
)(CO)
12
(
3
) after 2 days. Cluster
3
has the common butterfly arrangement of Os atoms with the C
2
Ph
2
bound to all four metal atoms (OsOs range = 2.7457(5)2.8742(5) Å). The
13
C{
1
H} NMR spectra of
3
at 21 and 90 °C indicate there is rapid CO exchange of the carbonyls of the two types of Os(CO)
3
units, but not between the units. The spectrum at 90 °C indicates one of the rotations (presumed to be that involving the carbonyls of the wingtip Os(CO)
3
units) is slowed on the NMR timescale. Compounds
1
3
form a unique series of clusters that have an alkyne ligand bound to two, three, and four metal atoms. Compound
1
is a model for a corner, compound
2
for a planar surface, and compound
3
a step site, in site-specific surface catalysts.Key words: osmium cluster, diphenylacetylene, dimetallacyclobutene, carbonyl exchange, surface catalysis.
