A new methidium intercalator phosphoramidite has been synthesized. Methidium incorporation into an oligonucleotide during the synthesis was confirmed by UV and MALDI TOF MS data. UV melting ...experiments showed enhanced stability of a duplex, containing internal methidium.
Methidium phosphoramidite has been synthesized and used for insertion of intercalator into the deoxyoligonucleotides.
This article critically reviews the existing, although limited, literature concerning trans fatty acids and tumorigenesis. Neither epidemiological nor experimental studies published to date have ...demonstrated any valid association between trans fatty acid ingestion and tumorigenesis. A recent study showed that under controlled conditions, a fat with a high content of trans fatty acids did not promote the development of mammary tumors induced in rats by 7,12-dimethylbenzaanthracene to any greater extent than did a comparable fat with a high content of cis fatty acids. In addition, in this study a high trans fat was less tumor promoting than was a blend of fats that simulated the dietary fat composition of the United States and had a lower level of trans fatty acids. Another study using comparable cis and trans fats demonstrated that the high trans fat did not affect the growth and metastasis of implanted mammary tumors in mice relative to the high cis fat. Also, two recent studies reported no significant difference in the development of induced colon tumors in rats fed diets high in cis or trans fatty acids. The results of these and other studies are consistent with the conclusion that trans fatty acids are not uniquely related to tumor development.
A prospective study of 1,144 infants and their families was performed. Smoking and family histories were evaluated with respect to the incidence of lower respiratory disease during the first year of ...life. It was found that (1) tracheitis and bronchitis occurred significantly more frequently in infants exposed to cigarette smoke in the home, (2) maternal smoking imposed greater risks upon the infant than paternal smoking, (3) occurrence of neither tracheitis nor bronchitis showed a consistent relationship to the number of cigarettes smoked, (4) a family history that was positive for respiratory illness (chronic cough or bronchitis) significantly influenced the incidence of bronchitis, (5) too few cases of laryngitis and pneumonia were seen to warrant any opinions regarding the adverse influence of either smoking or a family history that was positive for respiratory illness, and (6) occurrence of bronchiolitis was not affected by the presence of a smoker nor influenced by a family history that was positive for respiratory illness. It is concluded that passive smoking is dangerous to the health of infants and that infants born to families with a history that is positive for respiratory illness (chronic cough or bronchitis) are at risk of developing bronchitis.
Neurodegenerative diseases lead to significant morbidity and mortality. Although medical care for other disorders (e.g., cardiovascular disease and cancer) has improved, neurodegenerative diseases ...have become more prevalent as the population ages. Understanding of the scientific underpinnings of neurodegenerative diseases has advanced greatly over the last thirty years. However, with a few exceptions, very few effective treatments are available to delay the onset or affect the course of these diseases. This Forum convened leaders in the field of neurodegeneration from different disciplines and tasked them with defining areas in need of more attention. A time frame of 5–20 years was the goal within which to develop more effective diagnostics and treatments. This chapter identifies eight key areas to address. With significant progress in each area, substantial changes in the diagnosis and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases should be possible over the next twenty years. Given the current cost of these diseases to society and the increase in their prevalence with no additional progress, a major worldwide effort should be made to address these issues immediately.
The dating of alluvial deposits is frequently hampered by a lack of good-quality charcoal or other material for radiocarbon samples. We have dated two sites in southeastern Australia using ...traditional radiometric methods with minimal pretreatment. Results yielded an inconsistent chronology, affected by contamination with younger humic materials. A more consistent and older chronology was achieved using AMS dating of rigorously pretreated samples of fine-grained charcoal. The results have important implications for the radiocarbon dating of many Late Quaternary stratigraphic sequences with low charcoal abundance.
Background: Transitioning to college life in young adulthood can represent a challenging developmental period and college students are at heightened risk for engaging in suicidality. Aims: We aimed ...to investigate the roles dispositional optimism and coping strategies play in suicide risk (viz., suicidality) and suicide protection (viz., reasons for living) in college students. Method: A sample of 252 American college students were surveyed using anonymous questionnaires and hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to analyze the data. Results: Coping strategies, as a set, played an important role in both suicidality and reasons for living, after controlling for demographic factors (age and sex). When dispositional optimism was entered into the model, it was found to account for a significant amount of additional unique variance in both suicidality and reasons for living, even after accounting for coping. Limitations: It is unknown whether optimism remains meaningful in its association with suicide risk and protection beyond coping in other populations. Conclusion: Effective coping and optimism are associated with decreased suicide risk and increased suicide protection. Our findings point to the consistent role of dispositional optimism, over coping, in both suicide risk and protection.
We analyzed the long-term functional results in 102 eyes of 59 patients with childhood glaucoma with specific reference to the pattern of optic nerve damage. Optic disk photography and quantitative ...perimetry were used to judge the degree of damage that had been sustained. There was a predilection for initial visual field damage in the arcuate area, followed by further arcuate and nasal field loss, similar to the pattern of visual field loss seen in adult glaucoma. In children, as in adults, neural tissue appeared to be lost preferentially at the vertical disk poles. The selective pattern of glaucomatous optic nerve damage seemed not to depend upon the age of the optic nerve structures. In contrast to adult eyes, the scleral canal in children apparently enlarges with high IOP. Thus, disk cup size increase in children could occur from neural tissue loss, from scleral canal enlargement, or from a combination of the two processes.
A distributed multimedia conferencing system Ng, J.M.; Chan, E.; Ip, H.H.S. ...
Proceedings / TENCON '93, 1993 IEEE Region 10 Conference on "Computer, Communication, Control, and Power Engineering", October 19-21, 1993, Beijing, Beijing International Convention Center, Beijing Continental Grand Hotel,
1993, Letnik:
1
Conference Proceeding, Journal Article
We present the design of a desktop multimedia conferencing system, called Nebula, built with a distributed conference control infrastructure with fault tolerance capability. The system provides for ...considerable flexibility in conferencing facilities: it supports three different modes of floor control passing and switching between these modes during a conference. Conferees can join a conference in various ways, with selection of chairperson according to seniority defined in the agenda file. To handle the concurrency problem, only the floor holder can modify shared data in the public windows. Each conferee holds a copy of shared data and only update operations are sent so as to improve response time and minimize network traffic. A simple and well defined application user interface (API) is provided and a number of multimedia applications has been developed using the API.< >
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