Correlation between central corneal thickness measurements using two uifferent ultrasonic pachymeters

Purpose: To assess correlation between central corneal thickness measurements using two different ultrasonic pachymeters. Material and Methods: This prospective study involved normal subjects aged 16 to 45 years. Central corneal thickness was measured in 47 eyes by two ultrasonic pachymeters – Tomey SP – 100 and Sonomed 300 AP. Correlations between CCT measurements assessed by the two pachymeters were tested by Pearson correlation. Results: Forty seven eyes were included in the study. The mean (± SD) age of the subjects was 27.79 years (± 6.88).The mean (± SD) Tomey Pachymeter CCT was 536.45 m (34.37) and the mean (SD) Sonomed CCT was 540.64 m (33.48).CCT measurements by the two modalities were very strongly correlated (r = 0.98; P \u3c0.0001). Conclusions: In healthy individuals, Tomey pachymeter measurements of corneal thickness were highly correlated with those obtained using Sonomed pachymeter, and hence the two may be used interchangeably

Capillary Proliferation in Systemic-Sclerosis-Related Pulmonary Fibrosis: Association with Pulmonary Hypertension

We sought to determine if any histopathologic component of the pulmonary microcirculation can distinguish systemic sclerosis (SSc)-related pulmonary fibrosis (PF) with and without pulmonary hypertension (PH)

Cultivating Change in the Academy: 50+ Stories from the Digital Frontlines at the University of Minnesota in 2012

Ebook published independently by University of Minnesota authors who presented at the 2012 Academic Technology Showcase.This collection of 50+ chapters showcases a sampling of academic technology projects underway across the University of Minnesota, projects that we hope inspire other faculty and staff to consider, utilize, or perhaps even develop new solutions that have the potential to make their efforts more responsive, nimble, efficient, effective, and far-reaching. Our hope is to stimulate discussion about what’s possible as well as generate new vision and academic technology direction. The work underway is most certainly innovative, imaginative, creative, collaborative, and dynamic. This collection of innovative stories is a reminder that we are a collection of living people whose Land Grant values and ideas shape who we serve, what we do, and how we do it. Many of these projects engage others in discourse with the academy: obtaining opinion or feedback, taking the community pulse, allowing for an extended discourse, and engaging citizens in important issues. What better time to share 50+ stories about cultivating change than in 2012 – the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Land Grant Mission

Enhancer sequences of a retroviral vector determine expression of a gene in multipotent hematopoietic progenitors and committed erythroid cells.

To analyze the transcriptional activity of retroviral enhancer sequences in hematopoietic lineages, we determined the effect of enhancer sequences on the expression of the neomycin resistance gene transferred by two retroviral vectors to primary hematopoietic lineages. We constructed the vector pFr-SV(X). The Moloney murine leukemia virus enhancer region of a vector, pZIP-SV(X), was replaced by a 380-nucleotide-long fragment containing the enhancer sequences of the Friend murine leukemia virus. The enhancer sequences of Friend murine leukemia virus were used because these sequences have been shown to target the disease specificity of the virus to the erythroid lineage. Hematopoietic progenitors in murine continuous marrow cultures were infected with identical numbers of pure defective, infectious viral vector particles of either pFr-SV(X) or pZIP-SV(X). Expression of the transferred neomycin resistance gene in multipotential stem cells and their differentiated progeny was assayed as the ability of infected progenitors to form colonies (greater than 50 cells) in G418. Expression of the neomycin resistance gene in multipotential progenitor cells during the entire 11 weeks of the cultures was independent of the vector used to transfer the gene. Conversely, committed hemoglobinized erythroid bursts and myeloid colonies resistant to G418 were consistently produced by pFr-SV(X)-infected cultures but not pZIP-SV(X)-infected cultures. These results demonstrate that both pFr-SV(X) and pZIP-SV(X) were stably integrated and expressed in more primitive, multilineage, hematopoietic progenitor cells and suggest that the enhancer sequences of a vector affects expression of the transferred neomycin resistance gene when these cells differentiate to committed myeloid and erythroid cells