Children of prisoners: exploring the impact of families' reappraisal of the role and status of the imprisoned parent on children's coping strategies

Qualitative data from a larger study on the impact of parental imprisonment in four countries found that children of prisoners face fundamentally similar psychological and social challenges. The ways that children cope, however, are influenced by the interpretative frame adopted by the adults around them, and by how issues of parental imprisonment are talked about in their families. This article argues that families have to reappraise their view of the imprisoned parent and then decide on their policy for how to deal with this publicly. Their approach may be based on openness and honesty or may emphasise privacy and secrecy, or a combination of these. Children are likely to be influenced by their parents'/carers' views, although these may cause conflict for them. Where parents/carers retain a positive view of the imprisoned parent, children are likely to benefit; where parents/carers feel issues of shame and stigma acutely, this is likely to be transmitted to their children. This is important for social workers and practitioners involved in supporting prisoners' families and for parenting programmes

Interactions among alpha-synuclein, dopamine, and biomembranes: some clues for understanding neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurologic disorder resulting from the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the brain. Two lines of evidence suggest that the protein alpha-synuclein plays a role in the pathogenesis of PD: Fibrillar alpha-synuclein is a major component of Lewy bodies in diseased neurons, and two mutations in alpha-synuclein are linked to early-onset disease. Accordingly, the fibrillization of alpha-synuclein is proposed to contribute to neurodegeneration in PD. In this report, we provide evidence that oligomeric intermediates of the alpha-synuclein fibrillization pathway, termed protofibrils, might be neurotoxic. Analyses of protofibrillar alpha-synuclein by atomic force microscopy and electron microscopy indicate that the oligomers consist of spheres, chains, and rings. alpha-Synuclein protofibrils permeabilize synthetic vesicles and form pore-like assemblies on the surface of brain-derived vesicles. Dopamine reacts with alpha-synuclein to form a covalent adduct that slows the conversion of protofibrils to fibrils. This finding suggests that cytosolic dopamine in dopaminergic neurons promotes the accumulation of toxic alpha-synuclein protofibrils, which might explain why these neurons are most vulnerable to degeneration in PD. Finally, we note that aggregation of alpha-synuclein likely occurs via different mechanisms in the cell versus the test tube. For example, the binding of alpha-synuclein to cellular membranes might influence its self-assembly. To address this point, we have developed a yeast model that might enable the selection of random alpha-synuclein mutants with different membrane-binding affinities. These variants might be useful to test whether membrane binding by alpha-synuclein is necessary for neurodegeneration in transgenic animal models of PD

SeqAn An efficient, generic C++ library for sequence analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The use of novel algorithmic techniques is pivotal to many important problems in life science. For example the sequencing of the human genome <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr></abbrgrp> would not have been possible without advanced assembly algorithms. However, owing to the high speed of technological progress and the urgent need for bioinformatics tools, there is a widening gap between state-of-the-art algorithmic techniques and the actual algorithmic components of tools that are in widespread use.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To remedy this trend we propose the use of SeqAn, a library of efficient data types and algorithms for sequence analysis in computational biology. SeqAn comprises implementations of existing, practical state-of-the-art algorithmic components to provide a sound basis for algorithm testing and development. In this paper we describe the design and content of SeqAn and demonstrate its use by giving two examples. In the first example we show an application of SeqAn as an experimental platform by comparing different exact string matching algorithms. The second example is a simple version of the well-known MUMmer tool rewritten in SeqAn. Results indicate that our implementation is very efficient and versatile to use.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We anticipate that SeqAn greatly simplifies the rapid development of new bioinformatics tools by providing a collection of readily usable, well-designed algorithmic components which are fundamental for the field of sequence analysis. This leverages not only the implementation of new algorithms, but also enables a sound analysis and comparison of existing algorithms.</p

Histamine receptor activation by unsaturated (allyl and propargyl) homologs of histamine

The spectrum of agonist activity for three new homologs of histamine (cis- and trans-imidazolylallylamine and imidazolylpropargylamine) was evaluated in the isolated guinea pig ileum and right atrium. The homologs were about three log units less potent than histamine in stimulating contractions of the longitudinal muscles of the ileum, but they were histamine-like, pharmacologically, because they were sensitive to blockade by pyrilamine and resistant to blockade by atropine. In the right atrium, these weak agonists were partially sensitive to blockade by cimetidine. The agonist activity of the cis-isomer in particular was completely blocked by a combination of cimetidine and propranolol, but resistant to reserpine treatment (neuronal catecholamine depletion). Therefore, these homologs of histamine have the ability to stimulate H 1 - and H 2 -histamine receptors and beta -adrenoreceptors in vitro .Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44880/1/11_2005_Article_BF01966582.pd

Inhibition or knock out of Inducible nitric oxide synthase result in resistance to bleomycin-induced lung injury

BACKGROUND: In the present study, by comparing the responses in wild-type mice (WT) and mice lacking (KO) the inducible (or type 2) nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), we investigated the role played by iNOS in the development of on the lung injury caused by bleomycin administration. When compared to bleomycin-treated iNOSWT mice, iNOSKO mice, which had received bleomycin, exhibited a reduced degree of the (i) lost of body weight, (ii) mortality rate, (iii) infiltration of the lung with polymorphonuclear neutrophils (MPO activity), (iv) edema formation, (v) histological evidence of lung injury, (vi) lung collagen deposition and (vii) lung Transforming Growth Factor beta1 (TGF-β1) expression. METHODS: Mice subjected to intratracheal administration of bleomycin developed a significant lung injury. Immunohistochemical analysis for nitrotyrosine revealed a positive staining in lungs from bleomycin-treated iNOSWT mice. RESULTS: The intensity and degree of nitrotyrosine staining was markedly reduced in tissue section from bleomycin-iNOSKO mice. Treatment of iNOSWT mice with of GW274150, a novel, potent and selective inhibitor of iNOS activity (5 mg/kg i.p.) also significantly attenuated all of the above indicators of lung damage and inflammation. CONCLUSION: Taken together, our results clearly demonstrate that iNOS plays an important role in the lung injury induced by bleomycin in the mice

Cardiopoietic cell therapy for advanced ischemic heart failure: results at 39 weeks of the prospective, randomized, double blind, sham-controlled CHART-1 clinical trial

Cardiopoietic cells, produced through cardiogenic conditioning of patients' mesenchymal stem cells, have shown preliminary efficacy. The Congestive Heart Failure Cardiopoietic Regenerative Therapy (CHART-1) trial aimed to validate cardiopoiesis-based biotherapy in a larger heart failure cohort

Information-driven circuit synthesis with the pre-characterized gate libraries

The opportunities created by modern microelectronic technology cannot effectively be exploited, because of weaknesses in traditional circuit synthesis methods used in today’s CAD tools. In this paper, a new information-driven circuit synthesis method is discussed that targets combinational circuits implemented with gates from the pre-characterized gate libraries. The method is based on our original information-driven approach to circuit synthesis, bottom–up general functional decomposition and theory of information relationship measures. It differs considerably from all other known methods. The experimental results from the automatic circuit synthesis tool that implements the method demonstrate that the information-driven general decomposition produces very fast and compact gate-based circuits

Information-driven circuit synthesis with the pre-characterized gate libraries

The opportunities created by modern microelectronic technology cannot effectively be exploited, because of weaknesses in traditional circuit synthesis methods used in today’s CAD tools. In this paper, a new information-driven circuit synthesis method is discussed that targets combinational circuits implemented with gates from the pre-characterized gate libraries. The method is based on our original information-driven approach to circuit synthesis, bottom–up general functional decomposition and theory of information relationship measures. It differs considerably from all other known methods. The experimental results from the automatic circuit synthesis tool that implements the method demonstrate that the information-driven general decomposition produces very fast and compact gate-based circuits

Information-driven library-based circuit synthesis.

The opportunities created by modern microelectronic technology cannot be effectively and efficiently exploited, because of weaknesses of the traditional circuit synthesis methods used in today's CAD tools. In this paper, a new information-driven circuit synthesis method is discussed that targets combinational circuits implemented with gates from the pre-characterized gate libraries. The method is based on our original information-driven approach to circuit synthesis, bottom-up general decomposition and theory of information relationship measures. It differs considerably from all other known methods. The experimental results from the automatic circuit synthesis tool that implements the method demonstrate that the information-driven general decomposition produces very fast and compact gate-based circuits