Childhood Maltreatment and Early Alcohol Use Among High-Risk Adolescents

Objective: Child maltreatment (CM) is prevalent among U.S. youth and has been associated with subsequent maladaptive behaviors, including substance use. The current study examines the associations between early child maltreatment and (1) preteen alcohol-use initiation and (2) heavy episodic drinking among students in a large study of adolescents. Method: The Youth Violence Survey is a cross-sectional survey of public school students enrolled in Grades 7,9, 11, and 12 in a school district in a high-risk community. The analysis sample was limited to students who provided complete data on all relevant variables (N = 3,559). Fifty-two percent of the analysis sample was female. Early child maltreatment was defined as witnessing domestic violence and experiencing physical and/or sexual abuse before the age of 10 years. Outcome variables include ever drinking alcohol, preteen alcohol-use initiation, and heavy episodic drinking. Results: Witnessing domestic violence, experiencing physical abuse, and experiencing sexual abuse were significantly associated with preteen alcohol-use initiation (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.55, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.26-1.91; AOR = 2.10, 95% CI: 1.69-2.63; AOR = 1.57, 95% CI: 1.16-2.14, respectively). Students who experienced one or more types of maltreatment were 1.5-3 times more likely to report preteen alcohol-use initiation. Heavy episodic drinking was associated only with childhood sexual abuse in boys (AOR = 2.62, 95% CI: 1.52-4.50). Conclusions: Prevention and treatment of the negative impact of early child maltreatment may delay and reduce alcohol use

Modulation of tumour colony growth by irradiated accessory cells.

The ability of human tumour cells to form colonies in soft agar is enhanced by the presence of autologous phagocytic/adherent cells. We investigated the effect of irradiation on the ability of the adherent cells to support human tumour colony formation. Relatively low doses of irradiation significantly increased the growth enhancing ability of adherent cells in 17/19 cases. The possibility that the enhancement was mediated by inactivation of radiosensitive contaminating lymphocytes was explored. Depletion of T lymphocytes from unirradiated adherent cells by a monoclonal antibody and complement resulted in little overall change in tumour colony growth. However, elimination of only the suppressor subset (OKT8+) of T lymphocytes resulted in increased colony growth relative to control values obtained with unirradiated adherent cells. In contrast, depletion of T lymphocytes from irradiated adherent cells by a pan T monoclonal antibody and complement decreased colony formation. Thus, the ability of irradiated macrophages to enhance tumour colony growth appeared to be mediated by a T lymphocyte. The effect of irradiation on isolated populations of macrophages and T lymphocytes was also examined. The enhanced ability of irradiated adherent cells to support tumor colony growth appeared to have been due to treatment of T lymphocytes alone. The results indicate that both adherent macrophages and lymphocytes may influence the growth of clonogenic human tumour cells

Application of Global Positioning Measurements to Continental Collision in the Pamir-Tien Shan Region, Central Asia and GPS Survey of the Western Tien Shan

In this report, we summarize what we have accomplished with five years of funding from NASA under its DOSE program, and with a comparable level of funding from NSF. We describe the development of a GPS network in the Tien Shan of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan of the former Soviet Union, the analysis of data, and the main results. This discussion presents the state of the current network, which has grown significantly since the termination of our DOSE grants, with continued support both from NSF through its continental dynamics program and from NASA's SENH program. Although grants from NASA's DOSE program did not support this growth not directly, it did so indirectly by building the infrastructure that has enabled further expansion in an area where otherwise there would be only a small GPS presence. We note how the network has grown over time, but the emphasis of this discussion is on the quantity and quality of measurements that we have made

Quasi-analyticity and determinacy of the full moment problem from finite to infinite dimensions

This paper is aimed to show the essential role played by the theory of quasi-analytic functions in the study of the determinacy of the moment problem on finite and infinite-dimensional spaces. In particular, the quasi-analytic criterion of self-adjointness of operators and their commutativity are crucial to establish whether or not a measure is uniquely determined by its moments. Our main goal is to point out that this is a common feature of the determinacy question in both the finite and the infinite-dimensional moment problem, by reviewing some of the most known determinacy results from this perspective. We also collect some properties of independent interest concerning the characterization of quasi-analytic classes associated to log-convex sequences.Comment: 28 pages, Stochastic and Infinite Dimensional Analysis, Chapter 9, Trends in Mathematics, Birkh\"auser Basel, 201

Inversion of Randomly Corrugated Surfaces Structure from Atom Scattering Data

The Sudden Approximation is applied to invert structural data on randomly corrugated surfaces from inert atom scattering intensities. Several expressions relating experimental observables to surface statistical features are derived. The results suggest that atom (and in particular He) scattering can be used profitably to study hitherto unexplored forms of complex surface disorder.Comment: 10 pages, no figures. Related papers available at http://neon.cchem.berkeley.edu/~dan

Comparative study of four immortalised human brain capillary endothelial cell lines, hCMEC/D3, hBMED, TY10, and BB19, and optimization of culture conditions, for an in vitro blood-brain barrier model for drug permeability studies

BACKGROUND: Reliable human in vitro blood–brain barrier (BBB) models suitable for high-throughput screening are urgently needed in early drug discovery and development for assessing the ability of promising bioactive compounds to overcome the BBB. To establish an improved human in vitro BBB model, we compared four currently available and well characterized immortalized human brain capillary endothelial cell lines, hCMEC/D3, hBMEC, TY10, and BB19, with respect to barrier tightness and paracellular permeability. Co-culture systems using immortalized human astrocytes (SVG-A cell line) and immortalized human pericytes (HBPCT cell line) were designed with the aim of positively influencing barrier tightness. METHODS: Tight junction (TJ) formation was assessed by transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) measurements using a conventional epithelial voltohmmeter (EVOM) and an automated CellZscope system which records TEER and cell layer capacitance (C(CL)) in real-time. Paracellular permeability was assessed using two fluorescent marker compounds with low BBB penetration (sodium fluorescein (Na-F) and lucifer yellow (LY)). Conditions were optimized for each endothelial cell line by screening a series of 24-well tissue culture inserts from different providers. For hBMEC cells, further optimization was carried out by varying coating material, coating procedure, cell seeding density, and growth media composition. Biochemical characterization of cell type-specific transmembrane adherens junction protein VE-cadherin and of TJ proteins ZO-1 and claudin-5 were carried out for each endothelial cell line. In addition, immunostaining for ZO-1 in hBMEC cell line was performed. RESULTS: The four cell lines all expressed the endothelial cell type-specific adherens junction protein VE-cadherin. The TJ protein ZO-1 was expressed in hCMEC/D3 and in hBMEC cells. ZO-1 expression could be confirmed in hBMEC cells by immunocytochemical staining. Claudin-5 expression was detected in hCMEC/D3, TY10, and at a very low level in hBMEC cells. Highest TEER values and lowest paracellular permeability for Na-F and LY were obtained with mono-cultures of hBMEC cell line when cultivated on 24-well tissue culture inserts from Greiner Bio-one® (transparent PET membrane, 3.0 μm pore size). In co-culture models with SVG-A and HBPCT cells, no increase of TEER could be observed, suggesting that none of the investigated endothelial cell lines responded positively to stimuli from immortalized astrocytic or pericytic cells. CONCLUSIONS: Under the conditions examined in our experiments, hBMEC proved to be the most suitable human cell line for an in vitro BBB model concerning barrier tightness in a 24-well mono-culture system intended for higher throughput. This BBB model is being validated with several compounds (known to cross or not to cross the BBB), and will potentially be selected for the assessment of BBB permeation of bioactive natural products