Book Reviews

DELINQUENTS, THEIR FAMILIES AND THE COMMUNITY. By C. Downing Tait, Jr. M.D. and Emory F. Hodges, Jr., M.D. JURISPRUDENCE: THE PHILOSOPHY AND METHOD OF THE LAW. By Edgar Bodenheimer

The Pennsylvania Comparative Negligence Act - An Alien Intruder in the House of Common Law

Using the Pennyslvania [sic] legislature\u27s recent enactment of a comparative negligence statute as a vehicle, the author asserts that the courts can and should reevaluate common law concepts as they apply to cases which, although pending at the time of a legislative change in the common law, are not subject to the basically prospective statutory provisions

Biomarkers in the prediction and management of acute coronary syndromes: current perspectives

Emanuele Gilardi, Paolo Iacomini, Davide Marsiliani, Guido De Marco, Marcello CovinoDepartment of Emergency Medicine, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, A Gemelli Hospital, Rome, ItalyAbstract: A large branch of research has focused on the search for biomarkers for early detection of myocardial cell injuries. Most of these studies have evaluated patients presenting to the emergency department, underlining the need for an ideal biomarker for rapid recognition of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). In the recent past, diagnosis of ACS in the emergency department has been based mostly on clinical information and electrocardiographic findings, and markers of generic cell damage have been used to support clinical suspicion. Over the last few years, the role of markers has taken up increasingly more space in non-life-threatening conditions, confining the clinical examination of the patient to the mere waiting for results of blood tests after the electrocardiograph. Currently, the biomarkers most widely used for the diagnosis of ACS are cardiac troponins. Since their introduction into clinical practice, several generations of commercial cardiac troponin assays have been validated in analytical and clinical trials. Development of newer high-sensitivity assays seems to have improved the value of cardiac troponin as both a diagnostic and risk indicator. Several other biomarkers of ACS apart from cardiac troponin have been investigated, but most still require validation in further studies. Among these, pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A, ischemia-modified albumin, and heart-type fatty acid binding protein seem to be the most promising markers under investigation for their possible usefulness in the emergency department setting for early diagnosis of ACS. In conclusion, a multimarker approach could be the future of research. In this review, we highlight the old and new markers, especially the most studied and widely used in clinical practice in recent years, particularly those that can help the clinician to make a rapid and confident diagnosis of ACS.Keywords: biomarkers, acute coronary syndrome, myocardial infarction, emergency departmen

Square vortex lattice at anomalously low magnetic fields in electron-doped Nd1.85_{1.85}Ce0.15_{0.15}CuO4_{4}

We report here on the first direct observations of the vortex lattice in the bulk of electron-doped Nd$_{1.85}$Ce$_{0.15}$CuO$_{4}$ single crystals. Using small angle neutron scattering, we have observed a square vortex lattice with the nearest-neighbors oriented at 45$^{\circ}$ from the Cu-O bond direction, which is consistent with theories based on the d-wave superconducting gap. However, the square symmetry persists down to unusually low magnetic fields. Moreover, the diffracted intensity from the vortex lattice is found to decrease rapidly with increasing magnetic field.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Direct observation of the flux-line vortex glass phase in a type II superconductor

The order of the vortex state in La_{1.9} Sr_{0.1} CuO_{4} is probed using muon spin rotation and small-angle neutron scattering. A transition from a Bragg glass to a vortex glass is observed, where the latter is composed of disordered vortex lines. In the vicinity of the transition the microscopic behavior reflects a delicate interplay of thermally-induced and pinning-induced disorder.Comment: 14 pages, 4 colour figures include

Peptide hairpins with strand segments containing α- and β-amino acid residues: Cross-strand aromatic interactions of facing Phe residues

The incporation of β-amino acid residues into the strand segments of designed β-hairpin leads to the formation of polar sheets, since in the case of β-peptide strands, all adjacent carbonyl groups point in one direction and the amide groups orient in the opposite direction. The conformational analysis of two designed peptide hairpins composed of α/β-hybrid segments are described: Boc-βLeu-βPhe-Val-D-Pro-Gly-βLeu-βPhe-Val-OMe (1) and Boc-βLeu-Phe-βVal-D-Pro-Gly-βLeu-Phe-βVal-OMe (2). A 500-MHz 1H-NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) analysis in methanol supports a significant population of hairpin conformations in both peptides. Diagnostic nuclear Overhauser effects (NOEs) are observed in both cases. X-ray diffraction studies on single crystals of peptide 1 reveal a β-hairpin conformation in both the molecules, which constitute the crystallographic asymmetric unit. Three cross-strand hydrogen bonds and a nucleating type II′ β-turn at the D-Pro-Gly segment are observed in the two independent molecules. In peptide 1, the Phe residues at positions 2 and 7 occur at the nonhydrogen-bonding position, with the benzyl side chains pointing on opposite faces of the β-sheet. The observed aromatic centroid-to-centroid distances are 8.92 Å (molecule A) and 8.94 Å (molecule B). In peptide 2, the aromatic rings must occupy facing positions in antiparallel strands, in the NMR-derived structure. Peptide 1 yields a normal hairpin-like CD spectrum in methanol with a minimum at 224 nm. The CD spectrum of peptide 2 reveals a negative band at 234 nm and a positive band at 221 nm, suggestive of an exciton split doublet. Modeling of the facing Phe side chains at the hydrogen-bonding position of a canonical β-hairpin suggests that interring separation is 4.78 Å for the gauche+gauche- (g+g-) rotamer. A previously reported peptide β-hairpin composed of only α-amino acids, Boc-Leu-Phe-Val-D-Pro-Gly-Leu-Phe-Val-OMe also exhibited an anomalous far-UV (ultraviolet) CD (circular dichroism) spectrum, which was interpreted in terms of interactions between facing aromatic chromophores, Phe 2 and Phe