Utilization of Polyspecific Antiserum for Specific Radioimmunoassays: Radioimmunoassays for Rat Fetuin and Bikunin Were Developed by Using Antiserum Against Total Rat Serum Proteins

Polyspecific antiserum against total rat serum proteins was used to develop specific and sensitive radioimmunoassays for fetuin and bikunin, two minor protein components of rat plasma. The radioimmunoassays proved to be highly useful to trace bikunin and fetuin in the course of developing isolation procedures, since neither specific functional assays nor monospecific antisera were available. The two examples demonstrate that, in general, it will be possible to develop a specific and sensitive radioimmunoassay with antiserum raised against a crude antigen preparation, such as a body fluid or a tissue extract, provided that a minute amount of pure antigen is available for preparing the radioiodinated antigen

Erythropoeitin dose variation in different facilities in different countries and its relationship to drug resistance Management of comorbidities in kidney disease in the 21st century: Anemia and bone disease

Erythropoeitin dose variation in different facilities in different countries and its relationship to drug resistance.BackgroundThe correction of anemia using erythropoeitin (EPO) is accorded high priority in the management of patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD). Target hemoglobin (Hb) levels have been established in many countries. Following an observation that the mean facility EPO dose in a chain of facilities in the United States varied by more than two-fold, an examination of the practice of anemia correction in other settings was carried out.MethodsWe reviewed demographic and laboratory parameters in prevalent HD patients in 50 United States facilities and in a single HD facility in Vicenza, Italy. The mean EPO dose profile of the United States facilities was compared with the profiles in 10 facilities in the eastern United Kingdom (UKER) and in 20 facilities reporting to the United Kingdom Renal Registry (UKRR). Analysis of the factors that correlate with EPO resistance was carried out using the United States and Italian data.ResultsThe average EPO doses, by facility, in the 51 United States, the 10 UKER, and the 19 UKRR facilities were 19,569, 8,416, and 7,992 international units per week (IU/wk), respectively. While examination of the UKRR revealed a similar degree of inter-facility variation (2.6-fold), much larger doses of EPO were being administered in the United States patients, particularly in the low Hb group. Multivariate analysis of the United States data suggested that factors related to inflammation, including low albumin, the use of tunneled catheters for vascular access, and low protein catabolic rate (enPCR) correlated with low Hb and relative EPO resistance.ConclusionDespite similar guidelines for anemia management, significant differences in practice are observed. While there seems to be a reluctance to administer large EPO doses to individual patients in Europe, this does not seem to apply in the United States, where more EPO is given. EPO resistance seems relative rather than absolute in many patients, allowing some to respond to the higher doses

A Comparison of Real Time Thermal Rating Systems in the U.S. and the UK

Real-Time Thermal Rating is a smart grid technology that allows the rating of electrical conductors to be increased based on local weather conditions. Overhead lines are conventionally given a conservative, constant seasonal rating based on seasonal and regional worst case scenarios rather than actual, say, local hourly weather predictions. This paper provides a report of two pioneering schemes—one in the United States of America and one in the United Kingdom—in which Real-Time Thermal Ratings have been applied. Thereby, we demonstrate that observing the local weather conditions in real time leads to additional capacity and safer operation. Secondly, we critically compare both approaches and discuss their limitations. In doing so, we arrive at novel insights which will inform and improve future Real-Time Thermal Rating projects

Security governance and the private military industry in Europe and North America

Even before Iraq the growing use of private military contractors has been widely discussed in the academic and public literature. However, the reasons for this proliferation of private military companies and its implications are frequently generalized due to a lack of suitable theoretical approaches for the analysis of private means of violence in contemporary security. As a consequence, this article contends, the analysis of the growth of the private military industry typically conflates two separate developments: the failure of some developing states to provide for their national security and the privatisation of military services in industrialized nations in Europe and North America. This article focuses on the latter and argues that the concept of security governance can be used as a theoretical framework for understanding the distinct development, problems and solutions for the governance of the private military industry in developed countries.The United States Institute of Peace and the German Academic Exchange Service

'Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place': Anti-discrimination Legislation in the Liberal State and the Fate of the Australian Disability Discrimination Act

This article offers a critical analysis of some of the practical implications for disabled people of the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992. Specifically, it raises questions about politics and the role of the law as an instrument of social change?taking greater account of the interests of disabled people?on the one hand, and of the reliance of the social model of disability on a strategy based upon legal rights on the other. The article also suggests that the constraining effects of Australia's constitutional protections of rights and its federal system of government hinder the mildly progressive elements of the Disability Discrimination Act. To illustrate this, the paper employs empirical evidence to suggest that these effects have been exacerbated by the passage of the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Act in 1999

Submarine groundwater discharge to Tampa Bay : nutrient fluxes and biogeochemistry of the coastal aquifer

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Marine Chemistry 104 (2007): 85-97, doi:10.1016/j.marchem.2006.10.012.To separately quantify the roles of fresh and saline submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), relative to that of rivers, in transporting nutrients to Tampa Bay, Florida, we used three approaches (Darcy's Law calculations, a watershed water budget, and a 222Rn mass-balance) to estimate rate of SGD from the Pinellas peninsula. Groundwater samples were collected in 69 locations in the coastal aquifer to examine biogeochemical conditions, nutrient concentrations and stoichiometry, and salinity structure. Salinity structure was also examined using stationary electrical resistivity measurements. The coastal aquifer along the Pinellas peninsula was chemically reducing in all locations sampled, and that condition influences nitrogen (N) form and mobility of N and PO43−. Concentrations of NH4+, PO43− and ratio of dissolved inorganic N (DIN) to PO43− were all related to measured oxidation/reduction potential (pε) of the groundwater. Ratio of DIN: PO43− was below Redfield ratio in both fresh and saline groundwater. Nitrogen occurred almost exclusively in reduced forms, NH4+ and dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), suggesting that anthropogenic N is exported from the watershed in those forms. In comparison to other SGD studies, rate of PO43− flux in the seepage zone (μM m− 2 d− 1) in Tampa Bay was higher than previous estimates, likely due to 1) high watershed population density, 2) chemically reducing conditions, and 3) high ion concentrations in fresh groundwater. Estimates of freshwater groundwater flux indicate that the ratio of groundwater discharge to stream flow is not, vert, similar 20 to 50%, and that the magnitudes of both the total dissolved nitrogen and PO43− loads due to fresh SGD are not, vert, similar 40 to 100% of loads carried by streams. Estimates of SGD based on radon inventories in near-shore waters were 2 to 5 times greater than the estimates of freshwater groundwater discharge, suggesting that brackish and saline SGD is also an important process in Tampa Bay and results in flux of regenerated N and P from sediment to surface water.This work was supported by a USGS Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellowship to K.D.K. and by the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program's (CMGP) Tampa Bay Project