The Master's Degree: Basic Preparation for Professional Practice

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Genomic investigations of unexplained acute hepatitis in children

Since its first identification in Scotland, over 1,000 cases of unexplained paediatric hepatitis in children have been reported worldwide, including 278 cases in the UK1. Here we report an investigation of 38 cases, 66 age-matched immunocompetent controls and 21 immunocompromised comparator participants, using a combination of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and immunohistochemical methods. We detected high levels of adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) DNA in the liver, blood, plasma or stool from 27 of 28 cases. We found low levels of adenovirus (HAdV) and human herpesvirus 6B (HHV-6B) in 23 of 31 and 16 of 23, respectively, of the cases tested. By contrast, AAV2 was infrequently detected and at low titre in the blood or the liver from control children with HAdV, even when profoundly immunosuppressed. AAV2, HAdV and HHV-6 phylogeny excluded the emergence of novel strains in cases. Histological analyses of explanted livers showed enrichment for T cells and B lineage cells. Proteomic comparison of liver tissue from cases and healthy controls identified increased expression of HLA class 2, immunoglobulin variable regions and complement proteins. HAdV and AAV2 proteins were not detected in the livers. Instead, we identified AAV2 DNA complexes reflecting both HAdV-mediated and HHV-6B-mediated replication. We hypothesize that high levels of abnormal AAV2 replication products aided by HAdV and, in severe cases, HHV-6B may have triggered immune-mediated hepatic disease in genetically and immunologically predisposed children

Political Science: Utility for Research in Librarianship

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Role Models in Library Education: Effects on Women's Careers

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Reactions to ''1985 to 1995: The Next Decade in Academic Librarianship ,'' Parts I and II

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Smoking, reward responsiveness, and response inhibition: tests of an incentive motivational model.

Background: Incentive-motivation models of addiction suggest impairment of functional activity in mesocorticolimbic reward pathways during abstinence. This study tested implications for subjective and behavioral responses to nondrug incentives, cue-elicited craving, and prefrontal cognitive functions, particularly response inhibition. Methods: We tested 26 smokers after smoking and after overnight abstinence in counterbalanced order; 26 nonsmokers were also tested twice. Measures included a simple card-sorting test performed with and without financial incentive (the CARROT), the Snaith Hamilton Pleasure Scale as an index of subjective reward responsiveness, ratings of subjective craving and withdrawal before and after exposure to a cigarette, an index of oculomotor response inhibition (saccadic vs. antisaccadic eye movements), verbal fluency, and reversed digit span. Results: Compared with the smoking condition, and independently of withdrawal severity, abstinence was associated with reduced cue reactivity, pleasure expectancies, responsiveness to financial incentive, and response inhibition (antisaccadic eye movements). Verbal fluency and reversed digit span were unaffected, contrary to findings elsewhere with heavier smokers. Nonsmokers? scores either fell between those of abstainers and recent smokers or approximated those of recent smokers. Conclusions: The data were in general consistent with behavioral predictions derived from the incentive-motivational model of addiction and suggest that abstinence may be associated with impairments of motivation and response inhibition, which are independent of other subjectively experienced withdrawal symptoms