The effect of implementation intentions on use of dental chewing gum.

This study examined the effect of implementation intentions on use of dental chewing gum. A total of 80 participants reported intentions to chew gum, read information about the benefits of dental gum, reported intentions again, and formed implementation intentions relating to gum use (experimental group) or solved word puzzles (control group). Seven days later, they reported the amount chewed. Results showed that among those motivated to chew gum, implementation intentions significantly increased the total amount chewed. Time 1 intentions were more highly correlated with behaviour than time 2 intentions. Further research is needed to establish the effectiveness of implementation intentions in dental settings

Sublethal exposure to copper supresses the ability to acclimate to hypoxia in a model fish species

This is the final version. Available on open access from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordHypoxia is one of the major threats to biodiversity in aquatic systems. The association of hypoxia with nutrient-rich effluent input into aquatic systems results in scenarios where hypoxic waters could be contaminated with a wide range of chemicals, including metals. Despite this, little is known about the ability of fish to respond to hypoxia when exposures occur in the presence of environmental toxicants. We address this knowledge gap by investigating the effects of exposures to different levels of oxygen in the presence or absence of copper using the three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) model. Fish were exposed to different air saturations (AS; 100%, 75% and 50%) in combination with copper (20 μg/L) over a 4 day period. The critical oxygen level (Pcrit), an indicator of acute hypoxia tolerance, was 54.64 ± 2.51% AS under control conditions, and 36.21 ± 2.14% when fish were chronically exposed to hypoxia (50% AS) for 4 days, revealing the ability of fish to acclimate to low oxygen conditions. Importantly, the additional exposure to copper (20 μg/L) prevented this improvement in Pcrit, impairing hypoxia acclimation. In addition, an increase in ventilation rate was observed for combined copper and hypoxia exposure, compared to the single stressors or the controls. Interestingly, in the groups exposed to copper, a large increase in variation in the measured Pcrit was observed between individuals, both under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. This variation, if observed in wild populations, may lead to selection for a tolerant phenotype and alterations in the gene pool of the populations, with consequences for their sustainability. Our findings provide strong evidence that copper reduces the capacity of fish to respond to hypoxia by preventing acclimation and will inform predictions of the consequences of global increases of hypoxia in water systems affected by other pollutants worldwide.University of ExeterCentre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas)Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)ONICYT-FONDECY

Functional outcome of patients with spinal cord injury: rehabilitation outcome study

Objective: To increase our knowledge of neurological recovery and functional outcome of patients with spinal cord injuries in order to make more successful rehabilitation programmes based on realistic goals.Design: Descriptive analysis of data gathered in an information system.Setting: Rehabilitation centre in The Netherlands with special department for patients with spinal cord injuries.Subjects: Fifty-five patients with traumatic spinal cord lesions admitted to the rehabilitation centre from 1988 to 1994. Main outcome measures: The functional improvement was presented in terms of progress in independence in nine daily activity skills. Independence was rated on a four-point scale.Results: From admission to discharge, lesions in 100% of patients with tetraplegia and 96% of patients with paraplegia remained complete. Significant progress in independence was made in self-care, ambulation and bladder and bowel care. Differences were found in the extent of functional improvement between subgroups of patients with different levels and extent of lesion. Contrary to expectations based on theoretical models, patients with complete paraplegia did not achieve maximal independence in self-care. Independent walking was only attained by patients with incomplete lesions. Regarding outcome of bladder and bowel care, poor results were found, especially the independence in defaecation and toilet transfers.Conclusions: The results of this study provided more insight into the functional outcome of a group of patients with traumatic spinal cord injury. More research is needed to evaluate the rehabilitation programmes for these patients

Protection afforded by heat shock protein 60 from Francisella tularensis is due to copurified lipopolysaccharide.

Heat shock proteins (Hsps) have attracted significant attention as protective antigens against a range of diseases caused by bacterial pathogens. However, more recently there have been suggestions that the protective response is due to the presence of peptide components other than Hsps. We have shown that mice that had been immunized with purified heat shock protein 60 (Hsp60) isolated from Francisella tularensis were protected against a subsequent challenge with some strains of the bacterium. However, this protection appeared to be due to trace amounts of lipopolysaccharide, which were too low to be detected by using the Limulus amoebocyte lysate assay. This finding raises the possibility that the protection afforded by other bacterial Hsp60 proteins may be due to trace quantities of polysaccharide antigens carried by and acting in conjunction with the Hsps

Surveillance of Arthropod Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases Using Remote Sensing Techniques: A Review

Epidemiologists are adopting new remote sensing techniques to study a variety of vector-borne diseases. Associations between satellite-derived environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, and land cover type and vector density are used to identify and characterize vector habitats. The convergence of factors such as the availability of multi-temporal satellite data and georeferenced epidemiological data, collaboration between remote sensing scientists and biologists, and the availability of sophisticated, statistical geographic information system and image processing algorithms in a desktop environment creates a fertile research environment. The use of remote sensing techniques to map vector-borne diseases has evolved significantly over the past 25 years. In this paper, we review the status of remote sensing studies of arthropod vector-borne diseases due to mosquitoes, ticks, blackflies, tsetse flies, and sandflies, which are responsible for the majority of vector-borne diseases in the world. Examples of simple image classification techniques that associate land use and land cover types with vector habitats, as well as complex statistical models that link satellite-derived multi-temporal meteorological observations with vector biology and abundance, are discussed here. Future improvements in remote sensing applications in epidemiology are also discussed

Conformational effects on the Circular Dichroism of Human Carbonic Anhydrase II: a multilevel computational study

Circular Dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is a powerful method for investigating conformational changes in proteins and therefore has numerous applications in structural and molecular biology. Here a computational investigation of the CD spectrum of the Human Carbonic Anhydrase II (HCAII), with main focus on the near-UV CD spectra of the wild-type enzyme and it seven tryptophan mutant forms, is presented and compared to experimental studies. Multilevel computational methods (Molecular Dynamics, Semiempirical Quantum Mechanics, Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory) were applied in order to gain insight into the mechanisms of interaction between the aromatic chromophores within the protein environment and understand how the conformational flexibility of the protein influences these mechanisms. The analysis suggests that combining CD semi empirical calculations, crystal structures and molecular dynamics (MD) could help in achieving a better agreement between the computed and experimental protein spectra and provide some unique insight into the dynamic nature of the mechanisms of chromophore interactions

Laplace approximation of Lauricella functions F A and F D

The Lauricella functions, which are generalizations of the Gauss hypergeometric function 2 F 1, arise naturally in many areas of mathematics and statistics. So far as we are aware, there is little or nothing in the literature on how to calculate numerical approximations for these functions outside those cases in which a simple one-dimensional integral representation or a one-dimensional series representation is available. In this paper we present first-order and second-order Laplace approximations to the Lauricella functions F(n)A and F(n)D. Our extensive numerical results show that these approximations achieve surprisingly good accuracy in a wide variety of examples, including cases well outside the asymptotic framework within which the approximations were derived. Moreover, it turns out that the second-order Laplace approximations are usually more accurate than their first-order versions. The numerical results are complemented by theoretical investigations which suggest that the approximations have good relative error properties outside the asymptotic regimes within which they were derived, including in certain cases where the dimension n goes to infinity