218 research outputs found
Changing prevalence of prenatal substance abuse in Utah.
Journal ArticleOBJECTIVE: To estimate the current prevalence of prenatal exposure to methamphetamines and other drugs of abuse among infants born in Utah and compare the results with those of a maternal substance abuse prevalence study performed in 1991 in the same geographic area. METHODS: Thirteen well baby nurseries in calendar year 2000 and six neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in 2001-2002 collected anonymous meconium samples and associated, but nonidentifiable, demographic data on consecutively born infants. Samples were screened by enzyme immunoassay and confirmed by gas chromotography/mass spectroscopy for methamphetamines, cannabinoids, and benzoylecognine. RESULTS: Meconium samples were collected from 1202 well baby nursery infants and 317 NICU infants. There were no significant differences in the rates of positivity for methamphetamines (0.6% versus 0.4%) or marijuana (2.9% versus 1.8%) between the 1991 and 2000/2001 studies. Cocaine prevalence declined from 1.1% in 1991 to 0.3% in 2000/2001 (P =.04). The prevalence of positivity for any of these three drugs declined over the 10-year period from 4.4% to 2.4% (P =.02). The prevalence for positivity for any of these three drugs was higher in the NICUs (4.7%) than in the well baby nurseries (1.9%, P =.008). CONCLUSION: The rate of drug-positive infants declined during the decade of the 1990s in a geographic area that is experiencing a sharp rise in the use of methamphetamine among women of childbearing age. Further studies that focus on women of childbearing age who use methamphetamine may help determine factors that impact their drug use during pregnancy and after the infant is born
Suffering in long-term cancer survivors: An evaluation of the PRISM-R2 in a population-based cohort
The Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure-Revised 2 (PRISM-R2) has been developed as generic measure to assess suffering. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of this instrument to identify long-term cancer survivors with high levels of suffering who may need additional support. 1299 cancer survivors completed the PRISM-R2, the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), and the Quality of Life-Cancer Survivors questionnaire (QoL-CS). The PRISM-R2 distinguishes between the Self-Illness Separation (SIS) and Illness Perception Measure (IPM), both measuring aspects of suffering. 112 (9%) cancer survivors reported high suffering according to IPM. This group had a higher cancer stage at diagnosis, more cancer recurrences, more comorbidities, and were lower educated compared to people reporting less suffering. The PRISM-R2 could explain substantial amounts of variance (10-14%) in the psychological aspects of the SF-36 and QoL-CS. The IPM also discriminated statistically and clinically significant between high- and low-health status. The PRISM-R2 proved to be able to discriminate between individuals with good and deteriorated levels of QoL. Further evaluation of its validity and screening potential is recommended
Distinct signal transduction abnormalities and erythropoietin response in bone marrow hematopoietic cell subpopulations of myelodysplastic syndrome patients.
Tau Be or not Tau Be? - A Perspective on Service Compatibility and Substitutability
One of the main open research issues in Service Oriented Computing is to
propose automated techniques to analyse service interfaces. A first problem,
called compatibility, aims at determining whether a set of services (two in
this paper) can be composed together and interact with each other as expected.
Another related problem is to check the substitutability of one service with
another. These problems are especially difficult when behavioural descriptions
(i.e., message calls and their ordering) are taken into account in service
interfaces. Interfaces should capture as faithfully as possible the service
behaviour to make their automated analysis possible while not exhibiting
implementation details. In this position paper, we choose Labelled Transition
Systems to specify the behavioural part of service interfaces. In particular,
we show that internal behaviours (tau transitions) are necessary in these
transition systems in order to detect subtle errors that may occur when
composing a set of services together. We also show that tau transitions should
be handled differently in the compatibility and substitutability problem: the
former problem requires to check if the compatibility is preserved every time a
tau transition is traversed in one interface, whereas the latter requires a
precise analysis of tau branchings in order to make the substitution preserve
the properties (e.g., a compatibility notion) which were ensured before
replacement.Comment: In Proceedings WCSI 2010, arXiv:1010.233
Stimulation of lymphocyte anti-melanoma activity by co-cultured macrophages activated by complex homeopathic medication
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer, and the most rapidly expanding cancer in terms of worldwide incidence. Chemotherapeutic approaches to treat melanoma have been uniformly disappointing. A Brazilian complex homeopathic medication (CHM), used as an immune modulator, has been recommended for patients with depressed immune systems. Previous studies in mice have demonstrated that the CHM activates macrophages, induces an increase in the number of leukocytes and improves the murine response against Sarcoma-180.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Here we studied the interaction of mouse lymph node lymphocytes, co-cultured <it>in vitro </it>with macrophages in the presence or absence of the CHM, with B16F10 melanoma cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Lymphocytes co-cultured with macrophages in the presence of the CHM had greater anti-melanoma activity, reducing melanoma cell density and increasing the number of lysed tumor cells. There was also a higher proportion of activated (CD25<sup>+</sup>) lymphocytes with increased viability. Overall, lymphocytes activated by treatment destroyed growing cancer cells more effectively than control lymphocytes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Co-culture of macrophages with lymphocytes in the presence of the CHM enhanced the anti-cancer performance of lymphocytes against a very aggressive lineage of melanoma cells. These results suggest that non-toxic therapies using CHMs are a promising alternative approach to the treatment of melanomas. In addition, they are attractive combination-therapy candidates, which may enhance the efficacy of conventional medicines by improving the immune response against tumor cells.</p
Peripheral blood B lymphocytes derived from patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension express a different RNA pattern compared with healthy controls: a cross sectional study
BACKGROUND: Idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) is a progressive and still incurable disease. Research of IPAH-pathogenesis is complicated by the lack of a direct access to the involved tissue, the human pulmonary vasculature. Various auto-antibodies have been described in the blood of patients with IPAH. The purpose of the present work was therefore to comparatively analyze peripheral blood B lymphocyte RNA expression characteristics in IPAH and healthy controls. METHODS: Patients were diagnosed having IPAH according to WHO (mean pulmonary arterial pressure > or = 25 mmHg, pulmonary capillary occlusion pressure < or = 15 mmHg, absence of another explaining disease). Peripheral blood B-lymphocytes of patients and controls were immediately separated by density gradient centrifugation and magnetic beads for CD19. RNA was thereafter extracted and analyzed by the use of a high sensitivity gene chip (Affymetrix HG-U133-Plus2) able to analyze 47000 transcripts and variants of human genes. The array data were analyzed by two different softwares, and up-and down-regulations were defined as at least 1.3 fold with standard deviations smaller than fold-changes. RESULTS: Highly purified B-cells of 5 patients with IPAH (mean pulmonary artery pressure 51 +/- 13 mmHg) and 5 controls were analyzed. Using the two different analyzing methods we found 225 respectively 128 transcripts which were up-regulated (1.3-30.7 fold) in IPAH compared with healthy controls. Combining both methods, there were 33 overlapping up-regulated transcripts and no down-regulated B-cell transcripts. CONCLUSION: Patients with IPAH have a distinct RNA expression profile of their peripheral blood B-lymphocytes compared to healthy controls with some clearly up-regulated genes. Our finding suggests that in IPAH patients B cells are activated
Developments on drug discovery and on new therapeutics: highly diluted tinctures act as biological response modifiers
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In the search for new therapies novel drugs and medications are being discovered, developed and tested in laboratories. Highly diluted substances are intended to enhance immune system responses resulting in reduced frequency of various diseases, and often present no risk of serious side-effects due to its low toxicity. Over the past years our research group has been investigating the action of highly diluted substances and tinctures on cells from the immune system.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We have developed and tested several highly diluted tinctures and here we describe the biological activity of M1, M2, and M8 both <it>in vitro </it>in immune cells from mice and human, and <it>in vivo </it>in mice. Cytotoxicity, cytokines released and NF-ÎșB activation were determined after <it>in vitro </it>treatment. Cell viability, oxidative response, lipid peroxidation, bone marrow and lymph node cells immunophenotyping were accessed after mice <it>in vivo </it>treatment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>None of the highly diluted tinctures tested were cytotoxic to macrophages or K562. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated macrophages treated with all highly diluted tinctures decreased tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) release and M1, and M8 decreased IFN-<it>Îł </it>production. M1 has decreased NF-ÎșB activity on TNF-α stimulated reporter cell line. <it>In vivo </it>treatment lead to a decrease in reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide (NO) production was increased by M1, and M8, and lipid peroxidation was induced by M1, and M2. All compounds enhanced the innate immunity, but M1 also augmented acquired immunity and M2 diminished B lymphocytes, responsible to acquired immunity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on the results presented here, these highly diluted tinctures were shown to modulate immune responses. Even though further investigation is needed there is an indication that these highly diluted tinctures could be used as therapeutic interventions in disorders where the immune system is compromised.</p
In vitro and in vivo anticancer properties of a Calcarea carbonica derivative complex (M8) treatment in a murine melanoma model
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer and the most rapidly expanding cancer in terms of worldwide incidence. Chemotherapeutic approaches to treat melanoma have had only marginal success. Previous studies in mice demonstrated that a high diluted complex derived from <it>Calcarea carbonica </it>(M8) stimulated the tumoricidal response of activated lymphocytes against B16F10 melanoma cells <it>in vitro</it>.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Here we describe the <it>in vitro </it>inhibition of invasion and the <it>in vivo </it>anti-metastatic potential after M8 treatment by inhalation in the B16F10 lung metastasis model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that M8 has at least two functions, acting as both an inhibitor of cancer cell adhesion and invasion and as a perlecan expression antagonist, which are strongly correlated with several metastatic, angiogenic and invasive factors in melanoma tumors.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The findings suggest that this medication is a promising non-toxic therapy candidate by improving the immune response against tumor cells or even induce direct dormancy in malignancies.</p
Controlling Groundwater Exploitation Through Economic Instruments: Current Practices, Challenges and Innovative Approaches
Groundwater can be considered as a common-pool resource, is often overexploited and, as a result, there are growing management pressures. This chapter starts with a broad presentation of the range of economic instruments that can be used for groundwater management, considering current practices and innovative approaches inspired from the literature on Common Pool Resources management. It then goes on with a detailed presentation of groundwater allocation policies implemented in France, the High Plains aquifer in the USA, and Chile. The chapter concludes with a discussion of social and political difficulties associated with implementing economic instruments for groundwater management
«La relation de limitation et dâexception dans le français dâaujourdâhui : exceptĂ©, sauf et hormis comme pivots dâune relation algĂ©brique »
Lâanalyse des emplois prĂ©positionnels et des emplois conjonctifs dâ âexceptĂ©â, de âsaufâ et dâ âhormisâ permet dâenvisager les trois prĂ©positions/conjonctions comme le pivot dâun binĂŽme, comme la plaque tournante dâune structure bipolaire. PlacĂ©es au milieu du binĂŽme, ces prĂ©positions sont forcĂ©es par leur sĂ©mantisme originaire dĂ»ment mĂ©taphorisĂ© de jouer le rĂŽle de marqueurs dâinconsĂ©quence systĂ©matique entre lâĂ©lĂ©ment se trouvant Ă leur gauche et celui qui se trouve Ă leur droite. Lâopposition qui surgit entre les deux Ă©lĂ©ments nâest donc pas une incompatibilitĂ© naturelle, intrinsĂšque, mais extrinsĂšque, induite. Dans la plupart des cas (emplois limitatifs), cette opposition prend la forme dâun rapport entre une « classe » et le « membre (soustrait) de la classe », ou bien entre un « tout » et une « partie » ; dans dâautres (emplois exceptifs), cette opposition se manifeste au contraire comme une attaque de front portĂ©e par un « tout » Ă un autre « tout ». De plus, lâinconsĂ©quence induite mise en place par la prĂ©position/conjonction paraĂźt, en principe, tout Ă fait insurmontable. Dans lâassertion « les Ă©cureuils vivent partout, sauf en Australie » (que lâon peut expliciter par « Les Ă©cureuils vivent partout, sauf [quâils ne vivent pas] en Australie »), la prĂ©position semble en effet capable dâimpliquer le prĂ©dicat principal avec signe inverti, et de bĂątir sur une telle implication une sorte de sous Ă©noncĂ© qui, Ă la rigueur, est totalement inconsĂ©quent avec celui qui le prĂ©cĂšde (si « les Ă©cureuils ne vivent pas en Australie », le fait quâils « vivent partout » est faux). NĂ©anmoins, lâanalyse montre quâalors que certaines de ces oppositions peuvent enfin ĂȘtre dĂ©passĂ©es, dâautres ne le peuvent pas. Câest, respectivement, le cas des relations limitatives et des relations exceptives. La relation limitative, impliquant le rapport « tout » - « partie », permet de rĂ©soudre le conflit dans les termes dâune somme algĂ©brique entre deux sous Ă©noncĂ©s pourvus de diffĂ©rent poids informatif et de signe contraire. Les valeurs numĂ©riques des termes de la somme Ă©tant dĂ©sĂ©quilibrĂ©es, le rĂ©sultat est toujours autre que zĂ©ro. La relation exceptive, au contraire, qui nâimplique pas le rapport « tout » - « partie », nâest pas capable de rĂ©soudre le conflit entre deux sous Ă©noncĂ©s pourvus du mĂȘme poids informatif et en mĂȘme temps de signe contraire : les valeurs numĂ©riques des termes de la somme Ă©tant symĂ©triques et Ă©gales, le rĂ©sultat sera toujours Ă©quivalent Ă zĂ©ro
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