Alteration of genetic recombination and double-strand break repair in human cells by progerin expression.

Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS) is a rare autosomal, dominant genetic condition characterized by many features of accelerated aging. On average, children with HGPS live to about fourteen years of age. The syndrome is commonly caused by a point mutation in the LMNA gene which normally codes for lamin A and its splice variant lamin C, components of the nuclear lamina.

Ophthalmic manifestations of herpes zoster virus in patients with multiple myeloma following bone marrow transplantation.

We report three patients with ophthalmic herpes zoster (HZ) manifestations on the background diagnosis of multiple myeloma (MM). It seems that immunocompromised status has caused reactivation of the varicella zoster virus (VZV) producing a well-characterised neurological syndrome and subsequent postherpetic neuralgia in two patients. One patient experienced lymphocytic leptomeningitis resulting in unilateral optic neuritis.

Synthesis and electronic structure of cationic, neutral, and anionic bis(imino)pyridine iron alkyl complexes: evaluation of redox activity in single-component ethylene polymerization catalysts.

A family of cationic, neutral, and anionic bis(imino)pyridine iron alkyl complexes has been prepared, and their electronic and molecular structures have been established by a combination of X-ray diffraction, Mössbauer spectroscopy, magnetochemistry, and open-shell density functional theory. For the cationic complexes, [((iPr)PDI)Fe-R][BPh(4)] ((iPr)PDI = 2,6-(2,6-(i)Pr(2)-C(6)H(3)N═CMe)(2)C(5)H(3)N; R = CH(2)SiMe(3), CH(2)CMe(3), or CH(3)), which are known single-component ethylene polymerization catalysts, the data establish high spin ferrous compounds (S(Fe) = 2) with neutral, redox-innocent bis(imino)pyridine chelates. One-electron reduction to the corresponding neutral alkyls, ((iPr)PDI)Fe(CH(2)SiMe(3)) or ((iPr)PDI)Fe(CH(2)CMe(3)), is chelate-based, resulting in a bis(imino)pyridine radical anion (S(PDI) = 1/2) antiferromagnetically coupled to a high spin ferrous ion (S(Fe) = 2).

A pattern recognition based fluorescence quenching assay for the detection and identification of nitrated explosive analytes.

Herein we report a differential array of micelle-solubilized fluorophores for the detection and identification of small nitrated analytes, such as the explosives TNT, tetryl, RDX and HMX. The quenching ability of the analytes can be used to correlate their analyte identity, wherein the quenching patterns generated from the differential array are used in linear discriminant analysis (LDA). LDA results in a well-clustered two-dimensional plot, and a jack-knife analysis of the data suggests that this system can be used to identify unknown samples of analyte with 96 % accuracy and with a detection limit of 19 muM.

Voluntary incident reporting by anaesthetic trainees in an Australian hospital.

Objective: To assess the reporting of critical incidents by anaesthetic trainees using personal digital assistants. The project also identified the reporting of 'near miss' incidents by anaesthetic trainees.

Design: Comparison of electronic incident reporting with retrospective case note review of cases in which no incident was reported.

New technology to enable personal monitoring and incident reporting can transform professional culture: the potential to favourably impact the future of health care.

There have been recent exposures of poor health care performance in many countries with western health care systems. The poor performance has either related to poor or criminal practices routinely going undetected or to organizational indifference or hostility to staff raising concerns about perceived poor standards of care. The demonstration that routine performance data monitoring would have detected and prevented many of the deaths attributed to poor surgical standards in the Bristol Royal Infirmary paediatric cardiac surgery scandal and criminal behaviour in the Harold Shipman scandal has highlighted the need for routine data collection to demonstrate to both health care administrators and patients that minimum standards of clinical practice are being achieved.

Professional monitoring and critical incident reporting using personal digital assistants.

Objective: To assess the practicality of using personal digital assistants (PDAs) for the collection of logbook data, procedural performance data and critical incident reports in anaesthetic trainees.

Design: Pilot study.

Setting: Two tertiary referral centres (in Victoria and New Zealand) and a large district hospital in Queensland.