Prevalence of Hearing Loss in Teachers of Singing and Voice Students.

Objectives: Singers and voice teachers are exposed to a range of noise levels during a normal working day. This study aimed to assess the hearing thresholds in a large sample of generally healthy professional voice teachers and voice students to determine the prevalence of hearing loss in this population.

Study Design: A cross-sectional study was carried out.

Task-specific singing dystonia: vocal instability that technique cannot fix.

Objectives: Singer's dystonia is a rare variation of focal laryngeal dystonia presenting only during specific tasks in the singing voice. It is underdiagnosed since it is commonly attributed to technique problems including increased muscle tension, register transition, or wobble. Singer's dystonia differs from technique-related issues in that it is task- and/or pitch-specific, reproducible and occurs independently from the previously mentioned technical issues.

Percutaneous reduction and external fixation for foot and ankle fractures.

Percutaneous reduction with external fixation is an advanced technique for surgical management in foot and ankle trauma. In the high-risk patient, closed or percutaneous reduction followed by external fixation for reduction and stabilization is a unique alternative to achieve anatomic stabilization without increased physical strain to the patient. The significant advantages of this approach include minimizing damage to the vascular supply, maintaining and preserving a stable soft tissue envelope, and allowing for correction to be performed acutely or adjusted gradually over time.

In vitro characterization of FIV-pPPR, a pathogenic molecular clone of feline immunodeficiency virus, and two drug-resistant pol gene mutants.

Objective: To compare in vitro replication kinetics and nucleoside analog susceptibilities of a natural feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) isolate (FIV-Maxam), a molecular clone of FIV (FIV-pPPR), and two (-)-beta-L-2',3'-dideoxy-3'-thiacytidine- (3TC-) resistant mutants of FIV-pPPR.

Sample Population: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 4 specific-pathogenfree cats.

Procedure: Two point mutations corresponding to mutations of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) were engineered into the highly conserved YMDD motif of the reverse transcriptase- (RT-) encoding region of the FIV-pPPR pol gene.

Inhibitory RNA ligand to reverse transcriptase from feline immunodeficiency virus.

High-affinity, high-specificity RNA ligands for reverse transcriptase from feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) were isolated from an RNA library by the SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by EXponential enrichment) procedure. The selected RNA ligands bound to FIV reverse transcriptase with dissociation constants in the nanomolar range. One of the ligands was a potent inhibitor of the RNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity of both the recombinant and the virion-derived FIV reverse transcriptase.