Recipient NOD2/CARD15 variants: a novel independent risk factor for the development of bronchiolitis obliterans after allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

Bronchiolitis obliterans (BO) is a serious complication after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. We hypothesized that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the NOD2/CARD15 gene (=NOD2/CARD15 variants) contribute to changes in host defense and subsequent alloreaction, leading to BO. We analyzed 427 donor-recipient pairs for the association of NOD2/CARD15 variants (SNP8 [Arg702Trp], SNP12 [Gly908Arg], and SNP13 [Leu1007fsinsC]) with BO occurrence.

Long-term immune reconstitution after anti-CD52-treated or anti-CD34-treated hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for severe T-lymphocyte immunodeficiency.

Background: Results of treatment of severe T-lymphocyte immunodeficiencies by means of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation have improved. T cell-depleted haploidentical transplantations are successful if there is no HLA-identical donor. Methods to remove T lymphocytes include addition of anti-CD52 antibodies and CD34(+) HSC selection.

No longer hungry in hospital: improving the hospital mealtime experience for older people through action research.

Aims And Objectives: This study aimed to improve the mealtime experience of older people in a hospital setting through helping staff to make changes to their clinical practice and the ward environment.

Background: Poor nutritional care has been a persistent and seemingly intractable problem for many years.

Methods: We used an action research design for the study, drawing on techniques from practice development to support the action phase of the work, including action learning, role modelling good practice and reflection.

Nurses and paramedics in partnership: perceptions of a new response to low-priority ambulance calls.

Aims: To explore patients' and staffs' perceptions of a pilot service which dispatched a nurse and paramedic to low-priority ambulance calls. However,

Methods: Patients' opinions of both pilot and standard service groups were obtained through qualitative questionnaire data and individual interviews. Staffs' perceptions were explored via two focus groups.

Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation: can our genes predict clinical outcome?

Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is currently the only curative treatment for many patients with malignant and non-malignant haematological diseases. The success of HSCT is greatly reduced by the development of complications, which include graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), relapse and infection. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching of patients and donors is essential, but does not completely prevent these complications; non-HLA genes may also have an impact upon transplant outcome.

The role of drug expectancy in the control of human drug seeking.

Human drug seeking may be goal directed in the sense that it is mediated by a mental representation of the drug or habitual in the sense that it is elicited by drug-paired cues directly. To test these 2 accounts, the authors assessed whether a drug-paired stimulus (S+) would transfer control to an independently trained drug-seeking response. Smokers were trained on an instrumental discrimination that established a tobacco S+ in Experiment 1 and a tobacco and a money S+ in Experiment 2 that elicited an expectancy of their respective outcomes.

The control of food-caching behavior by Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica).

Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) did not show extinction when caching behavior was never rewarded and they had no choice of where to cache the food. However, when the jays had the choice of caching items in 2 different locations or during 2 successive episodes, and only 1 of each was always rewarded at recovery, they rapidly learned to cache in the rewarded location or episode. When the jays had learned during training trials that their caches were always moved to 1 of 2 locations they did not cache in, then on the test trial they cached in the location that had been previously rewarded.

Extracorporeal photophoresis increases sensitivity of monocytes from patients with graft-versus-host disease to HLA-DR-mediated cell death.

Background: Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) remains a cause of long-term morbidity after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and recent studies indicate that extracorporeal photophoresis (ECP) is useful for treatment of steroid-refractory GVHD although the mechanisms are unclear. Antigen-presenting cells (APCs) such as dendritic cells have a central role in GVHD, and apoptosis of APCs by HLA-DR monoclonal antibody (MoAb) has been documented in vitro and in vivo. Monocytes have been identified as precursors of dendritic cells in vivo and particularly under conditions of inflammation.

Effect of diatomaceous earth and Trichoderma harzianum T-22 (Rifai strain KRL-AG2) on the fungus gnat Bradysia sp. nr. coprophila (Diptera: Sciaridae).

This study, consisting of three experiments, was designed to assess whether diatomaceous earth, when applied to the surface of growing media, reduces adult fungus gnat Bradysia sp. nr. coprophila (Diptera: Sciaridae) emergence or inhibits the females from laying eggs; and whether fungus gnat adults are attracted to the fungus Trichoderma harzianum T-22 (Rifai strain KRL-AG2) under laboratory conditions.

Inactivation of HOXA genes by hypermethylation in myeloid and lymphoid malignancy is frequent and associated with poor prognosis.

Purpose: The HOX genes comprise a large family of homeodomain-containing transcription factors, present in four separate clusters, which are key regulators of embryonic development, hematopoietic differentiation, and leukemogenesis. We aimed to study the role of DNA methylation as an inducer of HOX gene silencing in leukemia.

Experimental Design: Three hundred and seventy-eight samples of myeloid and lymphoid leukemia were quantitatively analyzed (by COBRA analysis and pyrosequencing of bisulfite-modified DNA) for methylation of eight HOXA and HOXB cluster genes.

Disrupted prediction-error signal in psychosis: evidence for an associative account of delusions.

Delusions are maladaptive beliefs about the world. Based upon experimental evidence that prediction error-a mismatch between expectancy and outcome--drives belief formation, this study examined the possibility that delusions form because of disrupted prediction--error processing. We used fMRI to determine prediction-error-related brain responses in 12 healthy subjects and 12 individuals (7 males) with delusional beliefs.

Accuracy of recent potential energy surfaces for the He-N2 interaction. I. Virial and bulk transport coefficients.

A new exchange-Coulomb semiempirical model potential energy surface for the He-N2 interaction has been developed. Together with two recent high-level ab initio potential energy surfaces, it has been tested for the reliability of its predictions of second-virial coefficients and bulk transport phenomena in binary mixtures of He and N2. The agreement with the relevant available measurements is generally within experimental uncertainty for the exchange-Coulomb surface and the ab initio surface of Patel et al.

Adult human fibroblasts are potent immunoregulatory cells and functionally equivalent to mesenchymal stem cells.

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) have potent immunosuppressive properties and have been advocated for therapeutic use in humans. The nature of their suppressive capacity is poorly understood but is said to be a primitive stem cell function. Demonstration that adult stromal cells such as fibroblasts (Fb) can modulate T cells would have important implications for immunoregulation and cellular therapy.

Flavor-evaluative conditioning is unaffected by contingency knowledge during training with color-flavor compounds.

In two experiments, participants inspected and drank a series of drinks, half of which contained sugarand half unpalatable Tween20 (tween). Each sugar and tween drink had a particular flavor and color. Following this training, the flavors of the sugar drinks were assigned higher hedonicevaluations than were those of thetween drinks, even though the participants did not reliably report which flavors had been present in the sugar and tween drinks during training.

An Hsp70 peptide initiates NK cell killing of leukemic blasts after stem cell transplantation.

In contrast to solid tumors, leukemic blasts frequently present both Hsp70 and HLA-E on their cell surface and thereby present activating and inhibitory signals to CD94(+) NK cells. In the first 12 months after stem cell transplantation (SCT) CD94(+) NK cells clearly dominate over CD3(+)/CD16(-)/56(-) T and CD3(+)/CD16(+)/56(+) NK-like T cells. An incubation of post-SCT-derived peripheral blood lymphocytes with the Hsp70 peptide TKD and IL-15 enhances the cell surface density of CD56/CD94 and initiates the cytolytic activity of NK cells against Hsp70/HLA-E double-positive autologous and allogeneic leukemic blasts.

Transport properties of asymmetric-top molecules.

Kinetic theory of gases is extended from linear molecules to asymmetric tops. The integration over the velocity of the centre of mass is carried out explicitly and the results are expressed in a form suitable for classical evaluation. These results can also be employed for spherical and symmetric tops.

Compulsive drug seeking by rats under punishment: effects of drug taking history.

Rationale: Abstinence from drug occurs in human addicts for several reasons, including the avoidance of adverse consequences.

Objectives: To explore a model of drug use in the face of adverse consequences in rats through intermittent punishment of drug seeking and to investigate whether the ability to withhold seeking responses depends upon the duration of drug history.

Materials And Methods: Rats were trained under a seeking-taking chained schedule with sucrose or cocaine as reinforcer.

Positioning the extreme anterior in Xenopus: cement gland, primary mouth and anterior pituitary.

The extreme anterior of the deuterostome embryo is unusual in that ectoderm and endoderm are directly juxtaposed, without intervening mesoderm. In all vertebrates, this region gives rise to the anterior pituitary, the primary mouth and, in most frogs, to the mucus-secreting cement gland. Using the frog Xenopus laevis as a paradigm, we suggest that, initially, the extreme anterior forms a homogenous domain characterized by expression of pitx genes.

Different bone loading patterns due to fixation of three-unit and five-unit implant prostheses.

Background: It has been considered that implant prostheses ought to display passive fit. The objective of this finite element analysis (FEA) was to simulate the bone loading resulting from the fixation of implant-supported three and five-unit fixed partial dentures (FPDs).

Methods: Based on a patient case, six different FPD-groups were fabricated using either two or three implants for support.

A comparison of CFU-GM, BFU-E and endothelial progenitor cells using ex vivo expansion of selected cord blood CD133(+) and CD34(+) cells.

Background: CD133 is a newly developed hematopoietic stem cell marker but little is known about its function. Whether CD133(+) cell selection provides any advantage over CD34(+) selection for hematopoietic stem cell isolation and transplantation is unclear. The present study compared colony formation and endothelial cell differentiation of these two cell types from umbilical cord blood (UCB).

Western scrub-jays anticipate future needs independently of their current motivational state.

Planning for the future has been considered to be a uniquely human trait [1-3]. However, recent studies challenge this hypothesis by showing that food-caching Western scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) can relate their previous experience as thieves to the possibility of future cache theft by another bird [4], are sensitive to the state of their caches at recovery ([5] and S. De Kort, S.

Optimizing outcomes in laparoscopic urologic training: toward a standardized global consensus.

Background And Purpose: Laparoscopic urologic surgery (LUS) is one of the fastest growing subspecialties in the surgical world. The procedures require technical expertise and finesse; unlike their open counterparts, there is significant limitation in the margin for error. Various ethical, medicolegal, and health economy demands have made training in laparoscopic urologic surgery challenging.

Risk assessment in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation: pre-transplant patient and donor factors: non-HLA genetics.

Non-HLA genetics involving the study of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and microsatellites of cytokine and cytokine receptor genes, and as well as genes associated with response to infection and therapeutic drugs, are currently being studied for associations with diseases, including autoimmune disease, cancer and solid-organ transplant rejection. This chapter will summarize the potential role of non-HLA genetics in predicting outcome of haematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) and how genotyping for non-HLA genes may give insight into the immunobiology of HSCT complications, including GvHD and infectious episodes. Future directions - including the role of pharmacogenomics, use of the research results for individualized medicine, and interpretation of data - will also be discussed.