Community Linkage Through Navigation to Reduce Hospital Utilization Among Super Utilizer Patients: A Case Study.

This paper describes a program model that uses hospital- and community-based patient navigators and social workers to link super utilizers of the hospital system with existing community resources to improve access to services and appropriate care while lowering hospital utilization. A case study is used to illustrate a typical super utilizer patient who is homeless and has psychosocial issues. The navigator's and social worker's roles and approaches are described, and specific community linkages for this case are listed.

Odor naming and interpretation performance in 881 schizophrenia subjects: association with clinical parameters.

Background: Olfactory function tests are sensitive tools for assessing sensory-cognitive processing in schizophrenia. However, associations of central olfactory measures with clinical outcome parameters have not been simultaneously studied in large samples of schizophrenia patients.

Methods: In the framework of the comprehensive phenotyping of the GRAS (Göttingen Research Association for Schizophrenia) cohort, we modified and extended existing odor naming (active memory retrieval) and interpretation (attribute assignment) tasks to evaluate them in 881 schizophrenia patients and 102 healthy controls matched for age, gender and smoking behavior.

Modification of cognitive performance in schizophrenia by complexin 2 gene polymorphisms.

Context: Schizophrenia is the collective term for a heterogeneous group of mental disorders with a still obscure biological basis. In particular, the specific contribution of risk or candidate gene variants to the complex schizophrenic phenotype is largely unknown.

Objective: To prepare the ground for a novel "phenomics" approach, a unique schizophrenia patient database was established by GRAS (Göttingen Research Association for Schizophrenia), designed to allow association of genetic information with quantifiable phenotypes.

Functional deficiencies of components of the MHC class I antigen pathway in human tumors of epithelial origin.

An association between oncogenic transformation and repression of different components of the MHC class I antigen processing machinery (APM) have been described in murine model systems. In order to discover whether a similar correlation exists, human tumor cell lines of distinct histology with altered ras protein were analyzed for the expression of APM components utilizing RT-PCR and Western blot analyses. A heterogeneous expression pattern of MHC class I antigens, TAP peptide transporter, proteasome subunits, proteasome activator PA28 and the chaperones calnexin, calreticulin as well as tapasin was displayed by these tumor cell lines.

CD4+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in cervical cancer recognize HLA-DR-restricted peptides provided by human papillomavirus-E7.

Human papillomavirus (HPV)-encoded proteins may provide targets for CD8+ or CD4+ T lymphocytes infiltrating into cervical cancer. We established an MHC class II-restricted CD4+ T cell line from a patient with cervical cancer that recognizes autologous (HPV35+, HPV59+) cervical cancer cells and the HLA-DR4-matched cervical cancer cell line Me180 (HPV68+) as determined by TNF-alpha secretion. Expression of different HPV-E7 genes in autologous B cells revealed that this T cell line defines a DR4-presented T cell epitope that is shared among the E7 genes of HPV59 and HPV68.

Gene transfer of the Co-stimulatory molecules B7-1 and B7-2 enhances the immunogenicity of human renal cell carcinoma to a different extent.

Stimulation of a specific antitumour immune response with recruitment and induction of T-cell effector functions represents an attractive concept in human cancer therapy. Different cytokines and the B7 co-stimulatory molecules are both able to provide proliferation and activation signals for T cells. In the present study, we first demonstrated the absence of both B7-1 and B7-2 expression in human renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cell lines.

Induction of immunogenicity of a human renal-cell carcinoma cell line by TAP1-gene transfer.

Reduced expression of the major-histocompatibility-complex(MHC)-class-I antigens has been demonstrated in renal-cell carcinoma (RCC), and appeared to be associated with deficiencies in the expression and function of different components of the MHC-class-I-antigen-processing pathway and poor recognition by cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL). In order to investigate the role of peptide transporters for the immunogenic phenotype of RCC, tumor cells were stably transfected with the human TAP1A gene. While the TAP1 transfectants showed heterogeneous TAP1-transgene expression pattern of mRNA and protein, high TAP1 expression and a TAP-controlled increase in MHC-class-I surface expression could be achieved in selected transfectants.

Strong immunogenic potential of a B7 retroviral expression vector: generation of HLA-B7-restricted CTL response against selectable marker genes.

The stimulation of a specific immune response is an attractive goal in cancer therapy. Gene transfer of co-stimulatory molecules and/or cytokine genes into tumor cells and the injection of these genetically modified cells leads to tumor rejection by syngeneic hosts and the induction of tumor immunity. However, the development of host immune response could be either due to the introduced immunomodulatory genes or due to vector components.

Role of amino acids and glucose in development of burnt off-flavours in liver sausage during heat processing.

The effect of amino acids and glucose on the development of burnt off-flavours was investigated in meat model systems for liver sausage. At a constant glucose concentration, the burnt flavour was intensified by addition of an amino acid mixture. In a batter without liver, the development of burnt off-flavours, similar to those in liver sausage, could be induced through addition of exogenous amino acids and glucose.

Inhibitory effect of sulfur-containing amino acids on burnt off-flavours in canned liver sausages.

The sensory quality of canned liver sausages is limited by a negative burnt high-temperature-heated flavour, caused by Maillard reaction products between amino acids and sugars. In experiments with liver sausage, reduced glutathione in concentrations of 0.01-0.