Identifying prosodic contrasts in utterances produced by 4-, 7-, and 11-year-old children.

Purpose: Acquisition of prosodic control appears to evolve across development with younger children relying on durational cues and older children utilizing a broader spectrum of cues including fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration. This study aimed to determine whether unfamiliar listeners could identify prosodic contrasts produced by 4-, 7-, and 11-year-olds despite differences in acoustic cues used by each age group.

Method: Thirty-six adult monolingual speakers of American English participated as listeners.

An in vitro model of ciprofloxacin and minocycline transport by oral epithelial cells.

Background: Fluoroquinolones and tetracyclines can penetrate epithelial cells, but the mechanism by which they cross the plasma membrane is unclear. In this study, a cell line derived from oral epithelium was used as a model to demonstrate a role for active transport.

Methods: Transport of ciprofloxacin and minocycline by confluent cell monolayers was assayed by measuring the increase in cell-associated fluorescence.

Segmental cervical spine motion during orotracheal intubation of the intact and injured spine with and without external stabilization.

Object: The purpose of this study was to establish a cadaveric model for evaluating cervical spine motion in both the intact and injured states and to examine the efficacy of commonly used stabilization techniques in limiting that motion.

Methods: Intubation was performed in fresh human cadavers with intact cervical spines, following the creation of a C4-5 posterior ligamentous injury. Movement of the cervical spine during direct laryngoscopy and intubation was recorded using video fluoroscopy and examined under the following conditions: 1) without external stabilization; 2) with manual in-line cervical immobilization; and 3) with Gardner-Wells traction.

Influence of adhesion molecule expression by human brain microvessel endothelium on cancer cell adhesion.

Cultures of endothelial (En) cells derived from human brain microvessels were established in order to characterize adhesion molecule expression and to assay the adhesion properties of neoplastic cell lines to monolayers of En cells. Low constitutive expression of beta1 integrin (CD29), and ICAM-2 (CD102) was detected on human brain microvessel En cells. The beta1 chain of the VLA integrin family, ICAM-1, E-selectin (CD62E) and VCAM-1 (CD106) but not ICAM-2 and PECAM-1 (CD31) expression was upregulated by IL1-alpha, and TNF-alpha proinflammatory cytokines.

The use of diagnostic ultrasound in evaluation of the abdomen in primates with emphasis on the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta).

To characterize the sonographic appearance of the abdominal organs in primates, a program of routine imaging and diagnostic evaluation was undertaken. Compound B-mode methodology with bistable and grey scale machines was employed utilizing a 2.25- to 3.