Application of capillary electrophoresis to the measurement of oligonucleotide concentration and purity over a wide dynamic range.

Synthetic oligonucleotides rarely contain 100% of the full-length sequence due, in part, to the failure sequences produced during synthesis. In this paper, a method is described for the determination of both the concentration and the purity of oligonucleotides, utilizing capillary electrophoresis with a deoxyribo-nucleoside triphosphate as an internal standard. This method is advantageous for several reasons: (a) the wide dynamic range allows for the analysis of samples without the need for dilutions; (b) a small sample size is used for analysis; (c) capillary electrophoresis is automatable which allows for high throughput; and (d) all of the samples are analyzed at the same run temperature which aids in reproducibility and consistency between runs performed at different times.

The effect of Medicare's payment system for rehabilitation hospitals on length of stay, charges, and total payments.

Background: Medicare's system for the payment of rehabilitation hospitals is based on limits derived from a hospital's average allowable charges per patient discharged during a base year. Thereafter, payments are capped but hospitals receive incentive payments if charges per patient are reduced in succeeding years. We hypothesized that per-patient charges would increase during the base year and then decrease in subsequent years.

Treatment of leg telangiectasia using a long-pulse dye laser at 595 nm.

Background And Objective: Pulsed dye lasers (PDL) operating at 585 nm wavelength and 0.45 msec pulsewidth offer effective treatment for port wine stains (PWS). Vessels in leg telangiectasias are larger than those in PWS.

Ligase chain reaction assay for human mutations: the Sickle Cell by LCR assay.

We can detect the beta-globin gene sickle cell mutation by using an assay based on the ligase chain reaction. The simultaneous amplification of the human growth hormone gene in the same reaction serves as a control for the amount of template DNA or amplification efficiency. Ligation products, which are biotinylated at one end and tagged with an arbitrary "tail" sequence at the other, are captured by hybridization to "tail"-complementary oligonucleotides immobilized on polystyrene microwells.

Outcomes research: a primer for plastic surgeons.

The growing emphasis on cost-effectiveness in the United States health care industry has highlighted the need for comprehensive outcomes research in a variety of medical specialties. Currently, there is a relative paucity of reliable data characterizing the long-term results of many medical and surgical treatments. This shortage of outcomes research is particularly acute within plastic surgery where the benefits of treatment are often intangible and notoriously difficult to measure.

Evaluations of aesthetic results in breast reconstruction: an analysis of reliability.

This study evaluated the reliability of three commonly used measures of aesthetic outcomes of breast surgery: a four-point ordinal scale of overall aesthetics, five four-point subscales, and a visual analogue scale. Fifty patients were randomly selected from women who underwent breast reconstruction surgery at University of Michigan hospitals between July 1989 and May 1993. Postoperative photographs of these patients were provided to three plastic surgeons, who were asked to rate the photographs using the three methods.

Effect of age on the intestinal absorption of vitamin D3-palmitate and nonesterified vitamin D2 in the term human infant.

This study was undertaken to investigate the utility of vitamin D3-palmitate as a nutritional supplement and thus define the intestinal absorption profile of vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 liberated after its cleavage from vitamin D3-palmitate in the human infant at various postnatal ages. The subjects for study consisted of 48 normal infants that were simultaneously administered 0.07 and 0.

Design and validation of a critical care simulation model.

The high costs of building, equipping, and staffing critical care beds, coupled with more restrictive reimbursement policies, are forcing hospital administrators to seek ways for determining accurately the number of critical care beds needed. Existing critical care bedsizing models do not capture the complexity of today's critical care environment, nor have they been formally validated using actual hospital performance data. The study described herein was designed to address these needs.

Renal cell carcinoma among architects.

Data from a population-based cancer registry were analyzed according to occupation and industry at the time of diagnosis as part of a routine surveillance of the data for associations between occupation and cancer risk. A total of 119 cases of cancer of all sites were reported among architects between 1972-1986. From a total of 2,059 renal cell carcinomas in the registry, the 13 cases were observed among male architects, aged up to 64, 3.

Distribution of elements and water in peripheral nerve of streptozocin-induced diabetic rats.

Accumulating evidence suggests that alterations in Na, Ca, K, and other biologically relevant elements play a role in the mechanism of cell injury. The pathogenesis of experimental diabetic neuropathy is unknown but might include changes in the distribution of these elements in morphological compartments. In this study, this possibility was examined via electron-probe X-ray microanalysis to measure both concentrations of elements (millimoles of element per kilogram dry or wet weight) and cell water content (percent water) in frozen, unfixed, unstained sections of peripheral nerve from control and streptozocin-induced diabetic rats.

Indirect laryngoscopic approach for injection of botulinum toxin in spasmodic dysphonia.

Spasmodic dysphonia is a focal dystonia that causes a loss of the fine control of intrinsic laryngeal muscles and produces a strained staccato voice. Temporary relief from symptoms has been reported in patients treated with botulinum toxin percutaneously injected into the thyroarytenoid muscle. A newly developed method of treatment differs from reported methods by increasing the accuracy of botulinum toxin placement, reducing soft tissue trauma, and applying basic scientific information about the functional histology of intrinsic laryngeal musculature.

Artificial orbit system for experimental surgery with enucleated globes.

A portable system for holding, accurately positioning, and restoring the physiologic integrity of enucleated globes during experimental anterior segment procedures and pars plana vitrectomy is described. A 0 to 500-mm Hg vacuum fixation ring and positioning apparatus mechanically locks globes into known spatial position while they are supported in a 2 to 6-mm Hg pressurized, pliable socket designed to match the size and pressure of a natural orbit. A gravity infusion system and an implantable piezoelectric pressure sensor in conjunction with a syringe and stopcock assembly allow for controlled inflation of globes to intraocular pressure (IOP) levels from 0 to 70 mm Hg, and to over 300 mm Hg.

Evaluation of healthcare software from a usability perspective.

This paper provides a framework for evaluating healthcare software from a usability perspective. The framework is based on a review of both the healthcare software literature and the general literature on software usability and evaluation. The need for such a framework arises from the proliferation of software packages in the healthcare field, and from an historical focus on the technical and functional aspects, rather than on the usability, of these packages.

Alteration of phosphoinositide metabolism, protein phosphorylation, and carbohydrate levels in sciatic nerve from Wistar fatty diabetic rats.

Sciatic nerve from the Wistar fatty diabetic (FD) rat, a prospective model for non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, was investigated to determine the content of carbohydrates and to measure the incorporation of 32P into phosphoinositides and proteins. This strain has been shown to develop structural abnormalities in nerves and to exhibit reduced conduction velocity. Males became diabetic between the ages of 8 and 10 wk and were maintained together with lean sibling controls until the animals were either 22 or 44 wk old.

Relationship of ATP turnover, polyphosphoinositide metabolism, and protein phosphorylation in sciatic nerve and derived peripheral myelin subfractions from normal and streptozotocin diabetic rats.

Sciatic nerve from streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats has previously been shown to incorporate more 32P into phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) and the principal myelin proteins than normal nerve. In the present study, labeling of ATP and PIP2 was compared. Using nerve segments, [gamma-32P]ATP specific activity reached a plateau after incubation for 4 h with [32P]orthophosphate, whereas the specific activity of [32P]PIP2 rose much more slowly and was still increasing after 8 h.

Evaluation of an advance surgical scheduling system.

Utilization of the surgical suite is of significant concern to administrators because of the high costs associated with this facility. Scheduling systems, which control the flow of patients into the surgical arena, are frequently cited as a primary means of improving resource utilization. The objective of the research reported herein was to test the hypothesis that the implementation of a centralized advance surgical scheduling system is associated with a significant improvement in operating room (OR) team utilization rate.

Distribution of elements in rat peripheral axons and nerve cell bodies determined by x-ray microprobe analysis.

X-ray microprobe analysis was used to determine concentrations (millimoles of element per kilogram dry weight) of Na, P, Cl, K, and Ca in cellular compartments of frozen, unfixed sections of rat sciatic and tibial nerves and dorsal root ganglion (DRG). Five compartments were examined in peripheral nerve (axoplasm, mitochondria, myelin, extraaxonal space, and Schwann cell cytoplasm), and four were analyzed in DRG nerve cell bodies (cytoplasm, mitochondria, nucleus, and nucleolus). Each morphological compartment exhibited characteristic concentrations of elements.

Regulatory effects of S-100 protein and parvalbumin on protein kinases and phosphoprotein phosphatases from brain and skeletal muscle.

In the eluted fractions of histone-treated crude extracts separated by Sephadex G-200 filtration, multiple protein kinase (PK) activities, including three from brain and two from skeletal muscle, were augmented by both S-100 protein and parvalbumin on the phosphorylation of endogenous substrates. One additional PK activity suppressed by both S-100 and parvalbumin was also found in muscle. In comparison, phosphoprotein phosphatases (PPase), which were also prepared by the same procedure of initial step of histone-treatment followed by the steps of Bio-Gel P-6DG for brain and DNA-cellulose for muscle, were all activated by S-100 while inhibited by parvalbumin and phosphatidylserine.

Decreased tear production associated with general anesthesia in the dog.

Schirmer I tear tests were done on 20 dogs before and during general anesthesia. Atropine sulfate reduced tear production from a mean base-line value of 20.35 +/- 3.