Antidepressant medication adherence via interactive voice response telephone calls.

Objectives: Outpatients given antidepressants discontinue treatment at a high rate during the first few months. We evaluated the effectiveness of Highmark's use of interactive voice response (IVR) to improve antidepressant medication adherence.

Study Design: Quasi-experimental cohort intervention study.

Long-term health experience of jet engine manufacturing workers: V. Issues with the analysis of non-malignant central nervous system neoplasms.

Objective: We attempted to examine non-malignant central nervous system (CNS) neoplasms incidence rates for workers at 8 jet engine manufacturing facilities in Connecticut. The objective of this manuscript is to describe difficulties encountered regarding these analyses to aid future studies.

Methods: We traced the cohort for incident cases of CNS neoplasms in states where 95% of deaths in the total cohort occurred.

Long-term health experience of jet engine manufacturing workers: IV. A comparison of central nervous system cancer ascertainment using mortality and incidence data.

Purpose: To compare ascertainment of central nervous system (CNS) neoplasms with the use of mortality and incidence data as part of an occupational epidemiology study.

Methods: Deaths were identified by matching the cohort of 223,894 jet engine manufacturing employees to the U.S.

Long-term health experience of jet engine manufacturing workers: III. Incidence of malignant central nervous system neoplasms.

Objective: To explore a perceived unusual occurrence of glioblastoma at one jet engine manufacturing facility located in North Haven (NH), Connecticut (CT).

Methods: Subjects were 212,513 workers ever employed in 1 of 8 manufacturing facilities from 1952 to 2001 and at risk from 1976 to 2004. We identified 722 cases of CNS neoplasms mainly by tracing through 19 state cancer registries.

Long-term health experience of jet engine manufacturing workers: II. Total and cause-specific mortality excluding central nervous system neoplasms.

Objective: As part of an exploratory investigation of an unusual occurrence of glioblastoma at one jet engine manufacturing facility located in North Haven, Connecticut (CT), we examined total and cause-specific (excluding central nervous system neoplasms) mortality rates at eight of the company's CT facilities.

Methods: Subjects were 223,894 workers ever employed in one or more of the manufacturing facilities from 1952 to 2001. Vital status was determined through 2004 for 99% of subjects and cause of death for 95% of 68,701 deaths.

Long-term health experience of jet engine manufacturing workers: I. Mortality from central nervous system neoplasms.

Objective: In response to an unusual occurrence of glioblastoma at one jet engine manufacturing facility located in North Haven (NH), Connecticut (CT), we examined mortality rates from central nervous system (CNS) neoplasms at NH and seven other company facilities.

Methods: Subjects were 223,894 workers ever employed in one or more of the company's eight CT manufacturing facilities from 1952 to 2001. Vital status was determined through 2004 for 99% of subjects and cause of death for 95% of 68,701 deaths.

Bioengineering of coagulation factor VIII for improved secretion.

Factor VIII (FVIII) functions as a cofactor within the intrinsic pathway of blood coagulation. Quantitative or qualitative deficiencies of FVIII result in the inherited bleeding disorder hemophilia A. Expression of FVIII (domain structure A1-A2-B-A3-C1-C2) in heterologous mammalian systems is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude less efficient compared with other proteins of similar size compromising recombinant FVIII production and gene therapy strategies.

Altering heparin cofactor II at VAL439 (P6) either impairs inhibition of thrombin or confers elastase resistance.

Heparin cofactor II (HCII) is plasma glycoprotein and thrombin inhibitor of the serpin type previously shown to inhibit thrombin in the absence of its N-terminal 74 amino acids, and to be cleaved by neutrophil elastase (NE) at two sites: I66-F67 and V439-G440, the P6-P5 bond of the reactive center loop. We examined the contribution of Val439 to the reaction of HCII with thrombin and NE. Hexahistidine-tagged HCII proteins lacking residues 1-66 (H6delta66HCII) containing either the wild-type Val 439 or one of six substitutions were-expressed in E.