Sleep Disruption and Daytime Sleepiness Correlating with Disease Severity and Insulin Resistance in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Comparison with Healthy Controls.

Background & Aims: Sleep disturbance is associated with the development of obesity, diabetes and hepatic steatosis in murine models. Hepatic triglyceride accumulation oscillates in a circadian rhythm regulated by clock genes, light-dark cycle and feeding time in mice. The role of the sleep-wake cycle in the pathogenesis of human non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is indeterminate.

Lymphogranuloma venereum in Zurich, Switzerland: Chlamydia trachomatis serovar L2 proctitis among men who have sex with men.

Background: Whereas until 2003 Lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) was rare in industrialised countries, there have been increasing reports of cases of LGV proctitis in men having sex with men (MSM) over the last six years in Europe, America and Australia.

Patients And Methods: After the alarming message from the Netherlands in 2003, physicians in a dermatological and STI private clinic in Zurich started examining rectal swabs from patients with proctitis for LGV serovars of C. trachomatis on a regular basis.

Cultural representations of thinness in women, redux: Playboy magazine's depiction of beauty from 1979 to 1999.

Playboy's portrayal of the male ideal of feminine beauty, in terms of overall body size, percent normative weight, and waist-to-hip ratios (WHRs), was analyzed for the years 1979-1999. Trends were examined through body measurements obtained from Playboy centerfolds. Results reveal a continuation of the low body mass index (BMI) found in the Playmates by earlier studies; however, for the 21 years examined, the trend towards increasing thinness seems to have stabilized and may have begun to actually reverse.

Testing the hypothesis of the multidimensional model of anorexia nervosa in adolescents.

This study statistically tested six hypothesized risk factors of the model for anorexia nervosa. Forty-three adolescents with anorexia nervosa and 85 controls were administered the EAT, EDI, and FES. In addition, 43 parents of anorexics and 85 parents of controls completed the Family History Data Sheet, the FES, and the Perfect Child Questionnaire.

Kinetics of egg production and egg excretion by Schistosoma mansoni and S. japonicum in mice infected with a single pair of worms.

Individual male and female schistosomes approximately three weeks of age were implanted into the portal venous system of C57Bl/6 mice to produce infections with a single pair of Schistosoma mansoni or S. japonicum. Mice were killed between seven and 54 weeks after infection.

Natural history of Schistosoma mansoni infection in mice: egg production, egg passage in the feces, and contribution of host and parasite death to changes in worm numbers.

Mice, C57Bl/6N (B6) and BALB/cAnN (BALB), infected with Schistosoma mansoni were examined 8-26 weeks postinfection (PI) to estimate the fecundity of the worms and the contribution of death of worms and the death of heavily infected mice to the decrease in worm numbers in chronic infections. Portal worms were recovered by perfusion and the lungs were examined for parasites shunted from the portal circulation. Animals that died were more heavily infected than those that survived.

Persistence of eggs and hepatic fibrosis after treatment of Schistosoma mansoni-infected mice.

In 1971 we estimated that Schistosoma mansoni eggs in the tissues of mice were destroyed with an approximate half-life of four weeks. Our present results of five experiments suggest that egg destruction is not as rapid, and no significant destruction of eggs was detected for up to 26 weeks after treatment. However, in these experiments, a mean of 60% of the eggs in intestinal tissues were found in the feces at the time of treatment.

Comparative safety and efficacy of short ragweed extracts differing in potency and composition in the treatment of fall hay fever. Use of allergenically bioequivalent doses by parallel line bioassay to evaluate comparative safety and efficacy.

One high potency (HP) and two low potency (LP) commercial whole short ragweed (WSR) extracts were assayed for relative potency (RP) by antigen E (AgE-Amb a 1), RAST inhibition, and parallel line bioassay (PLBA). The RP of the HP extract (300 micrograms AgE) was equal to the reference WSR, but the LP extracts were only approximately 0.01 of the RP of the reference.

[Indications and interpretation of serologic studies in reactive arthritis].

The big number of microorganisms known to cause arthritis following infections and also her biological variety make culture methods for the etiologic diagnosis difficult if not impossible in the individual case. Diagnostic possibilities offered by serology are practically unlimited. The search for the etiology can easily be adapted to the history and the clinical picture presented by the patient.

Tests for deletion.

It has been suggested in the ecological literature that species may be excluded (or "deleted") from an environment because they do not differ sufficiently from other species in the environment. We develop tests of various deletion hypotheses based on the assumption of a random distribution of species sizes. The results provide information on the behavior of quantities of interest to ecologists studying this phenomenon, namely contiguous ratios, and allow us to gauge the extent of deletion required before we can be confident of detecting it.

Tests for character displacement.

Character displacement is an important concept in ecology which has been surrounded by controversy due largely to a lack of clearly stated hypotheses and statistical tests. Existing tests implicity assume random species sizes estimated without error--a random-effects model. We introduce the log-uniform distribution for species sizes and show that it has properties of direct relevance to character displacement.

Salmonella and Shigella infections in Switzerland, with special reference to typhoid vaccination for travellers.

This prospective study reveals that 48% of 368 salmonelloses and 81% of 43 shigelloses diagnosed within one year in the Zurich area were imported from abroad. Travellers in close contact with the local population have a higher risk of being affected by typhoid fever or shigellosis than the average tourist. The clinical course was generally mild, and there was no lethal case.

Estimation of the number of monoclonal hybridomas in a cell fusion experiment. Effect of post-fusion cell dilution on hybridoma survival.

A practical method is described for the estimation of the number of monoclonal hybridomas in a cell fusion experiment as a function of the percent of culture dishes showing hybridoma growth. Our method is based on the Poisson probability model. A justification for the method is included.

[Serodiagnosis of human Yersinia infections. Preliminary results].

Preliminary data are reported on experience with newly developed complement-fixing (CF) antigens prepared from cultures of type 3 and type 9 Yersinia enterocolitica and from Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. Antigens were immunologically potent and not anti-complementary, thus making it possible to obtain satisfactory serologic tests. The results may be summarized as follows: 1.

[Pulmonary Actinomyces-viscosus infection].

The isolation of Actinomyces viscosus from the pleural fluid of a patient with pleuro-pneumonia and empyema is described. This is believed to be the first human Actinomyces viscosus infection in Switzerland.

Size and shape analysis of schistomsome egg-counts in Egyptian autopsy data.

We study egg-counts from a series of Egyptian autopsy cases with active schistosomiasis at death (Kamel, Cheever, Elwi, Mosimann and Danner 1977). The data are unique, and enable us to study the proportional distribution of eggs among various organs in relation to infection intensity for two species of schistosome worms. We develop a model for the distribution of eggs in three organs of the mesenteric circulation.

Schistosoma mansoni and S. haematobium infections in Egypt. IV. Hepatic lesions.

We performed 400 consecutive autopsies in Cairo, Egypt. The intensity of schistosome infection in these cases was measured by counting adult worms recovered by perfusion and dissection and by counting eggs in the tissues of infected cases. Symmers' clay pipestem fibrosis of the liver was clearly related to the presence and intensity of Schistosoma mansoni, but not S.