Timing of Prenatal Care Initiation and Psychological Wellbeing in Black Women.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to see if timing of prenatal care initiation was related to psychological wellbeing of Black women.

Study Design And Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, a sample of 197 pregnant Black women completed a self-reported survey between 8 weeks and less than 30 weeks gestation as part of the Biosocial Impact on Black Births study. The questions asked about the initiation of prenatal care, perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and psychological wellbeing.

Colonic epithelial cells induce endothelial cell expression of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 by a NF-kappaB-dependent mechanism.

Epithelial cells are positioned in close proximity to endothelial cells. A non-contact coculture system was used to investigate whether colonic epithelial cells activated with various cytokines are able to provide signals that can modulate ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression on endothelial cells. Coculture of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) and human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC-1) with TNF-alpha/IFN-gamma-stimulated human colon epithelial cell lines led to a significant up-regulation of endothelial ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression.

Automated determination of ABO/Rh in microplates.

A semi-automated system for determining the ABO group and Rh type of blood samples has been developed using a commercially available automated microplate (ELISA) reader and a microcomputer. Optimization of serologic, measurement and interpretation parameters was accomplished without significantly changing an existing manual procedure. The first pass noninterpretation rate of this system in the laboratory prior to field trials is 7.