Naive beliefs in baseball: systematic distortion in perceived time of apex for fly balls.

When fielders catch fly balls they use geometric properties to optically maintain control over the ball. The strategy provides ongoing guidance without indicating precise positional information concerning where the ball is located in space. Here, the authors show that observers have striking misconceptions about what the motion of projectiles should look like from various perspectives and that they estimate when the physical apex of a fly ball occurs to be far later than actual, irrespective of baseball experience.

Equitable treatment for HIV/AIDS clinical trial participants: a focus group study of patients, clinician researchers, and administrators in Western Kenya.

Objectives: To describe the concerns and priorities of key stakeholders in a developing country regarding ethical obligations held by researchers and perceptions of equity or "what is fair" for study participants in an HIV/AIDS clinical drug trial.

Design: Qualitative study with focus groups.

Setting: Teaching and referral hospital and rural health centre in Western Kenya.

The test-retest reliability and screening efficiency of DISC Predictive Scales-version 4.32 (DPS-4.32) with Chinese children/youths.

Introduction: The DISC Predictive Scales-4.32 (DPS-4.32) were short-forms of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-IV (DISC-IV).

Accelerated wound healing of alkali-burned corneas in MRL mice is associated with a reduced inflammatory signature.

Purpose: The present study was conducted to investigate healing of alkali-burned corneas in MRL/MpJ (MRL) mice.

Methods: Gross, clinical, and histologic criteria were used to compare healing of alkali-burned corneas in MRL and control C57BL/6J (B6) mice. Effects of neutrophil depletion of B6 mice and allogeneic reconstitution of B6 mice with MRL bone marrow on wound healing were evaluated.

Critical function for ADAM9 in mouse prostate cancer.

ADAM9 is a membrane-anchored metalloprotease that is markedly up-regulated in several human carcinomas. Here, we show that ADAM9 is similarly up-regulated in mouse models for prostate, breast, and intestinal carcinoma. To assess whether ADAM9 is critical for the pathogenesis of prostate carcinoma, one of the most common cancers in men, we evaluated how loss of ADAM9 affects tumorigenesis in W(10) mice, a mouse model for this disease.

Emergency treatment of young people following deliberate self-harm.

Objective: To examine national patterns in the emergency department assessment and treatment during visits by young people, aged 7 to 24 years, who are seen following an episode of deliberate self-harm.

Method: An analysis was conducted of a nationally representative sample of hospital emergency department visits from the 1997-2002 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey focusing on visits by persons aged 7 to 24 years related to deliberate self-harm. National census data were used to derive population-based rates of emergency department visits for deliberate self-harm overall and stratified by sex, age, race, and ethnicity.

Test-retest reliability of the Chinese version of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Version 4 (DISC-IV).

Background: Despite the huge youth population, there is a lack of psychiatric diagnostic instruments with reported psychometric properties in Chinese. This study reports the development of the Chinese version of DISC-IV and examines its test-retest reliability.

Method: Seventy-eight parents and 79 youths (mean age 13.

Crucial role of p53-dependent cellular senescence in suppression of Pten-deficient tumorigenesis.

Cellular senescence has been theorized to oppose neoplastic transformation triggered by activation of oncogenic pathways in vitro, but the relevance of senescence in vivo has not been established. The PTEN and p53 tumour suppressors are among the most commonly inactivated or mutated genes in human cancer including prostate cancer. Although they are functionally distinct, reciprocal cooperation has been proposed, as PTEN is thought to regulate p53 stability, and p53 to enhance PTEN transcription.

Polyclonal antibody-induced serum sickness in renal transplant recipients: treatment with therapeutic plasma exchange.

Serum sickness is an immune-complex mediated illness that frequently occurs in patients after polyclonal antibody therapy (ATGAM or thymoglobulin). Serum sickness presents with significant morbidity but is self-limited and resolves with prolonged steroid therapy. We present five renal transplant patients who developed serum sickness after polyclonal antibody treatment with severe symptoms that persisted after being started on systemic steroids.

National trends in hospitalization of youth with intentional self-inflicted injuries.

Objective: The authors examined national trends from 1990 to 2000 in the utilization of community hospital inpatient services by young people (5-20 years of age) with intentional self-inflicted injuries.

Method: Discharge abstracts from a nationally representative sample of community hospitals were analyzed, with a focus on youth discharges (N=10,831) with a diagnosis of intentional self-inflicted injury (ICD-9-CM: E950-E959). Census data were used to derive national population-based rates of self-inflicted injuries requiring inpatient treatment.

Screening asymptomatic diabetic patients for coronary artery disease prior to renal transplantation.

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a significant contributor to excess mortality in renal transplant candidates with diabetes mellitus (DM). Prior studies relating to risk stratification for significant CAD in diabetics are confined to Caucasian type 1 DM patients.

Methods: To assess the prevalence of clinically silent CAD and to identify variables that are associated with CAD, we retrospectively analyzed the cardiac catheterization data of 97 asymptomatic type 1 and 2 DM kidney and kidney-pancreas transplant candidates.

Alcohol abuse among patients with and without HIV infection attending public clinics in western Kenya.

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of hazardous drinking among persons with and without HIV/AIDS attending both urban/hospital-based and rural clinics in western Kenya.

Design: Cross sectional survey.

Setting: The Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital and the Mosoriot rural health care Centre.

p130Rb2 and p27kip1 cooperate to control mobilization of angiogenic progenitors from the bone marrow.

Neoangiogenesis involves both bone marrow-derived myelomonocytic and endothelial progenitor cells as well as endothelial cells coopted from surrounding vessels. Cytokines induce these cells to proliferate, migrate, and exit the cell cycle to establish the vasculature; however, which cell cycle regulators play a role in these processes is largely unknown. Here, we report that mice lacking the cell cycle inhibitors p130 and p27 show defects in tumor neoangiogenesis, both in xenografts and spontaneously arising tumors.

Kidney transplantation in a veterans administration medical center: 40 years' experience.

Objectives: Advances in immunosuppressive therapy have led to substantial improvements in kidney transplant outcomes in the past 20 years. Kidney transplantation activity started in 1963 at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and continues to grow with increasing numbers of transplants from living-related and unrelated donors. In this study, patient and graft survival rates during 2 different periods were evaluated and compared with non-veterans-administration centers.

Searching QTL by gene expression: analysis of diabesity.

Background: Recent developments in sequence databases provide the opportunity to relate the expression pattern of genes to their genomic position, thus creating a transcriptome map. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) are phenotypically-defined chromosomal regions that contribute to allelically variant biological traits, and by overlaying QTL on the transcriptome, the search for candidate genes becomes extremely focused.

Results: We used our novel data mining tool, ExQuest, to select genes within known diabesity QTL showing enriched expression in primary diabesity affected tissues.

Activated NKT cells inhibit autoimmune diabetes through tolerogenic recruitment of dendritic cells to pancreatic lymph nodes.

NKT cell activation by alpha-galactosylceramide (alpha-GalCer) inhibits autoimmune diabetes in NOD mice, in part by inducing recruitment to pancreatic lymph nodes (PLNs) of mature dendritic cells (DCs) with disease-protective effects. However, how activated NKT cells promote DC maturation, and what downstream effect this has on diabetogenic T cells was unknown. Activated NKT cells were found to produce a soluble factor(s) inducing DC maturation.

Maximizing therapeutic benefit of rituximab: maintenance therapy versus re-treatment at progression in patients with indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma--a randomized phase II trial of the Minnie Pearl Cancer Research Network.

Purpose: To compare the benefit of maintenance rituximab therapy versus rituximab re-treatment at progression in patients with previously treated indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Patients And Methods: Between June 1998 and August 2002, 114 patients who had received previous chemotherapy for indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were treated with a standard 4-week course of rituximab. Patients with objective response or stable disease were randomly assigned to receive either maintenance rituximab therapy (standard 4-week courses administered at 6-month intervals) or rituximab re-treatment at the time of lymphoma progression.

Tardive dyskinesia risks and metoclopramide use before and after U.S. market withdrawal of cisapride.

Objective: To assess risk factors for tardive dyskinesia (TD) in spontaneous reports of metoclopramide and TD and evaluate metoclopramide prescribing patterns before and after withdrawal of cisapride from the market in the United States.

Design: Retrospective and observational analyses.

Setting: International metoclopramide adverse event reports and domestic drug-use data for the continental United States.

Evidence for a p27 tumor suppressive function independent of its role regulating cell proliferation in the prostate.

Reduced p27 levels correlate with poor prognosis in a wide spectrum of human tumors and can accelerate tumorigenesis in mouse tissues. To determine whether p27 deficiency can accelerate tumorigenesis in tissues with inactive Rb and p53 pathways, we examined the effect of p27 status on prostate tumorigenesis in mice expressing simian virus 40 large T antigen (LT). In p27-deficient mice expressing LT, tumors progressed from high-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia to poorly differentiated carcinoma at a greatly accelerated rate.

Carcinoma of unknown primary site: sequential treatment with paclitaxel/carboplatin/etoposide and gemcitabine/irinotecan: a Minnie Pearl Cancer Research Network phase II trial.

Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of the sequential administration of paclitaxel (Taxol; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Princeton, NJ), carboplatin (Paraplatin; Bristol-Myers Squibb), and oral etoposide (VePesid; Bristol-Myers Squibb) followed by gemcitabine (Gemzar; Eli Lilly; Indianapolis, IN) and irinotecan (Campostar; Pfizer Pharmaceuticals; New York, NY) in the first-line treatment of patients with carcinoma of unknown primary site.

Patients And Methods: One hundred thirty-two patients were treated with sequential combination chemotherapy for a maximum of six cycles. All patients had relatively poor prognostic features.

Improvements in dialysis access survival with increasing use of arteriovenous fistulas in a Veterans Administration medical center.

Background: Native arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs) have been found to exhibit higher survival rates and lower complication rates than prosthetic grafts (AVGs).

Methods: Between August 2001 and December 2003, 93 patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) had primary dialysis access placed at a single Veterans Administration medical center. Of these 93 patients, 67 had AVFs created and 26 patients had AVGs implanted.

Living donor kidney transplantation in a Veterans Administration medical center.

Background: A shortage of organ donors remains the major limiting factor in kidney transplantation. Living donor renal transplantation, especially living-unrelated donors, may expand the donor pool by providing another source of excellent grafts.

Methods: Between 1983 and 2003, 109 living donor kidney transplants were performed.