Menthol and related cooling compounds.

Menthol and related cooling compounds such as 'coolant agent 10', are widely used in products ranging from common cold medications to toothpastes, confectionery, cosmetics and pesticides. The review brings together a range of information on production and chemistry of menthol, and its metabolism, mechanism of action, structure-activity relationships, pharmacology and toxicology. In particular, the coolant action and carminative actions of menthol are discussed in terms of actions on calcium conductance in sensory nerves and smooth muscle.

The educational status of wound management in community nursing.

A review of a Department of Health survey which considered the education and information sources provided for community nurses.

Visual field analysis using artificial neural networks.

There have been several reports on the application of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to visual field classification. While these have demonstrated that neural networks can be used with good results they have not explored the effects that the training set can have upon network performance nor emphasized the unique value of ANNs in visual field analysis. This paper considers the problem of differentiating normal and glaucomatous visual fields and explores different training set characteristics using field data collected from a Henson CFS2000 perimeter.

Antibacterial activity of Actisorb Plus, Actisorb and silver nitrate.

Activated Charcoal Cloth with silver (Actisorb Plus) and solutions of silver nitrate, but not Actisorb (Activated Charcoal Cloth without silver), demonstrated antibacterial activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. This activity was unimpaired in the presence of plasma. Sodium thioglycollate was an effective neutralizer of Actisorb Plus and of silver nitrate, indicating that the release of silver from Actisorb Plus contributed to the antibacterial activity of the dressing.

Cell damage in vitro following direct contact with fine particles of titanium, titanium alloy and cobalt-chrome-molybdenum alloy.

Fibroblastic cells in vitro were exposed to powders of titanium, titanium-aluminium-vanadium alloy and cobalt-chrome-molybdenum (Co-Cr-Mo) alloy, either in direct contact with the cells or separated from the cells by a microporous membrane. Fine particles of all the materials reduced cell growth when in direct contact with cells, but only the finest particles of Co-Cr-Mo alloy caused cell damage through the microporous membrane. This provides further evidence that there is a mechanism of cell damage in vitro which depends on a direct interaction between cells and particles and is largely independent of the chemical nature of the particle.

Upper respiratory tract illnesses and accidents.

Anecdotal accounts suggest that colds and influenza may increase human error. This view is supported by laboratory studies of the effects of upper respiratory tract illnesses (URTIs) on performance efficiency, which have shown that both experimentally induced and naturally occurring URTIs reduce aspects of performance efficiency. The present research examined the relationship between accidents and URTIs by studying 923 patients attending an Accident and Emergency department at a time of year when upper respiratory tract viruses were circulating.

Impact characteristics of two types of police baton.

A comparison study of the American style ASP extendible police baton with the conventional UK police wooden truncheon was performed. It was found that the ASP baton generated approximately twice the contact pressure than the conventional wooden truncheon. A discussion on the medical/legal aspects of the results are given.

Raphé neural cells immortalized with a temperature-sensitive oncogene: differentiation under basal conditions down an APUD cell lineage.

Dividing cells from the midline of the ventral rhombencephalon and medulla oblongata have been transduced with a modulatable oncogene, (ts)SV40-T, using retroviral gene transfer. At the permissive temperature of the oncogene (33 degrees C), cells replicated and were isolated as individual, homogeneous clones. The effects of simply raising the temperature to the oncogene's non-permissive value, namely 39 degrees C, were analyzed by immunohistochemical methods.

Effect of Biocides on MS2 and K Coliphages.

Several biocides commonly used in disinfection processes as antibacterial and antifungal agents were tested for activity against MS2 and K coliphages. MS2 was resistant to most biocides; only glutaraldehyde (0.5%) and peracetic acid (1%) achieved a 4-log(10) titer reduction in 20 min.

Irreversible formation of pseudohyphae by haploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Culturing haploid strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in liquid minimal medium with 2% ethanol and 2% leucine resulted in the formation of long anucleate pseudohyphae. This occurred only with the combination of ethanol as carbon source and leucine as nitrogen source and was independent of mating type. The transition to a pseudohyphal form observed under these conditions appears to be irreversible.

Visualization of agonist-stimulated inositol phospholipid turnover in individual neurons of the rat cerebral cortex and hippocampus.

A novel autoradiographic method to identify individual neurons responding to neurotransmitter stimulation with increased phosphoinositide turnover is described. When phosphoinositide-coupled receptors are activated, phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate is hydrolysed by phospholipase C generating the two second messengers, inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate and diacylglycerol. During prolonged receptor stimulation, both second messengers are actively recycled to maintain the effective intracellular levels of agonist-sensitive phosphoinositides.

Use of recombinant vectors derived from herpes simplex virus 1 mutant tsK for short-term expression of transgenes encoding cytoplasmic and membrane anchored proteins in postmitotic polarized cortical neurons and glial cells in vitro.

We constructed three recombinant vectors derived from the herpes simplex virus type 1 mutant tsK, each of which contained a different transgene under the control of the herpes simplex virus type 1 immediate early 3 promoter inserted into the thymidine kinase locus: the prokaryotic enzymes beta-galactosidase and chloramphenicol acetyl transferase, and a fusion gene consisting of human tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases linked to the last exon of Thy-1, which encodes for a glycosyl-phosphatidyl-inositol membrane anchor. Infection of postmitotic neocortical and hippocampal neurons in low-density primary cultures with these vectors, achieved reliable expression of all three foreign gene products in various neocortical cell types, e.g.

The joint capsule: structure, composition, ageing and disease.

The joint capsule is vital to the function of synovial joints. It seals the joint space, provides passive stability by limiting movements, provides active stability via its proprioceptive nerve endings and may form articular surfaces for the joint. It is a dense fibrous connective tissue that is attached to the bones via specialised attachment zones and forms a sleeve around the joint.

Cellular aspects of the development of diarthrodial joints and articular cartilage.

There have been many reports on the histological development of mammalian diarthrodial or synovial joints. While these are useful for comparative purposes, they tell us little of the cellular basis of joint morphogenesis which must underlie a number of morphogenetic defects. The process of joint morphogenesis is complex and can be subdivided into a number of facets and this report will focus on 2 of them.