A Pilot Survey of Vocal Health in Young Singers

The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of vocal problems in young choir singers and to correlate vocal problems with demographic and behavioral information. A questionnaire addressing vocal habits and hygiene was offered to 571 young choir singers, up to 25 years of age, who sing at least weekly; 129 (22.6%) responded. More than one-half of the respondents had experienced vocal difficulty, particularly older adolescents. Detrimental behaviors and circumstances surveyed were not reflective of the incidence of vocal difficulty, except for morning hoarseness, chronic fatigue, insomnia, and female gender after puberty. Voice care professionals should be aware that self-reported voice difficulties are common among young choral singers, especially postpubescent girls, and children with symptoms consistent with reflux (morning hoarseness) and emotional stress (insomnia). Laryngologists should communicate with choral conductors and singing teachers to enhance early identification and treatment of children with voice complaints, and to develop choral educational strategies that help decrease their incidence.     

Some Oscillatory Singular Integrals on Herz-type Spaces (Ⅱ)

In this paper, the authors prove that some oscillatory singular integral operators of non-convolution type with non-polynomial phases are bounded from the Herz-type Hardy spaces to the Herz spaces and from the Hardy spaces associated with the Beurling algebras to the Beurling algebras in higher dimensions, even though it is well-known that these operators are not bounded from the Hardy space H1(Rn) into the Lebesgue spaceL1(Rn).     

Rotational bands in 181Ta

High-spin states in ¹⁸¹Ta have been studied via the ¹⁷⁶Yb(¹¹B,α2n) reaction at 52 MeV using the PEX array and at 57 MeV using the NORDBALL array, with α-particle detection. The previously known, K^π=(7/2)⁺ ground state band and K^π=(9/2)⁻ band have been extended to spins (29/2)⁺ and (31/2)⁻, respectively. Two new one-quasiparticle bands, the K^π=(5/2)⁺ band built on the known (5/2)⁺ isomer and a K^π=((1/2)⁻) band have been observed. Two other rotational bands with three-quasiparticle structure, K^π=(15/2)⁻ and ((19/2)⁺ with π(7/2)[404]ν²(1/2)[510](9/2)[624] and π(9/2)[514]ν²(1/2)[510](9/2)[624] configurations, respectively, have been newly observed. The half-life of the K^π=((19/2)⁺) bandhead which decays to the head of the (15/2)⁻ band has been measured to be 140(36) ns. However, transitions from the ((19/2)⁺) state to the (15/2)⁻ band have not been observed. Received: 26 August 1998     

Cytochrome-c detection

Following a myocardial infarction (MI) cells die or are damaged and their contents leak into the blood circulation, resulting in elevated serum levels of various enzymes, proteins, and organic molecules. Over the past few decades, it has become standard practice to employ the detection of these elevated substances as markers for the confirmation of MIs and to monitor MI patients’ response to treatment. Although it has previously been shown that cytochrome-c, a small respiratory protein, is among those elevated, the lack of a suitable detection system has prevented its routine use in the diagnosis of MIs. We present a preliminary study in which chemiluminescence was employed to detect elevated levels of cytochrome-c in the serum of MI patients. The technique, which is specific for c-type proteins, is approx 30 times more sensitive than the traditional Coomassie blue stain and can detect as little as 0.03 μg of protein. It also has potential for diagnostic use in other diseases that are characterized by mitochondrial damage.     

Electrophilic acetylation and bromination reactions of benzo[b]naphtho[2,3-e][1,4]dioxin

The reactivity of benzo[b]naphtho[2,3-e][1,4]dioxin in the electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions has been studied. Friedel-Crafts acetylation resulted in the formation of three out of the possible five monoacetylated products, with the acetyl group located in positions 8 (major), 7 and 6 (minor) of the heterocycle. In the bromination reaction a higher selectivity was observed with the 6-bromo derivative found as the only monobrominated product and the 6,11-dibromo derivative found as the only polybrominated product. A ratio of unreacted heterocycle:6-bromo:6,11-dibromo derivatives in the bromination reaction has been found to depend strongly on the reaction conditions and on the heterocycle:bromine ratio.     

Off-resonance TROSY (R1 rho - R1) for quantitation of fast exchange processes in large proteins

Current solution NMR experiments for characterizing conformational exchange processes in large proteins are limited to exchange rates ca. 500-3000 s-1. A TROSY-based constant relaxation time (R1rho - R1) experiment is designed to extend this capability to measure motion with rates up to 105 s-1 in large macromolecules. The experiment combines off-resonance spin-lock rf fields, which provide access to the faster time-scale dynamics, with TROSY coherence selection, which extends the molecular-weight range available for study. When implemented on the 53-kDa dimeric enzyme triosephosphate isomerase, the experiment yielded substantial gains in signal-to-noise (up to 60%) over current experiments at modest static magnetic fields (14.1 T). The TROSY (R1rho - R1) experiment should therefore be of general utility for investigation of fast conformational exchange events in large proteins.     

Transition-state effects in acid-catalyzed aryl epoxide hydrolyses

The hydronium ion-catalyzed hydrolyses of 5-methoxyindene 1,2-oxide and of 6-methoxy-1,2,3,4-tetrohydronaphthalene-1,2-epoxide were each found to yield 75-80% of cis diol and only 20-25% of trans diol as hydrolysis products. The relative stabilities of the cis and trans diols in each system were determined by treating either cis or trans diols with perchloric acid in water solutions and following the approach to an equilibrium cis/trans mixture as a function of time. These studies establish that the trans diol in each system is more stable than the corresponding cis diol. Thus, acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of each epoxide, which proceeds via a carbocation intermediate, yields the less stable cis diol as the major product. Transition-state effects, presumably of a hydrogen-bonding nature, selectively stabilize the transition state for attack of water on the intermediate 2-hydroxy-1-indanyl carbocation leading to the less stable cis diol in this system. Transition-state effects must also be responsible for formation of the less stable cis diol as the major product in the acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of 5-methoxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalene 1,2-epoxide. However, in this system steric effects at the transition state may be more important than hydrogen bonding in determining the cis/trans diol product ratio. The synthesis of 5-methoxyindene 1,2-oxide and a study of its rate of reaction as a function of pH in water and dioxane-water solutions are reported. Both an acid-catalyzed reaction leading to only diol products and a pH-independent reaction yielding 71% of 5-methoxy-2-indanone and 29% of diols are observed; the half-life of its pH-independent reaction in water is only 2.4 s.     

Crystal violet combined with Merocyanine 540 for the ex vivo purging of hematopoietic stem cell grafts

The purpose of this study was to determine in a preclinical purging model, how effective crystal violet-mediated photodynamic therapy (CV-PDT) is against solid tumor and drug-resistant mutant tumor cells, and if certain limitations of CV-PDT can be overcome by using crystal violet (CV) in combination with the membrane-active photosensitizer, Merocyanine 540 (MC540). When used under conditions that preserved an adequate fraction of normal human granulocyte/macrophage progenitors (CFU-GM), CV-PDT failed to achieve meaningful reductions of DU145 prostate, H69 small cell lung cancer, and MDA-MB-435S breast cancer cells. Melphalan-resistant L1210/L-PAM1, adriamycin-resistant P388/ADR, and adriamycin-resistant HL-60/ADR leukemia cells were markedly less sensitive to CV-PDT than their wild-type counterparts, whereas cisplatin-resistant H69/CDDP cells were more sensitive than wild-type H69 cells. Sequential exposure to MC540- and CV-PDT under conditions that preserved an adequate fraction (73% and 29%, respectively) of normal CD34-positive hematopoietic stem cells and granulocyte/macrophage progenitors was highly effective against H69 (99.997% reduction) and H69/CDDP (99.999% reduction) cells, but ineffective against HL-60/ADR, MDA-MB-435S, and DU145 cells. CV thus shows only limited promise as a single-modality purging agent. However, in certain situations, clinically meaningful tumor cell depletions can be obtained by using CV in combination with a second photosensitizer such as MC540.     

Stabilisation of [Fe2(CO)9] and [Ru2(CO)9] bu substitution with bridging diphosphorus ligands

Reaction of [Fe₂(CO)₉] with a half molar amount of R₂PYPR₂ (Y = CH₂, R = Ph, Me, OMe or OPrⁱ; Y = N(Et), R = OPh, OMe or OCH₂; Y = N(Me), R = OPrⁱ or OEt) leads to the ready formation of a product which on irradiation with ultraviolet light rapidly decarbonylates to the heptacarbonyl derivative [Fe₂(μ-CO)(CO)₆{μ-R₂PYPR₂}]. Treatment of the latter with a slight excess of the appropriate ligand results, under photochemical conditions, in the formation of the dinuclear pentacarbonyl complex [Fe₂(μ-CO)(C))₄{μ-R₂PYPR₂}₂] but under thermal conditions in the formation of the mononuclear species [Fe(CO)₃{R₂PYPR₂}]. Reaction of [Ru₃(CO)₁₂] with an equimolar amount of (RO)₂PN(R′)P(OR)₂ (R′ = Me, R = Prⁱ or Et; R′ = Et, R = Ph or Me) under either thermal or photochemical conditions produces [Ru₃(CO)₁₀{μ-(RO)₂PN(OR)₂}] which reacts further with excess (RO)₂PN(R′)P(OR)₂ on irradiation with ultraviolet light to afford the dinuclear compound [Ru₂(μ-CO)(CO₄{μ-(RO)₂PN(R′)P(OR)₂}₂]. The molecular structure of [Ru₂(μ-CO)(CO)₄{μ-(MeO)₂PN(Et)P(OMe)₂}₂], which has been determined by X-ray crystallography, is described.