Evaluation of vaginal malodor and efficacy of treatment by high performance ion exchange chromatography

High performance ion exchange chromatography was employed to evaluate the presence of short chain organic acids in the vaginal fluid of a woman troubled by persistent foul vaginal odor, but who did not have typical bacterial vaginosis. The vaginal secretions from this patient were collected on a weighed cotton swab and eluted into water and extracted by acidified ether. Salts of the acids were back-extracted into aqueous solution and chromatographed on an H-form resin column and compared to commercially available standards. A strikingly large amount of caproic acid was found. The caproic acid disappeared after metronidazole therapy, and a subsequent follow-up chromatogram showed a predominance of lactic acid. The success of this technique in evaluating the present case suggests that such a method may prove useful in other types of vaginal infection.     

Measurement of the two-body photodisintegration of3He in theΔ(1236) resonance region

The³He(γ, p)d reaction has been measured in the photon energy region between 200 MeV and 450 MeV at proton c.m. angles between 20° and 150°. Protons and deuterons were detected in coincidence with two time-of-flight spectrometers consisting of scintillation counters; both particles were identified and their energies and angles were measured. The angular distributions show a strong forward peak. The differential cross sections fall off with increasing photon energy without showing a significant influence of theΔ resonance.     

Local states of iron in iron implanted hematite Fe2O3

Powder samples of⁵⁷Fe₂O₃ and⁵⁶Fe₂O₃ were implanted with⁵⁶Fe and⁵⁷Fe ions, respectively. By the use of Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy it was possible to observe the local states of implanted ions (⁵⁷Fe in⁵⁶Fe₂O₃) or the states of iron atoms from the target which were displaced during implantation due to the ballistic processes (⁵⁶Fe in⁵⁷Fe₂O₃). The implanted and displaced iron atoms appear in three different states: (i) in regular substitutional positions of Fe₂O₃, (ii) as magnetite Fe₃O₄-type structures and (iii) paramagnetic FeO_1?x state. The observed fractions of each state agree rather well with the calculated values obtained from the local iron atom enrichment at the surface as well as from the analysis of the equilibrium phase diagram for the binary Fe?O system. However, in⁵⁷Fe implanted samples some enhancement of the FeO_1?x fraction was found in comparison with the⁵⁶Fe implanted hematite.     

Thermal imaging and TC oximetry measurements of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) effects on trophic ulceration of the crura

We performed studies on the influence of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on the trophic ulceration of the crus using thermal imaging and TC oximetry. Thermograms for two groups of volunteers, one suffering from trophic ulceration of the crus (11 patients aged 63.6 ± 15.2) and one healthy (6 people aged 42 ± 8), were completed before and after hyperbaric oxygenation. In addition, the oxygen tension in each patient’s crus was measured. Hyperbaric oxygenation has an influence on biological as well as physiological processes that occur in the tissue. It is apparent that these processes may have an impact on the differentiation of tissue temperature. The studies showed some differences in skin temperature between research groups. A bigger differentiation of skin temperature was observed for patients who suffered from ulceration. It follows that there are statistically significant differences between the mean temperature for all chosen regions of interest obtained before (p = 0.0003) and after (p = 0.03) hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Moreover, the differences (ΔT = T _meanAR01 − T _meanAR04) between mean temperature characterization in chosen areas seem to be a little smaller. We observed that this difference changed from ΔT = 3.3 °C, estimated before hyperbaric oxygenation, to 2.5 °C, obtained after hyperbaric oxygenation, which may suggest improvement in the thermoregulation process. A similar situation was observed for the healthy group, but the temperature changes were smaller. The changes of the mean temperature may be correlated to some changes in wound cellular metabolism and the increase of microcirculation due to neoangiogenesis as well as the improvement of thermoregulation in the ulceration due to a rebuilding of the right cellular matrix. In addition, we observed that the mean values of oxygen pressure in the tissues (TCPO2) increased from 22 to 39 mmHg after hyperbaric oxygenation for patients with ulceration in their lower extremities. We also detected that oxygen pressure measurements and infrared imaging seem to be useful in the qualitative analysis of hyperbaric oxygenation treatment, and may offer some useful information about the hyperbaric oxygen therapy effects in trophic ulceration.     

Prediction with measurement errors in finite populations

We address the problem of selecting the best linear unbiased predictor (BLUP) of the latent value (e.g., serum glucose fasting level) of sample subjects with heteroskedastic measurement errors. Using a simple example, we compare the usual mixed model BLUP to a similar predictor based on a mixed model framed in a finite population (FPMM) setup with two sources of variability, the first of which corresponds to simple random sampling and the second, to heteroskedastic measurement errors. Under this last approach, we show that when measurement errors are subject-specific, the BLUP shrinkage constants are based on a pooled measurement error variance as opposed to the individual ones generally considered for the usual mixed model BLUP. In contrast, when the heteroskedastic measurement errors are measurement condition-specific, the FPMM BLUP involves different shrinkage constants. We also show that in this setup, when measurement errors are subject-specific, the usual mixed model predictor is biased but has a smaller mean squared error than the FPMM BLUP which points to some difficulties in the interpretation of such predictors.     

Interactions of Iron with TiN and DLC Coatings

Thin TiN and Diamond Like Coatings (DLC) were created by a technological process and by Dual Beam IBAD technique on pure iron enriched at the surface in ⁵⁷Fe. The local microscopic electron states at the interfaces were studied by Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy while the long range migrations of element were concluded from Rutherford Back Scattering Spectroscopy.     

Detection of human and rodent 5-HT3B receptor subunits by anti-peptide polyclonal antibodies

Background  

The 5-HT₃ receptor is a member of a neurotransmitter-gated ion channel family which includes nicotinic acetylcholine, GABA_A, and glycine receptors. While antibodies specific for the 5-HT_3A receptor subunit are plentiful, and have revealed a wealth of structural and functional information, few antisera exist for the detection of 5-HT_3B receptor subunits. Here we describe the generation and characterisation of a rabbit polyclonal antiserum that specifically recognises 5-HT_3B receptor subunits     

Synthesis of a Model for Phycocyanin with Respect to the Acid-Base Chemistry between Protein and Chromophore

Summary.  Earlier investigations have shown that the cysteine adduct of phycocyanobilin dimethylester qualifies for intramolecular protonation [1]. In this context, the -Cys-Ala-Phe-Asp-tetrapeptide adduct of phycocyanobilin dimethylester was synthesized and examined for its protonation properties with respect to the zwitterionic interaction between chromophore and protein. Received March 15, 2000. Accepted March 21, 2000