Characterisation and bioprospecting of cold adapted yeast from water samples of kongsfjord ,Norwegian Artic

A total of 34 yeast isolates were characterized from 4 water samples collected from Kongsfjord at Ny Alseund region of Norwegion Artic during the Indian Artic summer expedition of 2009.They were studied for the effect of tempereture and salt concentration on growth as well as for their ability to produce various hydrolytic enzymes at two different temperatures. Result showed that 5 out of 8 genera were common to all the stations. Cryptococcus was the predominant genera folowed by Trichosporan and Rhodotorula 82% of the yeast isolates were oxidative in nature and except filobasidium all the isolates used nitrate as a nitrogen source for growth. Yeast isolates from all the ststions showed growth at 4 and 20 degree centigarade. These temperatures were chosen as most of the bacterial and yeast isolates showed psychrotrop[hic nature. 94% of the yeast isolates showed growth at 2.0M and lipolytic activity were marginally less than 4.None of the isolates produced amylase enzymes when incubated at 4 and 20. The present study highlights the wide tolerence of the psychrotrophic yeast isolates to temperature and salinity as well as their potential in biotechnology

Diversity of Bacillus And Actinomycetes in the water and sediment samples from Kumarakom region of Vembanadu lake

Diversity of different groups of Bacillus and Actinomycetes in the water and sediment samples from kumarakom estuary was analysed to find out potential strains for further application. Bacillus genera was identified and grouped into five phenogroups .Phenogroups show differences in the shape of the spore,position of the spore,and swelling of the sporangium.Ability of the isolates to elaborate various hydrolytic enzymes and their ability to reduce nitrate and ferment various carbohydrate sources were also studied.

Composition Dependent Study of AC conductivity in AsSe samples

The room temperature AC conductivity σ(ω) of amorphous AsSe samples with various compositions have been measured in the 103 -106 Hz frequency range. The results indicate that ac conductivity is proportional to n with n=0.89±.01 in the 103 –106 Hz frequency range. Consideration of different models for the frequency –dependent conductivity leads to thermally activated hopping as the most likely process

Moderating effects of management control systems and innovation on performance. Simple methods for correcting the effects of measurement error for interaction effects in small samples

In the accounting literature, interaction or moderating effects are usually assessed by means of OLS regression and summated rating scales are constructed to reduce measurement error bias. Structural equation models and two-stage least squares regression could be used to completely eliminate this bias, but large samples are needed. Partial Least Squares are appropriate for small samples but do not correct measurement error bias. In this article, disattenuated regression is discussed as a small sample alternative and is illustrated on data of Bisbe and Otley (in press) that examine the interaction effect of innovation and style of use of budgets on performance. Sizeable differences emerge between OLS and disattenuated regression

Inference of distributional parameters from compositional samples containing nondetects

Low concentrations of elements in geochemical analyses have the peculiarity of being compositional data and, for a given level of significance, are likely to be beyond the capabilities of laboratories to distinguish between minute concentrations and complete absence, thus preventing laboratories from reporting extremely low concentrations of the analyte. Instead, what is reported is the detection limit, which is the minimum concentration that conclusively differentiates between presence and absence of the element. A spatially distributed exhaustive sample is employed in this study to generate unbiased sub-samples, which are further censored to observe the effect that different detection limits and sample sizes have on the inference of population distributions starting from geochemical analyses having specimens below detection limit (nondetects). The isometric logratio transformation is used to convert the compositional data in the simplex to samples in real space, thus allowing the practitioner to properly borrow from the large source of statistical techniques valid only in real space. The bootstrap method is used to numerically investigate the reliability of inferring several distributional parameters employing different forms of imputation for the censored data. The case study illustrates that, in general, best results are obtained when imputations are made using the distribution best fitting the readings above detection limit and exposes the problems of other more widely used practices. When the sample is spatially correlated, it is necessary to combine the bootstrap with stochastic simulation

Correcting Measurement Error Bias in Interaction Models with Small Samples

Several methods have been suggested to estimate non-linear models with interaction terms in the presence of measurement error. Structural equation models eliminate measurement error bias, but require large samples. Ordinary least squares regression on summated scales, regression on factor scores and partial least squares are appropriate for small samples but do not correct measurement error bias. Two stage least squares regression does correct measurement error bias but the results strongly depend on the instrumental variable choice. This article discusses the old disattenuated regression method as an alternative for correcting measurement error in small samples. The method is extended to the case of interaction terms and is illustrated on a model that examines the interaction effect of innovation and style of use of budgets on business performance. Alternative reliability estimates that can be used to disattenuate the estimates are discussed. A comparison is made with the alternative methods. Methods that do not correct for measurement error bias perform very similarly and considerably worse than disattenuated regression

HLA-A Typing in formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissue samples : towards potential retrospective analysis

El Antígeno Leucocitario Humano (HLA en inglés) ha sido descrito en muchos casos como factor de pronóstico para cáncer. La característica principal de los genes de HLA, localizados en el cromosoma 6 (6p21.3), son sus numerosos polimorfismos. Los análisis de secuencia de nucleótidos muestran que la variación está restringida predominantemente a los exones que codifican los dominios de unión a péptidos de la proteína. Por lo tanto, el polimorfismo del HLA define el repertorio de péptidos que se unen a los alotipos de HLA y este hecho define la habilidad de un individuo para responder a la exposición a muchos agentes infecciosos durante su vida. La tipificación de HLA se ha convertido en un análisis importante en clínica. Muestras de tejido embebidas en parafina y fijadas con formalina (FFPE en inglés) son recolectadas rutinariamente en oncología. Este procedimiento podría ser utilizado como una buena fuente de ADN, dado que en estudios en el pasado los ensayos de recolección de ADN no eran normalmente llevados a cabo de casi ningún tejido o muestra en procedimientos clínicos regulares. Teniendo en cuenta que el problema más importante con el ADN de muestras FFPE es la fragmentación, nosotros propusimos un nuevo método para la tipificación del alelo HLA-A desde muestras FFPE basado en las secuencias del exón 2, 3 y 4. Nosotros diseñamos un juego de 12 cebadores: cuatro para el exón 2 de HLA-A, tres para el exón 3 de HLA-A y cinco para el exón 4 de HLA-A, cada uno de acuerdo las secuencias flanqueantes de su respectivo exón y la variación en la secuencia entre diferentes alelos. 17 muestran FFPE colectadas en el Hospital Universitario de Karolinska en Estocolmo Suecia fueron sometidas a PCR y los productos fueron secuenciados. Finalmente todas las secuencias obtenidas fueron analizadas y comparadas con la base de datos del IMGT-HLA. Las muestras FFPE habían sido previamente tipificadas para HLA y los resultados fueron comparados con los de este método. De acuerdo con nuestros resultados, las muestras pudieron ser correctamente secuenciadas. Con este procedimiento, podemos concluir que nuestro estudio es el primer método de tipificación basado en secuencia que permite analizar muestras viejas de ADN de las cuales no se tiene otra fuente. Este estudio abre la posibilidad de desarrollar análisis para establecer nuevas relaciones entre HLA y diferentes enfermedades como el cáncer también.

Human papillomavirus detection from human immunodeficiency virus-infected colombian women's paired urine and cervical samples

Infection, coinfection and type-specific human papillomavirus (HPV) distribution was evaluated in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive women from paired cervical and urine samples. Paired cervical and urine samples (n = 204) were taken from HIV-positive women for identifying HPV-DNA presence by using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with three generic primer sets (GP5+/6+, MY09/11 and pU1M/2R). HPV-positive samples were typed for six high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) (HPV-16, -18, -31, -33, -45 and -58) and two low-risk (LR-HPV) (HPV-6/11) types. Agreement between paired sample results and diagnostic performance was evaluated. HPV infection prevalence was 70.6% in cervical and 63.2% in urine samples. HPV-16 was the most prevalent HPV type in both types of sample (66.7% in cervical samples and 62.0% in urine) followed by HPV-31(47.2%) in cervical samples and HPV-58 (35.7%) in urine samples. There was 55.4% coinfection (infection by more than one type of HPV) in cervical samples and 40.2% in urine samples. Abnormal Papanicolau smears were observed in 25.3% of the women, presenting significant association with HPV-DNA being identified in urine samples. There was poor agreement of cervical and urine sample results in generic and type-specific detection of HPV. Urine samples provided the best diagnosis when taking cytological findings as reference. In conclusion including urine samples could be a good strategy for ensuring adherence to screening programs aimed at reducing the impact of cervical cancer, since this sample is easy to obtain and showed good diagnostic performance.

Brain Tumour, Mood Disorder and Encephalopathy. Discusion of the Clinical Case Presented in Volume 6, Number 2

We report a case of a 65 years old female patient, who was admitted to the hospital with non specific neurological symptoms and who had preliminary imagenological findings of an extra-axial tumor mass (a meningioma of the sphenoid’s wing), which was taken to complete surgical removal. Afterwards, she developed progressive neurologic deterioration until her death. The final diagnosis was acute spongiform encephalophaty, and was obtained by cerebral biopsy. Spongiform encephalopathy was described, almost a century ago, as the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, poorly diagnosed in our environment because of its low frequency and uncommon onset, which starts with a mood disorder followed by a phase of dementia and a final fatal outcome. The gold standard for the diagnosis is based on a biopsy or an autopsy of the brain, with immunohistochemical stains for the prionic abnormal protein.

Brain Tumour, Mood Disorder and Encephalopathy. Discusion of the Clinical Case Presented in Volume 6, Number 2

We report a case of a 65 years old female patient, who was admitted to the hospital with non specific neurological symptoms and who had preliminary imagenological findings of an extra-axial tumor mass (a meningioma of the sphenoid’s wing), which was taken to complete surgical removal. Afterwards, she developed progressive neurologic deterioration until her death. The final diagnosis was acute spongiform encephalophaty, and was obtained by cerebral biopsy. Spongiform encephalopathy was described, almost a century ago, as the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, poorly diagnosed in our environment because of its low frequency and uncommon onset, which starts with a mood disorder followed by a phase of dementia and a final fatal outcome. The gold standard for the diagnosis is based on a biopsy or an autopsy of the brain, with immunohistochemical stains for the prionic abnormal protein.

Geometric characterization of red blood cells. Differentiation of normal and pathologic samples

Introduction. Fractal geometry measures the irregularity of abstract and natural objects with the fractal dimension. Fractal calculations have been applied to the structures of the human body and to quantifications in physiology from the theory of dynamic systems.Material and Methods. The fractal dimensions were calculated, the number of occupation spaces in the space border of box counting and the area of two red blood cells groups, 7 normal ones, group A, and 7 abnormal, group B, coming from patient and of bags for transfusion, were calculated using the method of box counting and a software developed for such effect. The obtained measures were compared, looking for differences between normal and abnormal red blood cells, with the purpose of differentiating samples.Results. The abnormality characterizes by a number of squares of occupation of the fractal space greater or equal to 180; values of areas between 25.117 and 33.548 correspond to normality. In case that the evaluation according to the number of pictures is of normality, must be confirmed with the value of the area applied to adjacent red blood cells within the sample, that in case of having values by outside established and/or the greater or equal spaces to 180, they suggest abnormality of the sample.Conclusions. The developed methodology is effective to differentiate the red globules alterations and probably useful in the analysis of bags of transfusion for clinical use 

Glycan alterations of serum proteins as tumour markers. Prostate-specific antigen in prostate cancer and acute-phase proteins in pancreatic cancer

Els pacients amb càncer presenten una taxa de supervivència superior si es diagnostiquen a estadis inicials, per la qual cosa és indispensable disposar de marcadors tumorals adequats. Glicoformes de proteïnes específiques es podrian utilizar com marcadors tumorals. S’han investigat les subformes i glicosilació de l’Antígen Prostàtic Específic (PSA) per millorar la seva capacitat de diagnosis de pacients amb càncer de pròstata vs aquells amb hiperplàsia benigna prostàtica. També s’han avaluat glicoproteïnes sèriques amb alteracions glucídiques en pacients de càncer de pàncrees, comparat amb pacients amb pancreatitis crònica i controls. S’ha observat una disminució de la fucosilació core i sialilació del PSA en càncer de pròstata i un augment de la fucosilació core i Sialyl-Lewis X en algunes Proteïnes de fase Aguda en càncer de pàncrees. Aquest canvis s’haurien d’avaluar en un cohort de pacients més gran per determinar el seu paper en el cribratge, diagnòstic o monitorització dels cancers estudiats.

Effect of amplification bandwidth on intelligibility of several different speech samples for a listener with sensorineural hearing loss

This paper examines the effect of amplification bandwidth on speech intelligibility using multiple speech samples.

Grammatical analysis of spoken language samples from deaf and hearing adolescents

This paper reviews a study to determine whether language delays in hearing impaired children are permanent.

Tumour necrosis factor alpha induces rapid reduction in AMPA receptor-mediated calcium entry in motor neurones by increasing cell surface expression of the GluR2 subunit: relevance to neurodegeneration

The AMPA receptor (AMPAR) subunit GluR2, which regulates excitotoxicity and the inflammatory cytokine tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) have both been implicated in motor neurone vulnerability in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis/Motor Neurone Disease. TNF alpha has been reported to increase cell surface expression of AMPAR subunits to increase synaptic strength and enhance excitotoxicity, but whether this mechanism occurs in motor neurones is unknown. We used primary cultures of mouse motor neurones and cortical neurones to examine the interaction between TNF alpha receptor activation, GluR2 availability, AMPAR-mediated calcium entry and susceptibility to excitotoxicity. Short exposure to a physiologically relevant concentration of TNFalpha (10 ng/ml, 15 min) caused a marked redistribution of both GluR1 and GluR2 to the cell surface as determined by cell surface biotinylation and immunofluorescence. Using Fura-2 AM microfluorimetry we showed that exposure to TNFalpha caused a rapid reduction in the peak amplitude of AMPA-mediated calcium entry in a PI3-kinase and p38 kinase-dependent manner, consistent with increased insertion of GluR2-containing AMPAR into the plasma membrane. This resulted in a protection of motor neurones against kainate-induced cell death. Our data therefore, suggests that TNF alpha acts primarily as a physiological regulator of synaptic activity in motor neurones rather than a pathological drive in ALS