Evaluations of primary metals from NHEXAS Arizona: distributions and preliminary exposures. National Human Exposure Assessment Survey.

NHEXAS AZ is a multimedia, multipathway exposure assessment survey designed to evaluate metals and other analytes. This paper reports the analyte-specific concentration distributions in each of the media examined (air, soil, house dust, food, beverage, and water), for various methodologies used (inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy and hydride generation-atomic absorption spectroscopy). Results are reported for the five primary metals (Pb, As, Cd, Cr, and Ni). Ingestion was the most important pathway of exposure. Metal concentrations in air were very low (ng/m3) and found only above the 90th percentile. Metals were commonly found in house dust and soil. Exposure transfer coefficients minimize the importance of this component for those over the age of 6 years. When ranked by exposure, food, beverage, and water appeared to be the primary contributors of metal exposure in NHEXAS AZ. For instance, at the 90th percentile, Pb was undetected in air, found at 131 and 118 microg/m3 in floor dust and soil, respectively, and measured at 16 microg/kg in food, 7.1 microg/kg in beverage, and 2.0 and 1.3 microg/l in drinking and tap water, respectively. We calculated preliminary estimates of total exposure (microg/day) for each participant and examined them independently by age, gender, and ethnicity as reported by the subjects in the NHEXAS questionnaire. At the 90th percentile for Pb, total exposures were 64 microg/day across all subjects (n=176); adult men (n=55) had the greatest exposure (73 microg/day) and children (n=35) the least (37 microg/day). Hispanics (n=54) had greater exposure to Pb (68 microg/day) than non-Hispanics (n=119; 50 microg/day), whereas non-Hispanics had greater exposure for all other metals reported. These results have implications related to environmental justice. The NHEXAS project provides information to make informed decisions for protecting and promoting appropriate public health policy.     

The organizational context of non-lethal workplace violence: its interpersonal, temporal, and spatial correlates.

This article examines 993 violent incidents involving faculty, students, and staff that occurred at a highly ranked teaching and research university and its affiliated medical center. Violent incidents were included in the sample if they involved faculty, students, or staff, regardless of their specific location or context (i.e., whether they occurred on campus and/or off-campus and whether they occurred within the context of work or some other activity). The theoretical goal of the project was to compare work-related incidents with non-work-related incidents of interpersonal violence occurring in a single, multifunctioning, and professionally hierarchical organization. Data were collected over a 7-year period from three police departments (city, county, and university), university records, and criminal history records obtained from the state police. The coding protocol was developed to capture crime-scene information pertinent to each of the incidents. This included information about the victim, the perpetrator, the relationship between the victim and perpetrator, and the violent incident. The data were examined using nonparametric statistics and logistic regression to model predictive differences between the workplace and non-workplace incidents. The results suggest that the workplace incidents of violence differ from the non-workplace incidents according to their time, victim age, degree of victim injury, and whether the workplace is a medical location. The authors conclude that these differences are better explained by the movement of people in and out of the workplace who bring societal violence with them, rather than by a category or type of workplace violence.     

Factors associated with use of community support services in an older Australian population

OBJECTIVE: To assess prevalence and risk factors associated with use of community support services in a representative older Australian population. METHODS: The Blue Mountains Eye Study surveyed 3,654 people aged > or = 49 years, 82.4% of eligible residents from an area west of Sydney during 1992-94. Questions about use of community support services were asked during face-to-face interview. Information on marital and living status, socio-economic status measures, past medical history and self-ranked health status were also collected. RESULTS: 186 (5.4%) persons including 124 women (6.3%) and 62 men (4.2%) reported regular use of community support services, including Meals-on-Wheels (n = 52), Home Care (n = 147) or visits from a community nurse (n = 63). All three services were used by 17 persons and two services by 42 persons. There was a marked age-related increase in use of services from 1.8% in persons aged < 60 years to 25.3% in persons aged 80+ years. Factors significantly associated with use of community services in a multivariate model were: age (OR 1.7 per age decade), living alone (OR 2.5), walking disability (OR 4.1), visual impairment (OR 3.0), stroke history (OR 2.2), arthritis history (OR 1.8), low perceived health status (OR 1.7), cancer history (OR 1.7) and a history of any falls in the past 12 months (OR 1.6). CONCLUSIONS: Our study has found a wide range of health-related factors that impact on the use of community support services, particularly conditions causing difficulty in walking. IMPLICATIONS: These data may assist health planners in identifying target populations for the provision of community support services.     

5%声振人血白蛋白空气微球蛋白含量测定

采用高效液相凝胶色谱法（ＧＣ－ＨＰＬＣ）、醋酸纤维膜电泳和半微量定氮法测定５０％声振人血白蛋白空气微球制剂中球壁蛋白的含量。ＧＣ－ＨＰＬＣ确证了球壁蛋白主要成分为人血白蛋白;醋酸纤维膜电泳测定空气人血白蛋白微球制剂中人血白蛋白纯度＞９０％;半微量定氮法测出球壁蛋白含量平均值为３．５６％左右,９９％正常值范围为２．５２％－４．６０％。     

Impact of diets with corn oil or olive/sunflower oils on DNA damage in healthy young men

BACKGROUND: Plant fats and oils are major sources of mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acids as well as vitamin E, the major fat-soluble antioxidants in human nutrition. Dietary antioxidants are expected to reduce cancer risk by minimizing DNA damage. AIM OF THE STUDY: To compare the effects of gamma-tocopherol rich corn oil and the mixture of the alpha-tocopherol rich olive/sunflower oil on plasma concentration of tocopherols and on the frequency of sister chromatid exchange (SCE), an indicator of DNA damage. METHODS: This study had a double-blind, cross-over design and was conducted in 20 normal healthy non-smoking males aged 19-31 years. Design included a 2-week adjustment period and two 2-week test periods in which diets containing 30% energy as fat including either 80 g of corn oil (CO) (20 mg alpha-tocopherol, 100 mg gamma-tocopherol) or 80 g of olive/ sunflower oil (OSO) (24 mg alpha-tocopherol, 2.4 mg gamma-tocopherol), as the main fat-source, were given. Blood samples for analysis of SCE rate and content of tocopherols were collected at the beginning (T0), after adjustment (T1) and after the test period (T2) in intervals of 2 weeks. RESULTS: After two weeks of the corn oil diet, the plasma concentration of gamma-tocopherol increased but alpha-tocopherol decreased significantly compared to the olive/sunflower oil diet. The concentration of alpha-tocopherol increased (CO: 22.99 +/- 1.11 vs. OSO: 24.40 +/- 1.49 micromol/l) and that of gamma-tocopherol decreased (CO: 4.19 +/- 0.29 vs. OSO: 2.99 +/- 0.25 micromol/l) after the olive/sunflower oil diet. Intake of the corn oil diet was associated with reduced SCE rate and intensity, whereas there was no change in SCE after the olive/sunflower oil diet (CO: 7.66 +/- 0.25 vs. OSO: 8.06 +/- 0.47 mean SCE/cell) CONCLUSIONS: The combination of gamma-tocopherol with alpha-tocopherol in corn oil diet despite the lower alpha-tocopherol equivalents/diene acid equivalents ratio achieved better protection against DNA damage than alpha-tocopherol alone in the olive/sunflower oil diet.     

Preclinical evaluation of prototype products

Preclinical evaluation of medical devices (prototype products) offers the opportunity to investigate and study the intended use of device materials. Preclinical evaluation programs are designed to determine the efficacy, safety, and biocompatibility of biomaterials, prostheses, and medical devices. The purpose of safety testing is to determine if a material presents potential harm to the human; it evaluates the interaction of the material with the in vivo environment and determines the effect of the host on the implant. Preclinical evaluation is the determination of the ability of the prototype product to perform with appropriate host response in a specific application, considered from the perspective of human clinical use. Therefore, preclinical data should include materials science and engineering, biology, biochemistry, medicine, host reactions and their evaluation, the testing of biomaterials, and the degradation of materials in a biological environment.     

Immunohistochemical analysis of Fas ligand expression in normal human tissues

Cross-linking of Fas and Fas ligand (FasL) induces apoptosis in Fas-bearing cells and regulates apoptosis. Fas is widely expressed in normal human tissues, but FasL expression has been considered to be restricted to lymphoid tissues. Recent studies have demonstrated that FasL is also expressed in some nonlymphoid tissues. To screen the in situ expression of FasL in normal human tissues, immunohistochemistry was performed using paraffin-embedded human tissues. FasL immunostaining was easily detected in testis, neurons, trophoblasts, tonsil, lymph node, Paneth cells, hepatocytes, renal tubular epithelium and bronchial epithelium, consistent with previous reports. Surprisingly, FasL was also expressed in many other cell types, including thymic medulla, skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, pituitary gland, parathyroid gland, prostate glands, oocytes, epithelium of fallopian tube, endometrial glands, and gastric parietal cells. These findings demonstrate that FasL is widely expressed in human tissues and suggest that wide but cell-type specific expression of FasL may not only be implicated in the regulation of immune homeostasis but also in the regulation of cell death and life in many cell types in vivo.     

Diagnostic criteria for malignancy in bile cytology and its usefulness

Fifty three bile specimens from 42 patients were reviewed to assess the diagnostic role of the bile cytology and to define more reliable cytologic indicators of malignancy. Forty three bile specimens came from 34 patients with malignant biliary strictures and 10 bile specimens were from eight patients with benign conditions. There were no false positives. The diagnostic specificity of bile cytology was 100% while diagnostic sensitivity was 55.8%. Overall diagnostic accuracy was 64.2%. We identified four key criteria as cytologic indicators of malignancy among 20 variables by using multiple regression analysis: loss of honeycomb arrangement, hyperchromatism, increased N/C ratio, and coarse chromatin. When bile specimens with three or more of these four criteria are thought to represent malignancy, the sensitivity of diagnosis of malignancy was 65.2%, specificity was 90% and diagnostic accuracy was 69.8%.