迷走神经刺激对家兔高血钾时心室肌单相动作电位及心室肌细胞跨膜电位的影响

本文观察了电刺激迷走神经对家兔商血钾时心室肌单相动作电位(MAP)及单个心室肌细胞跨膜电位(TMP)的影响。结果表明,迷走神经刺激可以改善高血钾引起的心室内传导阻滞,使单相动作电位振幅(MAPA)、单相动作电位0相最大上升速率(MVmax)增加,单相动作电位时程(MAPD)延长,亦使单个心室肌细胞静息电位(RP)、动作电位振幅(APA)和0相最大上升速率(Vmax)增加,动作电位时程(APD)延长。另外,两种记录方法在同一部位的MAPD与APD完全一致。     

Assessment of an undergraduate psychiatry course in an African setting

Background  

International reports recommend the improvement in the amount and quality of training for mental health workers in low and middle income countries. The Scotland-Malawi Mental Health Education Project (SMMHEP) has been established to support the teaching of psychiatry to medical students in the University of Malawi. While anecdotally supportive medical educational initiatives appear of value, little quantitative evidence exists to demonstrate whether such initiatives can deliver comparable educational standards. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an undergraduate psychiatry course given by UK psychiatrists in Malawi by studying University of Malawi and Edinburgh University medical students' performance on an MCQ examination paper.     

Ethical challenges related to elder care. High level decision-makers' experiences

Background  

Few empirical studies have been found that explore ethical challenges among persons in high public positions that are responsible for elder care. The aim of this paper was to illuminate the meaning of being in ethically difficult situations related to elder care as experienced by high level decision-makers.     

Oxygen Tension Imaging in the Mouse Retina

A newly developed microscope-based imaging system was used to measure the oxygen tension (PO₂) inside the retinal and choroidal vessels of mice and to generate in vivo maps of retinal PO₂. These maps were generated from the phosphorescence lifetimes of an injected palladium–porphyrin compound using a frequency-domain measurement. The system was fully calibrated and used to produce retinal PO₂ maps at different inspiratory oxygen fractions. PO₂ rose accordingly and predictably as inspiratory O₂ was stepped from hypoxic to hyperoxic conditions. Important experimental and acquisition parameters necessary for applying phosphorescence lifetime imaging to the mouse eye were investigated, including camera exposure and intensifier gain settings. Because of a need to limit light exposure to the retina, PO₂ map quality as measured by the coefficient of determination was investigated as a function of signal-to-noise and accumulated excitation energy deposition. With the development of this technology for use in mice, the potential for investigating the oxygen dynamics in genetically engineered mouse models of retinal disease, including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration, is advanced. © 2003 Biomedical Engineering Society. PAC2003: 4266Ew, 8763Lk, 8719Dd     

Voronoi Polyhedra Analysis of Optimized Arterial Tree Models

Topological and metric properties of Voronoi polyhedra (VP) generated by the distal end points of terminal segments in arterial tree models grown by the method of constrained constructive optimization (CCO) are analyzed with the aim to characterize the spatial distribution of their supply sites relative to randomly distributed points as a reference model. The distributions of the number N _f of Voronoi cell faces, cell volume V, surface area S, area A of individual cell faces, and asphericity parameter of the CCO models are all significantly different from the ones of random points, whereas the distributions of V, S, and are also significantly different among CCO models optimized for minimum intravascular volume and minimum segment length (p < 0.0001). The distributions of N _f , V, and S of the CCO models are reasonably well approximated by two-parameter gamma distributions. We study scaling of intravascular blood volume and arterial cross-sectional area with the volume of supplied tissue, the latter being represented by the VP of the respective terminal segments. We observe scaling exponents from 1.20 ± 0.007 to 1.08 ± 0.005 for intravascular blood volume and 0.77 ± 0.01 for arterial cross-sectional area. Setting terminal flows proportional to the associated VP volumes during tree construction yields a relative dispersion of terminal flows of 37% and a coefficient of skewness of 1.12. © 2003 Biomedical Engineering Society. PAC2003: 8719Uv, 8710+e, 4720Ky, 0260Pn, 0230Oz     

Classification of Breast Masses Using Selected Shape,Edge-sharpness,and Texture Features with Linear and Kernel-based Classifiers

Breast masses due to benign disease and malignant tumors related to breast cancer differ in terms of shape, edge-sharpness, and texture characteristics. In this study, we evaluate a set of 22 features including 5 shape factors, 3 edge-sharpness measures, and 14 texture features computed from 111 regions in mammograms, with 46 regions related to malignant tumors and 65 to benign masses. Feature selection is performed by a genetic algorithm based on several criteria, such as alignment of the kernel with the target function, class separability, and normalized distance. Fisher's linear discriminant analysis, the support vector machine (SVM), and our strict two-surface proximal (S2SP) classifier, as well as their corresponding kernel-based nonlinear versions, are used in the classification task with the selected features. The nonlinear classification performance of kernel Fisher's discriminant analysis, SVM, and S2SP, with the Gaussian kernel, reached 0.95 in terms of the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve. The results indicate that improvement in classification accuracy may be gained by using selected combinations of shape, edge-sharpness, and texture features.     

Induction of apoptosis of human primary osteoclasts treated with extracts from the medicinal plant <Emphasis Type="Italic">Emblica officinalis</Emphasis>

Background  

Osteoclasts (OCs) are involved in rheumatoid arthritis and in several pathologies associated with bone loss. Recent results support the concept that some medicinal plants and derived natural products are of great interest for developing therapeutic strategies against bone disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. In this study we determined whether extracts of Emblica officinalis fruits display activity of possible interest for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis by activating programmed cell death of human primary osteoclasts.     

应用微阵列初步分析髓母细胞瘤的基因表达谱

目的　应用微阵列技术研究髓母细胞瘤的分子发病机理。方法　收集新鲜髓母细胞瘤 4例及正常脑组织 1份的组织标本 ,提取总 RNA,逆转录成 32 P标记的 c DNA探针 ,与 Atlas人肿瘤芯片杂交 ,通过放射自显影获得基因谱 ,应用 Atlas Image TM1.0 1a分析。结果　与正常脑组织相比 ,髓母细胞瘤下调基因 6个 ,上调基因 35个 ;逆转录 -聚合酶链反应技术验证结果与芯片检测结果相符。除少数基因外 ,大部分基因的表达趋势与肿瘤生物学特性相符。结论　髓母细胞瘤是与星形细胞起源胶质瘤具有不同分子发病机理的多基因病变 ,不同基因之间可能存在复杂的相互作用和联系 ,值得进一步研究。