Learning to Observe Relationships and Coping

Milieu relationships provide the critical background presence to staff's attempts to motivate, regulate, and teach patients how to cope with stress. Forging a connection with hospitalized children and adolescents demands attention to how they respond to adults and engage with staff around milieu expectations. Assessment guides that deal with these issues are presented. Important aspects of children's relatedness are presented in the context of their working models of adults and the influence of these representations on their response to staff. Coping skills are explained with particular emphasis on behavioral coping strategies. Tied to the assessment process are interventions that emphasize staff's role in helping patients manage strong affects and avoid the use of nonproductive behavior regulation strategies.     

Arylsulfatase A in urine of patients with urothelial tumors

A significant increase in urine arylsulfatase A activity (p less than 0.01) was found in patients with urothelial tumors. Arylsulfatase A activity was 1.36 +/- 1.10 U/24-h urine in control specimens, 1.90 +/- 1.66 U/24-h urine in various genitourinary tract disorders, and 3.90 +/- 1.98 U/24-h urine in transitional cell carcinoma specimens. Surgical treatment of the neoplastic patients lowered the arylsulfatase A activity found in urine to within reference values. The arylsulfatase A excreted by patients with these tumors was highly sensitive to thermal inactivation while the enzyme activity in the control urines was less affected by the heat treatment. The time course of the arylsulfatase A reaction with 4-nitrocatechol sulfate was not linear in normal individuals, while it was linear in 90% of patients with urothelial tumors. This difference in the kinetic pattern of the enzyme could be used to increase the diagnostic specificity of the determination.     

The glycine receptor: pharmacological studies and mathematical modeling of the allosteric interaction between the glycine- and strychnine-binding sites

The displacement by glycine of 3H-strychnine binding to rat spinal cord membranes cannot be explained by a simple competitive interaction. Indeed, protein-modifying reagents can completely abolish the inhibition of 3H-strychnine binding by glycine and other agonists, whereas the interaction of strychnine itself and other related compounds with the binding site is unimpaired. Moreover, glycine cannot inhibit completely saturable 3H-strychnine binding, the extent of its maximum inhibitory effect depending on the ionic composition of the medium. Hill coefficients less than 1 (whose magnitude also depends on the assay medium) were obtained from glycine displacement curves. These properties are consistent with a mathematical model of two different, but mutually interacting, binding sites for strychnine and glycine on the glycine receptor. The effect of ions and protein-modifying reagents might be explained in this model as modifications of the mechanisms that mediate the allosteric interaction, and/or the affinity of glycine for the receptor. The agonists beta-alanine and taurine and the new antagonists, THAZ, iso-THAZ, and 4,5-TAZA, also seem to interact with a site different from the strychnine-binding site, probably the glycine-binding site.