Blood transfusions and the development of cytotoxic antibodies in dialyzed patients

In our work we investigated factors which can influence the alloimmunization and especially the ranges of cytotoxic antibodies that develop in patients on dialysis awaiting their first graft. Up to 15 liters of administered blood the proportion of immunized patients is rather stabile, not exceeding 50%. After further transfusions the percentage of immunized patients is growing rapidly reaching about 85%. Hyperimmunization, marked by cytotoxic antibodies with more than 80% panel reactivity is significantly more frequent in patients who obtained 15 and more liters of blood. In females the hyperimmunization is about 4 times more frequent than in males.     

"Lysostrip" experiments with HLA class-II antigens. I. Independent surface mobility of DQ and DR molecules

We report on results of lysostrip experiments designated to analyse the molecular relations between DQ and DR antigens. The purpose of lysostrip application was to determine whether these antigens can independently be redistributed on B-cell surface by incubation with a specific antibody followed by incubation with F(ab')2 fragments of rabbit antihuman Ig. The obtained results have clearly shown that DQ antigens, and supertypic and narrow DR antigens, move independently, indicating that they are located on separate molecules, supporting the concept of different DQ and DR loci.     

Organization of the state space of a simple recurrent network before and after training on recursive linguistic structures.

Recurrent neural networks are often employed in the cognitive science community to process symbol sequences that represent various natural language structures. The aim is to study possible neural mechanisms of language processing and aid in development of artificial language processing systems. We used data sets containing recursive linguistic structures and trained the Elman simple recurrent network (SRN) for the next-symbol prediction task. Concentrating on neuron activation clusters in the recurrent layer of SRN we investigate the network state space organization before and after training. Given a SRN and a training stream, we construct predictive models, called neural prediction machines, that directly employ the state space dynamics of the network. We demonstrate two important properties of representations of recursive symbol series in the SRN. First, the clusters of recurrent activations emerging before training are meaningful and correspond to Markov prediction contexts. We show that prediction states that naturally arise in the SRN initialized with small random weights approximately correspond to states of Variable Memory Length Markov Models (VLMM) based on individual symbols (i.e. words). Second, we demonstrate that during training, the SRN reorganizes its state space according to word categories and their grammatical subcategories, and the next-symbol prediction is again based on the VLMM strategy. However, after training, the prediction is based on word categories and their grammatical subcategories rather than individual words. Our conclusion holds for small depths of recursions that are comparable to human performances. The methods of SRN training and analysis of its state space introduced in this paper are of a general nature and can be used for investigation of processing of any other symbol time series by means of SRN.     

Hypoplastic left heart syndrome with anomalous origin of left coronary artery from the right pulmonary artery: successful surgical treatment in a neonate.

Anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the right pulmonary artery in association with hypoplastic left heart syndrome is a rare congenital anomaly. We describe a successful simultaneous surgery for both anomalies during the first stage palliation in a neonate.     

National public health information system

Information production and its communication being a key public health activity, developing modern information systems is a precondition for its fulfilling these assignments. A national public health information system (NPHIS) is a set of human resources combined with computing and communication technologies. It enables data linkage and data coverage as well as undertaking information production and dissemination in an effective, standardized and safe way. The Croatian Institute of Public Health LAN/WAN modules are under development. Health Safety System, Health Workers Registry, and Digital Library are among the Institute's developmental priorities. Communication between NPHIS participants would unfold over the Internet by using every relevant data protection method. Web technology-based applications would be run on special servers. Between individual applications, use would be made of the transaction module of communication through an exchange of the HL7 standard-based xml messages. In the conditions of transition, the health system must make an optimal use of the resources, which is not feasible without applying modern information and communication technologies.     

MLR-stimulating properties of five homozygous typing cells found in an outbred population

In the characterization of stimulating properties of five HTC's two features were taken into consideration, the reproducibility of stimulation results and the individual cut-off level at which reactions positive for Dw antigen are separated from negative reactions. The reproducibility was characterized by the number of repetitions necessary to diminish the standard error to 10 DNV. Depending on HTC 2-8 repetitions were found to be necessary. The individual cut-off levels were determined with the help of maximal correlation between Dw and DR antigen typing. For different HTC's the levels varied from 22 to 57 DNV.     

Immunogenic and antigenic properties of the COOH-terminal hexapeptide of substance P

Substance P (SP) and its COOH-terminal fragment (6-11) were coupled to bovine serum albumin by glutaraldehyde and used to elicit antibodies. Anti-SP and anti-SP6-11 antibodies bound to the same extent 125I-[Tyr8]-SP and 125I-[T-Lys6]-SP6-11. The latter was obtained after conjugation of the [Lys6]-SP6-11 with cold Bolton-Hunter reagent and then labelling by the chloramine-T method. In contrast to 125I-[Tyr8]-SP, 125I-[Tyr8]-SP6-11 was poorly bound by both anti-SP and anti-SP6-11 antibodies. Synthetic fragments of SP shorter than SP7-11 did not react with anti-SP6-11 antibodies. It is concluded that the antigenic determinant is within the COOH-terminal pentapeptide, and that Phe7, Phe8, Leu10 and Met11 contribute significantly to both anti-SP and anti-SP6-11 immunoreactivity.     

News in the treatment of rheumatic diseases

Rheumatic diseases are frustrating issue for the rheumatologists because ethiologic remedy is still missing and much more, they are great socio-economic burden for patients and society. In the last 10 years there was bustling endeavour in creating new products with exact known action. This article deal the new options to treat rheumatoid arthritis with leflunomide, infliximab, etanercept and anakinra and osteoarthritis with hyaluronan, diacerhein, glucosamino sulphate, chondroitin sulphate and avocado/soya unsaponifiables. In particular patients all mentioned products have their place in the treatment plan but critical risk-benefit assessment is needed.