Serotoninstoffwechsel bei chronischem Alkoholismus

Summary Serotonin was determined in platelets of 47 patients with alcoholism during the state of withdrawal as well as in a group of healthy persons. The results show that serotonin values were significantly lower in the group of patients with alcoholism as compared with the control group of healthy persons.     

The preparation of metabolically active suspensions of mouse liver cells

Zusammenfassung Einfache und schnelle Methode zur Isolierung freier Mäuse-Leberzellen. Freie Hepatozyten (bis 50% des Gewebes) zeigen so aktiven Stoffwechsel.

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This work was supported by grant No. CA05172 of the National Cancer Institute, U.S.P.H.S.     

The bonobo genome compared with the chimpanzee and human genomes

Two African apes are the closest living relatives of humans: the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and the bonobo (Pan paniscus). Although they are similar in many respects, bonobos and chimpanzees differ strikingly in key social and sexual behaviours, and for some of these traits they show more similarity with humans than with each other. Here we report the sequencing and assembly of the bonobo genome to study its evolutionary relationship with the chimpanzee and human genomes. We find that more than three per cent of the human genome is more closely related to either the bonobo or the chimpanzee genome than these are to each other. These regions allow various aspects of the ancestry of the two ape species to be reconstructed. In addition, many of the regions that overlap genes may eventually help us understand the genetic basis of phenotypes that humans share with one of the two apes to the exclusion of the other.     

A complementarity experiment with an interferometer at the quantum-classical boundary

To illustrate the quantum mechanical principle of complementarity, Bohr described an interferometer with a microscopic slit that records the particle's path. Recoil of the quantum slit causes it to become entangled with the particle, resulting in a kind of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pair. As the motion of the slit can be observed, the ambiguity of the particle's trajectory is lifted, suppressing interference effects. In contrast, the state of a sufficiently massive slit does not depend on the particle's path; hence, interference fringes are visible. Although many experiments illustrating various aspects of complementarity have been proposed and realized, none has addressed the quantum-classical limit in the design of the interferometer. Here we report an experimental investigation of complementarity using an interferometer in which the properties of one of the beam-splitting elements can be tuned continuously from being effectively microscopic to macroscopic. Following a recent proposal, we use an atomic double-pulse Ramsey interferometer, in which microwave pulses act as beam-splitters for the quantum states of the atoms. One of the pulses is a coherent field stored in a cavity, comprising a small, adjustable mean photon number. The visibility of the interference fringes in the final atomic state probability increases with this photon number, illustrating the quantum to classical transition.     

Detection of human antigens on the surface of mouse cells transformed by chromosome transfer]

Mouse embryo cells, transformed in vitro by the transfer of chromosomes from HeLa human tumour cells, express a surface antigen (s) also found on HeLa cells. This antigen(s), which has been detected both by indirect immunofluoresence and by a 125I-protein A binding assay, is not an antigen(s) shared by both Human and Mouse cells.     

Aligning Academic Activities: Implications for Teaching and Research in a New Zealand Institute of Technology

A problem situation that is at the heart of a New Zealand higher education institute applying for university status is meeting the requirement for sufficient academic staff with postgraduate qualifications. For this particular New Zealand higher education institute that was originally a teaching institution offering only sub-degree qualifications, the move to firstly offering degrees and secondly seeking university status has meant that employment conditions have shifted for many academics. In order to explore the multiple world views on the impact to the whole system of a significant number of staff upgrading qualifications whilst engaged in full-time teaching at the same time, views were sought from senior executives, heads of schools, human resource personnel and staff engaged in their own postgraduate study. Multiple conceptual models have been utilised to gain an understanding of this problem situation: Soft Systems Methodology (Checkland and Scholes, 1990, 1999) in both its original and its current form; complexity theory (McKenna, 1999; Merry, 1995; Stacey, 1996) and context-dependent cluster model (CDCM) (Fielden and London, 2001). These multiple conceptual models have all contributed to providing a basis upon which to compare multiple-perceived worlds with appropriate conceptual models upon which to base a future action plan.Outcomes discussed are both positive and negative factors including: recognition, time, stress, employment contracts, senior staff expectations, family, collegial and institutional support and the integration of own study with teaching practice and content. Implications for alignment across institutional organisational levels and also for higher education outside of the university sector are also discussed.     

Independent modulation of collagen fibrillogenesis by decorin and lumican

The leucine-rich proteoglycans (also known as "small, leucine-rich proteoglycans," or SLRPs) lumican and decorin are thought to be involved in the regulation of collagen fibril assembly. Preparation of these proteoglycans in chemical amounts without exposure to denaturants has recently been achieved by infecting HT-1080 cells with vaccinia virus that contains an expression cassette for these molecules. Addition of lumican and decorin to a collagen fibrillogenesis assay based on turbidity demonstrated that lumican accelerated initial fibril formation while decorin retarded initial fibril formation. At the end of fibrillogenesis, both proteoglycans resulted in an overall reduced turbidity, suggesting that fibril diameter was lower. The presence of both proteoglycans had a synergistic effect, retarding fibril formation to a greater degree than either proteoglycan individually. Competitive binding studies showed that lumican did not compete for decorin-binding sites on collagen fibrils. Both proteoglycans increased the stability of fibrils to thermal denaturation to approximately the same degree. These studies show that lumican does not compete for decorin-binding sites on collagen, that decorin and lumican modulate collagen fibrillogenesis, and that, in the process, they also enhance collagen fibril stability.