The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between seropositivity to Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato and the following factors: (i) type of household (rural vs. urban), (ii) use of acaricides (type and seasonality/duration), and (iii) history of tick bite (season). Blood samples were collected from all the dogs in the household and dog owners were survey...

This was a retrospective study of patients having Gnathostoma antibody testing at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Bangkok during 2000-2005 to investigate predictive factors for Gnathostoma seropositivity in patients attending the Gnathostomiasis Clinic. Out of 849 patients tested, 531 (62.5%) were Gnathostoma seropositive. The median absolute eosinophil counts were 464 (0-16,796) and 326.5 ...

Neuropsychological and immunological parameters were studied in 36 AIDS patients with early disease and without clinical, laboratory, and neuroradiological signs of CNS impairment, and also in 33 asymptomatic HIV seropositive subjects. Many AIDS patients performed abnormally on timed psychomotor tasks, tasks involving sequencing and "set-shifting", and memory tasks stressing attention, learning...

Levels of neopterin and alpha and beta interleukin-1 (IL-1) in sera of normal controls, asymptomatic intravenous drug abusers, homosexuals, and patients with lymphadenopathy or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome were measured. Neopterin levels were elevated in the sera of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-seronegative intravenous drug abusers and homosexuals, as well as in the sera of HIV-sero...

A cross-sectional quantitative study of cutaneous bacterial and yeast flora at seven body sites in 99 human immunodeficiency virus-seropositive and 50 seronegative military personnel was performed. Statistically significant differences in carriage rates were only observed for Staphylococcus aureus on the foreheads of seropositive individuals. Seronegative individuals demonstrated staphylococcal...

The authors report on a study of detecting ricin molecules immobilized on chemically modified Au 111 surface by chemomechanically mapping the molecular interactions with a chemically modified atomic force microscopy AFM tip. AFM images resolved the different fold-up conformations of single ricin molecule as well as their intramolecule structure of Aand B-chains. AFM force spectroscopy study of ...

A series of 20 ,30-dideoxy-20,20-difluoro-40-azanucleosides of both pyrimidine and purine nucleobases were synthesized in an efficient manner starting from commercially available L-pyroglutamic acid via glycosylation of difluorinated pyrrolidine derivative 15. Several 40-azanucleosides were prepared as a separable mixture of aand b-anomers. The 6-chloropurine analogue was obtained as a mixture ...

Integrins are a large family of cell– extracellular matrix (ECM) and cell–cell adhesion molecules that regulate development and tissue homeostasis by controlling cell migration, survival, proliferation and differentiation (Hynes, 2002). They are non-covalently associated heterodimers consisting of aand bsubunits. On the cell surface, integrins exist in a conformation with either high (active) o...

We present ab-initio calculations of a variety of different lattice-gas interaction energies between Cu adatoms on Cu(001) and Cu(111). We find the next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) interactions to be negligible on Cu(111), explaining the success of the nearest-neighbor (NN) Ising model when describing the Cu(111) step stiffness. On Cu(001), however, we find that NNN interactions are roughly (1/7) th...