We explore the anti-microbial activity of urine specimens after the ingestion of a commercial cranberry preparation. Twenty subjects without urinary infection, off antibiotics and all supplements or vitamins were recruited. The study was conducted in two phases: in phase 1, subjects collected the first morning urine prior to ingesting 900 mg of cranberry and then at 2, 4 and 6 h. In phase 2, su...

BACKGROUND The cost-benefit of raccoon rabies control strategies such as oral rabies vaccination (ORV) are under evaluation. As an initial quantification of the potential cost savings for a control program, the collection of selected rabies cost data was pilot tested for five counties in New York State (NYS) in a three-year period. METHODS Rabies costs reported to NYS from the study counties ...

OBJECTIVE A modified liquid-based techniques known as the "LiquiPrep (LP) system" requires neither expensive equipment nor complicated specimen preparation. The aim of this study was to assess the applicability of the LP for use in a developing country. METHODS Cervical cytology specimens were collected from 777 women, using the Cervex-Brush. The brush was first smeared on a glass side for co...

Electron crystallography is used to study membrane proteins in the form of planar, two-dimensional (2D) crystals, or other crystalline arrays such as tubular crystals. This method has been used to determine the atomic resolution structures of bacteriorhodopsin, tubulin, aquaporins, and several other membrane proteins. In addition, a large number of membrane protein structures were studied at a ...

Electron tomography is a technique that uses a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) to determine a three-dimensional (3D) structure from any given asymmetric object [1]. This process can be simply broken down into 3 steps. First, a series of two dimension projection images of the specimen are recorded and systematically tilted to different angles in the microscope. Second, these individual im...

The present study investigated the feasibility of automating the specimen-pipetting component of sample preparation in the LCx Chlamydia assay (LCx-CT assay; Abbott Laboratories, Chicago, Ill.) by using a commercially available liquid-handling system (Tecan Genesis RSP100; Tecan Inc., Research Triangle Park, N.C.). The Tecan instrument proved to be comparable in both precision and accuracy to a...

Recent innovations in specimen preparation, data collection, and image processing have led to improved structure determination using single-particle electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM). Here we explore some of these advances to improve structures determined using electron cryotomography (cryo-ET) and sub-tomogram averaging. We implement a new three-dimensional model for the contrast transfer func...

Diverse applications of transmission electron microscopy techniques used in investigating the nanostructures of magnetic recording materials are presented. Specimen preparation methods are discussed for the specific case of magnetic thin film recording media. Investigations of the crystallographic orientation, grain size and distribution, and interfacial nanostructures are presented. 2003 Acta ...

feature short articles devoted to microscopy and digital imaging. The subject matter will address details of the methods used to produce images of cells and tissues at any magnification and resolution, and might include “tricks-of-the-trade”, novel methods of specimen preparation, practices of image collection, tips on the digital manipulation and publication of images and historical perspectives.

Six of 14 patients receiving a sustained release papaverine preparation developed abnormal liver function tests. One patient had jaundice and another abnormal liver histology on a biopsy specimen. This is only the third report of impaired liver function following the administration of papaverine--a drug which has been used in clinical medicine for over 100 years.