Serum carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) is a specific and comparatively sensitive marker of excessive alcohol use; however, reports of its sensitivity vary according to the population or patient groups studied and their average alcohol intake. We have characterized the dose-response curve between alcohol intake and CDT concentrations in a study of 1400 men and women from a community-base...

An experimental system has been developed which allows the identification of intermediates in the abscisic acid (ABA) signal transduction pathway leading to desiccation tolerance in plants. Desiccation tolerance in callus of the resurrection plant Craterostigma plantagineum is mediated via the plant hormone ABA, which induces the expression of gene products related to desiccation tolerance. Bas...

The striatum controls behavior in two ways: facilitation and suppression through the direct and indirect pathways, respectively. However, it is still unclear what information is processed in these pathways. To address this question, we studied two pathways originating from the primate caudate tail (CDt). We found that the CDt innervated the caudal-dorsal-lateral part of the substantia nigra par...

We investigated the usefulness of the laboratory marker of alcohol consumption carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) in 101 consecutively admitted patients in a surgical and internal medical ward of a hospital in a rural wine-growing area. Four major aspects were considered: the influence of liver disease, the method of expression of CDT values (relative % vs absolute units/1), level and pat...

BACKGROUND The current study evaluated the efficacy of an individualized, hand-held computer-delivered treatment (CDT) versus standard treatment (ST) for the maintenance of smoking abstinence following a quit attempt. METHODS Participants were 303 adult daily smokers randomized to CDT or ST, plus pharmacotherapy. Abstinence though 1 year was examined using logistic random intercept models, a ...

Cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) produced by Campylobacter jejuni is a genotoxin that induces cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis in mammalian cells. Recent studies have demonstrated that prostate cancer (PCa) cells can acquire radio-resistance when DOC-2/DAB2 interactive protein (DAB2IP) is downregulated. In this study, we showed that CDT could induce cell death in DAB2IP-deficient PCa cells. A c...

Polysaccharide sidechains attached to proteins play important roles in cell-cell and receptor-ligand interactions. Variation in the carbohydrate component has been extensively studied for the iron transport protein transferrin, because serum levels of the transferrin isoforms asialotransferrin + disialotransferrin (carbohydrate-deficient transferrin, CDT) are used as biomarkers of excessive alc...

Introduction Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) is currently undergoing risk assessment in the EU (Existing Substances Regulations 793/93/EEC). During the risk assessment process, the environmental persistence of HBCD was investigated. In previous studies (Davis et al 2005, 2006a), the biodegradation of HBCD was reported to occur in freshwater aquatic sediments and digester sludge. Using C-labelled ...

Background The Clock Drawing Test (CDT) is a brief cognitive screening tool for dementia. Several different presentation formats and scoring methods for the CDT are available in the literature. Objective In this study we aimed to compare performance on the free-drawn and "incomplete-copy" versions of the CDT using the same short scoring method in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and dementia p...

In this paper, we discuss the challenges of sketch recognition accuracy and automation of the Clock Drawing Test (CDT). Sketch recognition in the context of the CDT is a complex problem due to the lack of knowledge of the preference bias among the sketches drawn by neuro-atypical patients. However, machine learning provides a viable solution to detect measurable patterns among sketches drawn in...