Reporting sexual risk behavior for HIV: a practical risk index and a method for improving risk indices.

OBJECTIVES: As a means of enhancing public health efforts to control sexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), methods were developed to report on risk behavior in a manner that is comparable and widely interpretable. METHODS: An elementar…

The protective effect of condoms and nonoxynol-9 against HIV infection.

OBJECTIVES: Whether or not spermicides can reduce the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission remains an important question for the control of heterosexual HIV transmission. The authors provide estimates from a reanalysis of one of the few …

Different behavior of human osteoblast-like cells isolated from normal and heterotopic bone In vitro.

In this study, a characterization of human bone-forming cells responsible for heterotopic ossification was carried out in vitro. The biological and biochemical cell characteristics of the heterotopic osteoblast-like (HOB) cells were compared with those of …

The efficacy of nonoxynol-9 from an in vivo point of view.

Epidemiology of HIV in Germany (status: 30 June 1995)--transmission among heterosexuals and value of HIV screening programs

As compared to the earlier publication [1], the current publication further refines the figures published for the first time 1988-90 by the author [2,3] and adds additional sources. Sample sizes for and feasibility of anonymous unlinked testing (AUT) are d…

Backcalculation of the number infected with human immunodeficiency virus in Germany.

The method of backcalculation was used to estimate the cumulative number of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected adults in Germany from reporting delay-corrected surveillance data on acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the pretreat…

The potential of nonoxynol-9 for the prevention of HIV infection reconsidered.

Polymerase chain reaction monitoring reduces the incidence of cytomegalovirus disease and the duration and side effects of antiviral therapy after bone marrow transplantation.

Culture-based preemptive therapy with ganciclovir was shown to reduce the incidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease after bone marrow transplantation (BMT). Culture techniques did not detect CMV in 12% to 13% of patients before the onset of CMV disease. I…

Epidemiology of HIV in Germany

In many developing countries, HIV is predominantly distributed among heterosexuals. This has given rise to the concern that similar patterns are to be expected in Europe. The current publication discusses different methods for estimation of the number of p…

Complaints in the postoperative phase related to anesthetics

In two prospective, randomized studies the frequency of headache, nausea, vomiting, and analgesic requirement during the first postoperative 24 h was observed in order to study differences between the sexes and the inhalation anesthetics halothane, enflura…

Evaluation of seroepidemiological associations between HIV-infection, hepatitis B and other sexually transmitted diseases in African patients.

To assess the possible role of sexually transmitted diseases as cofactors for the spread of AIDS, 248 adult patients were tested for the presence of antibodies against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), hepatitis B virus (HBV) and syphilis. The survey was…

Preventing the heterosexual spread of AIDS: what is the best advice if compliance is taken into account?

It has been recently advocated that avoiding partners who may be at high risk of carrying HIV provides 5000-fold better protection against HIV infection than usage of condoms [1]. In this paper, it is demonstrated that this guideline is largely based on un…

Statistical knowledge-based systems--critical remarks and requirements for approval.

Time order error and position effect of a standardized stimulus in discrimination of short time duration

In comparison judgments of two successively presented time intervals ranging from 30 to 70 msec a time-order error (TOE) as well as a systematic effect depending on the constant position error (CPE) were demonstrated. The effects proved to be independent. …

An extension to a statistical approach for family based association studies provides insights into genetic risk factors for multiple sclerosis in the HLA-DRB1 gene.

BACKGROUND: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex trait in which genes in the MHC class II region exert the single strongest effect on genetic susceptibility. The principal MHC class II haplotype that increases MS risk in individuals of Northern European de…

A structured visual language for a knowledge-based front-end to statistical analysis systems in biomedical research.

Within the last few years, several knowledge-based systems for statistical analysis systems have been proposed (see Refs. 1-4 for references). Most of these systems provide so-called 'natural-language' interfaces for acquisition and application of meta-dat…

A modular analysis framework for blood genomics studies: application to systemic lupus erythematosus.

The analysis of patient blood transcriptional profiles offers a means to investigate the immunological mechanisms relevant to human diseases on a genome-wide scale. In addition, such studies provide a basis for the discovery of clinically relevant biomarke…

Phenotyping genetic diseases using an extension of mu-scores for multivariate data.

As the field of genomics matures, more complex genotypes and phenotypes are being studied. Fanconi anemia (FA), for example, is an inherited chromosome instability syndrome with a complex array of variable disease phenotypes including congenital malformati…

Analytical approaches to reporting long-term clinical trial data.

BACKGROUND AND SCOPE: Long-term clinical studies are essential for monitoring the effectiveness and safety of a drug. Information provided by long-term clinical studies complements the results of short-term, randomized, controlled trials, which often form …

Women's health measures in two North Carolina regions sampled from the Basic Automated Birth Yearbook (BABY) datasets: experimental findings, methodological limits and future directions.

PURPOSE: To compare selected characteristics in two North Carolina counties to document women's health services at the geographical extremes of the state. METHODS: Using aggregated 2004 data obtained from the North Carolina State Center for Health Statisti…

Identification of cellular pathways of "type 1," Th17 T cells, and TNF- and inducible nitric oxide synthase-producing dendritic cells in autoimmune inflammation through pharmacogenomic study of cyclosporine A in psoriasis.

Therapeutic modulation of psoriasis with targeted immunosuppressive agents defines inflammatory genes associated with disease activity and may be extrapolated to a wide range of autoimmune diseases. Cyclosporine A (CSA) is considered a "gold standard" ther…

Diagnostic value of hepatocellular nodule vascularity after microbubble injection for characterizing malignancy in patients with cirrhosis.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to assess the diagnostic value of hepatocellular nodule vascularity after microbubble injection for characterization of malignancy in patients with cirrhosis of the liver. MATERIALS AND METHODS: After sulfur hexaflu…

Detecting artifacts on SNP chips.

Microscopists are familiar with many blemishes that fluorescence images can have due to dust and debris, glass flaws, uneven distribution of fluids or surface coatings, etc. Microarray scans do show similar artifacts, which might affect subsequent analysis…

Bioinformatics tools enabling u-statistics for microarrays.

It is rare that a single gene is sufficient to represent all aspects of genomic activity. Similarly, most common diseases cannot be explained by a mutations at a single locus. Since complex systems tend to be neither linear nor hierarchical in nature, but …

Interactions between estrogen effects and hunger effects in ovariectomized female mice. I. Measures of arousal.

Measures of arousal were used to study effects of estradiol and food restriction, and their potential interactions, in ovariectomized female C57Bl/6 mice. It was hypothesized based on a proposed theoretical equation [Pfaff, D.W., 2006a. Brain Arousal and I…

Alefacept (anti-CD2) causes a selective reduction in circulating effector memory T cells (Tem) and relative preservation of central memory T cells (Tcm) in psoriasis.

BACKGROUND: Alefacept (anti-CD2) biological therapy selectively targets effector memory T cells (Tem) in psoriasis vulgaris, a model Type 1 autoimmune disease. METHODS: Circulating leukocytes were phenotyped in patients receiving alefacept for moderate to …

Gene expression patterns in blood leukocytes discriminate patients with acute infections.

Each infectious agent represents a unique combination of pathogen-associated molecular patterns that interact with specific pattern-recognition receptors expressed on immune cells. Therefore, we surmised that the blood immune cells of individuals with diff…

Increase in TNF-alpha and inducible nitric oxide synthase-expressing dendritic cells in psoriasis and reduction with efalizumab (anti-CD11a).

We find that CD11c(+) cells with many markers of dendritic cells (DCs) are a major cell type in the skin lesions of psoriasis. These CD11c(+) cells, which are evident in both epidermis and dermis, are the sites for the expression of two mediators of inflam…

Harshlight: a "corrective make-up" program for microarray chips.

BACKGROUND: Microscopists are familiar with many blemishes that fluorescence images can have due to dust and debris, glass flaws, uneven distribution of fluids or surface coatings, etc. Microarray scans do show similar artifacts, which might affect subsequ…

Harshlighting" small blemishes on microarrays.

BACKGROUND: Microscopists are familiar with many blemishes that fluorescence images can have due to dust and debris, glass flaws, uneven distribution of fluids or surface coatings, etc. Microarray scans show similar artefacts, which affect the analysis, pa…

Alefacept reduces infiltrating T cells, activated dendritic cells, and inflammatory genes in psoriasis vulgaris.

Psoriasis vulgaris, a skin disease that is considered to be the result of a type 1 autoimmune response, provides an opportunity for studying the changes that occur in a target-diseased tissue during innovative immunotherapies. To gain a more comprehensive …

Effects and non-effects of paired identical observations in comparing proportions with binary matched-pairs data.

Expansion of melanoma-specific cytolytic CD8+ T cell precursors in patients with metastatic melanoma vaccinated with CD34+ progenitor-derived dendritic cells.

Cancer vaccines aim at inducing (a) tumor-specific effector T cells able to reduce/eliminate the tumor mass, and (b) long-lasting tumor-specific memory T cells able to control tumor relapse. We have shown earlier, in 18 human histocompatibility leukocyte a…

Opiate-like effects of sugar on gene expression in reward areas of the rat brain.

Drugs abused by humans are thought to activate areas in the ventral striatum of the brain that engage the organism in important adaptive behaviors, such as eating. In support of this, we report here that striatal regions of sugar-dependent rats show altera…

Combining several ordinal measures in clinical studies.

In medical research, it is rare that a single variable is sufficient to represent all relevant aspects of epidemiological risk, genomic activity, adverse events, or clinical response. Since biological systems tend to be neither linear, nor hierarchical in …

Single injection of CD34+ progenitor-derived dendritic cell vaccine can lead to induction of T-cell immunity in patients with stage IV melanoma.

There is evidence that dendritic cell (DC) vaccines induce tumor-specific immune responses that correlate with clinical responses. Little is known, however, about the kinetics of T-cell responses to antigens presented on DC vaccines. The authors vaccinated…

Inflammatory role of two venom components of yellow jackets (Vespula vulgaris): a mast cell degranulating peptide mastoparan and phospholipase A1.

BACKGROUND: Venom sac extract of yellow jackets Vespula vulgaris was toxic in mice when injected intraperitoneally but not toxic when injected subcutaneously. Necropsy showed the toxicity to be an inflammatory response. METHODS: Venom peptide and protein f…

A statistically valid alternative to the TDT.

OBJECTIVE: To present an alternative linkage test to the transmission/disequilibrium test (TDT) which is conservative under the null hypothesis and generally more powerful under alternatives. METHODS: The exact distribution of the TDT is examined under bot…

In silico quantitative trait locus map for atherosclerosis susceptibility in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice.

OBJECTIVE: Atherosclerosis susceptibility is a genetic trait that varies between mouse strains. The goal of this study was to use a public mouse single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) database to define the genetic loci that are associated with this trait, w…

Prevention of HIV infection. I. Assessing the effectiveness of barrier methods for HIV prevention

Psoriasis as a model for T-cell-mediated disease: immunobiologic and clinical effects of treatment with multiple doses of efalizumab, an anti-CD11a antibody.

BACKGROUND: Leukocyte function-associated antigen 1 (LFA-1), consisting of CD11a and CD18 subunits, plays an important role in T-cell activation and leukocyte extravasation. OBJECTIVE: To test whether blocking CD11a decreases immunobiologic and clinical ac…

Comparison of centrifugation- and noncentrifugation-based techniques for recovery of motile human sperm in assisted reproduction.

To compare standard density gradient centrifugation sperm preparation with a novel non-centrifugation-based dual-chamber capillary dish in efficiency for motile human sperm separation, approximately 3 mL fresh ejaculate specimens was obtained from 21 men (…

Effect on treatment outcome of coinfection with SEN viruses in patients with hepatitis C.

The newly discovered SEN D and SEN H viruses are transmitted parenterally and can cause post-transfusion hepatitis. We assessed whether coinfection of patients with chronic hepatitis C and SEN D or SEN H correlates with the outcome of treatment with interf…

Immune and clinical responses in patients with metastatic melanoma to CD34(+) progenitor-derived dendritic cell vaccine.

Immunization to multiple defined tumor antigens for specific immune therapy of human cancer has thus far proven difficult. Eighteen HLA A*0201(+) patients with metastatic melanoma received injections s.c. of CD34(+)progenitor-derived autologous dendritic c…

A new approach to adjust for multivariate confounders in small randomized studies applied to dendritic cell vaccination data.

In small studies, randomization alone is unlikely to eliminate confounding. In linear models, confounding can be addressed by including additional dependent variables, adding covariates, or stratifying the data for the analysis. When the functional relatio…

Further thoughts about vaginal microbicide testing.

Effects of administration of a single dose of a humanized monoclonal antibody to CD11a on the immunobiology and clinical activity of psoriasis.

BACKGROUND: CD11a/CD18 comprise subunits of leukocyte function associated antigen (LFA-1), a T-cell surface molecule important in T-cell activation, T-cell emigration into skin, and cytotoxic T-cell function. OBJECTIVE: We explored the immunobiologic and c…

Dietary fat and risk of breast cancer.