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Aims To determine the efficacy and patient perception of various transfer procedures from paediatric to adult diabetes services. Methods Comparison between four districts in the Oxford Region employing different transfer methods, by retrospective study of case records and interviews of patients recently transferred from paediatric diabetes clinics. The main outcome measures were age at transfer, clinic attendance rates, HbA1c measurements and questionnaire responses. Results Two hundred and twenty-nine subjects (57% males) > 18 years old in 1998 and diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes

An etched long-period grating was used as a refractive index sensor for vapours of four volatile organic compounds, i.e. m-xylene, cyclohexane, trichloroethylene and commercial gasoline. The sensitivity to the vapours was further increased by solid-phase microextraction into a coating made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/polymethyl-octylsiloxane (PMOS) co-polymer. By further amplification of the optical loss in an optical cavity made of two identical fiber-Bragg gratings and interrogation by phase-shift cavity ring-down spectroscopy we could detect and distinguish xylene (detection limit: 134 ppm) from trichloroethylene (3300 ppm), cyclohexane (1850 ppm) and gasoline (10,500 ppm).

The contour lithography method [1] is used to improve the fabrication yield of previously demonstrated [2] microfluidic Fabry-Perot (FP) refractive index (RI) sensors. The sensors are then coated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based polymers to detect vapor analytes by solid-phase microextraction (SPME). Preliminary characterization of devices coated with two different polymers and exposed to xylenes vapors yields a maximum sensitivity of 0.015 nm/ppm and a detection limit below 120 ppm.

PURPOSE: To evaluate patients with known hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, some with known anosmia, for defective rhinocephalon development that resulted in olfactory tract abnormalities, an affliction known as Kallmann syndrome. METHODS: Six patients who clinically had hypogonadotropic hypogonadism were examined by MR. Thin coronal images of the interior frontal region were used to determine presence or absence of olfactory tract and to evaluate the olfactory sulci. RESULTS: Olfactory tracts were not seen in three of the six cases; two of which had hypoplastic olfactory sulci. CONCLUSIONS: T1-weighted MR examination of the inferior frontal region in the coronal plane can help determine whether a patient with hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, with or without clinically evident anosmia, is afflicted with Kallmann syndrome.

RNases and chemical probes were used to study the accessibility of each nucleotide of 5S RNA in the native and reconstituted 7S particle from Xenopus laevis oocytes. RNase or chemically treated 5S RNA from intact 7S particles was isolated and analysed using an oligodeoxynucleotide primer and reverse transcriptase. The results were superimposed on a cylindrical projection of an RNA double helix and the protection effects were shown to cluster at two regions on the molecular surface. A three-dimensional model is proposed for the 7S particle in which protein-RNA contacts occur mainly in the major groove of 5S RNA.

A comparison is made between the electron density maps of the monoclinic and orthorhombic crystal forms of yeast tRNA Phe which have been obtained respectively by ourselves and by another group. It is concluded that the molecular structures are essentially the same in both crystals, although the models derived from the maps are not the same. The relation between the two molecular packings is discussed, and it is suggested that the intermolecular contact in the orthorhombic form which is not present in the monoclinic form, may arise through base pairing of the anticodons of neighboring molecules.