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The purpose of this secondary data analysis of findings from a larger procedural pain study was to examine several factors related to pain during tracheal suctioning. In addition to tracheal suctioning, other procedures studied included turning, wound drain removal, femoral catheter removal, placement of a central venous catheter, and wound dressing change. A total of 755 patients underwent the tracheal suctioning procedure that was performed primarily in intensive care units (93%). A 0-10 numeric rating scale, a behavioural observation tool, and a modified McGill Pain Questionnaire-Short Form were used for pain assessment. Pain intensity scores were significantly greater during the tracheal suctioning procedure (M=3.96, S.D.=3.3) than prior to (M=2.14, S.D.=2.8) or after (M=1.98, S.D.=2.7) tracheal suctioning. Few patients received analgesics prior to or during the procedure. Surgical, younger, and non-white patients reported higher pain intensities. Although mean pain intensity during tracheal suctioning was mild, almost the half of the patients reported moderate-to-severe pain. Individualized pain management must be performed by healthcare providers in order to respond to patients' needs as they undergo painful procedures such as tracheal suctioning.

Ideally biosignatures can be detected at the early infection phase and used both for developing diagnostic patterns and for prognostic triage. Such biosignatures are important for vaccine validation and to provide risk stratification to a population such as for the identification of individuals who are exposed to biological or chemical agents and who are at high risk for developing an infection. The research goal is to detect broad based biosignature models and is initially focused on developing effective computer-augmented pathology tied to animal models developed at the University of New Mexico (UNM). Using lung tissue from infected and nai ve mice, feature extraction from images of the tissue under a specialized microscope, and Bayesian networks to analyze the data sets of features, we were able to differentiate normal from diseased samples and viral from bacterial samples in mid to late stages of infection. This effort has shown the potential effectiveness of computer-augmented pathology in this application. The extended research intends to couple analysis of serum, microarray analysis of organs, proteomic data and the pathology. The rational for the current invasive procedure on animal models is to facilitate the development of data analysis and machine learning techniques that can eventually be generalized to the task of discovering non-invasive and early stage biosignatures for human models.

Little is known about the control of cell cycle exit/G(0) entry, or the regulation of genes that are expressed during G(0). In this report we used primer extension analysis to demonstrate the high level of C/EBPdelta mRNA expression in G(0) growth-arrested HC11 mouse mammary epithelial cells and to identify the C/EBPdelta transcription start site. The C/EBPdelta gene transcription rate and promoter activity are both highly induced in G(0) growth-arrested HC11 cells. The C/EBPdelta gene promoter also exhibits G(0)-specific autoregulation. In contrast, the C/EBPdelta promoter activity decreases in G(0) growth-arrested NIH 3T3 cells. These data indicate that C/EBPdelta is among a relatively small number of genes actively transcribed during G(0) growth arrest. C/EBPdelta may regulate the expression of genes implicated in the initiation or maintenance of mammary epithelial cell G(0) growth arrest., (Copyright 1999 Academic Press.)

(-)-1-Cyclopropylmethyl-4-(3-trifluoromethylthio-5H-dibenzo [a,d]cyclohepten-5-ylidene)piperidine (MK-160) was extracted from human plasma and urine with petroleum ether and quantitated by GLC using a nitrogen-sensitive detector. A homologue of the drug served as the internal standard. The method is specific for the drug in the presence of potential metabolites and is capable of measuring concentrations in plasma as low as 6 ng/ml.

A method for the determination of cyproheptadine in plasma and urine was developed using the N -ethyl homologue as an internal standard. After extraction of the drug from an alkalinized sample into petroleum ether-isoamyl alcohol, back-extraction into 0.1 N HCl, washing the aqueous phase with fresh solvent, re-extraction into petroleum ether after alkalinization, the solvent was evaporated. The reconstituted residue was analyzed by GLC using a SP-2250 column and nitrogen-sensitive detector. Concentrations as low as 3 ng/ml could be determined. Plots of peak area of cyproheptadine-peak area of internal standard versus cyproheptadine concentration were linear over the range studied with correlation coefficients of 0.9945 and 0.9924 for plasma and urine, respectively. The method was used to determine the peak time (0.5 hr), peak concentration (33 ng/ml average), and apparent half-life (3 hr) in two dogs after oral administration of 1 mg of cyproheptadine/kg.