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Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of orally administered Cymbopogon citratus, Zingiber officinale and Syzygium aromaticum essential oils (EOs) in mice infected with Trypanosoma cruzi.Methods: Three experiments were conducted with 48 Swiss mice each. The animals were inoculated with 2 x 106 metacyclic trypomastigotes of T. Cruzi Y-strain and allocated into the following groups (N = 12): 1) untreated control; 2) treated with benznidazole (BZ); 3) treated with EO 100 mg/kg; and 4) treated with EO 250 mg/kg. The groups were evaluated by fresh blood test, blood culture, conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR), real-time PCR and cure rate (CR).Results: All the animals were completely infected with T. cruzi. Treatment with C. citratus and Z. officinale EOs altered some of the parameters derived from the parasitemia curve, but CRs did not differ from BZ. Treatment with S. Aromaticum EO, on the other hand, not only altered all the parameters derived from the parasitemia curve, similar to BZ, but at the dose of 100 mg/kg, CR was also significantly higher than BZ.Conclusion: The results indicate that the essential oils tested, especially S. aromaticum, exhibited anti- Trypanosoma cruzi effect and therefore should be investigated for the treatment of Chagas disease.Keywords: Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, Cymbopogon citratus, Zingiber officinale, Syzygium aromaticum, Essential oils, Chemotherapy

No one today is surprised at constantly increasing costs of building, but this year's $39.22 per square foot is such a large increase over 1975 ($34.16) that one cannot but wonder how long such increases can continue. (Author)

Results of a nationwide survey of academic library building, additions, and renovating in 1977 indicate a downward trend. (KP)

This study investigated the future life style preferences of 118 undergraduate rehabilitation education majors at Pennsylvania State University. (Author)

The specific aims of the investigation reported in this book were: (1) to determine the consistency or change in personality and adjustment of older adults over time and to learn what factors are related to consistency or changes; (2) to study the problem of survivorship by analyzing differences between survivors in regard to socio-psychological correlates of survival; and (3) to investigate the social norms and expectations for the behavior of older persons, to learn how a small community regards its aged members. Chapters of the book are as follows: 1. The Research Problem: Stability and Survival of Older Community Residents; 2. The Setting and the Study Populations; 3. Continuity and Change in Personality and Adjustment; 4. Aging and Survival; 5. The Place of the Old in a Small Community; 6. Summary and Interpretation. The 12 appendixes are: A. Press Release, 1965; B. 1955 Information Sheet; C. 1955 Interview Schedule; D. 1956 Interview Schedule; E. Thematic Apperception Test Rating Sheet, and Outline for TAT analysis; F. The Judge's Rating; G. Interviewer's Report; H. Community Rating, Panelist Interview; I. Organization Leader Interview; J. Professional Services Interview, K. Community Rating, Q-Sort Items; and L. Community Rating, Q-Sort Recording Sheet. Numerous references and a subject index are provided. (DB)

Problems of training, retraining, and counseling older workers are examined in terms of some of their characteristics, such as slower work habits, decreased physical strength, adaptability, and lack of self confidence. Ways to compensate for possible handicaps through training and counseling are suggested. (Author)

It was concluded from the findings that instructors in rehabilitation setting vary significantly from their clients in perceptions of certain critical concepts related to the rehabilitation process. Some implications are discussed and tentative hypotheses are presented. (Author)

The data of the study indicated that the younger, less experienced interviewers were more effective in their counseling behavior than were the older, more experienced interviewers. Because of increased levels of rigidity and decreased levels of performance, training supervisors should not neglect the needs of older, more experienced personnel. (Author)

The ralationship between six demographic characteristics and perceptions of family dependence were investigated for 170 physically disabled adults using Osgood's semantic differential technique. Implications of these findings for rehabilitation practice and further research are presented. (Author)

This paper presents a framework which could be used by researchers to obtain descriptive and experimental data about the child-rearing practices of parents of disabled children. In addition, the authors suggest specific areas of research which might prove useful in assisting school psychologists to develop programs of counseling for the parents of such children. (Author)

This study reports the perceptions of 56 employment interviewers regarding the worker characteristics of males and females of varying ages. Results showed that significant main effects due to age were obtained on six questions. Females were seen as being more likely than males to be frequently absent from work and less likely than males to have the skills an employer would want. Implications of these findings are discussed. (Author)

High mobility group protein B1 (HMGB1) binds to the internucleosomal linker DNA in chromatin and abuts the nucleosome. Bending and untwisting of the linker DNA results in transmission of strain to the nucleosome core, disrupting histone/DNA contacts. An interaction between H3 and HMGB1 has been reported. Here we confirm and characterize the interaction of HMGB1 with H3, which lies close to the DNA entry/exit points around the nucleosome dyad, and may be responsible for positioning of HMGB1 on the linker DNA. We show that the interaction is between the N-terminal unstructured tail of H3 and the C-terminal unstructured acidic tail of HMGB1, which are presumably displaced from DNA and the HMG boxes, respectively, in the HMGB1-nucleosome complex. We have characterized the interaction by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and show that it is extensive for both peptides, and appears not to result in the acquisition of significant secondary structure by either partner.

[1] The atmosphere, hydrosphere, and cryosphere form a fully coupled climate system. This system exhibits a number of large‒scale phenomena, such as the El Nino–Southern Oscillation, the Asian Monsoon, the North Atlantic Oscillation, and the Madden‒Julian Oscillation. While these modes of variability are not exactly periodic, they are oscillatory in character, and their state is monitored using so‒called climate indices. Each of these scalar indices is a combination of several climate variables. Here we use a comprehensive set of 25 climate indices for time intervals that range between 1948 and 2011 and estimate an optimal set of lags between these indices to maximize their correlation. We show that most of the index pairs drawn from this set present a significant correlation on interannual time scales. It is also shown that on average, about two thirds of the total variability in each index can be described by using only the four leading principal components of the entire set of lagged indices. Our index set's leading orthogonal modes exhibit several interannual frequencies and capture separately variability associated with the North Atlantic and the North Pacific. These modes are associated, in turn, with large‒scale variations of sea surface temperatures.

The Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute (COPRI) within the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is working to produce guidance materials allowing engineers, owners and stakeholders to address the inclusion of sea-level change considerations during the design of marine civil works. The Committee serves the needs of all stakeholders involved in a marine project, with a focus on designers and engineers in particular. The manual will provide designers and engineers with systematic methods for the consideration of risks associated with the uncertainty of sea-level change affecting a facility and offer mechanisms for how to incorporate sea-level change projections into their project designs. Current scientific studies use different methods and data for calculation and thus global mean sea level rise estimates for 2100 generally range from 0.6 – 2.0 meters. However, planning for marine civil works should consider the local sea level scenarios and potential variations associated with regular, periodic water level changes (such as tides) and addressing probabilities associated with potential storm/flood events. In response to the significant challenge of addressing these issues and making sound decisions jointly with stakeholders to understand and manage risk, this Committee is developing recommendations to assist in managing design factors, uncertainty, and to a certain extent, measure implementation. This paper provides an overview of these issues and the recommendations that the Committee is developing.

International audience; RivFunction is a pan-European initiative that started in 2002 and was aimed at esta- blishing a novel functional-based approach to assessing the ecological status of rivers. Litter decomposition was chosen as the focal process because it plays a central role in stream ecosystems and is easy to study in the field. Impacts of two stressors that occur across the continent, nutrient pollution and modified riparian vegetation, were exam- ined at >200 paired sites in nine European ecoregions. In response to the former, decomposition was dramatically slowed at both extremes of a 1000-fold nutrient gra- dient, indicating nutrient limitation in unpolluted sites, highly variable responses across Europe in moderately impacted streams, and inhibition via associated toxic and addi- tional stressors in highly polluted streams. Riparian forest modification by clear cutting or replacement of natural vegetation by plantations (e.g. conifers, eucalyptus) or pasture produced similarly complex responses. Clear effects caused by specific riparian distur- bances were observed in regionally focused studies, but general trends across different types of riparian modifications were not apparent, in part possibly because of important indirect effects. Complementary field and laboratory experiments were undertaken to tease apart the mechanistic drivers of the continental scale field bioassays by addressing the influence of litter, fungal and detritivore diversity. These revealed generally weak and context-dependent effects on decomposition, suggesting high levels of redundancy (and hence potential insurance mechanisms that can mitigate a degree of species loss) within the food web. Reduced species richness consistently increased decomposition variability, if not the absolute rate. Further field studies were aimed at identifying impor- tant sources of this variability (e.g. litter quality, temporal variability) to help constrain ranges of predicted decomposition rates in different field situations. Thus, although many details still need to be resolved, litter decomposition holds considerable potential in some circumstances to capture impairment of stream ecosystem functioning. For instance, species traits associated with the body size and metabolic capacity of the con- sumers were often the main driver at local scales, and these were often translated into important determinants of otherwise apparently contingent effects at larger scales. Key insights gained from conducting continental scale studies included resolving the appar- ent paradox of inconsistent relationships between nutrients and decomposition rates, as the full complex multidimensional picture emerged from the large-scale dataset, of which only seemingly contradictory fragments had been seen previously.

RivFunction is a pan-European initiative that started in 2002 and was aimed at establishing a novel functional-based approach to assessing the ecological status of rivers. Litter decomposition was ...

From a survey of the literature on lightning characteristics, we present and discuss our recommendations for the median (50%) and severe (1%) values of the salient parameters of lightning current in both positive and negative cloud-to-ground discharges. We present general expressions, suitable for numerical simulation of lightning effects, for lightning current versus time, current derivative versus time, second current derivative versus time, charge transfer versus time, and action integral (specific energy) versus time. We give sets of constants for these expressions such that the resultant waveforms for positive and negative flashes and for their component strokes and continuing current exhibit approximately the median and severe lightning current parameters recommended, and otherwise resemble the measured waveforms found in the literature.