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Senior drivers are vulnerable to automobile crashes and subsequent injury and death. Safety belts reduce health risks associated with auto crashes. Therefore, it is important to encourage senior drivers to wear safety belts while driving. Using a repeated baseline design (AAB), we previously reported that motivating signs boosted safety belt usage by drivers exiting senior communities from baseline (72% and 68% usage), to postinstallation of signs (94%), to 6 months follow-up (80%). The current study was a 4-year follow-up in which six senior communities, with seat belt signs, were compared to six matched control senior communities with no signs. Safety belt usage was stable, across 4 years, at approximately 80% for both male and female drivers and front seat passengers for the six communities with signs, and was approximately 55% for control sites. These finding suggest that the simple and low-cost intervention of erecting signs to prompt safety belt use has persistent benefits that affect driver and passenger behavior alike.

Objectives This research examined main and moderating effects of global depressive symptoms upon in-the-moment associations of pain and affect among individuals with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Effects of depression on short-term change in pain and affect were also examined. Method Older adults with physician-confirmed OA (N = 325) completed a baseline interview tapping global depressive symptoms, followed by an experience sampling protocol that captured momentary pain and affect 4 times daily for 7 days. Multilevel models controlling demographics and health conditions examined main and moderating effects of depression on momentary associations of pain with positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA). Similar methods addressed short-term change in pain and affect. Auxiliary analyses explored broad associations of depressive symptoms with person-level averages and variability in pain and affect. Results Global depression predicted current pain, PA, and NA, as well as change in pain and affect over a 3- to 8-h period. Furthermore, both in the moment and over short periods, the association of pain and NA was stronger among persons higher in depressive symptoms. No moderating effect for the PA–pain association was found. Depressive symptoms were also associated with variability in pain and affect, particularly NA. Discussion Results confirm previous work on the relation of chronic pain with both global depressive symptoms and short-term affect. This research further demonstrates a unique moderating role of depression on the association of momentary pain with NA and suggests that the causal path may be stronger from pain to affect than vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Experiments were performed to isolate and characterize 10 complementation groups of Hansenula polymorpha mutants with reduced or undetectable nitrate reductase (NR) activities. Results showed that while NR activity is only induced in the presence of nitrate, the presence of ammonium or other reduced nitrogen sources inhibits this activity. These findings indicate that NR synthesis was dependent on the repression mechanisms produced by ammonium and the induction phenomena induced by nitrate.

Structural change caused by the mutation of PNM2 phenotype in S. cerevisiae transforms the affinity of SUP35 for PSi protein, leading to eventual elimination of Psi element. SUF12 mutation in the N-domain of SUP-35 results in frameshift suppression, which does not cause termination. The C-terminal domain imposes chain termination fidelity. The two terminals of SUP35 act in an antagonistic manner. Comparative levels of N- and C- terminal domains of SUP35p at the ribosome can modulate translation fidelity.

Senior drivers are vulnerable to automobile crashes and subsequent injury and death. Safety belts reduce health risks associated with auto crashes. Therefore, it is important to encourage senior drivers to wear safety belts while driving. Using an AB design, replicated five times, we evaluated the short- and long-term effects of a sign with the message 'BUCKLE UP, STAY SAFE' attached to a stop sign at the exits of five different senior communities. Safety belt use was stable during two pretreatment assessments averaged across the five sites and 250 drivers (72% and 68% usage), but significantly increased following installation of these signs (94% usage). Six months after installation of the signs, the effect persisted (88% usage). Use of such signs may be a cost-effective way of promoting safety belt use. DESCRIPTORS: safety belts, geriatrics, prompts, driving, risk prevention

The cytoplasmic heritable determinant [[PSI.sup.+]] of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae reflects the prion-like properties of the chromosome-encoded protein Sup35p. This protein is known to be an essential eukaryote polypeptide release factor, namely eRF3. In a [[PSI.sup.+]] background, the prion conformer of Sup35p forms large oligomers, which results in the intracellular depletion of functional release factor and hence inefficient translation termination. We have investigated the process by which the [[PSI.sup.+]] determinant can be efficiently eliminated from strains, by growth in the presencE, of the protein denaturant guanidine hydrochloride (GuHCI). Strains are 'cured' of [[PSI.sup.+]] by millimolar concentrations of GuHCI, well below that normally required for protein denaturation. Here we provide evidence indicating that the elimination of the [[PSI.sup.+]] determinant is not derived from the direct dissolution of self-replicating [[PSI.sup.+]] seeds by GuHCI. Although GuHCI does elicit a moderate stress response, the elimination of [[PSI.sup.+]] is not enhanced by stress, and furthermore, exhibits an absolute requirement for continued cell division. We propose that GuHCI inhibits a critical event in the propagation of the prion conformer and demonstrate that the kinetics of curing by GuHCI fit a random segregation model whereby the heritable [[PSI.sup.+]] element is diluted from a culture, after the total inhibition of prion replication by GuHCI.

The ability of a yeast cell to propagate [ PSI+], the prion form of the Sup35 protein, is dependent on the molecular chaperone Hsp104. Inhibition of Hsp104 function in yeast cells leads to a failure to generate new propagons, the molecular entities necessary for [ PSI+] propagation in dividing cells and they get diluted out as cells multiply. Over-expression of Hsp104 also leads to [ PSI+] prion loss and this has been assumed to arise from the complete disaggregation of the Sup35 prion polymers. However, in conditions of Hsp104 over-expression in [ PSI+] cells we find no release of monomers from Sup35 polymers, no monomerization of aggregated Sup35 which is not accounted for by the proportion of prion-free [ psi-] cells present, no change in the molecular weight of Sup35-containing SDS-resistant polymers and no significant decrease in average propagon numbers in the population as a whole. Furthermore, they show that over-expression of Hsp104 does not interfere with the incorporation of newly synthesised Sup35 into polymers, nor with the multiplication of propagons following their depletion in numbers while growing in the presence of guanidine hydrochloride. Rather, they present evidence that over-expression of Hsp104 causes malpartition of [ PSI+] propagons between mother and daughter cells in a sub-population of cells during cell division thereby generating prion-free [ psi−] cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]