Usefulness of ferroxidase activity of ceruloplasmin in the diagnosis of Wilson’s disease

Serum ceruloplasmin is one of the most commonly used screening tests for Wilson’s disease. However immunological assays for ceruloplasmin are not recommended for diagnosis and management of Wilson’s disease through calculation of free copper index. Enzymatic methods using non-physiological substrates have toxicity and stability problems, making them difficult to automate. Ferroxidase assays may be a satisfactory alternative for measuring serum ceruloplasmin. The o-dianisidine hydrochloride manual method for estimation of serum ceruloplasmin enzyme activity was compared with an automated method using the ferroxidase activity of ceruloplasmin in measurement in a double blind study in 91 consecutive patients screened for Wilson’s disease. The o-dianisidine and ferroxidase methods both successfully identified 7 patients with Wilson’s disease. Values for these 7 patients in the o-dianisidine and ferroxidase methods were median 5.0 (range 0–16.0 U/L) and median 45.0 (range 4–166 U/L) respectively. There were 7 other positive values (<62 U/L) with the o-diansidine method and 2 (<200 U/L) with the ferroxidase method, where WD was not confirmed. ROC curves for both methods showed area under the curve of 0.998 for o-dianisidine and 0.997 for ferroxidase. Using literature cut off values of 62 U/L and 200 U/L respectively both methods had 100% sensitivity and specificity was 91.7% (o-dianisidine) and 97.6% (ferroxidase). For the o-dianisidine assay, specificity was improved to 98.8% using a cut off of 22.5 U/L. In the 84 persons (46 adults and 38 children) in whom the diagnosis of Wilson’s disease was not established, the mean value for ceruloplasmin activity by the o-dianisidine and ferroxidase methods was 124.7 ± 48.7 U/L and 571.4 ± 168.1 U/L respectively. There were no significant differences between sex or age of patients (p > 0.29). In a subsequent evaluation with 372 specimens, the Pearson correlation coefficient between the assays was 0.908, p < 0.01, slope 4.06, intercept 265.8, with the manual assay as the x-axis. The ferroxidase assay is a suitable replacement for the o-dianisidine assay in detecting patients with Wilson’s disease.     

On the Edge of Mathematics and Biology Integration: Improving Quantitative Skills in Undergraduate Biology Education

The feature describes two major efforts to integrate mathematics and biology. A call is made to biologists to consider the need to address biology undergraduate education changes and to use the resources described.     

Learner Autonomy and ICT: A Web-based Course of English for Psychology

The purpose of this paper is to show how the use of the World Wide Web (WWW) as a tool may change not only the contents, but also the teaching procedures and the scope of the material covered, as well as its relevance for the students of a discipline which is no exclusively focused on English. In class we use the WWW as a source of authentic material for the study of English in the field of psychology. The students have access to current on-line material, and they can work with such diverse web sites as departments of psychology web sites, on-line atlases of the brain, resource web sites, career orientation and professional information web sites, etc. By so doing, the students become proficient in English and become also acquainted with vocabulary related to their main discipline, i.e. psychology. The result is a more dynamic approach to teaching English, so that the students gain autonomy, with the instructor acting only as co-ordinator, supervisor and tutor.

L'autonomie de l'enseigné et les ICT: un cours Web en Anglais sur la psychologie

Le but de cet article est de montrer comment l'utilisation du Web comme outil peut changer non seulement les contenus, mais aussi les procédures d'enseignement et l'importance des documents convus aussi bien que son adaptation pour les étudiants d'une discipline qui n'est pas centrée exclusivement sur l'Anglais. En classe, nous utilisons le Web comme source des documents authentiques pour l'étude de l'Anglais dans le domaine de a psychologie. Les étudiants ont accès aux documents en ligne et ils peuvent travailler avec des sites web divers comme ceux des départements de psychologie des atlas en ligne du cerveaux, des sites de ressources, des sites d'orientation des carrières et d'information professionnelle, etc. Ce faisant, les étudiants deviennent compétant en Anglais et s'habitent au vocabulaire de leur discipline principale, la psychologie. Le résultat est une approche plus dynamique de l'enseignement de l'Anglais de sorte que les étudiants acquièrent une autonomie, l'instructeur agissant seulement comme coordinateur, superviseur et tuteur.

Lerner-Autonomie und IKT: Ein webbasierter Englischkurs für Psychologie

Dieses Papier soll zeigen, wie durch die Nutzung des World Wide Web als Tool u.U. nicht nur der Inhalt sondern auch Unterrichtsschritte und das benutzte Lernmaterial sich ändern kann, wie auch seine Bedeutung für Studenten einer Disziplin, die keineswegs auf Englisch ausgerichtet ist. Im Unterricht benutzen wir das WWW als Quelle für authentisches Material für das Studium von Englisch im Bereich der Psychologie. Die Studenten haben Zugang zu aktuellem Online-Material und können mit diversen Websites von Psychologie Departments, Online-Atlanten des Gehirns, Quellen- und Hilfsmittel-Websites, Berufswahl- und Berufsinformations-Websites usw. Dadurch werden die Studenten erfahrener im Gebrauch des Englischen und erhalten dabei gleichzeitig Vertrautheit mit den Fachbegriffen ihres Studienfachs, z.B. Psychologie. Als Resultat profitiert auch der Englisch- Unterricht , so daß die Studenten selbständiger werden und der Unterrichtende mehr als Koordinator, Superviser und Tutor tätig werden kann.     

Team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender: An examination of U.S. and Mexican learning teams

Team learning is growing rapidly in popularity in United States (U.S.) and Mexican universities. This instructional approach consists of using learning teams in which participants are required to work together regularly for a semester period of time and produce evaluated team outcomes. These team outcomes, along with their individual performance, have a significant impact on each individual's final assessment. We compare team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender interaction in Mexican and U.S. student teams. U.S. teams report more team-oriented behavior and more cohesiveness, and Mexican teams report more self-oriented behavior and more conflict. Nationality (United States or Mexico) has a moderating effect on the relationship between gender heterogeneity and cohesiveness and conflict. Suggestions are given for applications and future research.     

Credit card incidents and control systems

Credit and debit cards have spread and skyrocketed all around the world to become the most popular means of payments in many countries. Despite their enormous popularity, cards are not free of risk. Technology development and e-commerce have exponentially increased internal credit card incidents. This paper identifies and quantifies the different types of credit card fraud and puts into question the effectiveness of the role assigned to cardholders in its detection.     

A study of awareness in multimedia search

Awareness of another’s activity is an important aspect of facilitating collaboration between users, enabling an “understanding of the activities of others” (Dourish & Bellotti, 1992). In this paper we investigate the role of awareness and its effect on search performance and behaviour in collaborative multimedia retrieval. We focus on the scenario where two users are searching at the same time on the same task, and via an interface, can see the activity of the other user. The main research question asks: does awareness of another searcher aid a user when carrying out a multimedia search session?To encourage awareness, an experimental study was designed where two users were asked to compete to find as many relevant video shots as possible under different awareness conditions. These were individual search (no awareness), Mutual awareness (where both users could see the other’s search screen), and unbalanced awareness (where one user is able to see the other’s screen, but not vice-versa). Twelve pairs of users were recruited, and the four worst performing TRECVID 2006 search topics were used as search tasks, under four different awareness conditions. We present the results of this study, followed by a discussion of the implications for multimedia information retrieval systems.     

Kinematic analysis of the standing long jump in children 6- to 12-years-old

The purpose of this study was to analyze the kinematic variables that determine the performance of the standing long jump in children 6- to 12-years-old. There were 121 healthy children (58 girls) recorded while they performed the standing long jump test. All kinematic variables showed a significant correlation with calculated jump distance and measured jump distance, except for the knee joint angle at maximum shoulder extension angle, ankle joint angle at maximum shoulder extension angle, and shoulder joint angle at maximum knee flexion angle. Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that sex, age, and body mass index accounted for 51.1% of the jump distance variance. Among all the kinematic variables, take-off distance and take-off speed were accounted for the most of the variation in the jump distance. Physical education teachers and coaches should consider special attention to these anthropometrics and kinematic aspects in improving the standing long jump performance in children.     

Acculturation process of Colombian immigrants into the American culture in Bergen County,New Jersey

This research was conducted to analyze the acculturation process of Colombian immigrants in the Hackensack area of Bergen County, New Jersey. The instrument used to measure acculturation was a questionnaire developed by Szapocznik et al. (1978). The subjects were 218 Colombian immigrants placed in age categories from 13 to 68 years, and 70 native American high school students, as the reference group. The study addressed three questions: (1) Is there any relationship between acculturation of the immigrants and the length of time they reside m the new culture? (2) Does age affect the process of acculturation? (3) Is sex a factor in the process of acculturation? The results of the study showed that (1) acculturation appeared to progress as a function of the length of time Colombian immigrants resided in the host culture (2) the degree of acculturation appeared to be a function of the age of the Colombian immigrants, and (3) generally, males appeared to acculturate more than females. Young males appeared to acculturate more than young females on the behavioral scale. However, in the value scale, young Colombian females appeared to move more readily toward the American reference groups than did young Colombian mates.