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F Matthews

Publications and source records attributed to F Matthews.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Depression in the elderly: pathological study of raphe and locus ceruleus.

Depressive symptoms in the elderly are common and disabling and constitute a risk factor for the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD). One hypothesis worth exploring is that depression in the elderly is related to development of AD pathology at subcortical sites before such pathology develops in the hippocampus and neocortex. We describe here an autopsy study of the locus ceruleus (LC) and raphe nuclei (RN) in nine subjects with depression and 18 age and sex matched controls that were included in a community-based study of cognitive function and ageing (MRC-CFAS). We found no relationship between depression and (1) mean counts of serotonergic or total RN neuronal profiles (2) noradrenergic or total LC neuronal profiles (3) counts of neurofibrillary tangles in these nuclei, or (4) size of neurones in the RN. Nor were these parameters related to age or sex of the subjects. We conclude that depression in the elderly is unlikely to be related to RN or LC neurone counts or RN cell size or to AD-type pathology in these nuclei. However, because of the small numbers of cases studied and our inability to carry out a full stereological study because of tissue limitations the findings are preliminary.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1999

Peripheral database module for clinical management and research in sleep medicine.

Hospital-wide information systems may provide economical solutions for communication processes or for documentation by means of centralized digital medical records. Within a large university hospital, however, there may be too many diverse subspecialties and too many special medical procedures to be supported comprehensively by a single database information system. A peripheral modular system has been tailored to the specific needs of a sleep disorder clinic as an adjunct to the main clinical information system. The client server application allows for automatic data acquisition by on-line devices and by a graphical user interface. It supports administrative tasks for patient management, specific encounter interactions and data retrieval for research. Performance and acceptance of the system was assessed during clinical use, revealing positive response by the users, also with respect to significant time savings. Our experience suggests that the concept of peripheral database modules as "satellites" to a main clinical system provides flexibility in design and implementation of the specialized databases while providing access to data of more general relevance via the main database.

Database Management Systems↗
PubMed1993

Rural population mixing and childhood leukaemia: effects of the North Sea oil industry in Scotland, including the area near Dounreay nuclear site.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if any excess of childhood leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was associated with certain striking examples of population mixing in rural Scotland produced by the North Sea oil industry. DESIGN: Details were traced for over 30,000 workers involved in the construction of the large oil terminals in the Shetland and Orkney islands in northern Scotland or employed offshore. Home addresses of the 17,160 Scottish residents were postcoded, integrated with census data, and then classified as urban or rural. Rural postcode sectors, ranked by proportion of oil workers, were grouped into three categories with similar numbers of children but contrasting densities of oil workers. The incidence of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was examined in these rural (and also in urban) categories in the periods 1974-8, 1979-83 and 1984-8. SETTING: Scotland. SUBJECTS: Young people below age 25. RESULTS: A significant excess of leukaemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was found in 1979-83 in the group of rural home areas with the largest proportion of oil workers, following closely on large increases in the workforce. The area near the Dounreay nuclear installation, where an excess of leukaemia is already well known, was within the rural high oil category. CONCLUSION: The findings support the infection hypothesis that population mixing can increase the incidence of childhood leukaemia in rural areas. They also suggest that the recent excess in the Dounreay-Thurso area is due to population mixing linked to the oil industry, promoted by certain unusual local demographic factors.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Application of fourth derivative absorption spectroscopy to protein quantitation during purification.

A method for protein quantitation in the presence of nonprotein cellular components is described. The method is based on measurement of two tryptophan-specific signals in the fourth derivative of the protein's ultraviolet absorption spectrum, a peak at 283 nm and a trough at 288 nm. The amplitude between these two extremes is shown to vary linearly with protein concentration for bovine serum albumin and the outer membrane vesicles of Neissera meningitidis even when these protein solutions are supplemented with enough nucleic acid to completely obscure the parent absorption spectrum of the protein. The utility of this method as an in-process assay during isolation of a protein is demonstrated by comparing estimates of protein content from fourth derivative spectroscopy with those from the Lowry assay for samples at several steps along the isolation pathway for outer membrane vesicles of N. meningitidis. The advantages and limitations of the present method are discussed.

Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins↗
PubMed1979

A Legionella-like bacterium related to WIGA in a fatal case of pneumonia.

An unusual bacterium serologically related to a "rickettsia-like agent," designated previously as WIGA, was seen in lung tissue from a patient who died of pneumonia of unknown cause. A fluorescent antibody conjugate prepared with the WIGA organism, isolated in 1959, was used to stain the lung tissue. Enormous numbers of fluorescent bacteria in the lungs of this patient confirm the pathogenicity of this unusual bacterium.

Bacteria↗