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Biomedical subjects

H M Wood

Publications and source records attributed to H M Wood.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Cloning of the CYP51 gene from the eyespot pathogen Tapesia yallundae indicates that resistance to the DMI fungicide prochloraz is not related to sequence changes in the gene encoding the target site enzyme.

Resistance to sterol 14 alpha-demethylase inhibitor (DMI) fungicides has been correlated with mutations in the CYP51 gene encoding the target enzyme eburicol 14 alpha-demethylase. CYP51 was isolated from the eyespot pathogen Tapesia yallundae revealing a predicted 526-amino acid product exhibiting homology to other fungal CYP51s. CYP51 was sequenced from four field isolates sensitive or resistant to the DMI fungicide prochloraz and partially sequenced from two further isolates and eight progeny from a cross between prochloraz-sensitive and -resistant parents. Two alleles of the gene were detected termed CYP51-1 and CYP51-2. No correlation was found between sequence change and fungicide sensitivity. Therefore prochloraz resistance involved a mechanism other than mutation in the target site gene.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMed1996

Differences in visuospatial judgement in reading-disabled and normal children.

Both visual and verbal impairments have been reported in two independent streams of research into the etiology of dyslexia or reading-disability. To address the question of the presence of either abnormality in reading-disabled children, visuospatial and phonological ability were assessed and contrasted in 39 Normal and 26 Reading-disabled children. To assess whether these deficits are unique to dyslexia, scores were also compared to those of a group of 12 Poor Readers ("garden-variety" backward readers with low IQs). The Benton Judgement of Line Orientation Test was used for its simplicity and clinical reliability: Reading-disabled subjects performed significantly worse than Normal readers (but similar to Poor Readers). Reading-disabled subjects performed worse for lines in the left-hemifield compared to Normal subjects and also had a greater tendency to scan the task in reverse order (left-to-right) from the usual right-to-left scanning pattern observed in the Normal group when performing this test. When both verbal and visuospatial variables were combined in a multiple regression analysis, 71% of reading variance could be accounted for. These results suggest that Reading-disabled children not only have poor phonological awareness, but they also show visuospatial deficits. However, poor performance on both these tasks was also observed in the group of Poor Readers, suggesting that these deficits are not unique to children with specific reading disability. The results lend further evidence to the hypothesis that reading disability cannot solely be attributed to left-hemisphere dysfunction resulting in phonological impairment. There are other behavioral deficits, possibly caused by a common mechanism, some of which, like visuospatial ability, can be measured by simple behavioral tests such as the Judgment of Line Orientation Test.

Child↗
PubMed1995

Promotion of women physicians in academic medicine. Glass ceiling or sticky floor?

OBJECTIVE: To assess possible explanations for the finding that the percentage of women medical school faculty members holding associate or full professor rank remains well below the percentage of men. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey of physician faculty of US medical schools using the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) database. SUBJECTS: Surveyed were 153 women and 263 men first appointed between 1979 and 1981, matched for institutions of original faculty appointment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Academic rank achieved, career preparation, academic resources at first appointment, familial responsibilities, and academic productivity. RESULTS: After a mean of 11 years on a medical school faculty, 59% of women compared with 83% of men had achieved associate or full professor rank, and 5% of women compared with 23% of men had achieved full professor rank. Women and men reported similar preparation for an academic career, but women began their careers with fewer academic resources. The number of children was not associated with rank achieved. Women worked about 10% fewer hours per week and had authored fewer publications. After adjustment for productivity factors, women remained less likely to be associate or full professors (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.37; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.21 to 0.66) or to achieve full professor rank (adjusted OR = 0.27; 95% CI, 0.12 to 0.63). Based on the AAMC database, 50% of both women and men originally appointed as faculty members between 1979 and 1981 had left academic medicine by 1991. CONCLUSION: Women physician medical school faculty are promoted more slowly than men. Gender differences in rank achieved are not explained by productivity or by differential attrition from academic medicine.

Career Mobility↗
PubMed1995

Temporal and spatial processing in reading disabled and normal children.

The ability to process temporal and spatial visual stimuli was studied to investigate the role these functions play in the reading process. Previous studies of this type have often been confounded by memory involvement, or did not take into account the evidence which suggests a visual transient deficient in some dyslexics. Normal (n = 39), reading disabled (n = 26), and backward reading children (n=12) were compared on a visual computer game, which consisted of a temporal and a analogous spatial dot counting task. Reading disabled children performed significantly worse than normal children on the Temporal Dot Task, but were only mildly impaired on the Spatial Dot Task, Backward readers were not significantly better than the reading disabled group on either task, suggesting that poor poor visual temporal processing is not specific to dyslexia. In a group of 93 children, a regression model including age, verbal IQ, phonological awareness, and visual temporal processing ability, predicted 73% of the variance of reading ability. The results suggest that dyslexics perform worse in tasks that require fast, sequential processing and that this impairment may be partially responsible for their reading difficulties.

Attention↗
PubMed1994

Differences in eye movements and reading problems in dyslexic and normal children.

It has been suggested that eye movement abnormalities seen in dyslexics are attributable to their language problems. In order to investigate this claim, we studied eye movements in dyslexic children, during several non-reading tasks. Dyslexic children were compared to normal and backward readers on measures of fixation, vergence amplitude, saccade and smooth pursuit. The results were compared to the children's phonological ability. Dyslexic children (n = 26) had significantly worse eye movement stability during fixation of small targets than normal children (n = 39). Vergence amplitudes were lower for dyslexics than for controls. A qualitative assessment of saccadic eye movements revealed that dyslexics exhibit fixation instability at the end of saccades. Assessment of smooth pursuit revealed poor smooth pursuit in the dyslexic group, particularly when pursuing a target moving from left to right. Dyslexic children also performed significantly worse than normal children on a test of phonological awareness (Pig Latin). Eye movement results were studied in the light of the findings on phonological awareness: dyslexics with small vergence amplitudes also always have poor phonemic awareness. However, poor fixation control is found in dyslexics with or without poor phonological ability. The backward reading children performed similar to the dyslexics on all tests, suggesting that the deficiencies observed in this study are not specific to children with dyslexia. The problems experienced by the children (revealed by a questionnaire) are in agreement with those measured in terms of eye movement recordings and phonemic awareness. Sex, handedness, IQ or the presence of attention deficit disorder (ADD) did not appear to influence the children's performances on any of the eye movement tasks. The presence of oculomotor abnormalities in a non-reading task strongly suggests that the underlying deficit in the control of eye movements seen in dyslexics is not caused by language problems alone.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗