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Biomedical subjects

S Noble

Publications and source records attributed to S Noble.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

Structure of the pinworm (Oxyurida: Nematoda) guild in the hindgut of the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana.

The pinworm (Oxyurida: Nematoda) guild in a laboratory colony of Periplaneta americana was investigated to answer the following questions. (1) Is guild structure stable with time? (2) Is there evidence of interaction among the species? (3) Is there evidence for niche diversification with respect to spatial distribution or developmental stage of host? Four species were found: Thelastoma periplaneticola, Thelastoma bulhoesi, Hammerschmidtiella diesingi and Leidynema appendiculatum; females of the first two could not be distinguished and they were lumped and referred to as Thelastoma sp.; 328 mid-instar hosts were dissected between September 1987 and February 1990, and the number of adult females of each pinworm species was recorded to investigate changes in guild structure through time. Seventy-five percent of hosts had Thelastoma sp., 62% had H. diesingi and 40% had L. appendiculatum; mean intensities were 6.5 (Thelastoma), 2.9 (H. diesingi) and 1.9 (L. appendiculatum). Relative numbers were stable with time and intensities of the species were similar whether they occurred alone in the host or in conjunction with other species. Thelastoma sp. and L. appendiculatum occurred together less often than expected and their numbers in individual hosts were negatively correlated. Both species occurred alone more often than expected. Surprisingly, H. diesingi and L. appendiculatum occurred together more often than expected. Intestines of 44 roaches were frozen in liquid nitrogen and divided into 5 equal sections to study longitudinal distributions of the species in the gut. Most L. appendiculatum and H. diesingi were found in the first, whereas most Thelastoma sp. occurred in the second segment. However, Thelastoma sp. dominated all segments of the gut. Worms were counted in 192 hosts belonging to 4 categories (early instar, late instar, adult male and adult female). Single species infections were more common in early instar hosts but there was no evidence that different species preferred different host stages. Modal distributions in male L. appendiculatum and T. bulhoesi suggest that these species may exhibit intraspecific interference competition similar to that observed in other pinworms. Such effects may be more important than interspecific effects in maintaining guild stability.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

Transmission pattern and intraspecific competition as determinants of population structure in pinworms (Oxyurida: Nematoda).

The transmission pattern of Zonothrix columbianus (Nematoda: Oxyurida) in its host Tropisternus columbianus (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae), an aquatic beetle, was studied to determine whether parasites were dispersed with their hosts and to examine the possible role of intraspecific competition in limiting population size. Beetles were sampled at regular intervals from fall 1986 through fall 1989 and examined for worms. Worms, absent in larval stages of the host, were uncommon in newly metamorphosed beetles and therefore probably do not infect adult stages until after they have dispersed; worms are not dispersed with the host. Prevalence reached its lowest points in spring and fall when newly metamorphosed beetles were most common, but it was near 100% for most of the year. Worms were uniformly distributed in the host population. Many hosts had exactly 1 male and 1 female worm; the high prevalence suggests that this infrahost population results from interference competition between males on the one hand and females on the other. Only 3 of 285 beetles contained more than 1 male. Females shared the host with members of the same sex more commonly than males, but females from hosts harboring more than 1 female had significantly fewer eggs than lone females in hosts. Numbers of adult stages of beetles were estimated during spring, summer, and fall of 1989 and were lower in early spring and late fall. Because worms do not disperse with hosts, the panmictic unit could be estimated from the number of infected beetles; this probably was about 50 individuals during the winter bottleneck.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1990

House officer responses to impaired physicians.

Although physician impairment may have substantial personal and clinical consequences, it is commonly held that physicians fail to act in the case of impaired colleagues. To learn about initial responses when confronted with impaired house officers and attending physicians, we administered five case scenarios to all 76 internal medicine house officers at a large, urban, teaching hospital. House officer responses to an alcohol-impaired physician differed depending on whether that physician was an attending physician or a house officer. Seventy-two percent of house officers would tell the chief resident about the alcohol-impaired attending physician, whereas 96% would confront the alcohol-impaired house officer personally. The most common response to the incompetent attending physician (67%) and the incompetent house officer (49%) was to tell the chief resident; only 25% would confront an incompetent house officer. In contrast, 71% would confront a depressed house officer.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1989

Thrombin is an important mediator of platelet aggregation in stenosed canine coronary arteries with endothelial injury.

Cyclic variations in coronary blood flow (CFVs) in dogs with experimental coronary artery stenosis and endothelial injury appear to result primarily from the aggregation of platelets at the site of stenosis followed by dislodgement and distal embolization. Using this canine model, we tested the hypotheses: (a) that thrombin is an important mediator of CFVs in dogs with coronary stenoses and endothelial injury; (b) that inhibition of thrombin with heparin, or MCI-9038, a selective thrombin inhibitor, abolishes CFVs in this model; and (c) that abolition of CFVs by thrombin inhibition is time dependent. CFVs, produced in open-chest dogs by placing a flow-reducing plastic constrictor around the left anterior coronary artery, were monitored for either 30 min (group I) or 3 h (group II) before treatment with either heparin or 4-methyl-1-(N2-[(3-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-8-quinolinyl (MCI-9038). In group I, cyclic flow variations were abolished by heparin in 12 of 18 dogs and by MCI-9038 in 5 of 7 dogs. In group II, cyclic flow variations were not abolished by heparin in any of seven dogs and were abolished by MCI-9038 in only one of seven dogs. Thus, (a) thrombin appears to be an important mediator of cyclic flow variations in dogs with coronary artery stenosis and endothelial injury and (b) inhibition of thrombin abolishes CFVs after short but not prolonged periods of CFVs.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Relapses after multidrug therapy for leprosy: a preliminary report of 22 cases in west Nepal.

The WHO recommended multidrug therapy regimens for leprosy patients were implemented in Nepal from 1982. Therefore a considerable number of both paucibacillary (PB) and multibacillary (MB) patients have been on observation after release from MDT, for as long as 4-5 years. A retrospective study was done considering the patients who relapsed during this period and who were registered at the Out-patients Department of Green Pastures Hospital in Pokhara, Nepal. A total of 22 patients relapsed out of 927 who were released from MDT.

Drug Therapy, Combination↗
PubMed1988

Similarities between behavior of respiratory muscles in breath-holding and in elastic loading.

Breath-holding subjects often exhibit involuntary contractions of respiratory muscles which are much stronger and faster than the efforts they would make during unrestricted breathing at the same level of CO2 and O2. To gain a better understanding of the genesis of these contractions, we compared them with the respiratory response to external elastic loading. Normal men rebreathed a mixture of 8% CO2 in oxygen against no load, elastic loads of 25 and 75 cm H2O/L, and held their breath, equivalent to an elastic load of 226 cm H2O/L. At iso-CO2, increasing loads led to progressively smaller tidal volumes, inspiratory flow rates and ventilation. However, respiratory muscles were progressively activated by the loads, as indicated by increasing occlusion pressure, so that inspiratory flow rate and ventilation were defended much better than could be expected if no neural compensation occurred. The pattern of respiratory muscle activity in breath-holding was qualitatively similar to that in elastic loading, and seemed quantitatively to be an extreme form of reaction to a large load. The reduction in inspiratory time and therefore of peak inspiratory pressure and ratio of inspiratory to total time with very large loads could be viewed as an adaptive response to limit respiratory muscle fatigue.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

A seasoned practice.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Practice Management, Dental↗
PubMed1986

Effect of L-thyroxine on serum angiotensin converting enzyme activity in sheep.

The effect of L-thyroxine on serum angiotensin converting enzyme activity using a sheep model was examined. Following two weeks of L-thyroxine treatment, the activity of serum angiotensin converting enzyme was increased from 6.92 U/ml to 8.65 U/ml (s.e.m. = 0.40, n = 13, P less than 0.01). Discontinuation of L-thyroxine treatment resulted in lowering the activity of serum angiotensin converting enzyme within three weeks to values close to those observed during the control period. It was concluded that L-thyroxine modulates serum angiotensin converting enzyme activity. The sheep is an appropriate animal model for the study of the factors that control serum angiotensin converting enzyme activity.

Animals↗
PubMed1979

Cardiac pacemaker oscillation and its modulation by autonomic transmitters.

1. A scheme is presented which summarizes the activation and deactivation of the membrane currents which underlie pacemaking in the natural pacemaker of the heart. 2. Experimental evidence (mostly obtained using the voltage-clamp technique) for the properties of the time-dependent membrane currents in pacemaking tissue of the frog and the rabbit is discussed. 3. The mode of the inhibitory action of acetylcholine on pacemaker cells is considered. In the amphibian pacemaker cell, acetylcholine probably reduces slow inward current (as it certainly does in amphibian atrium) but in mammalian sino-atrial node it seems that such action, if present at all, is much less marked. In the pacemakers of both amphibian and mammal, acetylcholine greatly increases outward potassium current and there is recent evidence that it may do so by opening up a special acetylcholine-activated potassium channel. 4. Adrenaline greatly increases the slow inward current in pacemaker as in other cardiac tissues. This increase, together with (in mammal at least) an increased change of an additional pacemaking current, overrides an adrenaline-induced increase in outward current and leads to acceleration of the pacemaking rate. 5. The Appendix contains a brief consideration of the experimental and theoretical basis for the method of exponential separation of outward current components in the presence of the extracellular potassium accumulation that inevitably accompanies the flow of outward membrane current.

Acetylcholine↗
PubMed1978

In vitro translation of nematode cuticular collagens.

Phenanthroline treatment of growing cultures of the free-living nematode Panagrellus silusiae was used to lower the degree of hydroxylation of nascent collagen chains at the polysomal level. Under these conditions, the bound pentasome-hexasome fraction provided substrate for prolyl hydroxylase. When this polysomal fraction was subsequently tested in a cell-free wheat germ system, collagenase-susceptible translation products were observed after sodium dodecyl sulfate-acrylamide gel electrophoresis. The electrophoretic mobilities of each of these four major collagen products were similar to four collagens that are isolated from intact cuticles. In addition, purified polysomal RNA that adhered to unmodified cellulose directed the synthesis of four pepsin-resistant polypeptides that had molecular weights that coincided with four pepsin-resistant collagens that can be purified from the cuticle of this species. Thus, the polysomal site of the messenger RNAs for the cuticular collagens of P. silusiae was located. Although precursor forms of the cuticular collagens were not produced in the cell-free system, the question whether additional amino acid segments occur on the primary translational products of the cuticular collagens in vivo remains open.

Cell-Free System↗