An overall assessment of Life Cycle Inventory quality

A qualitative, quantitative, and overall quality assessment of life cycle inventory is suggested. The method is composed of five indicators which are set up at three levels of the inventory quality: flows, processes, and the system. The method allows one to assess the reliability of the method generating inventory data (justness of data, completeness of data, representativity of processes, repeatability of system definition) and at the same time to quantify the uncertainty of the resulting data made under the data generation method. LCA practitioners can finally decide the overall inventory quality through the information for the acceptability of the inventory result comparing the objective of quality and the cost necessary to improve the quality. The operation of the method was verified in the application to the production of polyethylene bottles. The proposed method was also found applicable for the validation of data in the ISO’s LCA data documentation format.     

Environmental assessment of products

The evaluation of product alternatives in Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is a critical step on the basis of results as related to their impact category data. Decisions involving several environmental issues are hardly ever straightforward, since one alternative only seldom clearly dominates the others in all aspects. More often, one alternative scores better on some environmental issues and worse on others. A combination of impact data and preferences is then required for evaluation. This can be done using evaluation methods based on fixed societal preferences. However, by applying different evaluation methods to the same data, different “best” alternatives may be chosen. This reduces the credibility of LCA results. Instead of fixed societal preferences an approach has been developed which uses consensus-oriented ranges of societal values for specifying the ranking of the overall environmental attractiveness of alternatives. These ranges may indicate both the uncertainty of decision-makers and the shifting of societal values, e.g. as related to the dynamics of knowledge of environmental problem areas. In this article, an approach is proposed which combines environmental data and uncertain societal values to form a clear statement on alternatives regarding their overall damage. By using a full set of potentially relevant societal preferences, a merely coincidental selection of the best product alternative is ruled out. A step-by-step procedure, narrowing down the feasible range of societal preferences, has been developed. The approach is illustrated using a case study of TV-housing concepts and a survey.     

Primary and secondary antibody responses of rabbits to bacteriophage T2: kinetic and quantitative analysis and suppression by antimacrophage globulin.

Antibody synthetic capacity of popliteal lymph node cells removed from rabbits at various times after immunization with bacteriophage T2 was assayed by radioimmunoassay of tissue culture fluid after incubation with ¹⁴C-leucine. Antibody synthesis began on day 2; IgM synthesis peaked on day 3; IgG synthesis peaked on day 5 and again on day 14. Reinjection of T2 one month later elicited an enhanced response which peaked sharply on day 2. The primary and secondary responses, but not priming for the secondary response, were suppressed by injection of goat antimacrophage globulin (AMG), but only when AMG was injected 1 to 3 days before T2. AMG reacted strongly with rabbit peritoneal macrophages and only slightly with rabbit lymphocytes or erythrocytes. Thus, macrophages appear to participate in the induction of antibody responses of rabbit lymph nodes to T2 and their function inhibited by AMG apparently operates only during the early phase of induction.     

Jejunal and ileal d-glucose transport in isolated brush border membranes

d-Glucose transport was investigated in isolated brush border membranes from small intestine. The transport properties of membranes from upper jejunum were compared with those from terminal ileum. The jejunal membranes accumulated d-glucose to a greater extent than the ileal membranes when supplied with energy in the form of a NASCN gradient. This difference is behavior is similar to that of the more intact epithelial preparations and suggests that the isolated membranes actually reflect the state present in intact cells. Ileal membranes transported d-glucose about two to three times slower than the jejunal ones, which can partially explain the lower sugar accumulation.     

Diurnal rhythm of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG): relationship between plasma and urinary levels

Plasma and urinary levels of MHPG were determined in six normal volunteers. Samples were obtained at 3-hour intervals for plasma and at 12-hour intervals for urine. Acrophase, amplitude and period were determined for plasma MHPG levels. A sinusoidal pattern was obtained for diurnal plasma MHPG with a peak at 15:00 hrs. +/- 46 min. Urinary MHPG, corrected for creatinine levels, correlated with both 9 AM plasma MHPG and with baseline plasma MHPG. Furthermore, the relationship between plasma and urinary MHPG was linear when the rhythm of urinary levels was assumed to lag 6.2 hours behind the plasma rhythm. It was concluded that free MHPG is evenly distributed in the total body space and that conjugated MHPG is largely restricted to the blood.     

Coordinate regulation of acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase and fatty acid synthetase in liver cells of the developing chick in vivo and in culture.

The activities of hepatic acetyl-CoA carboxylase and fatty acid synthetase undergo two distinct types of development in the perinatal chick. The first increase begins prior to hatching, continues after hatching in the starved chick, and is independent of feeding. The second increase is caused by feeding and is reversed by starvation (A. G. Goodridge (1973) J. Biol. Chem.248, 1932–1938). We have purified these enzymes to homogeneity and raised antibodies to them in rabbits. Using immunochemical techniques we have established that the activity changes in both types of development were a function of changes in the concentrations of enzyme proteins. All activity changes were accompanied by similar changes in the relative rates of synthesis of the two enzymes. Regulation of the activities of acetyl-CoA carboxylase and fatty acid synthetase was further characterized in liver cells from 19-day-old embryos maintained in culture in a chemically defined medium. After 3 days in culture in the absence of hormones, the activities of the enzymes increased significantly with respect to the activities of the freshly prepared cells. Addition of either insulin or triiodothyronine alone caused additional small increases. Insulin plus triiodothyronine caused 8- and 15-fold increases in acetyl-CoA carboxylase and fatty acid synthetase, respectively, relative to cells incubated without hormones. In the presence of insulin alone glucagon had no effect on the activity of either enzyme. In the presence of insulin plus triiodothyronine, glucagon inhibited the increase in enzyme activities by about 75%. The results of quantitative immunoprecipitin tests indicated that activity changes caused by the various hormones were functions of changes in the concentrations of the enzyme proteins. The effects of the hormones on enzyme activities were accompanied by comparable or larger changes in the relative rates of synthesis of the enzymes. Under a wide variety of experimental conditions, both in vivo and in culture, the relative rates of synthesis of acetyl-CoA carboxylase and fatty acid synthetase are regulated coordinately. Under some of these conditions, synthesis of malic enzyme also is regulated coordinately with the syntheses of acetyl-CoA carboxylase and fatty acid synthetase. The common intracellular mechanisms underlying the coordinate control remain to be elucidated.     

Active follow-up versus passive linkage with cancer registries for case ascertainment in a cohort

BackgroundAscertaining incident cancers is a critical component of cancer-focused epidemiologic cohorts and of cancer prevention trials. Potential methods: for cancer case ascertainment include active follow-up and passive linkage with state cancer registries. Here we compare the two approaches in a large cancer screening trial.MethodsThe Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) cancer screening trial enrolled 154,955 subjects at ten U.S. centers and followed them for all-cancer incidence. Cancers were ascertained by an active follow-up process involving annual questionnaires, retrieval of records and medical record abstracting to ascertain and confirm cancers. For a subset of centers, linkage with state cancer registries was also performed. We assessed the agreement of the two methods in ascertaining incident cancers from 1993 to 2009 in 80,083 subjects from six PLCO centers where cancers were ascertained both by active follow-up and through linkages with 14 state registries.ResultsThe ratio (times 100) of confirmed cases ascertained by registry linkage compared to active follow-up was 96.4 (95% CI: 95.1–98.2). Of cancers ascertained by either method, 86.6% and 83.5% were identified by active follow-up and by registry linkage, respectively. Of cancers missed by active follow-up, 30% were after subjects were lost to follow-up and 16% were reported but could not be confirmed. Of cancers missed by the registries, 27% were not sent to the state registry of the subject’s current address at the time of linkage.ConclusionLinkage with state registries identified a similar number of cancers as active follow-up and can be a cost-effective method to ascertain incident cancers in a large cohort.     

Tumor cell killing by macrophages activated in vitro with lymphocyte mediators. III. Inhibition by cytochalasins, colchicine, and vinblastine.

The effect of cytochalasin A and B, colchicine and vinblastine on tumor cell killing by macrophages activated in vitro with lymphocyte mediators was examined. Both cytochalasins reversibly inhibited the killing of tumor cells by activated macrophages. Kinetic studies with cytochalasin B suggested that this drug exerts its effect on an early step of the cytotoxic process. Additional studies revealed that the drug inhibited the binding of tumor cells by activated macrophages.Colchicine inhibited both the binding and the killing of tumor cells by activated macrophages, whereas its structural analogue, lumicolchicine, had no effect on either macrophage function.Vinblastine also inhibited the binding and killing of tumor cells. However, this drug no longer inhibited tumor cell binding at low concentrations (<10^?6M) that still inhibited tumor cell killing. Further, vinblastine inhibited tumor cell killing when added late to an ongoing cytolytic reaction.These results suggest that the cytochalasins, colchicine and vinblastine inhibit macrophage mediated cytotoxicity by preventing intimate contact between the effector macrophages and their targets. In addition, vinblastine also appears to inhibit a later step of the cytolytic process, possibly the secretion of a cytotoxic macrophage product.     

肺放线菌病1 例报告并文献复习

目的：分析肺放线菌病的临床表现、诊断及治疗,提高对肺放线菌病的认识。方法：回顾性分析我科收治的1 例肺放线菌病 患者的临床资料,并对相关文献进行复习。结果：本例患者,43 岁,男性,以咳嗽、咳血性痰为主要临床表现,胸部CT 提示右肺上 叶结节,经皮肺穿刺活检结果确诊肺放线菌病,青霉素治疗效果好。结论：肺放线菌病是放线菌感染引起的一种少见的呼吸系统 疾病,起病隐匿,呈渐进性过程,临床表现及影像学检查均无特异性,放线菌可在肺部引起化脓性肺炎,并经叶间隙、胸膜侵犯胸 壁、肋骨,形成窦道及破坏骨质。确诊有赖于病理学或微生物学证据,主要可采用青霉素抗感染治疗,在疑似肿瘤的情况下,需通 过外科手术治疗,既可以明确诊断也避免病变进一步引起肺、胸壁等组织的不可逆性破坏。