Ataxia-Telangiectasia

Ataxia-telangiectasia is a syndrome of progressive cerebellar ataxia and other neurological manifestations associated with conjunctival and cutaneous telangiectases and with recurrent sino-pulmonary infections. Immunological and endocrine abnormalities occur. Two girls with this disease are described. The first had only minor respiratory infections; her serum proteins and immunity responses appeared normal. The second had recurrent pulmonary infections and bronchiectasis; she also exhibited sclerodermatous changes, poor development of secondary sexual characteristics with low urinary excretion of 17-ketosteroids, and lymphopenia. Autopsy at 17 years showed bilateral ovarian dysgerminomata and excessive cutaneous collagen as well as atrophy, and perhaps hypoplasia, of adrenals, thymus, spleen and lymphoid tissue (after steroid therapy). The cerebellum exhibited cortical degeneration. Both lungs were fibrotic with old and recent bronchopneumonia and bronchiectasis. The left lung was studied by injection of a latex preparation; no arteriovenous aneurysms were found, but the smaller pulmonary vessels showed some unusual morphological characteristics.     

Non-stable resistance to demeton-methyl in a strain of Myzus persicae

The progeny of one viviparous aptera from a strain of Myzus persicae which appeared to have become resistant to organophosphorus insecticides, were bred asexually in an environment free from these materials. At approximately the 7th generation, the clone when compared with a susceptible strain had a 25-fold resistance to demeton-methyl. With subsequent generations the resistance gradually declined and within 30 generations from its establishment the clone was no longer resistant.

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Zusammenfassung Die Nachkommen einer viviparen Aptera von Myzus persicae, die offenbar resistent gegen organische Phosphorverbindungen geworden waren, wurden in einer insektizidfreien Umwelt geschlechtslos vermehrt. Ungefähr in der siebenten Generation, wenn der Klon mit einem normalen Stamm verglichen wurde, hatte er eine 25-fache Resistenz gegen Demeton-methyl. Mit weiteren Generationen nahm die Resistenz allmählich ab und 30 Generationen nach seiner Gründung war der Klon überhaupt nicht mehr resistent.

     

Production planning of a flexible manufacturing system in a material requirements planning environment

Early flexible manufacturing system (FMS) production planning models exhibited a variety of planning objectives; typically, these objectives were independent of the overall production environment. More recently, some researchers have proposed hierarchical production planning and scheduling models for FMS. In this article, we examine production planning of FMS in a material requirements planning (MRP) environment. We propose a hierarchical structure that integrates FMS production planning into a closed-loop MRP system. This structure gives rise to the FMS/MRP rough-cut capacity planning (FMRCP) problem, the FMS/MRP grouping and loading (FMGL) problem, and the FMS/MRP detailed scheduling problem. We examine the FMRCP and FMGL problems in detail and present mathematical programming models for each of these problems. In particular, the FMRCP problem is modeled as a generalized assignment problem (GAP), and a GAP-based heuristic procedure is defined for the problem. We define a two-phase heuristic for the FMGL problem and present computational experience with both heuristics. The FMRCP heuristic is shown to solve problems that exhibit a dependent-demand relation within the FMS and with FMS capacity utilization as high as 99 percent. The FMGL heuristic requires very little CPU time and obtains solutions to the test problems that are on average within 1.5 percent of a theoretical lower bound. This FMS/MRP production planning framework, together with the resulting models, constitutes an important step in the integration of FMS technology with MRP production planning. The hierarchical planning mechanism directly provides for system-level MRP planning priorities to induce appropriate production planning and control objectives on the FMS while simultaneously allowing for necessary feedback from the FMS. Moreover, by demonstrating the tractability of the FMRCP and FMGL problems, this research establishes the necessary groundwork upon which to explore systemwide issues pertaining to the coordination of the hierarchical structure.     

Respiratory epithelial permeability after cigarette smoke exposure in guinea pigs

The purpose of this study was to determine the pathology of cigarette smoke-increased permeability at the bronchioalveolar junction of the guinea pig. After exposure to either smoke or room air, guinea pigs were anesthetized and fluorescein isothiocyanate-dextran (FITC-D, mol wt 10,000) was aerosolized into their lungs. Blood samples taken through a carotid arterial cannula were analyzed by gel chromatography and spectrofluorometry for the presence of FITC-D. The results confirmed that, after smoke exposure, increased amounts of intact FITC-D molecules with a reported Einstein-Stokes radius of 22.2 A crossed the respiratory epithelium into the vascular space. Transmission electron-microscopic studies showed that the FITC-D diffused across damaged type I pneumocyte membranes and cytoplasm to reach the basal lamina and entered the alveolar capillaries through endothelial tight junctions. Damage to the alveolar epithelium was more frequent for the smoke-exposed animals than the room air-exposed animals (P less than 0.05). We conclude that smoke exposure damages type I cells and that inhaled FITC-D crosses the epithelial barrier at damaged type I cells of the bronchioloalveolar junctions.