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Clearance of apoptotic cells is critical to tissue homeostasis and resolution of inflammatory lesions. Macrophages are known to remove dying cells and release anti-inflammatory mediators in response; however, many cells traditionally thought of as poor phagocytes can mediate this function as well. In the lactating mammary gland following weaning, alveolar epithelial cell death is massive, yet the gland involutes rapidly, attaining its prepregnancy state in a matter of days. We found histologic evidence of apoptotic cell phagocytosis by viable mammary epithelial cells (MEC) in the involuting mouse mammary gland. Cultured MEC were able to engulf apoptotic cells in vitro , utilizing many of the same receptors used by macrophages, including the phosphatidylserine receptor (PSR), CD36, the vitronectin receptor α v β 3 , and CD91. In addition, MEC, like macrophages, produced TGF β in response to stimulation of the PSR by apoptotic cells or the anti-PSR ab 217G8E9, and downregulated endotoxin-stimulated proinflammatory cytokine production. These data support the hypothesis that amateur phagocytes play a significant role in apoptotic cell clearance and its regulation of inflammation.

In this incisive examination of lead poisoning during the past half century, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner focus on one of the most contentious and bitter battles in the history of public health. Lead Wars details how the nature of the epidemic has changed and highlights the dilemmas public health agencies face today in terms of prevention strategies and chronic illness linked to low levels of toxic exposure. The authors use the opinion by Maryland's Court of Appeals—which considered whether researchers at Johns Hopkins University's prestigious Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) engaged in unethical research on 108 African-American children—as a springboard to ask fundamental questions about the practice and future of public health. Lead Wars chronicles the obstacles faced by public health workers in the conservative, pro-business, anti-regulatory climate that took off in the Reagan years and that stymied efforts to eliminate lead from the environments and the bodies of American children.

To examine the efficacy of a new device, which slows and regularises breathing, as a non-pharmacological treatment of hypertension and thus to evaluate the contribution of breathing modulation in the blood pressure (BP) reduction. Randomised, double-blind controlled study, carried out in three urban family practice clinics in Israel. Sixty-five male and female hypertensives, either receiving antihypertensive drug therapy or unmedicated. Four patients dropped out at the beginning of the study. Self treatment at home, 10 minutes daily for 8 consecutive weeks, using either the device (n = 32), which guides the user towards slow and regular breathing using musical sound patterns, or a Walkman, with which patients listened to quiet music (n = 29). Medication was unchanged 2 months prior to and during the study period. Systolic BP, diastolic BP and mean arterial pressure (MAP) changes from baseline. BP reduction in the device group was significantly greater than a predetermined 'clinically meaningful threshold' of 10.0, 5.0 and 6.7 mm Hg for the systolic BP, diastolic BP and MAP respectively (P = 0.035, P = 0.0002 and P = 0.001). Treatment with the device reduced systolic BP, diastolic BP and MAP by 15.2, 10.0 and 11.7 mm Hg respectively, as compared to 11.3, 5.6 and 7.5 mm Hg (P = 0.14, P = 0.008, P = 0.03) with the Walkman. Six months after treatment had stopped, diastolic BP reduction in the device group remained greater than the 'threshold' (P < 0.02) and also greater than in the walkman group (P = 0.001). The device was found to be efficacious in reducing high BP during 2 months of self-treatment by patients at home. Breathing pattern modification appears to be an important component in this reduction.

OBJECTIVES: To study the role of occupational exposures to solvents and aluminium in the aetiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). An industrial hygienist rated exposure. METHODS: 89 subjects diagnosed with probable AD were matched by age, sex, and type of informant to 89 controls. Subjects were identified from a large health maintenance organisation in Seattle, WA. A complete occupational history was obtained from spouses of cases and controls as well as from controls themselves. After the interview an industrial hygienist, blinded to case-control status, rated exposures. RESULTS: Non-significant associations were found between AD and ever having been occupationally exposed to solvents (odds ratio (OR) 1.77, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.81 to 3.90) and aluminium (OR 1.46, 95% CI 0.62 to 3.42). Although an increasing risk was found with increasing number of years of exposure to solvents, there was an inverse association between exposure intensity and AD, and measures of cumulative exposure taking into account both intensity and duration of exposure were not significant. Analysis of the age at which half the cumulative exposure to solvents was achieved showed that an older age incurred a greater risk of AD than a younger age. However, the total amount of exposure carried no risk. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that lifetime occupational exposure to solvents and aluminium are not likely to be important risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

A contemporary history of a critical period,Are We Ready?analyzes the impact of 9/11, the anthrax attacks that followed, and preparations for a possible smallpox attack on the nation's public health infrastructure. David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz interviewed local, state, and federal officials to determine the immediate reactions of key participants in these events. The authors explore the extent to which these emergencies permanently altered the political, cultural, and organizational life of the country and consider whether the nation is now better prepared to withstand another potentially devastating attack. This well-reasoned and well-researched book presents compelling evidence that few with hands-on experience with disease and emergency preparedness believe that an adequate response to terrorism-whether biological, chemical, or radiological-is possible without a strong and vibrant infrastructure to provide everyday services as well as emergency responses.Are We Ready?begins with an examination of the experiences of local New York officials who were the first responders to 9/11 and follows them as events unfolded and as state and national authorities arrived. It goes on to analyze how various states dealt with changing federal funding for a variety of public health services. Using oral histories of CDC and other federal officials, the book then focuses on the federal reaction to 9/11 and anthrax. What emerges is a picture of dedicated public servants who were overcome by the emotions of the moment yet who were able to react in ways that significantly reduced the public anxiety and public health threat. Despite the extraordinary opportunity to revitalize and reinvigorate the nation's public health infrastructure, the growing federal and state budget deficits, the refocusing of national attention on the war in Iraq, and the passage of time all combined to undermine many of the needed reforms to the nation's public health defenses.Copub: Milbank Memorial Fund

The morphological evolution of flame‐generated “primary” spherules and inorganic aggregates was studied at low particle volume fractions [O(10−1 ppm)] in a welldefined/characterized laminar nonpremixed combustion environment which produces particle heating rates of 104 K/s. Pure Al2O3 particles synthesized in an Al(CH3)3 (TMA‐) seeded atmospheric pressure laminar counterflow diffusion flame “fueled” with CH4/O2/N2 were used as the model material/combustion system. Experimental techniques included spatially resolved laser light scattering (LLS) and thermophoretic sampling/transmission electron microscopy. Local aggregate morphology was characterized in terms of spherule (“grain”) size, aggregate size, aggregate shape and fractal structure. Effects of flame temperature and TMA concentrations on particle inception location, sizes and morphology studied systematically were interpreted based on parallel theoretical studies. LLS signals and TEM images show particle/aggregate size and morphology evolution as a result of two competing rate processes. Mean spherule diameters prior to high‐temperature coalescence are explained in terms of the strong size dependence of nanoparticle restructuring kinetics due to surface melting, even at 500 K. Mean fractal aggregate sizes reached only 15–27 spherules near a local temperature of only 1,250 K. Final particulate products were isolated spherical particles resulting from complete “collapse” of the aggregates in an interval of only 24 ms immediately upstream of the maximum gas temperature (2,280 K). Experimental results are compatible with the characteristic times governing each participating “unit” rate process. Some of these methods can be applied in controlling the larger‐scale synthesis of valuable nanopowders and guide rational extensions into the domain of turbulent nonpremixed combustors generating ultrafine particles of tailored composition and morphology at high mass loadings.

Since the 1930s threshold limit values have been presented as an objectively established measure of US industrial safety. However, there have been important questions raised regarding the adequacy of these thresholds for protecting workers from silicosis. This paper explores the historical debates over silica threshold limit values and the intense political negotiation that accompanied their establishment. In the 1930s and early 1940s, a coalition of business, public health, insurance, and political interests formed in response to a widely perceived \"silicosis crisis.\" Part of the resulting program aimed at containing the crisis was the establishment of threshold limit values. Yet silicosis cases continued to be documented. By the 1960s these cases had become the basis for a number of revisions to the thresholds. In the 1970s, following a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommendation to lower the threshold limit value for silica and to eliminate sand as an abrasive in blasting, industry fought attempts to make the existing values more stringent. This paper traces the process by which threshold limit values became part of a compromise between the health of workers and the economic interests of industry.

A major source of childhood lead poisoning, still a serious problem in the United States, is paint. The dangers of lead were known even in the 19th century, and the particular dangers to children were documented in the English-language literature as early as 1904. During the first decades of the 20th century, many other countries banned or restricted the use of lead paint for interior painting. Despite this knowledge, the lead industry in the United States did nothing to discourage the use of lead paint on interior walls and woodwork. In fact, beginning in the 1920s, the Lead Industries Association and its members conducted an intensive campaign to promote the use of paint containing white lead, even targeting children in their advertising. It was not until the 1950s that the industry, under increasing pressure, adopted a voluntary standard limiting the amount of lead in interior paints.

We have measured the radiative lifetimes of 33 levels of Pr II and 13 levels of Nd II using two variants of the beam-laser method. The levels studied had term energies up to ~30 000 cm –1 and lifetimes in the range 6–170 ns. Experimental accuracy was in the range 1–11%. We have used these lifetimes to update transition probabilities for 82 transitions in Pr II in the wavelength range 392–640 nm, which are useful for stellar abundance determinations. PACS Nos.: 32.70Cs, 95.30Ky

Dysfunction of receptors for IgG (FcγRs) has been thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We show that a recently described SLE-associated polymorphism of FcγRIIb (FcγRIIbT 232 ), encoding a single transmembrane amino acid substitution, is functionally impaired. FcγRIIbT 232 is unable to inhibit activatory receptors because it is excluded from sphingolipid rafts, resulting in the unopposed proinflammatory signaling thought to promote SLE.