Direct effects of methamphetamine on hypertrophy and microtubules in cultured adult rat ventricular myocytes

Morphological alterations occasionally found in the myocardium of methamphetamine (MAP) abusers include hypertrophy, atrophy, disarrangement of myofibrils and fibrosis. These cardiac alterations have been thought to be due to an indirect action of MAP via catecholamines released by MAP administration. However, the direct effect of MAP on cardiomyocytes is not clear. In previous studies, we showed that cell size of isolated adult rat ventricular cardiomyocytes (ARCs) exposed to MAP was larger than that of untreated cells in culture supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum (FCS). In this study, to determine further the direct effect of MAP on cardiomyocytes, cultured ARCs were exposed to 0.05, 0.1 and 0.5 mM MAP for 7 days in culture medium without FCS following 6-day normal culture in medium containing FCS. Myocyte size was measured and microtubular (MT) structures which were associated with functional disorder of hearts were immunohistochemically observed using confocal microscopy. The size in treated ARCs significantly increased time- and dose-dependently as compared with untreated cells, but it decreased 7 days after exposure to 0.5 mM MAP. The increases in cell size, however, were lower than that in serum-supplemented cultures. MT structures in intact ARCs appeared as a filamentous network throughout the cytoplasm and around the nucleus. MAP exposure for 3 days promoted MT assembly, but in 7-day treated cells, MT and actin structures were injured. These results suggested that MAP directly induced cellular hypertrophy and might lead to cardiac functional disorder.     

协调韩国和欧洲的韩国研究

在欧洲的大学本科和研究生教学中,将韩国研究作为一门单独学科的时间并不长。必须承认,对于多数西方大学来说(尤其在西欧),如果没有韩国政府组织和韩国基金会等机构的直接支持,要把韩国研究作为一门单独的学科,是不可能的。不过,由于认识到了韩国研究的重要性,这些大学中对这个领域感兴趣和在攻读学位时选学韩国问题课程的学生越来越多。     

Correlation between skeletal trauma and energy in falls from great height detected by post-mortem multislice computed tomography (MSCT)

Fatal falls from great height are a frequently encountered setting in forensic pathology. They present – by virtue of a calculable energy transmission to the body – an ideal model for the assessment of the effects of blunt trauma to a human body.As multislice computed tomography (MSCT) has proven not only to be invaluable in clinical examinations, but also to be a viable tool in post-mortem imaging, especially in the field of osseous injuries, we performed a MSCT scan on 20 victims of falls from great height. We hereby detected fractures and their distributions were compared with the impact energy.Our study suggests a marked increase of extensive damage to different body regions at about 20 kJ and more. The thorax was most often affected, regardless of the amount of impacting energy and the primary impact site. Cranial fracture frequency displayed a biphasic distribution with regard to the impacting energy; they were more frequent in energies of less than 10, and more than 20 kJ, but rarer in the intermediate energy group, namely that of 10–20 kJ.     

The Effect of Media on Charitable Giving and Volunteering: Evidence from the “Give Five” Campaign

Fundraising campaigns advertised via mass media are common. To what extent such campaigns affect charitable behavior is mostly unknown, however. Using giving and volunteering surveys conducted biennially from 1988 to 1996, I investigate the effect of a national fundraising campaign, “Give Five,” on charitable giving and volunteering patterns. The widely advertised Give Five campaign was aimed to encourage people to give 5 percent of their income and volunteer 5 hours a week. After controlling for selection into being informed about the Give Five, I find that people who were informed about the campaign increased their weekly volunteering activity on average by almost half an hour, but their giving behavior was not significantly affected. I discuss the policy implications associated with this result and argue that although the Give Five campaign did not achieve its goal, its impact on volunteering was considerable. © 2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Elections and political parties in Hong Kong's political development

This article seeks to explore the influence of social capital on the decision to hire Chinese professionals to work for Taiwanese companies in Vietnam. We argue that this employment and migration pattern is mainly determined by the social capital of the Chinese professional transient, and is not based solely on economic calculation as push-pull economic theory describes.     

STR HUMARA locus gene and genotype frequencies in Han and Bei populations in China.

For the purpose of the population genetics study of the HUMARA locus, the allele, and genotype frequencies were determined in two Chinese population samples (Han-101, Bei-113) using PCR, PAGE, and silver staining. Fourteen alleles were found. The size of amplified fragments were 258 bp-315 bp. The observed heterozygosities were 0.83 in the Han population and 0.73 in the Bei population respectively. The expected heterozygosities were 0.91 in the Han population and 0.97 in the Bei population respectively. Both populations meet Hardy-Weinberg expectation, Han population x2 = 17.7206, df = 11, p > 0.05; Bei population x2 = 7.4268, df = 10, p > 0.05. The discrimination power were 0.95 in females and 0.89 in males in the Han population, 0.94 in females and 0.88 in males in the Bei population. Thus, the allelic frequency data can be used in the personal identification and parentage testing in the forensic science practice. The PCR test established in this study is robust and reproducible.     

Extreme versus quotidian: addressing temporal dichotomies in Philippine disaster management

Brief narratives of two recent events in Luzon island—a flashflood in Angeles City and an eruption of Mayon volcano—underscore the disparity between natural hazards as amplifiers of everyday hardship for many Filipinos and the Philippine disaster management system's orientation towards extreme‐event response. Three major factors contribute to this dichotomy. First, population dynamics combined with the lack of access to resources compels poor Filipinos to live and work in hazardous areas, discounting risk from extreme natural events to focus on daily needs. Second, the institutional setting of the country's disaster management within the military establishment makes it difficult, though not impossible, to focus and address the underlying causes of vulnerability. Third, existing modes of funding disaster expenditures are all biased towards immediate response rather than long‐term risk‐reduction. The implications of these findings to disaster management and research in the Philippines are identified. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Korean population genetic data for eleven STR loci.

Allele frequency and forensic parameters for eleven STR loci were surveyed in a random sample from the Korean population.