ALBERT

Notes: Abstract: During the last decade, cumulative trauma disorders have become a major concern both to occupational health and safety professionals and manufacturing industries. This paper will present the development of a knowledge-based system for predicting the potential of developing strain injuries among employees exposed to repetitive and forceful activities. This potential is identified through the use of an expert system incorporating a fuzzy set algorithm. Recommendations for the prevention of the resulting CTDs are then provided by the system. The system executes on a microcomputer platform, and was constructed utilising a commercial object-oriented expert system shell.

Notes: A salt tolerance experiment was performed to study the effect of the GPert mutation in different genetic backgrounds of spring barley, Hordeum vulgare. L. Twenty-one lines carrying GPert along with 20 related non-GPert lines were grown for 4 weeks in low salt (25 mol m−3 NaCI) and salt stress (175 mol m−3 NaCI) hydroponic cultures. Shoot Na+ content was taken as a measure of salt tolerance. Salt tolerance of the two groups (GPert versus non-GPert) was compared, as was the performance of individual GPert lines with their non-GPert parental lines. The results show that GPert has a general positive effect on salt tolerance in reducing shoot Na+ content, but that this is regulated by genetic background.

Notes: Genetic substructure among groups of Pacific harbor seals, Phoca vitulina richardsi, along the western coast of the United States was investigated using mitochondrial DNA sequences. Blood and tissue samples were removed from 86 seals inhabiting Puget Sound and the Pacific coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. A 320 base-pair segment of the control region was amplified using the polymerase chain reaction and directly sequenced. These data indicated a high level of diversity. Thirty variable sites were found that define 47 mitochondrial haplotypes. Among groups of P. v. richardsi sampled, 5 haplotypes were shared, but most (42) were unique to a locality. Haplotypic frequency and an Analysis of Molecular Variance (Amova) revealed significant differences (P= 0.001) among regions. Phylogenetic analysis indicated Puget Sound seals possess unique divergent lineages not found in seals from the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. These lineages may represent haplotypes from north of Washington, which is consistent with late reproductive timing of harbor seals from Puget Sound.

Notes: This paper is the second part of a two-part series concerned with assessing the potential for organic chemical leaching to a ground-water skimming tunnel in the Pearl Harbor Basin, Oahu, Hawaii, as a direct result of proposed urban development. The Pesticide Root Zone Model (PRZM) was used, after testing with field and laboratory data described in the companion paper, to make long-term predictions of the movement of chlorpyrifos, diazinon, metribuzin, and nitrate under various recharge scenarios. The PRZM simulations revealed that, with the exception of chlorpyrifos, detectable levels of all the chemicals considered in this study may leach through the unsaturated zone to the water table from where they may eventually migrate to the skimming tunnel. The simulated concentrations in leachate reaching the water table were sufficiently low, considering subsequent mixing in the ground water, to suggest no adverse health effects. The reliability of the simulated results are laced with enough uncertainty, however, to suggest the need for monitoring for diazinon, metribuzin, and nitrate, if development does proceed. The methodology presented in this series is a first attempt at establishing a protocol for using numerical modeling, supported by field and laboratory measurements to aid in land-use change consideration in Hawaii when nonpoint ground-water contamination from organic chemicals is of concern.

Notes: Leukocyte and erythrocyte counts on normal fathead minnows Pimephales promelas showed a marked seasonal trend. In a period from June to March, a three-fold increase in leukocytes was seen during August and September.

Notes: Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum L.) responded to a prolonged period of water stress with stomatal closure followed by premature flowering and the subsequent production of small fruits containing fertile seeds. Water stress was correlated with a net loss of protein from tomato leaves and the concomitant accumulation of free amino acids, reflecting the remobilization of leaf nitrogen to meet the N-requirement for the rapid development of reproductive organs. We show by northern blot analysis of the transcript pools, and by immunoblot analysis of the protein levels that water stress stimulates tomato cytosolic glutamine synthetase (EC 6.1.3.2; GS-1) gene expression, while plastidic glutamine synthetase (GS-2) gene expression remains unchanged during drought. These results suggest a role of GS-1 in the generation of glutamine for the transport of the nitrogen that is remobilized in tomato leaves in response to chronic water stress. The remobilization of leaf N during water stress appears to be. at least in part, initiated by a specific down-regulation of the leaf transcript pool corresponding to the small subunit of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase.

Notes: To identify potential opsonic targets of Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum, a treponemal genomic expression library was constructed and differentially screened with opsonic and non-opsonic T. pallidum antisera. This method identified an immunoreactive clone containing an open reading frame encoding a 356 residue protein. Nucleotide sequence analysis demonstrated the translated protein to be a homologue of glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase, a glycerol metabolizing enzyme previously identified in Haemophilus influenzae, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Borrelia hermsii. Sequence alignment analyses revealed the T. pallidum and H. influenzae enzymes share a high degree of amino acid sequence similarity (72%), suggesting that in T. pallidum this molecule may be surface exposed and involved in IgD binding as is the case with its counterpart in H. influenzae.

Notes: Potato (Solanum tuberosum L. cv. Russet Burbank) tubers undergo a period of endodormancy that is characterized by cell division arrest. At the time of harvest, the tubers used in this study were completely endodormant (i.e. 0% sprouting). After 120 days of storage at 3°C, tubers transferred to 20°C had begun to exit endodormancy and exhibited ca 50% sprouting. After 223 days of 3°C storage, tubers transferred to 20°C were completely nondormant and exhibited 100% sprouting. Based on flow cytometry, about 70% of nuclei isolated from endodormant meristems are arrested in the G1/G0 phase of the cell cycle. Storage of tubers at 3°C did not alter the cell cycle position nor did transfer of tubers from 3 to 20°C for 7 days prior to analysis unless tubers had been stored for at least 223 days. After 223 days of cold (3°C) storage, tubers transferred to 20°C for 7 days showed sprout growth in excess of 5 mm and an increase in the percentage of nuclei in the G2 phase of the cell cycle. Uptake and incorporation of 3H-thymidine into DNA was low in all tubers up until 120 days postharvest. After that time, only tubers incubated at 20°C for 7 days prior to analysis exhibited an increase in 3H-thymidine incorporation. This increase coincided with visible sprout growth, demonstrating that cell cycle shifts in tuber meristems relate directly to sprout growth and not the breakage of the endodormancy per se. Using degenerate primers, a portion of a p34cdc2 homolog was amplified from RNA isolated from logphase potato suspension culture cells by polymerase chain reaction. Northern analysis with this probe demonstrated that mRNA levels for two p34cdc2 homologs were present throughout the endodormant period. Immunoblot analysis demonstrated that levels of at least four proteins containing a PSTAIRE epitope (i.e. cdc2-like) were present at reduced levels in endodormant meristems and increased in reactivated tuber meristems that showed a shift in cell cycle kinetics based on flow cytometry and increased 3H-thymidine incorporation. These results indicate that the temporal shift in competence for cell division in potato meristems induced by dormancy is not accompanied by alterations in the level of mRNA for p34cdc2 homologues but is correlated with a change in the level of PSTAIRE-containing proteins. This suggests that during endodormancy cell division in potato tuber meristems is regulated indirectly by posttranscriptional regulation of genes controlling the cell cycle.