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This article presents the results of an adaptive design experiment in the recruitment of households and individuals for a two-stage national probability web or mail mixed-mode survey, the American Family Health Study (AFHS). In the screening stage, we based the adaptive design's subgroup differentiation on Esri Tapestry segmentation. We used tailored invitation materials for a subsample where a high proportion of the population was Hispanic and added a paper questionnaire to the initial mailing for a subsample with rural and older families. In the main-survey stage, the adaptive design targeted the households where a member other than the screening respondent was selected for the survey. The adaptations included emailing and/or texting, an additional prepaid incentive, and seeking screening respondents' help to remind the selected individuals. The main research questions are (i) whether the adaptive design improved survey production outcomes and (ii) whether combining adaptive design and postsurvey weighting adjustments improved survey estimates compared to performing postsurvey adjustments alone. Unfortunately, the adaptive designs did not improve the survey production outcomes. We found that the weighted AFHS estimates closely resemble those of a benchmark national face-to-face survey, the National Survey of Family Growth, although the adaptive design did not additionally change survey estimates beyond the weighting adjustments. Nonetheless, our experiment yields useful insights about the implementation of adaptive design in a self-administered mail-recruit web or mail survey. We were able to identify subgroups with potentially lower response rates and distinctive characteristics, but it was challenging to develop effective protocol adaptations for these subgroups under the constraints of the two primary survey modes and the operational budget of the AFHS. In addition, for self-administered within-household selection, it was difficult to obtain contact information from, reach, and recruit selected household members that did not respond to the screening interview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In push-to-web surveys that use postal mail to contact sampled cases, participation is contingent on the mail being opened and the survey invitations being delivered. The design of the mailings is crucial to the success of the survey. We address the question of how to design invitation mailings that can grab potential respondents' attention and sway them to be interested in the survey in a short window of time. In the household screening stage of a national survey, the American Family Health Study, we experimentally tested three mailing design techniques for recruiting respondents: (1) a visible cash incentive in the initial mailing, (2) a second incentive for initial nonrespondents, and (3) use of Priority Mail in the nonresponse follow-up mailing. We evaluated the three techniques' overall effects on response rates as well as how they differentially attracted respondents with different characteristics. We found that all three techniques were useful in increasing the screening response rates, but there was little evidence that they had differential effects on sample subgroups that could help to reduce nonresponse biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surveys face difficult choices in managing cost-error trade-offs. Stopping rules for surveys have been proposed as a method for managing these trade-offs. A stopping rule will limit effort on a select subset of cases to reduce costs with minimal harm to quality. Previously proposed stopping rules have focused on quality with an implicit assumption that all cases have the same cost. This assumption is unlikely to be true, particularly when some cases will require more effort and, therefore, more costs than others. We propose a new rule that looks at both predicted costs and quality. This rule is tested experimentally against another rule that focuses on stopping cases that are expected to be difficult to recruit. The experiment was conducted on the 2020 data collection of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We test both Bayesian and non-Bayesian (maximum-likelihood or ML) versions of the rule. The Bayesian version of the prediction models uses historical data to establish prior information. The Bayesian version led to higher-quality data for roughly the same cost, while the ML version led to small reductions in quality with larger reductions in cost compared to the control rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responsive survey design (RSD) aims to increase the efficiency of survey data collection via live monitoring of paradata and the introduction of protocol changes when survey errors and increased costs seem imminent. Daily predictions of response propensity for all active sampled cases are among the most important quantities for live monitoring of data collection outcomes, making sound predictions of these propensities essential for the success of RSD. Because it relies on real-time updates of prior beliefs about key design quantities, such as predicted response propensities, RSD stands to benefit from Bayesian approaches. However, empirical evidence of the merits of these approaches is lacking in the literature, and the derivation of informative prior distributions is required for these approaches to be effective. In this paper, we evaluate the ability of two approaches to deriving prior distributions for the coefficients defining daily response propensity models to improve predictions of daily response propensity in a real data collection employing RSD. The first approach involves analyses of historical data from the same survey, and the second approach involves literature review. We find that Bayesian methods based on these two approaches result in higher-quality predictions of response propensity than more standard approaches ignoring prior information. This is especially true during the early-to-middle periods of data collection, when survey managers using RSD often consider interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survey researchers have carefully modified their data collection operations for various reasons, including the rising costs of data collection and the ongoing Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, both of which have made in-person interviewing difficult. For large national surveys that require household (HH) screening to determine survey eligibility, cost-efficient screening methods that do not include in-person visits need additional evaluation and testing. A new study, known as the American Family Health Study (AFHS), recently initiated data collection with a national probability sample, using a sequential mixed-mode mail/web protocol for push-to-web US HH screening (targeting persons aged 18–49 years). To better understand optimal approaches for this type of national screening effort, we embedded two randomized experiments in the AFHS data collection. The first tested the use of bilingual respondent materials where mailed invitations to the screener were sent in both English and Spanish to 50 percent of addresses with a high predicted likelihood of having a Spanish speaker and 10 percent of all other addresses. We found that the bilingual approach did not increase the response rate of high-likelihood Spanish-speaking addresses, but consistent with prior work, it increased the proportion of eligible Hispanic respondents identified among completed screeners, especially among addresses predicted to have a high likelihood of having Spanish speakers. The second tested a form of nonresponse follow-up, where a subsample of active sampled HHs that had not yet responded to the screening invitations was sent a priority mailing with a $5 incentive, adding to the $2 incentive provided for all sampled HHs in the initial screening invitation. We found this approach to be quite valuable for increasing the screening survey response rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing a mobile laboratory located >300 km away from wildfire smoke (WFS) sources, this study examined the systemic immune response profile, with a focus on neuroinflammatory and neurometabolomic consequences, resulting from inhalation exposure to naturally occurring wildfires in California, Arizona, and Washington in 2020. After a 20-day (4 h/day) exposure period in a mobile laboratory stationed in New Mexico, WFS-derived particulate matter (WFPM) inhalation resulted in significant neuroinflammation while immune activity in the peripheral (lung, bone marrow) appeared to be resolved in C57BL/6 mice. Importantly, WFPM exposure increased cerebrovascular endothelial cell activation and expression of adhesion molecules (VCAM-1 and ICAM-1) in addition to increased glial activation and peripheral immune cell infiltration into the brain. Flow cytometry analysis revealed proinflammatory phenotypes of microglia and peripheral immune subsets in the brain of WFPM-exposed mice. Interestingly, endothelial cell neuroimmune activity was differentially associated with levels of PECAM-1 expression, suggesting that subsets of cerebrovascular endothelial cells were transitioning to resolution of inflammation following the 20-day exposure. Neurometabolites related to protection against aging, such as NAD+ and taurine, were decreased by WFPM exposure. Additionally, increased pathological amyloid-beta protein accumulation, a hallmark of neurodegeneration, was observed. Neuroinflammation, together with decreased levels of key neurometabolites, reflect a cluster of outcomes with important implications in priming inflammaging and aging-related neurodegenerative phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survey costs are an understudied area. However, understanding survey costs is critical for making efficient decisions about cost-error trade-offs, as well as to accurately project future costs. In this article, we examine a measure of survey costs—per interview costs—over time in a repeated cross-sectional survey. We examine both measurement issues and variability in costs. The measurement issues relate to the classification of various costs into the appropriate time period. We explore several issues that make this process of classification difficult. A time series analysis is then utilized to examine the trends and seasonality in per interview costs. Under the assumptions of our model, after removing the trend and seasonality components, the remainder is variation in costs. This approach allows us to treat survey cost estimates in a manner similar to any other survey estimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Survey costs are a major driver of survey design decisions and thought to be related to survey errors. Despite their importance, no common language exists for discussing survey costs, nor are there established criteria for identifying which cost metrics are useful for which purposes. Past efforts to study survey costs may have been hampered by the notion that more reporting is better reporting. This article starts by introducing a typology for survey cost metrics defined by the type of cost (estimated, observed in records, and actually incurred), currency versus non-currency measures, and level of aggregation (total, by components, per unit, relative). We also suggest a set of criteria – errors in costs, generalizability, and the degree to which a cost measure is informative about survey error sources – for evaluating the utility of cost metrics. We illustrate the evaluative criteria with the cost metrics. We argue that clearly articulating types of survey costs and resetting these baseline evaluative criteria for the utility of different types of costs will help us expand research in this critical area. We conclude with recommendations for future research in costs within and across organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telephone surveys have been a ubiquitous method of collecting survey data, but the environment for telephone surveys is changing. Many surveys are transitioning from telephone to self-administration or combinations of modes for both recruitment and survey administration. Survey organizations are conducting these transitions from telephone to mixed modes with only limited guidance from existing empirical literature and best practices. This article summarizes findings by an AAPOR Task Force on how these transitions have occurred for surveys and research organizations in general. We find that transitions from a telephone to a self-administered or mixed-mode survey are motivated by a desire to control costs, to maintain or improve data quality, or both. The most common mode to recruit respondents when transitioning is mail, but recent mixed-mode studies use only web or mail and web together as survey administration modes. Although early studies found that telephone response rates met or exceeded response rates to the self-administered or mixed modes, after about 2013, response rates to the self-administered or mixed modes tended to exceed those for the telephone mode, largely because of a decline in the telephone mode response rates. Transitioning offers opportunities related to improved frame coverage and geographic targeting, delivery of incentives, visual design of an instrument, and cost savings, but challenges exist related to selecting a respondent within a household, length of a questionnaire, differences across modes in use of computerization to facilitate skip patterns and other questionnaire design features, and lack of an interviewer for respondent motivation and clarification. Other challenges related to surveying youth, conducting surveys in multiple languages, collecting nonsurvey data such as biomeasures or consent to link to administrative data, and estimation with multiple modes are also prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents results from an experimental study in Germany designed to test the effectiveness of a novel protocol for matching participants in a national panel survey with interviewers employing computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) on selected sociodemographic features, including sex, age, and education. We specifically focus on the ability of the protocol to engender close matches between respondents and interviewers in terms of these features, using both theory and empirical evidence to suggest that this type of matching will improve cooperation rates in surveys employing CATI. We also focus on indicators of "success" at first contact (defined as a successful interview or establishment of an appointment for an interview) as a function of whether the matching protocol was in use on a given day and whether specific types of matches generated higher rates of success overall. We find strong evidence of the protocol effectively establishing close matches, and we also observe that matches based on education proved especially effective for rates of "success" in a panel survey that focused primarily on labor market topics. We conclude with thoughts on practical implementation of this approach in other settings and suggested directions for future work in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionic liquids show promise for deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomass prior to fermentation. Yet, imidazolium ionic liquids (IILs) can be toxic to microbes even at concentrations present after recovery. Here, we show that dominant overexpression of an Ilt1p homolog (encoded by YlILT1/YALI0C04884) from the IIL-tolerant yeast Yarrowia lipolytica confers an improvement in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate tolerance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae compared to the endogenous Ilt1p (ScILT1/YDR090C). We subsequently enhance tolerance in S. cerevisiae through directed evolution of YlILT1 using growth-based selection, leading to identification of mutants that grow in up to 3.5% v/v ionic liquid. Lastly, we demonstrate that strains expressing YlILT1 variants demonstrate improved growth rate and ethanol production in the presence of residual IIL. This shows that dominant overexpression of a heterologous protein (wild type or evolved) from an IIL-tolerant yeast can increase tolerance in S. cerevisiae at concentrations relevant to bioethanol production from IIL-treated biomass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the design of surveys, a number of input parameters such as contact propensities, participation propensities, and costs per sample unit play a decisive role. In ongoing surveys, these survey design parameters are usually estimated from previous experience and updated gradually with new experience. In new surveys, these parameters are estimated from expert opinion and experience with similar surveys. Although survey institutes have fair expertise and experience, the postulation, estimation, and updating of survey design parameters is rarely done in a systematic way. This article presents a Bayesian framework to include and update prior knowledge and expert opinion about the parameters. This framework is set in the context of adaptive survey designs in which different population units may receive different treatment given quality and cost objectives. For this type of survey, the accuracy of design parameters becomes even more crucial to effective design decisions. The framework allows for a Bayesian analysis of the performance of a survey during data collection and in between waves of a survey. We demonstrate the utility of the Bayesian analysis using a simulation study based on the Dutch Health Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, various indicators have been proposed as indirect measures of non-response error in surveys. They employ auxiliary variables, external to the survey, to detect non-representative or unbalanced response. A class of designs known as adaptive survey designs maximizes these indicators by applying different treatments to different subgroups. The natural question is whether the decrease in non-response bias that is caused by adaptive survey designs could also be achieved by non-response adjustment methods. We discuss this question and provide theoretical and empirical considerations, supported by a range of household and business surveys. We find evidence that more balanced response coincides with less non-response bias, even after adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of declining response rates and increasing data collection costs has led to an increase in the use of responsive survey design strategies and the consideration of alternative auxiliary data sources for improvement of survey data collection efficiency and post-survey nonresponse adjustments. Among the myriad sources of auxiliary data that might be appended to a sampling frame to support these efforts, commercial databases maintained by consumer marketing or credit organizations have recently received some research attention, due to the rich amount of information that they make available for survey researchers. Unfortunately, the existing literature raises concerns about the quality of the information in these databases, and few studies to date have considered the ability of these auxiliary data sources to effectively predict survey outcomes, including household eligibility for a given survey, propensity to respond, and key survey measures of interest. Such studies are important to justify the costs of purchasing these commercial data for survey production purposes. With this study, we examine the predictive ability of two alternative commercial databases offering different sets of auxiliary variables to survey researchers. Analyzing survey outcomes from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), we find that these commercial variables improve the fits of models predicting survey eligibility and selected NSFG variables, but that neither data source substantially improves models of response propensity that already include selected NSFG paradata. As a result, the inclusion of the commercial variables in nonresponse adjustments does not result in substantial shifts in selected NSFG estimates. These results suggest that commercial data can be useful for selected survey operations (e.g., identification of eligible households during screening), but may not be useful for post-survey nonresponse adjustment. Suggestions for practice and directions for future research are provided in conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Level-of-effort paradata include information such as the number and timing of attempts and whether there was ever resistance on a sampled case. These types of data are very useful for predicting the probability of response. However, in order to be useful for nonresponse adjustment purposes, data from the sampling frame and paradata need to predict response and the survey variables of interest. Whether level-of-effort paradata will predict survey variables is an empirical question for any specific survey. We examine the utility of these data for nonresponse adjustment purposes in a large, national survey of health and financial measures. Through a series of models and comparisons of alternative weights, we conclude that although the level-of-effort paradata are very useful for predicting the probability of response, for this survey they are not predictive of key survey outcomes and are, therefore, excluded from the adjustment models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an increasing interest in responsive designs (Groves, R. M., and Heeringa, S. G. [2006], “Responsive Design for Household Surveys: Tools for Actively Controlling Survey Errors and Costs,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 169(3), 439–457). These designs make use of incoming data from the field to make decisions about design changes. Estimates from propensity models are a potential input to these designs. For example, estimated propensities may be used to predict outcomes from additional effort or to assign different data collection protocols to cases. However, if these models are estimated during the data collection, they may be vulnerable to biased estimates of coefficients and associated propensities. When these biases may occur is an empirical question. This paper looks at several empirical examples and considers alternative solutions to the problem of producing unbiased estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James Wagner is a barrister, solicitor and Canadian trade mark agent, and runs ‘The IP Shop’ in Vancouver, Canada. Betty Wu is a recent graduate of Nottingham's LL.B. Senior Status (with Honours) program currently completing her Canadian legal accreditation (NCA) examinations.Following implementation of changes to 37 CFR 1.290 under the American Invents Act which went into effect on 16 September 2012, any party can now submit prior art on recently published US patent applications.Notably, the submission process is online, pseudo-anonymous, and free. This development provides a significant incentive for businesses selling goods or services into the US market to monitor their competitor's patent filings.Guidance is given for the identification of applications for which a third party submission may be warranted, and an approach which may be used for preparing and filing the submission. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The response rate has played a key role in measuring the risk of nonresponse bias. However, recent empirical evidence has called into question the utility of the response rate for predicting nonresponse bias. The search for alternatives to the response rate has begun. The present article offers a typology for these indicators, briefly describes the strengths and weaknesses of each type, and suggests directions for future research. New standards for reporting on the risk of nonresponse bias may be needed. Certainly, any analysis into the risk of nonresponse bias will need to be multifaceted and include sensitivity analyses designed to test the impact of key assumptions about the data that are missing due to nonresponse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dr David B Cox is a Partner with Jackson McDonald Lawyers, Perth, Australia. He previously worked in the biomedical research industry.This article examines patent entitlement and invention assignment in light of the recent University of Western Australia v Gray and The Leland Stanford Junior University v Roche Molecular Systems cases.While the Gray case found that the employment contract of academic employees has special features that prevent the implication of a term vesting ownership of inventions in the employer, those features may have general application, meaning that employers should no long rely upon the implied term to ensure title to inventions.The Roche case, though decided on the basis of settled contractual and patent law principles, establishes that the Bayh-Dole Act does not vest ownership of inventions created with federal funding in the employer, nor does it disrupt those settled principles. Employers should ensure that express vesting clauses in employment contracts are operative as at the creation of any invention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Motivation: PSORTb has remained the most precise bacterial protein subcellular localization (SCL) predictor since it was first made available in 2003. However, the recall needs to be improved and no accurate SCL predictors yet make predictions for archaea, nor differentiate important localization subcategories, such as proteins targeted to a host cell or bacterial hyperstructures/organelles. Such improvements should preferably be encompassed in a freely available web-based predictor that can also be used as a standalone program. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The response rate has been a longstanding indicator of the quality of survey data. Recent empirical research, however, has called into question the value of the response rate as a proxy indicator for nonresponse bias, which is the most damaging aspect of nonresponse. A new measure for the risk of nonresponse—the fraction of missing information (FMI)—is proposed as an alternative to the response rate. FMI was developed as part of the methods for handling missing data, and it measures the level of uncertainty about the values one would impute for current nonresponders. Developed as a tool for monitoring ongoing data collection, FMI can help researchers maximize the information in the final dataset. This article illustrates its application to telephone and face-to-face surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ozone (O3), an oxidant air pollutant in photochemical smog, principally targets epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract. However, changes in gene expression have also been reported in livers of O3-exposed mice. The principal aim of the present study was to determine if acute exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of O3 could cause exacerbation of drug-induced liver injury in mice. Overdose with acetaminophen (APAP) is the most common cause of drug-induced liver injury in developed countries. In the present study, we examined the hepatic effects of acute O3 exposure in mice pretreated with a hepatotoxic dose of APAP. C57BL/6 male mice were fasted overnight and then given APAP (300 mg/kg ip) or saline vehicle (0 mg/kg APAP). Two hours later, mice were exposed to 0, 0.25, or 0.5 ppm O3 for 6 h and then sacrificed 9 or 32 h after APAP administration (1 or 24 h after O3 exposure, respectively). Animals euthanized at 32 h were given 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine 2 h before sacrifice to identify hepatocytes undergoing reparative DNA synthesis. Saline-treated mice exposed to either air or O3 had no liver injury. All APAP-treated mice developed marked centrilobular hepatocellular necrosis that increased in severity with time after APAP exposure. O3 exposure increased the severity of APAP-induced liver injury as indicated by an increase in necrotic hepatic tissue and plasma alanine aminotransferase activity. O3 also caused an increase in neutrophil accumulation in livers of APAP-treated animals. APAP induced a 10-fold increase in the number of bromodeoxyuridine-labeled hepatocytes that was markedly attenuated by O3 exposure. Gene expression analysis 9 h after APAP revealed differential expression of genes involved in inflammation, oxidative stress, and cellular regeneration in mice treated with APAP and O3 compared to APAP or O3 alone, providing some indications of the mechanisms behind the APAP and O3 potentiation. These results suggest that acute exposure to near ambient concentrations of this oxidant air pollutant may exacerbate drug-induced liver injury by delaying hepatic repair. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose. Generation of airborne particulate matter during the handling and opening of various syringe and needle packages in a laminar-airflow workbench (LAFW) and in a biological safety cabinet (BSC) was measured to compare the effects on air cleanliness conditions (International Organization for Standardization [ISO] class 5 within the LAFW or BSC and ISO class 7 in buffer areas). Methods. Twenty-five to 50 packages of each of 12 needle or syringe products were opened. Probes were configured to count airborne particles during the separation of strip packages and the opening of packages by peeling back the top web or pushing the device through the packaging (for soft packages) or by twisting apart hard packages. Results. The numbers of particles were not significantly different between the LAFW and BSC. The separation of strip packages generated visible particles and raised airborne particle counts. Peeling open plastic film packages and opening hard plastic packages generated fewer airborne particulates than did pushing devices through the packaging. For all methods of package opening, average counts downstream from the direct compounding area exceeded ISO class 5 conditions. Counts in the LAFW buffer area did not exceed ISO class 7. Conclusion. All methods of separating and opening the packaging of needles and syringes generated particles. The peel-and-present technique generated the lowest particulate volume. The LAFW and BSC were equally effective in maintaining low particle counts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Repeated exposures to ozone cause inflammation and mucous cell metaplasia (MCM) in the nasal mucosa of laboratory animals. Similar cellular responses occur in humans during allergic rhinitis. We tested the hypothesis that exposure to ozone will enhance the inflammatory and epithelial responses associated with allergic rhinitis. Ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized Brown Norway rats were exposed to ozone (0.5 ppm, 8 h/day) for 1 day or 3 consecutive days. Immediately after each ozone exposure, animals were challenged intranasally (IN) with either sterile saline or OVA dissolved in saline (1%, 50 μl/nasal passage). Twenty-four h after the last IN challenge rats were sacrificed; nasal tissues were removed and processed for light microscopic examination and morphometric analysis of numeric densities of inflammatory and epithelial cell populations and volume densities of intraepithelial mucosubstances. A single OVA challenge caused a significant influx of neutrophils and eosinophils into the submucosa of all nasal tissues. Ozone exposure further enhanced the appearance of eosinophils in the maxilloturbinates of OVA-challenged rats but did not increase inflammation in other nasal tissues. After 3 days of ozone/OVA coexposures, the nasal transitional epithelium lining the maxilloturbinates had increased numbers of epithelial cells as well as the appearance of mucus-containing cells in areas normally absent of these secretory cells (i.e., MCM). Multiple challenges with OVA caused increased epithelial mucosubstances in the respiratory epithelium lining the septum without increasing the number of epithelial cells. Multiple exposures to both ozone and OVA caused greater increases in intraepithelial mucosubstances in the septum than those elicited by OVA alone. These results demonstrate that exposure to ozone exacerbates epithelial and inflammatory responses associated with allergen challenge. In addition, coexposure of these agents enhanced the induced production of nasal mucosubstances caused by either agent alone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ozone, the primary oxidant gas in photochemical smog, causes neutrophilic inflammation and mucous cell metaplasia (MCM) in the nasal transitional epithelium (NTE) of rats and monkeys. Bacterial endotoxin is another common airborne agent that induces acute neutrophilic inflammation, but not MCM, in NTE. It does, however, enhance ozone-induced MCM in rat nasal airways (Fanucchi et al., 1998,Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol. 152, 1–9). In the present study, F344 rats exposed to filtered air or 0.5 ppm ozone (8 h/day for 3 days) were intranasally instilled with sterile saline or 100 μg endotoxin 24 h and 48 h after the third ozone exposure. To determine the role of neutrophilic inflammation in endotoxin-induced potentiation of the MCM caused by ozone, half of the rats were depleted of circulating neutrophils prior to saline or endotoxin instillations. Rats were killed 6 h or 3 days after the last intranasal instillation, and nasal tissues were processed for (1) light microscopy and morphometric analysis to determine the number of infiltrating neutrophils and the volume amount (density) of stored mucosubstances in the NTE, and (2) quantitative RT-PCR analysis of steady-state mucin gene (rMuc-5AC) mRNA levels in the NTE. Endotoxin induced a transient influx of neutrophils in both air- and ozone-exposed rats that was completely blocked by neutrophil depletion. Endotoxin increased rMuc-5AC mRNA levels in the NTE of ozone-exposed rats. Neutrophil depletion, however, had no effect on endotoxin-induced upregulation of mucin gene mRNA levels. Endotoxin enhanced the ozone-induced increase in stored mucosubstances (4-fold increase), but only in neutrophil-sufficient rats. These data indicate that endotoxin enhancement of ozone-induced upregulation of rMuc-5AC mRNA levels is neutrophil-independent, while its effects on intraepithelial production and storage of mucus glycoproteins is dependent on the presence of neutrophils. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article highlighted in this issue is “The Role of Oxidative Stress in Indium Phosphide-Induced Lung Carcinogenesis in Rats” by Barbara C. Gottschling, Robert R. Maronpot, James R. Hailey, Shyamal Peddada, Cindy R. Moomaw, James E. Klaunig, and Abraham Nyska (pp. 28–40). The article integrates a traditional pathologic study of toxicant-induced pulmonary carcinogenesis with an immunohistologic assessment of oxidative stress, thereby determining a potential mechanism of action of a toxicant, specifically indium phosphide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors describe tools that allows pharmacy staff to reduce risk in their sterile compounding operation with a dynamic airflow visualization study. Topics mentioned include the significance of properly planning and designing the study, the importance of understanding and defining the intricate steps from start to finish, and identification of critical compounding steps that may pose contamination risk from an airflow standpoint after the process map is completed.