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Background: Child abuse is a health and social problem, and few screening instruments are available for the detection of risk in primary health care. The aim was to develop a screening instrument to be used by professionals in the public health care sector, thus enabling the detection of infants and toddlers at risk of emotional and physical abuse and neglect, and to provide evidence for the feasibility of the instrument in Cyprus, Greece and Spain. Method: A total of 50 health professionals from paediatric public health-care centres in the three countries were involved in a three-step process for guiding the development of the screening tool and its application. Results: A nine-item screening tool, consisting of items assessing relational emotional abuse, physical abuse and other risk factors, was developed. The screening tool was applied on a total of 219 families with 0 to 3-year-old children attending public health centres in the three countries. Clinicians reported that they agreed on the inclusion of the questions (86.4-100%) and that they found the questions to be useful for the clinical evaluation of the family (63.2-100%). Conclusion: The screening tool shows considerable face validity and was reported feasible by an international set of clinicians

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The study examined whether the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood, Revised Edition (DC: 0-3R; ZERO TO THREE, 2005) Parent-Infant Relationship Global Assessment Scale (PIR-GAS) is applicable to six European countries and contributes to the identification of caregiver-infant/toddler dyads with abusive relationship patterns. The sample consisted of 115 dyads with children's ages ranging from 1 to 47 months. Sixty-four dyads were recruited from community settings without known violence problems, and 51 dyads were recruited from clinical settings and already had been identified with violence problems or as being at risk for violence problems. To classify the dyads on the PIR-GAS categories, caregiver-child interactions were video-recorded and coded with observational scales appropriate for child age. To test whether the PIR-GAS allows for reliable identification of dyads with abusive relationship patterns, PIR-GAS ratings were compared with scores on the the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect's (ISPCAN) Child Abuse Screening Tool-Parental Version (ICAST-P; D.K. Runyan etal., ), a questionnaire measuring abusive parental disciplinary practices. It was found that PIR-GAS ratings differentiated between the general and the clinical sample, and the dyads with abusive patterns of relationship were identified by both the PIR-GAS and the ICAST-P. Interrater reliability for the PIR-GAS ranged from moderate to excellent. The value of a broader use of tools such as the DC: 0-3R to promote early identification of families at risk for infant and toddler abuse and neglect is discussed. info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersion

LINE-1 and Alu elements are non-LTR retrotransposons, constituting together over 30% of the human genome and they are frequently hypomethylated in human tumors. A relationship between global hypomethylation and genomic instability has been shown, however, there is little evidence to suggest active role for hypome-thylation-mediated reactivation of retroelements in human cancer. In our study, we examined by Pyrosequencing the methylation levels of LINE-1 and Alu sequences in 48 primary nonsmall cell carcinomas and their paired adjacent tissues. We demonstrate a significant reduction of the methylation levels of both elements (p = 7.7 × 10-14 and 9.6 × 10-7, respectively). The methylation indices of the 2 elements correlated (p = 0.006), suggesting a possible common mechanism for their methylation maintenance. Genomic instability was measured utilizing 11 fluorescent microsatellite markers located on lung cancer hot-spot regions such as 3p, 5q 9p, 13q and 17p. Hypomethylation of both transposable elements was ass o5ciated with increased genomic instability (LINE, p = 7.1 × 10-5; Alu, p = 0.008). The reduction of the methylation index of LINE-1 and Alu following treatment of 3 lung cell lines with 5-aza-2'-deoxycitidine, consistently resulted in increased expression of both elements. Our study demonstrates the strong link between hypomethylation of transposable elements with genomic instability in non-small cell lung cancer and provides early evidence for a potential active role of these elements in lung neoplasia. As demethylating agents are now entering lung cancer trials, it is imperative to gain a greater insight into the potential reactivation of silent retrotransposons in order to advance for the clinical utilization of epigenetics in cancer therapy. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Selective removal of CO by methanation reaction has been performed over wash-coated supported metal catalysts in a microchannel reactor with reformate surrogate. The primary screening over a series of Ru- and nickel-based catalysts showed that methanation activity is dependent on the type of metal, metal loading, and promoter. A NiO/CeO 2/Al 2O 3 catalyst exhibited the highest methanation activity with full CO conversion below the detection limit of 50 ppm at 300°C. The stability of this catalyst formulation was determined and moderate deactivation took place within 100 hr test duration. A recently developed NiO/Cr 2O 3/Al 2O 3-catalyst showed similar performance. The catalyst showed full conversion of CO at excellent selectivity of > 50%, thus, CO 2 conversion and methane formation were only moderate. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 18th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering (Prague, Czech Republic 8/24-28/2008).

This review is concerned about catalytic gas-phase oxidation reactions in microreactors, typically being performed in wall-coated microchannels. Not included are liquid and gas-liquid oxidations which are typically done in reactor designs different from the ones considered here. The first part of the review is dedicated to briefly summarize selected chemical micro process engineering with selective oxidations done in the past ten years or so. Besides applications in the process development for fine chemicals intermediates and bulk chemicals, the energy market has posed requests on selective oxidation as one gas purification step in the framework of fuel processing for fuel cells. Selected literature works are shown and followed by own developments.

Knowing the status of molecules involved in cell cycle control in cancer is vital for therapeutic approaches aiming at their restoration. The p27 KIP1 and p57KIP2 cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors are nodal factors controlling normal cell cycle. Their expression in normal lung raises the question whether they have a mutual exclusive or redundant role in nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A comparative comprehensive analysis was performed in a series of 70 NSCLCs. The majority of cases showed significantly reduced expression of both members compared to normal counterparts. Low KIP protein levels correlated with increased proliferation, which seems to be histological subtype preponderant. At mechanistic level, degradation by SKP2 was demonstrated, in vivo and in vitro, by siRNA-methodology, to be the most important downregulating mechanism of both KIPs in NSCLC. Decreased p57 KIP2-transcription complements the above procedure in lowering p57KIP2-protein levels. Methylation was the main cause of decreased p57KIP2-mRNA levels. Allelic loss and imprinting from LIT1 mRNA contribute also to decreased p57KIP2 transcription. In vitro recapitulation of the in vivo findings, in A549 lung cells (INK4A-B (-/-)) suggested that inhibition of the SKP2-degradation mechanism restores p27KIP1 and p57KIP2 expression. Double siRNA treatments demonstrated that each KIP is independently capable of restraining cell growth. An additional demethylation step is required for complete reconstitution of p57KIP2 expression in NSCLC. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

This paper proposes a novel scheme that exploits the Inter Access Point Protocol (IAPP), currently standardized by IEEE, in order to expedite the RSVP path re-establishment that takes place after a handover from one WLAN Access Point (AP) to another. The prime characteristic of this scheme is that a WLAN AP serves as an RSVP proxy and starts RSVP signaling on behalf of the Mobile Node much earlier compared with the standard RSVP operation in a WLAN. Therefore, a considerable handover latency reduction can be achieved, which can be as high as 20%. To evaluate the performance and the benefits of the proposed scheme, we display and discuss a series of simulation results. In addition, we present in detail its operation and we discuss the RSVP objects that should be transferred across APs through IAPP. In this context, we also explain the structure of the proposed RSVP Information Elements. Our simulation results show considerable performance improvement, especially in heavy traffic load conditions. Note that the proposed scheme can work with the standard RSVP protocol, as well as with partial path re-establishment methods and can be combined with advanced admission control algorithms in the AP. © Springer 2005.

This article provides an overview of the work undertaken in the ACTS RAINBOW project to develop a flexible radio-independent architecture for UMTS, which will support both existing second-generation radio access and new third-generation radio interface(s). The architecture is developed by decomposing the system into transport-dependent, mobility-dependent, and service-dependent components.