Hostility, cultural orientation, and casual blood pressure readings in African Americans.

Evidence suggests that hostility correlates with blood pressure levels in African-American samples. However, some studies have reported an inverse relationship, while others have found the relationship between blood pressure and hostility to be positive. Other literature suggests health outcomes in general, and blood pressure in particular, are related to cultural orientation in African-American samples. In the present study, six casual measures of blood pressure and heart rate in a sample of 90 African-American college students were aggregated and correlated with measures of hostility and cultural orientation. Correlational and regression analyses revealed a weak positive relationship between hostility and systolic blood pressure. The relationships between the cardiovascular measures and cultural orientation were more consistent. The tendency to embrace mainstream Euro-American values, such as materialism, individuality, and competitiveness, was associated with more rapid heart rate and higher diastolic blood pressure levels for both men and women. The relationship between systolic blood pressure and cultural orientation emerged for men only. The findings encourage further research into the relationship between personality variables and cardiovascular activity in African-American samples.

Vibrio alginolyticus cellulitis following coral injury.

Infections associated with marine activities, particularly work or recreation in salt water, present unique diagnostic challenges for the infectious disease practitioner. Those caused by halophilic, non-cholera Vibrio species are increasingly being recognized in clinical practice. They typically follow saltwater injuries, especially those associated with coral. Because these infections can be both severe and life-threatening, a consideration of halophilic Vibrio species in the differential diagnosis of marine-acquired infections is important. In this case report, we discuss the diagnosis and treatment of cellulitis in a patient with a Caribbean coral injury associated with Vibrio alginolyticus cellulitis.

Lack of constitutive beta-glucosidase (esculinase) in the genus Fusobacterium.

Esculin has been incorporated into both a medium and test with 20% bile for many years to differentiate Bacteroides from Fusobacterium organisms. After 24 to 48 h, all members of the Bacteroides fragilis group grow in 20% bile and hydrolyze esculin. Fusobacterium mortiferum can both grow in bile and hydrolyze esculin, thus limiting the use of the bile-esculin medium and test. The hypothesis that constitutive esculinase (beta-glucosidase) could differentiate Bacteroides from Fusobacterium organisms was investigated. Clinical isolates and American Type Culture Collection clones of the B. fragilis group and other species of Bacteroides and Fusobacterium were tested. All B. fragilis were positive within 30 min. In no case was a Fusobacterium organism positive for constitutive enzyme in a hydrolyzable substrate-based test. The percentage of positive results for other species of Bacteroides agreed with those published in the literature for the esculin test. The genus Fusobacterium can be separated from Bacteroides organisms based on a lack of constitutive beta-glucosidase in the former in a 30-min one-tube test.

Extendability of proper holomorphic mappings and global analytic hypoellipticity of the partial differential-Neumann problem.

IN THIS COMMUNICATION, THE PROOF OF THE FOLLOWING THEOREM IS SKETCHED: If D(1) is a bounded domain in C(n) with real analytic boundary whose partial differential-Neumann problem is globally real analytic hypoelliptic and f is a proper holomorphic mapping of D(1) onto a second bounded domain D(2) in C(n) with real analytic boundary, then the mapping f extends to be holomorphic in a neighborhood of D(1). The proof relies on a transformation formula for the Bergman projection under proper holomorphic mappings.