Managing and sharing the escalating number of sponge "unknowns": the SpongeMaps project.

Contemporary collections of sponges in the Indo-west Pacific have escalated substantially due to pharmaceutical discovery, national bioregional planning, and compliance with international conventions on the seabed and its marine genetic resources beyond national jurisdictions. These partially processed operational taxonomic unit (OTU) collections now vastly outweigh the expertise available to make them better "known" via complete taxonomy, yet for many bioregions they represent the most significant body of currently available knowledge. Increasing numbers of cryptic species, previously undetected morphologically, are now being discovered by molecular and chemical analyses. The uncoordinated and fragmented nature of many previous collections, however, means that knowledge and expertise gained from a particular project are often lost to future projects without a biodiversity informatics legacy. Integrating these diverse data (GIS; OTUs; images; molecular, chemical, and other datasets) required a two-way iterative process so far unavailable for sponges with existing biodiversity informatics tools. SpongeMaps arose from the initial need for online collaboration to integrate morphometric data with molecular barcodes, including the Porifera Tree of Life (PorTol) project. It provides interrogation of existing data to better process new collections; capacity to create new OTUs; publication of online pages for individual species, so as to interpret GIS and other data for online biodiversity databases and services; and automatic links to external datasets for taxonomic hierarchy, specimen GIS and mapping, DNA sequence data, chemical structures, and images.

A comparative study of the attitudes of users and non-users towards computerized care planning.

The aim of this study was to compare the attitudes of nurses who had little or no experience of computerized care planning (non-users) with those who had at least two years' experience (users). The study also assessed levels of computer literacy among both cohorts and the training methods that were considered most appropriate to meet their needs. The approach was quantitative, using a questionnaire to collect data from 15 non-users and 14 users. The overall results suggest that both non-users and users had favourable attitudes towards the use of computerized care plans. However, non-users with previous computer experience had more favourable attitudes towards the introduction of computerized care planning than those with no previous experience. The preferred teaching method identified by both groups was training by technical staff in the clinical area.

Exclusion of the gelsolin gene on 9q32-34 as the cause of familial lattice corneal dystrophy type I.

Familial lattice corneal dystrophy type I (LCD1) is a localized form of inherited amyloidosis limited to the corneal stroma. Recently the Finnish form of hereditary amyloidosis with lattice corneal dystrophy has been shown to be due to a mutation in the gelsolin gene (G654----A; Asp187----Asn). In this paper we exclude the gelsolin gene as the cause of the autosomal dominant form of isolated LCD1.

Clinical and pathologic description of 17 cases of corneal intraepithelial neoplasia.

In 17 patients with corneal intraepithelial neoplasia (dysplasia), the epithelium formed a gray plaque at the corneal limbus adjacent to a conjunctival papilloma in seven cases, leukoplakia in six cases, a pterygium in one case, and a pinguecula in one case. The lesion was an extension of a similar neoplastic process of the conjunctiva in 15 cases, was associated with chronic conjunctivitis in one case, and was isolated to the cornea in one case. Fine white dots mottled the opalescent, ground-glass sheet, whose fimbriated leading edge consisted of sharply demarcated gray fingers that extended to the visual axis in some cases. The disorder can wax and wane spontaneously, shown in one case observed for 16 years. Histopathologically, the thick, hypercellular corneal epithelium abutted sharply against adjacent normal epithelium and demonstrated both cellular pleomorphism and poor intercellular adhesion in the deeper layers. The adjacent conjunctival neoplastic lesions ranged from mild dysplasia to invasive squamous cell carcinoma. Ultrastructurally, the corneal epithelium showed a marked decrease in desmosomal attachments, an abundance of intracytoplasmic filaments characteristic of keratin, and a loss of epithelial basement membrane and hemidesmosomes. The lesion did not extend into Bowman's zone. We classify this dysplastic process as a mild form of corneal intraepithelial dysplasia, a term used to designate the spectrum of epithelial changes ranging from dysplasia to carcinoma in situ. The virulence of the corneal lesion itself is low.

Oval lipid corneal opacities in beagles: VI. Quantitation of excess stromal cholesterol and phospholipid.

We identified and quantitated the following lipids in corneas of normolipemic beagles that had oval corneal opacities: total lipids, cholesterol esters, free cholesterol, total phospholipids, phosphatidyl choline, phosphatidyl ethanolamine, sphingomyelin and total triacylglycerols. All except the total triacylglycerols were significantly higher in the 20 affected corneas than in ten normal age and sex-matched controls (P less than 0.005 for each). Few long-chain unsaturated fatty acids were detected. This lipid analysis and the previously reported natural history, ultrastructure, and histochemistry indicate that these opacities result from a primary disorder of corneal lipid metabolism that closely resembles central crystalline corneal dystrophy in man.

Immunosuppressive therapy for progressive ocular cicatricial pemphigoid.

In a controlled, nonrandomized, longitudinal cohort study, we studied the efficacy of systemic immunosuppression in treatment of progressive cicatricial pemphigoid affecting the eyes. Twenty-six patients were studied; 18 received systemic immunosuppressive drugs, and eight received conventional therapy. Three patients who received cytotoxic agents withdrew from the study with intolerable gastrointestinal distress. Fourteen of the 15 patients who were immunosuppressed successfully for prolonged periods experienced a cessation of their episodic ocular inflammation and a halting of their progressive conjunctival cicatrization. They maintained vision at least as good as that present when disease activity was brought under control; in two patients vision improved. The one patient who was adequately immunosuppressed and successfully maintained in such a state for two years but who had progressive ocular surface pathology with eventual blindness had concomitant rheumatoid arthritis and severe sicca syndrome. The three patients who withdrew from immunosuppressive therapy and the eight concomitant controls all showed continued episodic conjunctival inflammation and conjunctival cicatrization with development of severe keratopathy and profound visual loss. Complications in this series included alopecia (100%), anemia (78%), gastrointestinal distress (22%), hemorrhagic cystitis (11.1%), and severe leukopenia (5.5%). These results support the notion that abnormal immunoregulatory mechanisms are involved in the progressive disease activity in cicatricial pemphigoid and that systemic immunosuppression may have an appropriate role in the treatment of this disease.

Oval corneal opacities in beagles. III. Histochemical demonstration of stromal lipids without hyperlipidemia.

We found oral stromal avascular corneal opacities in 128 eyes of 75 beagles from 497 studied. There were three morphologic types that progressed in severity with time; nebular, racetrack, and white arc. Histochemical study of the earliest morphologic type (nebular) revealed neutral fats, cholesterol, phospholipids, and sometimes fatty acids both intracellularly and extracellularly. We found no elevation of serum cholesterol or triglycerides except in dogs with the most advanced morphologic type (white arc) and no alteration in thyrometabolic function. We think that oval stromal opacities in beagle corneas are a primary disorder of corneal lipid metabolism closely resembling the central crystalline dystrophy of Schnyder and may be an animal model for this human disease.