Influence of spatial mapping on manual aiming asymmetries.

Two experiments were conducted to examine manual asymmetries in a one-dimensional aiming task. In Exp. 1, 10 right-handed adults slid a computer mouse 13 cm on a graphics tablet with both the right and left hands to targets of 3 different diameters. Under these conditions, the movement time for the right hand was significantly faster as expected. In Exp. 2, subjects performed similar movements to move a cursor 13 cm on a computer monitor. Thus the study was identical except the stimulus-response mapping was indirect. In this situation, there were no significant difference for either movement time or movement error between hands despite these performance measures indicating the target aiming was more difficult in Exp. 2. Because increases in task difficulty generally result in a greater advantage for the right hand, as indicated by Todor & Smiley, 1985, the present studies suggest that superiority of the right hand in aiming tasks may be diminished when spatial translation is required. Perhaps the spatial translation requires greater involvement of the right hemisphere, a process associated with manual advantage for the left hand, previously suggested by Roy and MacKenzie.

Microbial oxidative metabolism of diclofenac: production of 4'-hydroxydiclofenac using Epiccocum nigrum IMI354292.

The 4'-hydroxylated metabolite of diclofenac was produced by biocatalysis for probing specific human drug-metabolising enzymes (CYP2C9). An initial screen of 11 microorganisms was carried out (50 ml scale) to identify the organism best suited to the regioselective conversion of diclofenac to its 4'-hydroxylated metabolite. From this screen, the fungus Epicoccum nigrum IMI354292 was selected as the most suitable microorganism. Scale-up was carried out in a 30-l fermenter to which 2 g diclofenac was added. After 48 h, 50% of the diclofenac had been converted to it 4'-hydroxylated metabolite. The broth was then extracted with ethyl acetate and purified by chromatography and crystallisation. This yielded 0.3 g 4'-hydroxydiclofenac with a purity of at least 99%. The 4'-hydroxydiclofenac produced by E. nigrum was characterised by HPLC, mass spectrometry and NMR.

Novel erythromycins from a recombinant Saccharopolyspora erythraea strain NRRL 2338 pIG1. I. Fermentation, isolation and biological activity.

In a previous report, a plasmid, pIG1, which contained the loading domain from the Streptomyces avermitilis polyketide synthase (PKS), promoters from Streptomyces coelicolor and the DEBS1-TE truncated PKS from Saccharopolyspora erythraea, was integrated into the S. erythraea chromosome, effectively replacing the natural erythromycin loading domain with the avermectin loading domain. In this paper, we report the feeding of short-chained fatty acids to this recombinant strain, and its parent, NRRL 2338. Both strains incorporated exogenously supplied fatty acids to produce novel, biologically active, C-13 substituted erythromycins.

Electronic diagnoser of arterial pulse.

An electronic diagnoser of the arterial pulse has been designed to give three outputs: pulse amplitude, instantaneous pulse rate (IPR) and spectral energy ratios (SER) at 5 and 10 Hz. The information thus provided will be useful for diagnosing many kinds of disease in the human body.