Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation (ISRHML), October 2-6, 1999, Bavaria, Germany. The quality of infant feeding is of major importance for child health development and well being, and breast feeding is the natural form of supplying food to the infant and is considered to be ideally adapted to the needs of both mother and child. This contributed volume therefore, brings together the research on the physiological foundations and on the biological effects of breast feeding, both short and long term. This book contains the work of scientists from over thirty countries, many of whom are leading researchers in their fields, and details papers presented by the invited speakers of the conference and short summaries of presentations of original research results.

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This volume focuses on the relationship between the nervous and the immune system with regard to the effects of drugs of abuse and infections, including infection caused by the immunodeficiency virus which causes AIDS, the number one health problem worldwide. Chapters focus on the brain-immune axis, detailing the effects of drugs of abuse. It is well known that recreational drugs of abuse such as morphine, cocaine, and marijuana, as well as other drugs, including the legal drugs alcohol and nicotine, are used by large numbers of individuals. Serious concerns have been raised about the consequences of using such drugs, especially in relation to their effects on normal physiological responses, including immune mechanisms. It is now widely recognized not only that many drugs of abuse have serious consequences on normal parameters of neurologic and neuroendocrine systems in general but also that effects on those systems, in turn, may affect indirectly immunity and also directly affect immune systems. Much data has now been accumulated showing that drugs of abuse markedly alter the immune response in human populations as well as in experimental animals, both in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore, studies on microbial infections have shown that many drugs of abuse are associated with increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, especially opportunistic intracellular microorganisms, including viruses such as HIV which causes AIDS. The mechanisms whereby drugs of abuse increase the likelihood of infections by opportunistic microorganisms in humans as well as in experimental animals are delineated. This volume will further the understanding of the impact of drugs of abuse on the brain-immune axis and its relationship to immunomodulation and infection, especially that caused by the AIDS virus.

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Proceedings of the FEMS Symposium on Genes and Proteins Underlying Microbial Urinary Tract Virulence: Basic Aspects and Applications, held September 16-19, 1999, in Pécs, Hungary.
Urinary tract infections are among the most frequent diseases caused by microbial pathogens. In this volume, researchers, clinical microbiologists and clinicians exchange the latest ideas covering four major aspects of this important topic:

• Genetic information, synthesis and assembly of virulence factors in urinary pathogens;
• Regulation of genes involved in the phenotypic appearance of virulence;
• Host-parasite interactions determining the process and outcome of the infection;
• Possible applications of the above aspects in diagnosis, therapy and prevention.

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This volume is the proceedings of the International Taurine Symposium 1999: Expanding the Circle, an official Satellite Symposium of the 17th Biennial Meeting of the International Society for Neurochemistry, held on August 3-8, 1999, in Siena, Italy.
Taurine, which is a naturally occurring compound, protects the cell against a variety of harmful insults, and the compound may be vital for the normal function and survival of cells and tissues. These aspects, together with the potential value of taurine in enhancing normal function and protecting against age-related diseases, will be highlighted in this volume by distinguished international aspects in this important and rapidly developing area.

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Now the classic teaching text is enhanced with expanded therapy throughout and a complete updating of the text as it defines anew the current practice of clinical neurology.

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Ovarian cancer is the most common and lethal gynecological malignancy, partly because the majority of patients present with advanced disease. Nevertheless, the management of patients with ovarian neoplasms has changed substantially in recent years, with improved survival due to better screening strategies, major advances in chemotherapy and the constantly evolving role of surgery. Optimal patient care is best achieved by a multidisciplinary team, with imaging playing a pivotal role. The explosion of technological developments in imaging in recent years has meant that all members of the team should understand the potential applications, limitations and advantages of evolving imaging techniques. Each volume in Contemporary Issues in Cancer Imaging - A Multidisciplinary Approach is edited by an expert guest editor with contributions from all members of the multidisciplinary team, thus bringing together expertise from many specialties to promote the understanding and application of modern imaging in overall patient management.

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Consciousness has always been a particularly elusive concept and one vigorously argued in the scientific community. This new volume takes on the task of defining normal and altered consciousness in their most relevant clinical terms.

In States of Consciousness, Andrzej Kokoszka expands on the pioneering work of J.H. Jackson, offering contemporary models for studying consciousness as it applies to both pathology and normal altered states, e.g., relaxation, sleep, meditation, and hypnosis. He makes clear distinctions between the neuroscientific and psychiatric components of consciousness; at the same time, his theories are rooted firmly in the biopsychosocial approach.

Highlights of the coverage:

-Historical overview of studies of consciousness and its altered states

-Evolutionary/dynamic model of consciousness and information processing, based on the structure and principles of cell behavior

-Comparison of altered states of consciousness in healthy persons and patients with schizophrenia

-New perspectives on the role of consciousness in pathology

-Case illustration of altered states in a patient with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, integrating neurobiological, cognitive-behavioral, and psychodynamic data

-Applications of the model in clinical practice

States of Consciousness lends itself to theoretical and practical, research and classroom use. It is relevant to a range of scientists and practitioners in cognition, clinical psychology, social psychology, and neuropsychology The books scope and the authors attention to detail make it a work of great versatility, much like consciousness itself.

30 years after its discovery as an antitumor agent, cisplatin represents today one of the most successful drugs in chemotherapy. This book is intended to reminisce this event, to take inventory, and to point out new lines of development in this field. Divided in 6 sections and 22 chapters, the book provides an up-to-date account on topics such as

• the chemistry and biochemistry of cisplatin,
• the clinical status of Pt anticancer drugs,
• the impact of cisplatin on inorganic and coordination chemistry,
• new developments in drug design, testing and delivery.

It also includes a chapter describing the historical development of the discovery of cisplatin. The ultimate question - How does cisplatin kill a cell? - is yet to be answered, but there are now new links suggesting how Pt binding to DNA may trigger a cascade of cellular reactions that eventually result in apoptosis. p53 and a series of damage recognition proteins of the HMG-domain family appear to be involved. The book addresses the problem of mutagenicity of Pt drugs and raises the question of the possible relevance of the minor DNA adducts, e.g. of interstrand cross-links, and the possible use of trans-(NH3)2Pt(II)-modified oligonucleotides in antisense and antigene strategies. Our present understanding of reactions of cisplatin with DNA is based upon numerous model studies (from isolated model nucleobases to short DNA fragments) and application of a large body of spectroscopic and other physico-chemical techniques. Thanks to these efforts there is presently no other metal ion whose reactions with nucleic acids are better understood than Pt. In a series of chapters, basic studies on the interactions of Pt electrophiles with nucleobases, oligonucleotides, DNA, amino acids, peptides and proteins are reported, which use, among others, sophisticated NMR techniques or X-ray crystallography, to get remarkable understanding of details on such reactions. Reactivity of cisplatin, once bound to DNA and formerly believed to be inert enough to stay, is an emerging phenomenon. It has (not yet) widely been studied but is potentially extremely important. Medicinal bioinorganic chemistry - the role of metal compounds in medicine - has received an enormous boost from cisplatin, and so has bioinorganic chemistry as a whole. There is hardly a better example than cisplatin to demonstrate what bioinorganic chemistry is all about: The marriage between classic inorganic (coordination) chemistry and the other life sciences - medicine, pharmacy, biology, biochemistry. Cisplatin has left its mark also on areas that are generally considered largely inorganic. The subject of mixed-valance Pt compounds is an example: From the sleeping beauty it made its way to the headlines of scientific journals, thanks to a class of novel Pt antitumor agents, the so-called “platinum pyrimidine blues”. In the aftermath diplatinum (III) compounds were recognized and studies in large numbers, and now an organometalic chemistry of these diplatinum (III) species is beginning to emerge. The final section of the book is concerned with new developments such as novel di- and trinuclear Pt(II) drugs with DNA binding properties different from those of cisplatin, with orally active Pt(IV) drugs which are presently in clinical studies, and with attempts to modify combinatorial chemistry in such a way that it may become applicable to fast screening of Pt antitumor drugs. The potential of including computational methods in solving questions of Pt-DNA interactions is critically dealt with in the concluding chapter.

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More than 18 million Americans have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), but more than 90% of cases still remain undiagnosed. This source offers a thorough review of key considerations in the identification and treatment of OSA, and discusses issues often unaddressed in other publications on the topic, such as gender, age, drug interactions, and associated conditions to supply the clinician with best practices, expert recommendations, and clear-cut tables and guidelines for the care of patients with this disorder.

Although neural modeling has a long history, most of the texts available on the subject are quite limited in scope, dealing primarily with the simulation of large-scale biological neural networks applicable to describing brain function. Introduction to Dynamic Modeling of Neuro-Sensory Systems presents the mathematical tools and methods that can describe and predict the dynamic behavior of single neurons, small assemblies of neurons devoted to a single tasks, as well as larger sensory arrays and their underlying neuropile. Focusing on small and medium-sized biological neural networks, the author pays particular attention to visual feature extraction, especially the compound eye visual system and the vertebrate retina. For computational efficiency, the treatment avoids molecular details of neuron function and uses the locus approach for medium-scale modeling of arrays. Rather than requiring readers to learn a dedicated simulation program, the author uses the general, nonlinear ordinary differential equation solver Simnonä for all examples and exercises. There is both art and science in setting up a computational model that can be validated from existing neurophysiological data. With clear prose, more than 200 figures and photographs, and unique focus, Introduction to Dynamic Modeling of Neuro-Sensory Systems develops the science, nurtures the art, and builds the foundation for more advanced work in neuroscience and the rapidly emerging field of neuroengineering.

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