A preliminary pharmacogenetic investigation of adverse events from topiramate in heavy drinkers.

Topiramate, an anticonvulsant medication, is an efficacious treatment for alcohol dependence. To date, little is known about genetic moderators of side effects from topiramate. The objective of this study was to examine 3 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the glutamate receptor GluR5 gene (GRIK1) as predictors of topiramate-induced side effects in the context of a laboratory study of topiramate. Heavy drinkers (n = 51, 19 women and 32 men), 75% of whom met criteria for an alcohol use disorder, completed a 5-week dose escalation schedule to a target dose of either 200 or 300 mg or matched placebo. The combined medication groups were compared with placebo-treated individuals for side effects at target dose. Analyses revealed that an SNP in intron 9 of the GRIK1 gene (rs2832407) was associated with the severity of topiramate-induced side effects and with serum levels of topiramate. Genes underlying glutamatergic neurotransmission, such as the GRIK1 gene, may help predict heterogeneity in topiramate-induced side effects. Future studies in larger samples are needed to more fully establish these preliminary findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preparation of diamond like carbon thin film on stainless steel and its SEM characterization

We report the formation of a very smooth, continuous and homogeneous diamond-like carbon DLC thin coating over a bare stainless steel surface without the need for a thin Si/Cr/Ni/Mo/W/TiN/TiC interfacial layer. As confirmed by the field-emission scanning electron microscopy, good adhesion is achieved as characterized by (i) the formation of a smooth, continuous film with no pores, (ii) a significant reduction of oxygen in the interfacial layer, and (iii) the development of rich carbon content at the top surface. Thickness measurements by cross-sectional secondary-emission microscopy showed that the DLC coating is essentially a 2-dimensional material.     

Recent Books

This unique and interesting book covers technical aspects of antenna noise temperature for large antennas, such as those of NASA's Deep Space system, encountered during the author's 40+ year career there. It is a true engineering book that gets right down to details and does not entertain tutorials, so is not a quick read. However, it is well referenced: most of the references are available via the Internet, from JPL's Web pages, and IEEExplore, if needed. The work described covers the frequencies from 2 to 32 GHz, with few excursions outside this range.     

Factors Associated with Use of Interactive Cancer Communication System: An Application of the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking

In order to provide insights about cancer patients' online information seeking behaviors, the present study analyzes individuals' transaction log data and reports on how demographics, disease‐related factors, and psychosocial needs predict patterns of service use within a particular Interactive Cancer Communication System (ICCS). Study sample included 294 recently diagnosed breast cancer patients. Data included pretest survey scores of demographic, disease‐related, and psychosocial factors and automatically collected ICCS use data over the 4‐month intervention. Statistical analyses correlated pre‐test survey scores with subsequent, specific types of ICCS service usage. Patterns of online cancer information seeking differed according to the patients' characteristics, suggesting that lower income, less educated women and those lacking in information‐seeking competence use the computer and online services to the same or a greater degree if those services are made available to them. Results of this study can inform more effective resource development for future eHealth applications.     

A computationally efficient approach for NN based system identification of a rotary wing UAV

Neural Network (NN) models based on autoregressive structures have long been used for nonlinear system identification problems. Their application for on-line implementations, however require them to be trained within a prescribed time span, which is often related to the sampling time of the system. In this paper, we introduce a NN model that is embedded with a dimensionality reduction mechanism in order to reduce the size of the network. The dimensionality reduction is based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the resulting smaller NN trains faster. The longitudinal and lateral dynamics of a rotary wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is modelled using flight test data. The results of system identification, error statistics and training times are provided to highlight the benefits of the proposed approach for NN based system identification models.     

Modeling of the sheet‐molding process for poly(methyl methacrylate)

The sheet‐molding process for the production of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) involves an isothermal batch reactor followed by polymerization in a mold (the latter is referred to as a “sheet reactor”). The temperature at the outer walls of the mold varies with time. In addition, due to finite rates of heat transfer in the viscous reaction mass, spatial temperature gradients are present inside the mold. Further, the volume of the reaction mass also decreases with polymerization. These several physicochemical phenomena are incorporated into the model developed for this process. It was found that the monomer conversion attains high values of near‐unity in most of the inner region in the mold. This is because of the high temperatures there, since the heat generated due to the exothermicity of the polymerization cannot be removed fast enough. However, the temperature of the mold walls has to be increased in the later stages of polymerization so that the material near the outer edges can also attain high conversions of about 98%. This would give PMMA sheets having excellent mechanical strength. The effects of important operating (decision) variables were studied and it was observed that the heat‐transfer resistance in the mold influences the spatial distribution of the temperature, which, in turn, influences the various properties (e.g., monomer conversion, number‐average molecular weight, and polydispersity index) of the product significantly. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 81: 1951–1971, 2001     

Unfolding of Plasmodium falciparum triosephosphate isomerase in urea and guanidinium chloride: evidence for a novel disulfide exchange reaction in a covalently cross-linked mutant

The conformational stability of Plasmodium falciparum triosephosphate isomerase (TIMWT) enzyme has been investigated in urea and guanidinium chloride (GdmCl) solutions using circular dichroism, fluorescence, and size-exclusion chromatography. The dimeric enzyme is remarkably stable in urea solutions. It retains considerable secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure even in 8 M urea. In contrast, the unfolding transition is complete by 2.4 M GdmCl. Although the secondary as well as the tertiary interactions melt before the perturbation of the quaternary structure, these studies imply that the dissociation of the dimer into monomers ultimately leads to the collapse of the structure, suggesting that the interfacial interactions play a major role in determining multimeric protein stability. The Cm(urea)/Cm(GdmCl) ratio (where Cm is the concentration of the denaturant required at the transition midpoint) is unusually high for triosephosphate isomerase as compared to other monomeric and dimeric proteins. A disulfide cross-linked mutant protein (Y74C) engineered to form two disulfide cross-links across the interface (13-74') and (13'-74) is dramatically destablized in urea. The unfolding transition is complete by 6 M urea and involves a novel mechanism of dimer dissociation through intramolecular thiol-disulfide exchange.     

The effect of charcoal combustion on iron-ore sintering performance and emission of persistent organic pollutants

A study was carried out into the use of hardwood charcoal as a supplementary fuel in the iron-ore sintering process. The primary fuel was coke breeze with 0%, 20%, 50% and 100% replacement of the energy input with charcoal to produce raw blends with the same heat output as 4.0 wt.% coke breeze. Experimental results indicate that fuel blends where 20% of the heat input was provided by charcoal may improve both the sinter yield and sintering productivity by up to 8%, under normal sintering conditions. In addition, the 20% replacement of coke energy with charcoal would mean that part of the carbon dioxide emitted from the process would be from a renewable source and could be used to offset carbon dioxide emissions from non-renewable fossil fuels. At higher rates of coke breeze energy substitution with charcoal, the lower sintering performance observed was mainly attributed to the lower fixed carbon content and higher volatile matter content of the fuel mix.At the optimum rate of 20% substitution of coke breeze energy input with charcoal, the emission of dioxins were similar to those observed with coke breeze alone as the fuel. However, sintering with 20% energy input from charcoal resulted in a slight increase in middle molecular weight and lower molecular weight PAHs, contributing to a minor increase in B[a]P-eq from 0.15 μg/m³ to 0.17 μg/m³. Overall the results from the laboratory scale tests suggest that it is feasible to substitute 20% of the coke breeze energy input with an equivalent amount of energy from charcoal in the iron-ore sintering process.     

Performance optimisation of laminar fully developed flow through square ducts with rounded corners

A study on combined first and second law based optimisation of thermal-hydraulic performance of laminar fully developed flow through square ducts with rounded corners has been presented in this paper. The objective functions have been considered according to suggestions of Webb and Bergles [7]. Four specific geometric constraints have been imposed on the shape of the ducts and these ducts have also been subjected to three different thermal and (or) hydraulic constraints. Two different thermal boundary conditions have been considered and the correlations for friction factor and Nusselt numbers have been adopted from the study of Ray and Misra [21]. The results obtained from the present study clearly show that the optimal duct geometry strongly depends on geometric and thermal-hydraulic constraints, as well as, the objective functions and hence, no general comment can be made with respect to the superiority of a particular geometry of the ducts. Nevertheless, the present study also shows that although entropy generation minimisation may be considered to be an important tool, one requires being careful in using it for thermal-hydraulic optimisation since it may lead to contradictory results for some of the performance evaluation criteria.