The Mechanism of Drug Nephrotoxicity and the Methods for Preventing Kidney Damage

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a global health challenge of vast proportions, as approx. 13.3% of people worldwide are affected annually. The pathophysiology of AKI is very complex, but its main causes are sepsis, ischemia, and nephrotoxicity. Nephrotoxicity is mainly associated with the use of drugs. Drug-induced AKI accounts for 19–26% of all hospitalized cases. Drug-induced nephrotoxicity develops according to one of the three mechanisms: (1) proximal tubular injury and acute tubular necrosis (ATN) (a dose-dependent mechanism), where the cause is related to apical contact with drugs or their metabolites, the transport of drugs and their metabolites from the apical surface, and the secretion of drugs from the basolateral surface into the tubular lumen; (2) tubular obstruction by crystals or casts containing drugs and their metabolites (a dose-dependent mechanism); (3) interstitial nephritis induced by drugs and their metabolites (a dose-independent mechanism). In this article, the mechanisms of the individual types of injury will be described. Specific groups of drugs will be linked to specific injuries. Additionally, the risk factors for the development of AKI and the methods for preventing and/or treating the condition will be discussed.     

Solvability of infinite systems of singular integral equations in Fréchet space of continuous functions

The aim of this paper is to show how some measures of noncompactness in the Fréchet space of continuous functions defined on an unbounded interval can be applied to an infinite system of singular integral equations. The results obtained generalize and improve several ones.     

Reduction of Fe1-xO in liquid state by H2+Ar mixtures

The investigations of reducing Fe_1-xO in liquid state with H₂+Ar mixtures, in top blowing stream of gas reactor, by using thermobalance method have been carried out. To make the system more homogeneous pure iron crucibles were used in the experiment. The experiments were carried out in the range of gas flow rate V = (5+80) · 10^?6 m³/s and in 1723 K. Reduction rate depends on hydrogen partial pressure and flow rate of gas mixture. The logarithm of apparent reduction rate constant is a linear function of logarithm of gas flow rate. In experimental conditions of this work, the initial rate of reduction satisfies the relation . Thus it has been shown that the reduction process is controlled by the mass transfer in the gaseous phase. Sherwood numbers obtained from observed values of reduction rates and empirical equation of the gas-phase mass transfer rate are correlated by equation . The values of mass transfer coefficient in gas phase calculated from Sherwood numbers are consistent with the values of apparent reduction rate constant and with estimated rate constant of chemical reaction of liquid F_e1-xO reduction.     

Finite element analysis of the Girkmann problem using the modern hp-version and the classical h-version

We perform finite element analysis of the so called Girkmann problem in structural mechanics. The problem involves an axially symmetric spherical shell stiffened with a foot ring and is approached (1) by using the axisymmetric formulation of linear elasticity theory and (2) by using a dimensionally reduced shell-ring model. In the first approach the problem is solved with a fully automatic hp-adaptive finite element solver whereas the classical h-version of the finite element method is used in the second approach. We study the convergence behaviour of the different numerical models and show that accurate stress resultants can be obtained with both models by using effective post-processing formulas.     

XAFS study of europium chloride at high temperatures

Local structural changes in europium dichloride around europium ion at high temperature are evaluated by using X-ray absorption fine structure technique. A distinct phase shift in EXAFS oscillation observed between 700 and 950K arises from Eu²⁺ to Eu³⁺ oxidation. Referring to the difference in EXAFS oscillation between oxide and oxychloride of lanthanum, the chemical state of europium on oxidation is identified mainly as Eu₂O₃.     

Deterministic Communication in Radio Networks with Large Labels

We study deterministic gossiping in ad hoc radio networks with large node labels. The labels (identifiers) of the nodes come from a domain of size N which may be much larger than the size n of the network (the number of nodes). Most of the work on deterministic communication has been done for the model with small labels which assumes N = O(n). A notable exception is Peleg's paper, where the problem of deterministic communication in ad hoc radio networks with large labels is raised and a deterministic broadcasting algorithm is proposed, which runs in O(n²log n) time for N polynomially large in n. The O(nlog²n)-time deterministic broadcasting algorithm for networks with small labels given by Chrobak et al. implies deterministic O(n log N log n)-time broadcasting and O(n²log²N log n)-time gossiping in networks with large labels. We propose two new deterministic gossiping algorithms for ad hoc radio networks with large labels, which are the first such algorithms with subquadratic time for polynomially large N. More specifically, we propose: a deterministic O(n^3/2log²N log n)-time gossiping algorithm for directed networks; and a deterministic O(n log²N log²n)-time gossiping algorithm for undirected networks.