Analgesics and road traffic crashes in senior drivers: An epidemiological review and explorative meta-analysis on opioids

Aim

To assess the epidemiological evidence associating the use of analgesics with the occurrence of road traffic crashes in senior drivers including a meta-analysis with specific focus on opioids.

Methods

Systematic literature review of articles published between 1991 and 2012 retrieved from major databases using relevant key words. Eligible articles were fully reviewed and the main characteristics and results summarized. The methodological quality was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Heterogeneity tests and forest and funnel plots were used as part of the meta-analysis on opioids.

Results

From the potentially eligible articles, nine were selected (4 case–control, 1 case-crossover, and 4 cohort studies) of which four were of medium and five of high quality; seven investigated opioids and four non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Crash involvement (n = 7) rather than responsibility (n = 2) was investigated. Age and sex were the most common covariates adjusted for. Both opioids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs showed mixed results including differences across estimates between and within studies. A marginal positive effect was observed in the pooled analyses on opioids (n = 6, OR 1.20; 95% CI 1.08–1.32).

Conclusions

The evidence is unconvincing in terms of number of studies, control of major confounders, and consistency of the results. The effect seen for opioids can be attributed to the lack of adjustment of key confounders such as concomitant illness or the consumption of alcohol or other psychoactive medications. There is a need for more efficient designs like larger population-based retrospective cohorts and nested case–control or case-crossover studies based on registers of high quality allowing adjustment for these factors and for the selection of unequivocal outcomes (e.g. drivers’ responsibility) to produce more persuasive empirical evidence.     

Smart-Grid-Architekturen in Österreich: Eine Bewertung der IKT-Sicherheitsaspekte relevanter Pilotprojekte

ICT will be a cornerstone of future electricity provision, and therefore our power supply system will be affected by cyber security risks. The research project Smart Grid Security Guidance (SG) ² aims at analyzing such risks and developing appropriate countermeasures. In a first step the ICT security aspects of Smart Grid pilot projects in Austria have been analyzed, for which their system architecture has been mapped to the Smart Grid Architecture Model, a European reference architecture for the validation of Smart Grid use cases. Thus, an ICT architecture model for Smart Grids in Austria can be defined as a basis for further security investigations within the (SG)² project.     

On the effect of various active carbon catalysts on the behaviour of carbon gas-diffusion air electrodes: 2. Acid solutions

The electrochemical performance of carbon gas-diffusion air electrodes was studied in acid solutions. Electrodes with defined structure prepared from 11 different active carbon samples were investigated when working with air and oxygen. The catalytic activity of these samples both in acid and in alkaline solutions was compared. The extent of mass transport hindrances was estimated in terms of ΔE(i) curves. The effect of platinum and polymeric phthalocyanines as promoters on the overall electrochemical characteristics of oxygen and air electrodes was studied. In the case of oxygen electrodes at E = 700 mV (vs. RHE) 120 mA/c² were obtained with NORIT NK active carbon promoted with 2.36 mg platinum/cm² and 30 mA/cm² with P-33-active carbon promoted with 13 mg iron phthalocyanine/cm² . At low current loads the ΔE(i) curves and the slopes of the linear portion of the E vs. log i curves of oxygen electrodes reflect a different electrochemical mechanism and a different rate of mass transport for pure active carbon and active carbon promoted with the above-mentioned catalysts.     

Effect of relative humidity conditions on responsiveness of European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis) males to female sex pheromone in a wind tunnel

The responsiveness pf 3-day-old European corn borer males to three concentrations of 973 ZE 11-tetradecenyl acetate, the female sex pheromone, was studied over a range of relative humidities (43–100%) in a wind tunnel. The proportion of males taking flight and reaching the source decreased, while the proportion exhibiting in-flight arrestment of upwind progress increased under high humidity conditions at all three concentrations of pheromone tested. The relationships between relative humidity and these behaviors were best described by polynomial equations.     

Biaxial biomechanical properties of self-assembly tissue-engineered blood vessels

Along with insights into the potential for graft success, knowledge of biomechanical properties of small diameter tissue-engineered blood vessel (TEBV) will enable designers to tailor the vessels'' mechanical response to closer resemble that of native tissue. Composed of two layers that closely mimic the native media and adventitia, a tissue-engineered vascular adventitia (TEVA) is wrapped around a tissue-engineered vascular media (TEVM) to produce a self-assembled tissue-engineered media/adventia (TEVMA). The current study was undertaken to characterize the biaxial biomechanical properties of TEVM, TEVA and TEVMA under physiological pressures as well as characterize the stress-free reference configuration. It was shown that the TEVA had the greatest compliance over the physiological loading range while the TEVM had the lowest compliance. As expected, compliance of the SA-TEBV fell in between with an average compliance of 2.73 MPa⁻¹. Data were used to identify material parameters for a microstructurally motivated constitutive model. Identified material parameters for the TEVA and TEVM provided a good fit to experimental data with an average coefficient of determination of 0.918 and 0.868, respectively. These material parameters were used to develop a two-layer predictive model for the response of a TEVMA which fit well with experimental data.     

Exact algorithms for OWA-optimization in multiobjective spanning tree problems

This paper deals with the multiobjective version of the optimal spanning tree problem. More precisely, we are interested in determining the optimal spanning tree according to an Ordered Weighted Average (OWA) of its objective values. We first show that the problem is weakly NP-hard. We then propose different mixed integer programming formulations, according to different subclasses of OWA functions. Furthermore, we provide various preprocessing procedures, the validity scopes of which depend again on the considered subclass of OWA functions. For designing such procedures, we propose generalized optimality conditions and efficiently computable bounds. These procedures enable to reduce the size of the instances before launching an off-the-shelf software for solving the mixed integer program. Their impact on the resolution time is evaluated on the basis of numerical experiments.     

In vitro and in vivo satietogenic effect of yeast extracts and control of food intake in rats

Yeast extracts, by their nutritional characteristics, have a high potential as a source of biologically active molecules and functional food ingredients. In this work, in vitro and in vivo satietogenic effect of yeast extracts was examined. The in vitro results obtained for the first time showed that a yeast extract strongly stimulated the secretion of cholecystokinin (CCK) from endocrine STC-1 cells. The effects obtained with this yeast extract were compared to those obtained with other food products known for their potential involvement in satiety (milk proteins, soybean). This yeast extract showed a stronger ability to stimulate CCK secretion than all other products tested. Lack of toxicity of this yeast extract was demonstrated through cell proliferation assays. In vivo, the tests in rats confirmed the satietogenic potential of this yeast extract, particularly in terms of food intake and weight loss, but also for hormone levels.