Porous NiO via pulsed electrodeposition towards enhanced electrochromic properties

Journal of Applied Electrochemistry - Herein, a facile pulse electrodeposition procedure with a 1 s off-time between pulses is reported for a successful fabrication of porous nickel oxide...     

Cholestatic hepatitis and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid combination. Personnel case report and literature review

The association amoxicillin-clavulanic acid is a widely used medication. Only about 15 cases of cholestatic hepatitis were reported in Belgium between 1990 and 1993; about 100 cases have been reported to the pharmaceutical company. This effect is severe but reversible. The injury is probably idiosyncratic or immunologically based. Age, sex and treatment duration are as many agents of risk. The diagnosis is undertaken on basis of clinical examination, chronological study, biological evolution and histology.     

Pulsus tardus: its cause and potential limitations in detection of arterial stenosis

PURPOSE: To determine, with hydrodynamic experiments, the true cause of pulsus tardus, a Doppler waveform alteration that often occurs distal to an arterial stenosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A flow phantom was constructed with a pulsatile pump, interchangeable stenoses of varying degree, and interchangeable poststenotic segments of tubing with various degrees of compliance. With the transstenotic pressure drop held constant for each stenosis, Doppler waveforms were obtained before and after stenosis, while the degree of poststenotic vessel compliance was varied. RESULTS: The degree of pulsus tardus increased as the compliance of the poststenotic segment of vessel increased, independent of the transstenotic pressure drop. CONCLUSION: Poststenotic pulsus tardus is caused by the compliance of the poststenotic vessel wall in conjunction with the stenosis, which produces the tardus effect by damping the high-frequency components of the arterial waveform. This information will allow prediction of conditions that may produce false-positive or false-negative results when the tardus phenomenon is used to predict substantial upstream stenosis.     

Effects of selective phosphodiesterase 3 inhibition in the perfused liver of the rat after endotoxin treatment

1. This study was designed to investigate the role of rat phosphodiesterase 3 (RPDE3) in regulation of liver metabolism in sepsis. We studied the effects of the phosphodiesterase 3 inhibitor (PDI), enoximone, alone and in combination with regulating factors of hepatic carbohydrate metabolism and bile secretion in the perfused liver of rats treated 4 h earlier with endotoxin. In addition, cyclic AMP and cyclic GMP levels were determined in the effluate and bile by radio immunoassay methods. 2. After endotoxin treatment, infusion of enoximone at three concentrations (1 microM, 10 microM) resulted in an increased glucose output from -1.4 +/- 0.9 to 7.8 +/- 2.5 mumol l-1 20 min-1. Bile acid-independent bile flow increased also, in a dose-dependent manner. 3. In untreated livers, cyclic AMP release increased in the effluate from 1000 +/- 73 fmol g-1 min-1 to 1710 +/- 143 fmol g-1 min-1 when enoximone (10 microM) was administered. In bile from untreated livers, the level of cyclic AMP was also significantly increased by enoximone. After endotoxin treatment, the enoximone (10 microM) effect on cyclic AMP levels in effluate and bile was greatly reduced. Levels of cyclic GMP in the effluate and bile appeared unchanged in the presence of enoximone. 4. During co-infusion of glucagon (1 nM) and enoximone (10 microM), cyclic nucleotide levels in the effluate and bile of livers after endotoxin treatment were determined. In the effluate, cyclic AMP release increased from 827 +/- 144 fmol g-1 min-1 to 17802 +/- 2821 fmol g-1 min-1 when glucagon was administered. The presence of enoximone enhanced cyclic AMP further to 41696 +/- 920 fmol g-1 min-1. The same changes in cyclic AMP release were found in bile. Levels of cyclic GMP in the effluate and bile were not significantly affected by the administration of glucagon and the PDI. 5. Glucose release was determined during glucagon, sympathetic nerves stimulation and phenylephrine administration in the presence and absence of enoximone. The addition of enoximone to glucagon increased glucose release by 8.2 +/- 2.8 mumol g-1 20 min-1, without alteration of lactate balance. The PDI enhanced the glycogenolytic effects of nerve stimulation and of phenylephrine, accompanied by a reduction in lactate production. 6. Enoximone significantly enhanced the bile acid independent bile flow after glucagon, nerves stimulation and after administration of phenylephrine. Bile acid secretion was unaffected by the PDI. The vasoconstrictor effect of nerve stimulation was reduced by the PDI. 7. We conclude that endotoxin treatment reduces the ability of the PDI, enoximone, to increase cyclic AMP release in the perfused liver. The significant increase in cyclic AMP release after stimulation with glucagon and enoximone favours the view that RPDE3 is involved in the degradation of cyclic AMP in the liver after exposure to endotoxin. Additionally, the inhibition of the RPDE3 results in glucose release, vasodilatation and choleresis in endotoxin pretreated livers.     

Free association and analytic neutrality: the basic structure of the psychoanalytic situation

This paper re-examines within a contemporary context an essential foundation of classical technique, the psychoanalytic situation. Defined in terms of basic elements of psychoanalytic relatedness which make possible the most profound exploration of human motivation, its core structure is viewed as an extraordinary interpersonal arrangement anchored by two clearly differentiated yet complimentary ways of relating: free-association and analytic neutrality. The patient's role, organized by the prerequisites of expressive freedom, is counter posed with the psychoanalyst's, which is structured to empower listening and understanding. Elaborating the parameters of this unique relationship, the authors emphasize the synergic effects of each participants' activity in creating a vehicle for destabilizing neurotic equilibrium. An extensive discussion of analytic neutrality, conceived as guiding ideal that informs all the analyst's attitudes and actions in the exploration of psychic reality, is presented. Specifically, the authors distinguish three essential dimensions which bear upon the interactive process: neutrality with regard to conflict, neutrality with regard to sequence, and neutrality with regard to transference. In contrast to the rigid constraint on human responsiveness often caricatured in the literature, this vision of technical neutrality establishes its vital contribution to the integrity, depth, and tone of any analytic process that unfolds.     

A Bayesian hierarchical correlation model for fMRI cluster analysis

Data-driven cluster analysis is potentially suitable to search for, and discriminate between, distinct response signals in blood oxygenation level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD fMRI), which appear during cerebrovascular disease. In contrast to model-driven methods, which test for a particular BOLD signal whose shape must be given beforehand, data-driven methods generate a set of BOLD signals directly from the fMRI data by clustering voxels into groups with correlated time signals. Here, we address the problem of selecting only the clusters that represent genuine responses to the experimental stimulus by modeling the correlation structure of the clustered data using a Bayesian hierarchical model. The model is empirically justified by demonstrating the hierarchical organization of the voxel correlations after cluster analysis. BOLD signal discrimination is demonstrated using: 1) simulations that contain multiple pathological BOLD response signals; and 2) fMRI data acquired during an event-related motor task. These demonstrations are compared with results from a model-driven method based on the general linear model. Our simulations show that the data-driven method can discriminate between the BOLD response signals, while the model-driven method only finds one signal. For fMRI, the data-driven method distinguishes between the BOLD signals appearing in the sensorimotor cortex and those in basal ganglia and putamen, while the model-driven method combines these signals into one activation map. We conclude that the proposed data-driven method provides an objective framework to identify and discriminate between distinct BOLD response signals.