Evaluation of atovaquone in the treatment of patients with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria

The activity of atovaquone in patients with oligosymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum malaria was assessed in an open, non-comparative clinical study. The patients showed a good clinical response, but there was a high rate of recrudescence. The activity of atovaquone in combination with another antimalarial agent should be investigated.     

Effects of thermal history on structural recovery of glasses during isobaric heating

The response of glass-forming systems to isobaric three-step thermal cycles involving cooling, isothermal annealing, and subsequent reheating has been investigated comprehensively using numerous combinations of the experimental and material parameters. The latter include the retardation spectrum or response function and the parameter x which determines the relative contributions of temperature and structure to the retardation times. The results show that, on heating, multiparameter systems can display three kinds of peak in the expansion coefficient α or the heat capacity C_p originating from the interactions of the elementary retardation processes with the thermal history of the glass. The conditions under which these peaks occur, their shifts with x, and the experimental variables have been investigated in detail. In particular, it has been shown that for a thoroughly stabilized glass reheated rapidly, the temperature at which the main peak occurs is strongly dependent on the experimental variables and on x, and that this dependence can lead to an estimate of the value of x. For poorly stabilized glasses reheated slowly, on the other hand, the main peak apparently vanishes and allows an upper peak to appear, which is small and insensitive to x and the experimental variables. Intermediate situations in which the main and the upper peaks occur separately give rise to a range of effects which may become quite complicated as the two peaks approach each other. The occurrence of such multiple peaks, which has usually been overlooked or misinterpreted in the past, is discussed and explained in detail and is compared with some experimental observations reported in the literature.     

Nucleation kinetics in thin film growth III transient nucleation and nucleation on preferred substrate sites

An analytical method is described by which the initial (transient) stage of thin film nucleation may be generally treated. The method is extended to cover simultaneous nucleation at substrate defect sites and at normal lattice sites. Post-transient nucleation and growth under these latter conditions is also considered in detail. The analysis is applied to defect-controlled nucleation under complete condensation conditions and the results are compared with those previously derived for nucleation on a perfect defect-free substrate. The application of this analysis to computer simulation of thin film nucleation and growth is discussed.     

Effect of shape on pressure-volume relationships of ellipsoidal shells

Previous theoretical procedures for determining the slope and intercept of the stiffness-stress relationship of the passive myocardium from diastolic pressure-volume (P-V) data assume that the eccentricity of the left ventricle (LV) is invariant. In this study a mathematical model for an ellipsoidal membrane was developed that does not contain that constraint. The model predicts a small (less than 10%) but significant decrease in eccentricity as transmural pressure increases. This result was confirmed by the use of a thick-wall finite element model. The implications of this result are as follows. 1) The slope and intercept of the stiffness-stress relationship of unconstrained ellipsodial shells can be determined by fitting a spherical model to the P-V relationships exhibited by the shells. 2) An ellipsoidal model that assumes that the eccentricity of such shells is invariant for all pressures would predict erroneous intercepts. 3) If the eccentricity of the diastolic LV initially decreases relative to its value at zero transmural pressure, then a thick-wall spherical model may be adequate for determining the slope and intercept of the myocardial stiffness-stress relationship.