Absence of oxidative stress following paradoxical sleep deprivation in rats

With an aim of creating new, high affinity dopaminergic ligands, six different 3- and 4-substituted 1-[2-[5-(1H-benzimidazole-2-thione)] ethyl]piperidines and nine related heterocyclic congeners were synthesized and evaluated for in vitro binding affinity at D1 and D2 dopamine receptors. Synaptosomal membranes prepared from fresh bovine caudate nuclei were used as a source of the dopamine receptors. Only 4-[bis-(4-fluorophenyl)methylene]-piperidines, compounds 9e, 10d, and 11d, expressed moderate affinity for the D1 receptors, while all other compounds were inactive competitors of [3H]SCH 23390. Compounds 9c, 9d, 10c, 11a, and 11c were inactive in the D2 receptor binding assay, as well. Derivatives of 4-phenylpiperidine (9-11b) and 3-phenylpiperidine (10a) expressed a moderate to low affinity for the D2 receptors. However, racemic (+/-)-1-[2-[5-(1H-benzimidazole-2-thione)] ethyl]-3-phenylpiperidine 9a and its enantiomer (+)-9a behaved as selective, high affinity D2 receptor ligands, the latter being some four times more active than the racemate.     

Development and implementation of a perioperative autologous service program

Several months after we initiated our PAS program, the AABB scrutinized our policy and procedure manual. At the same time, the JCAHO conducted an inspection of our blood bank and its standards. Both reviews were positive, which provided all of us involved in the PAS program with a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Each PAS team member played a significant role in the development and implementation of our PAS program. Thanks to the energy, enthusiasm, and support of perioperative nurses, surgeons, and hospital administrators, our PAS program has evolved into a high quality, efficient alternative to homologous blood transfusions in the perioperative setting.     

Using self-organizing maps to learn geometric hash functions formodel-based object recognition

A major problem associated with geometric hashing and methods which have emerged from it is the nonuniform distribution of invariants over the hash space. In this paper, a new approach is proposed based on an elastic hash table. We proceed by distributing the hash bins over the invariants. The key idea is to associate the hash bins with the output nodes of a self-organizing feature map (SOFM) neural network which is trained using the invariants as training examples. In this way, the location of a hash bin in the space of invariants is determined by the weight vector of the node associated with the hash bin. The advantage of the proposed approach is that it is a process that adapts to the invariants through learning. Hence, it makes absolutely no assumptions about the statistical characteristics of the invariants and the geometric hash function is actually computed through learning. Furthermore, SOFM's topology preserving property ensures that the computed geometric hash function should be well behaved.     

Desflurane reduces the febrile response to administration of interleukin-2

BACKGROUND: Intraoperative fever is relatively rare considering how often pyrogenic causes are likely to be present and how common fever is postoperatively. This low incidence suggests that general anesthesia per se inhibits the normal response to pyrogenic stimulation. The authors therefore tested the hypothesis that desflurane-induced anesthesia produces a dose-dependent inhibition of the febrile response. METHODS: Eight volunteers were studied, each on 3 study days. Each was given an intravenous injection of 50,000 IU/ kg of interleukin-2 (elapsed time, 0 h), followed 2 h later by 100,000 IU/kg. One hour after the second dose, the volunteers were assigned randomly to three doses of desflurane to induce anesthesia: (1) 0.0 minimum alveolar concentration (MAC; control), (2) 0.6 MAC, and (3) 1.0 MAC. Anesthesia continued for 5 h. Core temperatures were recorded from the tympanic membrane. Thermoregulatory vasoconstriction was evaluated using forearm-minus-fingertip skin temperature gradients; shivering was evaluated with electromyography. Integrated and peak temperatures during anesthesia were compared with repeated-measures analysis of variance and Scheffé's F tests. RESULTS: Values are presented as mean +/- SD. Desflurane reduced the integrated (area under the curve) febrile response to pyrogen, from 7.7 +/- 2.0 degrees C x h on the control day to 2.1 +/- 2.3 degrees C x h during 0.6 MAC and to -1.4 +/- 3.1 degrees C x h during 1.0 MAC desflurane-induced anesthesia. Peak core temperature (elapsed time, 5-8 h) decreased in a dose-dependent fashion: 38.6 +/- 0.5 degrees C on the control day, 37.7 +/- 0.7 degrees C during 0.6 MAC and 37.2 +/- 1.0 degrees C during 1.0 MAC desflurane anesthesia. Rising core temperature was always associated with fingertip vasoconstriction and often with shivering. CONCLUSIONS: Desflurane-induced anesthesia produced a dose-dependent decrease in integrated and peak core temperatures after administration of pyrogen, with 1.0 MAC essentially obliterating fever. Anesthetic-induced inhibition of the pyrogenic response is therefore one reason that fever is an inconsistent clinical response to inflammation during surgery.     

Sleep deprivation induces brain region-specific decreases in glutathione levels

Rats were deprived of sleep for 96 h by the platform technique and total glutathione (GSHtau) levels were measured in seven different brain areas. Glutathione levels were found to be significantly reduced in the hypothalamus of sleep-deprived animals when compared with large platform (-18%) or home cage (-31%) controls. Deprived rats also had reduced GSHtau levels in thalamus compared with home cage controls only. Glutathione levels did not differ among the three groups in any of the other brain areas examined. These results indicate that specific brain areas may be differentially susceptible to oxidative stress after sleep deprivation. The apparent vulnerability of the hypothalamus to these effects may contribute to some of the functional effects of sleep deprivation.     

Image segmentation and discriminant analysis for the identificationof land cover units in ecology

The textured nature of most natural land cover units as represented in remotely sensed imagery causes limited results of per-pixel classifications. The segmentation algorithm, iterative mutually optimum region merging (IMORM), is presented and used to partition images into elements that are thereafter classified by linear canonical discriminant analysis and a maximum likelihood allocation rule. This per-segment approach results in much higher accuracy than the conventional per-pixel approach. Furthermore, separability matrices indicate that many land cover categories cannot be correctly defined by per-pixel statistics     

Determination of amino acids in ripening apples by high performance liquid chromatography

Summary High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to monitor amino acid changes in ripening apples in order to increase knowledge of the biochemistry of this type of fruit with a view to determining the optimum ripening time and evaluating the potential influence of the amino acid content of the different apple varieties studied on the juices and fermented beverages nmade from them.

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Entwicklung des Gehaltes an Aminosäuren in Äpfeln während des Reifungsprozesses mit Hochleistungsflüssigchromatographie

Zusammenfassung Die Hochleistungsflüssigchromatographie wurde angewendet, um Reifungsprozesse zu untersuchen mit dem Ziel, das Wissen über die Biochemie des Reifungsprozesses zu verbessern, einerseits um das Reifungsoptimum zu erkennen und andererseits um die mögliche Bedeutung des Gehalts an Aminosäuren der verschiedenen Apfelsorten für die daraus hergestellten Säfte und Gärungsgetränke festzustellen.

     

An electrically compensated radiometer

The radiometer described applies electronic feedback to dynamically balance the radiant power absorbed by a radiation absorbing sensor through an equivalent electric joule heating of a compensating sensor shielded from incident radiation. The instrument combines simple construction and the small time constant achieved in thermocouple detectors with the self-calibration and large output signal characteristic of resistance thermometer instruments. Theoretical instrument response equations indicate that, for perfect compensation, with identical sensor geometries, orientations and materials, output is independent of ambient temperature or sensor inclination. Measurement stability is determined principally by feedback amplifier drift. Initial measurements on a simple model pyranometer confirm the validity of the concept. For 3500 readings with radiant flux in the range of 100 to 800 W/m² and incidence within about 40° from the vertical, the standard deviation of the model was 0.4% and the linear correlation coefficient 0.988 with respect to an Eppley PSP pyranometer. Threshold radiant flux was about 100 ± 8 mW/m² and the expected uncertainty at a radiant flux of 1 kW/m² about 2 W/m². The time constant, for 20 μm tungsten wire sensors was of the order of 45 ms.     

Consumer versus management reaction in new package development.

How important is consumer research pertaining to package development? The judgments of designers, management, and consumers, with a total N of 134, were compared using 18 different package designs and using Stephenson's Q sort technique. "Had the packaging decision been made on the basis of recommendation of the design firm and on the pooled judgment of the client's marketing management, the net effect would have been to select designs which would have had the least appeal so far as the consumers sampled were concerned." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4LO22B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Recruiting door-to-door salesmen by mail.

A research program involving over 20,000 door-to-door salesmen resulted in the development of an objectively scored mail questionnaire which effectively eliminated 3/4 of those who failed to meet minimum standards of sales performance. The content of the questionnaire and the scoring key clearly indicated that the personal characteristics which made for sales success were contrary to what the company had previously believed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)