Phase I and pharmacological study of CI-980, a novel synthetic antimicrotubule agent

CI-980 (NSC 613862) is one of a novel class of 1,2-dihydropyrido[3, 4-b]pyrazines that inhibits tubulin polymerization, presumably by binding to the colchicine binding site of tubulin. In a Phase I and pharmacological study, 16 patients with advanced solid neoplasms were treated with CI-980 on a continuous 72-h infusion schedule at doses ranging from 3.0-5.4 mg/m2/day every 3 weeks. High rates of central nervous system (CNS) toxicity and neutropenia occurred in both minimally and heavily pretreated patients who were treated with CI-980 doses above 3.75 mg/m2/day, which is the maximum tolerated dose and the recommended dose for additional evaluations. CNS effects, characterized by neurocortical, mood, and cerebellar manifestations, were generally observed toward the end of the infusion and immediately posttreatment and usually resolved within 48 h after the completion of treatment. Toxicity was mild to modest at the 3.75 mg/m2/day dose level. Neither clinical nor pharmacological risk factors that may predispose patients to the development of CNS effects were evident. Although no objective antineoplastic activity was observed in this Phase I study, CI-980 steady-state plasma concentrations achieved at the recommended dose of 3.75 mg/m2/day (mean +/- SE, 5.74 +/- 0.54 nM) approached and exceeded concentrations that have been associated with significant activity in preclinical studies, indicating that additional disease-directed evaluations of CI-980 may be warranted.     

Major depressive disorder in Taiwan defined by the Chinese diagnostic Interview Schedule

The lifetime prevalence rate of major depressive disorder (MDD), as defined by the Chinese Diagnostic Interview Schedule, is 1.14% in Taiwan. This is significantly lower than the lifetime prevalence rates reported in Western studies and similar to other studies in the Chinese population using similar methods for assessing cases of MDD. Epidemiological data from 136 MDD cases were analyzed to provide possible explanations for this difference in lifetime prevalence rates. The low rate of broken families in Chinese culture, low comorbidity rate, and older age of onset of MDD may suggest a reality of low lifetime prevalence rates of MDD in Taiwan.     

A finite-difference time-domain method applied to anisotropicmaterial

The popularity of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method stems from the fact that it is not limited to a specific geometry and it does not restrict the constitutive parameters of a scatterer. Furthermore, it provides a direct solution to problems with transient illumination, but can also be used for harmonic analysis. However, researchers have limited their investigation to materials that are either isotropic or that have diagonal permittivity, conductivity, and permeability tensors. The authors derive the necessary extension to the FDTD equations to accommodate nondiagonal tensors. Excellent agreement between FDTD and exact analytic results is obtained for a one-dimensional anisotropic scatterer     

Short-term memory impairment and arithmetical ability

We document the dissociation of preserved calculation skills in a patient with impaired auditory short-term memory. The patient (MRF) had a memory span of three digits. Furthermore, he showed rapid decrement in performance of single digits and letters with both auditory and visual presentation in the Brown-Peterson forgetting task. Analysis of his calculation skills revealed a normal ability to solve auditorily presented multidigit addition and subtraction problems such as 173 + 68 and to execute the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (Sampson, 1956, 1958; Gronwall, 1977). In addition, his performance on other tests, including arithmetic manipulation of natural numbers, decimals and fractions, approximation, magnitude, ratio, and percentage, appeared to be normal (Hitch, 1978b). It is argued that these findings require a revision of Baddeley and Hitch's (1974) concept of the function of working memory.     

Neurosonography

This article discusses the current state of neurosonography in veterinary medicine. After a brief introduction, indications, normal appearance, and appearance in pathology are discussed in separate sections for brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. Each section is illustrated by selected images showing normal anatomy and pathology.     

An experimental study of centrifugally driven free convection in a rectangular cavity

Centrifugally driven thermal convection has been studied experimentally in a rectangular cavity of length 27·94 cm, height 2·62 cm, and width 2·54 cm. The cavity was heated from above and cooled from below and rotated about a vertical axis passing through the center point of the cavity. The cavity was filled with silicone oils having Prandtl numbers of 7 and 3000, and rotated up to 565 rev/min.

The Nusselt number for heat transfer from the top to bottom surfaces varied as the 0·4 power and the 0·25 power of the imposed temperature difference for the low and high Prandtl number fluids, respectively, and as the 0·25 and 0·3 powers of the centrifugal acceleration evaluated at the outer edge of the cavity. A dimensionless radial centerline temperature gradient was obtained and found to be independent of both rotational rate and imposed temperature difference.     

Preliminary design of the arctic mobile drilling structure

This paper discusses a project to develop the preliminary design of a heated-surface conically shaped mobile drilling system for use in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. The background of the project, some of the key design problems and the remaining major developmental problems are reviewed. The overall configuration of the unit and potential applications of the heated cone technology to other Arctic offshore operating problems are also discussed.     

Advances in properties and manufacturing of chromium dioxide

A series of experiments have been designed to explore the upper limits in properties that can be produced from the high pressure, high temperature process for the synthesis of ferro-magnetic chromium dioxide. These show that CrO2coercivity and surface area, i.e. particle size, can be controlled independently over a wide range by the selection of the Cr³⁺to Cr⁶⁺ratio and type and level of dopant. Examples of high coercivity, reduced aspect ratio and high surface area are discussed. The performance of the high surface area (37 m²/g) in consumer video media is presented. Along with these results, a methodology that separates the particle contribution to media performance from the tape process parameters, such as surface smoothness, is presented.