Abnormal behavioral responses to fenfluramine in patients with affective and personality disorders. Correlation with increased serotonergic responsivity

Serotonergic responsivity was assessed in 20 psychiatric patients by the prolactin response to a fenfluramine challenge test. During the fenfluramine challenge 6 of 20 patients (30%) spontaneously reported psychopathologic reactions that included: increased anxiety/agitation, psychotic symptoms, illusions, mood elevation, and anergia. The time of peak behavioral symptoms (2.5 +/- 0.8 hrs) corresponded closely to the time of peak increase in prolactin levels (3.0 +/- 1.1 hr). Abnormal behavioral responders had statistically significant greater increases in prolactin 1 to 4 hr after fenfluramine when compared to normal responders. Patients who developed an abnormal psychopathologic response to fenfluramine were characterized by higher levels of anxiety and agitation at the time of admission to the hospital but otherwise were not distinguishable on the basis of severity of other psychiatric symptoms. This study suggests that increased serotonergic transmission may trigger anxiety, psychosis, and mood elevation in specific vulnerable individuals, whereas other patients with similar psychiatric illnesses are not affected.     

Inhibitory effect of bifemelane on superoxide generation by activated neutrophils measured using a simple chemiluminescence method

We evaluated the effect of 4-(2-benzylphenoxy)-N-methylbutylamine hydrochloride (bifemelane hydrochloride) on superoxide production by human neutrophils using an MCLA-dependent chemiluminescence assay. Bifemelane hydrochloride dose-dependently inhibited superoxide production by neutrophils stimulated with phorbol myristate acetate, opsonized zymosan, or N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine, while it had no effect on superoxide production by a hypoxanthine-xanthine oxidase system. These results indicate that bifemelane hydrochloride does not have a scavenging effect, but has an inhibitory effect on superoxide generation by neutrophils. Although this drug is commonly used for treating chronic cerebral infarction, it may also have a protective effect on acute ischemia/reperfusion injury.     

Adiabatic couplers: design rules and optimization

Explicit analytic design rules are derived for both 3 dB and full adiabatic couplers. The design rules are in excellent agreement with numerical calculations using the beam propagation method (BPM). It is shown that the length scaling for 3 dB couplers compared to full couplers makes the former more difficult to design. The design for each case is optimized to obtain the upper limit of performance and a comparison is carried out between two different design geometries for both 3 dB and full adiabatic couplers     

Penetrating ocular injuries: an epidemiologic and retrospective study

Penetrating injuries of the eye are an important cause of unilateral visual loss. We studied a series of 82 cases of penetrating injuries treated here from 1987 through 1993. The injuries were caused by sharp objects in 66% and blunt trauma in 6%. The prognosis after a penetrating injury is greatly influenced by the nature of the injury and the extent of the initial drainage. Among factors associated with an unfavorable visual outcome were diminished preoperative visual acuity and scleral wounds with dense vitreous hemorrhage.     

Anatomically constrained electrical impedance tomography forthree-dimensional anisotropic bodies

As shown previously for two-dimensional geometries, anisotropy effects should not be ignored in electrical impedance tomography (EIT) and structural information is important for the reconstruction of anisotropic conductivities. Here, we describe the static reconstruction of an anisotropic conductivity distribution for the more realistic three-dimensional (3-D) case. Boundaries between different conductivity regions are anatomically constrained using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data. The values of the conductivities are then determined using gradient-type-algorithms in a nonlinear-indirect approach. At each iteration, the forward problem is solved by the finite element method. The approach is used to reconstruct the 3-D conductivity profile of a canine torso. Both computational performance and simulated reconstruction results are presented together with a detailed study on the sensitivity of the prediction error with respect to different parameters. In particular, the use of an intracavity catheter to better extract interior conductivities is demonstrated     

Radiation and scattering from ferrite-tuned cavity-backed slotantennas: theory and experiment

A three-dimensional finite-element method hybridized with the spectral/spatial domain method of moments is presented for the analysis of ferrite-tuned cavity-backed slot antennas. The cavity, which is partially filled with magnetized ferrite layers, is flush mounted on an infinite ground plane with possible dielectric or magnetic overlay. The antenna operates primarily in the ultrahigh-frequency band. The finite-element method is used to solve for the electric-field distribution inside the cavity, whereas the spectral-domain approach is used to solve for the exterior region. An asymptotic extraction of the exponential behavior of the Green's function followed by a spatial evaluation of the resulting integral is used to improve computational speed. Radar cross section, input impedance, return loss, gain, and efficiency of ferrite-tuned cavity-backed slots (CBS) are calculated for various biasing conditions. Numerical results are compared with experimental data     

Modulation characteristic of waveguide-type optical frequency combgenerator

We report the modulation characteristics of a waveguide-type optical frequency comb generator (WG-OFCG) with the advantages of compactness, high modulation index and low driving power. The characteristics of the optical frequency comb (OFC) generated when the modulation index exceeds 2π are discussed. The power of the modulation sidebands was measured by the optical heterodyne method with an external-cavity laser as a local oscillator. The dependence of the modulation index of the WG-OFCG on the modulation frequency up to 40 GHz was measured. The generation span of the OFC at the modulation frequency detuned from an integer multiple of the free spectral range (FSR) is discussed