Enantioselective antiplatelet actions of nipecotamides

This investigation retrospectively examined changes in marital satisfaction following stroke. The relationship between such changes and other pertinent factors were also examined, including severity of aphasia, knowledge of aphasia, number of months after stroke, and length of the marriage. The subjects were 40 spouses of patients with aphasia grouped according to severity of the aphasia (mild, moderate, severe). Spouses completed two different measures of marital satisfaction--the Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS) and the Marital Comparison Level Index (MCLI). These measures were completed in both a prestroke (retrospective reporting) and a poststroke format to allow for change to be assessed. In addition, a Knowledge of Aphasia questionnaire was completed by the normal spouses to evaluate their understanding of the disorder of aphasia. There was a significant difference between prestroke and poststroke scores on both the MSS and the MCLI, indicating a lower level of satisfaction following the stroke. The amount of change between prestroke and poststroke MSS and MCLI scores was not related to either number of months poststroke or number of years married. Although there was no relationship between changes in prestroke and poststroke scores on the MCLI and Knowledge of Aphasia scores, there was a significant correlation between changes in these scores on the MSS and Knowledge of Aphasia scores. Hence, the more knowledge spouses had regarding aphasia, the less the negative impact the stroke had on marital satisfaction, as measured by the MSS. Results are discussed in terms of the interdisciplinary treatment needs of aphasic patients and the implications for future investigations.     

Breaking the search space symmetry in partitioning problems: An application to the graph coloring problem

Many problems consist in splitting a set of objects into different groups so that each group verifies some properties. In practice, a partitioning is often encoded by an array mapping each object to its group numbering. In fact, the group number of an object does not really matter, and one can simply rename each group to obtain a new encoding. That is what we call the symmetry of the search space in a partitioning problem. This property may be prejudicial for optimization methods such as evolutionary algorithms (EA) which require some diversity during the search.     

Reduced renal sodium excretion in primary hypertensive patients after an oral glucose load

This study was designed to determine urinary sodium excretion in response to an oral glucose load in hypertensive patients. Fifteen hypertensive patients and eighteen normotensive subjects were studied after an overnight fast and for 4 h after the ingestion of 100 g glucose. A subgroup of untreated, nonobese, primary hypertensive patients (five of the 15 hypertensive patients) became hyperinsulinemic (total area under the insulin curve [TAUC]: 33,080 +/- 3348 microU ml(-1) 120 min-1) in response to an oral glucose load compared to normotensive subjects (TAUC: 3670 < 13.731 < 23,693 microU ml(-1) 120 min-1) or to be other subgroup of normoinsulinemic hypertensive individuals TAUC: 10,221 +/- 1615 microU ml-1 120 min-1) despite a similar serum glucose concentration in both groups. A significant decrease in renal sodium excretion in the entire hypertensive group (47.1 +/- 4.7%, P < 0.019) compared to the normotensive (20.0 +/- 10.5%) subjects was also observed during the oral glucose tolerance test. Decreased renal sodium excretion was followed by a transient increase in urinary acid excretion. We speculate that the increase in insulin secretion may be responsible for the sodium-dependent increase in intracellular Ca2+, cellular H+ output and blood pressure in a subgroup of salt-sensitive patients with hypertension. New studies should be designed to identify the precise mechanisms involved in the interaction between hypertension, serum insulin-glucose levels and the magnitude of the renal tubule reabsorption abnormality.     

Comparative antagonism of kainate-activated kainate and AMPA receptors in hippocampal neurons

Native kainate receptors expressed by cultured hippocampal cells were studied in the whole-cell configuration of the patch-clamp technique by using a fast perfusion system. About 80% of the neurons expressed kainate receptors independently of the time in culture (0-4 days), which coincided with the number of cells immunoreactive for a monoclonal antibody against the GluR5/6/7 subunits. Three types of cells were considered: neurons in which the rapid application of kainate induced a rapidly desensitizing current, cells in which kainate induced a more slowly rising, non-desensitizing, response and those in which a mixture of both responses was apparent. Steady responses induced by 300 microM kainate were inhibited by 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX) in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 = 0.92 microM). CNQX was less potent in blocking transient kainate-induced responses (IC50 = 6.1 microM). Responses to kainate, whether steady or transient, were also inhibited by NS102, showing poor selectivity for the transient response (IC50 = 4.1 and 2.2 microM respectively). The new alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole (AMPA) receptor antagonist NS394 was very potent in inhibiting steady kainate-induced currents (IC50 = 0.45 microM), but was even more effective in preventing peak responses (IC50 = 0.13 microM). In contrast, cyclothiazide did not affect transient kainate-induced responses but did potentiate current induced by activation of AMPA receptors by AMPA or kainate. These results demonstrate the lack of complete selectivity amongst some available competitive antagonists for AMPA and kainate receptors, and indicate that kainate receptors expressed by hippocampal cells lack the cyclothiazide modulatory site present at AMPA receptors. In addition, the present data support the idea that low-affinity kainate binding sites in the brain correspond to receptor channels selectively activated by kainate.     

The influence of socioeconomic and nutritional status on menarche in Nigerian school girls

Two once-daily electroconvulsive shocks (ECS) produced retrograde amnesia in rats trained on a Hebb-Williams maze; Verapamil (12.5 mg/kg, i.p.) or felodipine (10 mg/kg, p.o.) administered half an hour before each ECS attenuated this ECS-induced amnesia. Hence, these drugs may hold promise for the containment of amnesia induced by electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Speculatively, one or more of several mechanisms may be involved: cerebral vasodilatation, enhancement of cholinergic tone, and inhibition of calcium-mediated impairment of neuronal function. These drugs may also act by attenuating the systolic surge in blood pressure during ECT, thereby decreasing edema due to cerebral hyperperfusion, as well as decreasing the possible transfer of potentially neurotoxic macromolecules through a putative breach in the blood-brain barrier.     

13C-urea breath test in Helicobacter pylori diagnosis and eradication. Correlation to histology, origin of ''false'' results, and influence of food intake

Obliterative or constrictive bronchiolitis is characterized by narrowing of the small airways, due to submucosal and peribronchiolar fibrosis, with chronic obstruction. The vast majority of cases of bronchiolitis obliterans are associated with other diseases and only few cases are idiopathic. We report on the main computed tomography (CT) methods used study obliterative bronchiolitis, the CT findings and the differential diagnosis with other diseases. The dynamic study of alveolar ventilation with CT uses inspiratory and expiratory CT or high-resolution CT (HRCT), spiral dynamic CT or HRCT with advanced image display, ultrafast CT. In abnormal cases HRCT shows direct and indirect signs of small airways disease. The most common (> 80%) sign of obliterative bronchiolitis is the so-called mosaic oligohemia, with low attenuating lobules, caused by air trapping and best seen on expiratory CT, associated with blood flow redistribution to more normal lobules; this finding simulates the ground-glass pattern from infiltrative lung disease. Differential diagnosis is more difficult in the presence of true ground-glass patterns associated with diffuse bronchiolar obstruction and also with mosaic oligohemia due to pulmonary vascular disease and pulmonary emphysema. HRCT can distinguish these diseases and dynamic CT is more sensitive than functional tests in detecting regional abnormalities and air trapping. The combination of HRCT, rapid volumetric scanning and advanced image display is a powerful tool study the normal and abnormal features of bronchiolar function and alveolar ventilation.     

Theory of MSW transducers

This is a review of two electrical equivalent circuits for multi-element magnetostatic wave transducers. The two circuit models are identified as a transmission line and a two terminal model. Both models have been extended to all three principal MSW modes of propagation to the point where computer programs have been written to plot phase and amplitude response as measured by commercial network analyzers. A review is provided of the basic assumptions, similarities and differences, advantages and disadvantages, and limitations of the two models. The useful range of them covers many cases of practical interest in the one to twelve Ghz frequency range.     

An adaptive non‐conforming finite‐element method for Reissner–Mindlin plates

Adaptive algorithms are important tools for efficient finite‐element mesh design. In this paper, an error controlled adaptive mesh‐refining algorithm is proposed for a non‐conforming low‐order finite‐element method for the Reissner–Mindlin plate model. The algorithm is controlled by a reliable and efficient residual‐based a posteriori error estimate, which is robust with respect to the plate's thickness. Numerical evidence for this and the efficiency of the new algorithm is provided in the sense that non‐optimal convergence rates are optimally improved in our numerical experiments. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.