Employment status passages and psychosocial well-being.

Medical students entering the labor market were studied to find out whether the improvement of psychosocial well-being depends on characteristics of their careers. Psychosocial well-being was described on the basis of psychosomatic stress symptoms, psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire), and strain resistance resources (Sense of Coherence). The 3-year follow-up showed that among women the improvement of strain resistance resources was delayed in the group with several entries into work. Among men the findings suggested associations between stress symptoms and career characteristics. Most of the results, however, did not support the hypothesis about the division of the participants into those with a stable career and improving well-being and those with a fragmented career and low well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of magnesium sulfate and lidocaine in the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias in experimental amitriptyline poisoning in the rat

OBJECTIVES: Amitriptyline poisoning is associated with ventricular arrhythmias. Standard treatment is sodium bicarbonate but further intervention may be necessary. The present study compared the actions of lidocaine and magnesium sulfate on ventricular tachycardia induced by amitriptyline. DESIGN: Nonrandomized, controlled, intervention trial. SETTING: University laboratory. SUBJECTS: Thirty male Wistar rats anesthetized with pentobarbital and mechanically ventilated. INTERVENTIONS: After pretreatment with norepinephrine, the animals were subjected to a continuous infusion of amitriptyline. After the appearance of ventricular tachycardia, they were treated with magnesium sulfate (45 mg/kg + 15 mg/kg/min) or lidocaine (1 mg/kg + 0.5 mg/kg/min) or glucose infusion as a control. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: In the group treated with magnesium sulfate, electrocardiogram tracings demonstrated that nine of ten animals converted from ventricular tachycardia to sinus rhythm compared with one of ten in both the lidocaine- and glucose-treated groups (p < .001). The animals treated with magnesium sulfate also had a significantly longer total time in sinus rhythm (10.0 +/- 1.6 mins) than those rats treated with lidocaine (1.7 +/- 1.5 mins) or glucose (1.5 +/- 1.5 mins). Magnesium sulfate significantly decreased blood pressure and heart rate, but no severe hemodynamic side effects were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Magnesium sulfate is effective in converting ventricular tachycardia in hyperadrenergic amitriptyline poisoning. In contrast, lidocaine had no effect on arrhythmias.     

Analysis of lipid classes by solid-phase extraction and high-performance size-exclusion chromatography

An improved method to analyze lipid classes of edible oils and fats by solid-phase extraction (SPE) and high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC) is presented. A mixture of lipid standards was fractionated by the solid-phase extraction procedure (NH₂ phase) into polar and nonpolar fractions; these were then submitted to analysis by HPSEC. The size-exclusion chromatographic columns were three styrene/divinylbenzene columns with pore sizes of 100 Å and 50 Å. Light-scattering was used for the detection system, and the parameters of the detector were optimized to minimize the difference between the responses of the compounds studied. With this procedure it was possible to separate the following lipid classes: triacylglycerols, diacylglycerols, monoacylglycerols and free fatty acids, sterols, sterol esters, tocopherols and carotenoids. Quantitative analysis was studied for a light-scattering detector with several lipid standards of different molecular weights and unsaturation levels.     

Carnot comparison of multi-temperature level absorption heat cycles

Comparison of different absorption heat cycles is not always made on the correct manner. This also includes comparison of an ideal absorption cycle with a mechanical analogy. A new Carnot model operating with two heat engines and two mechanical heat pumps is defined to be the correct and logical way to describe the mechanical analogy for an absorption heat pump and an absorption heat transformer. General equations for the Carnot coefficient of performance, COP_r, are exemplified and simulated for an absorption heat pump and an absorption heat transformer, and an entropy flow fraction diagram is introduced. The important fact that the absorption heat cycles must operate under the same conditions when they are compared is discussed.     

Method for characterization of triacylglycerols and fat-soluble vitamins in edible oils and fats by supercritical fluid chromatography

This study demonstrates the usefulness of capillary supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) for the characterization of triacylglycerols of edible oils and fats. Triacylglycerols were separated according to the acyl carbon number and the degree of unsaturation on a 25% cyanopropyl/25% phenyl/50% methylpolysiloxane stationary phase. Valuable information concerning the triacylglycerol composition of berry oils was obtained, despite the overlapping of certain triacylglycerol peaks. Simultaneous analysis of fat-soluble vitamins and triacylglycerols is not practical by capillary SFC with flame-ionization detection because of the low concentration of naturally-occurring fat-soluble vitamins in edible oils. Therefore, higher loading of the sample, which led to overloading of triacylglycerols, was required to get reasonable peaks for fat-soluble vitamins. The method was applied to the characterization of triacylglycerols and tocopherols in sea buckthorn pulp and seed oil, and cloudberry seed oil without any sample purification prior to SFC. In addition, the stationary phase proved useful for separating the more complex mixtures of triacylglycerols found in milk fat and in fish oil.     

NMR imaging and differential scanning calorimetry study on drying of pine,birch, and reed pulps and their mixtures

Drying, water fractions, and water distribution were investigated for pine, birch, and reed pulps and pine–birch, pine–reed, and pine–birch–reed pulp mixtures. Gravimetrically determined drying times showed that the drying rates of the pulps decreased at two to four inflection points. Characterizations of the dried pulps by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed a faster removal of free water than freezing and nonfreezing bound waters; all decreased simultaneously, however. DSC also revealed the critical water contents at which the free water and freezing bound water disappeared. The gravimetrically determined inflection points of the drying curves corresponded with the critical points determined by DSC. NMR line widths and images produced by ¹H‐NMR imaging revealed the nature and regions of the pulp drying. The constant growth rate of the NMR line widths with decreasing water content appeared to change at two inflection points, which fell approximately in the same water content regions as the inflection points of the drying curves. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 937–945, 2006     

Usability study of ME2.0

Mobile context-aware applications execute in the background of hosts mobile devices. The applications source process and aggregate hosts’ contextual and personal information. This information is disclosed to ubiquitously pervasive services that adapt their offerings to individual preferences. Unfortunately, many developers continue to ignore the user perspective in context-aware application designs as they complicate their overall task and generate exponential requirements. The additional incorporation of privacy mechanisms in context-aware applications to safeguard context and personal information disclosures also complicates users’ tasks resulting to misconfigured or completely abandoned applications. Misconfigured applications give end-users a false assurance of privacy exposing them to comprising services. We present a usability study on Mobile Electronic Personality Version 2 a privacy enhanced context-aware mobile application for personalising ubiquitous services and adapting pervasive smart-spaces. We draw conclusions on key issues related to user needs, based on user interviews, surveys, prototypes and field evaluations. Users’ needs are evaluated against five themes, learn-ability, efficiency, memorability, errors, satisfaction and privacy contention. In addition, design layout preferences, privacy manageability and consensus design comprehension are also evaluated. Clarity of priorities in context-aware mobile applications shaped by usability studies effectively increases the acceptance of levels of potential users.     

A portable device for intensive care brain function monitoring with event-related potentials

Monitoring level of consciousness or depth of sedation is essential in modern intensive care units and emergency rooms. Current methods are based on spontaneous EEG providing only indirect information on the reactivity of the brain. Measurement of auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) has been shown to have additional potential for evaluation of the level of consciousness. Unfortunately, compact and easy-to-use devices are not commercially available. In this study a portable battery-powered device for clinical auditory ERP measurements was designed, constructed and validated. The device consists of a five-channel data logger and a 16-bit stereo audio stimulator. The signals are digitized with a 22-bit sigma-delta analogue-to-digital converter and stored to a PC Card hard disk. Prior to the in vivo application, the device was validated with extensive technical tests. Importantly, the RMS noise amplitude of the EEG channels was found to be less than 1 mivroV and the delivered auditory stimulus intensity corresponded accurately the settings (mean difference 0.2+/-0.5 dB). In addition to technical tests the device was successfully validated in vivo. To summarize, a novel portable instrument for measurement of auditory event-related potentials in intensive care environment is introduced.