Bupropion, a unique, non-nicotine smoking cessation aid and an effective antidepressant, is well known to produce seizures following overdosing in humans. However, the experimental background for the ...usefulness of antiepileptic drugs in the protection against bupropion-induced convulsions has not been established yet. Therefore, we tested if the antiepileptic drugs were able to protect mice against clonic convulsions induced by intraperitoneally (i.p.) administered bupropion in the CD
97 dose (139.5
mg/kg). Among 13 tested drugs, clonazepam showed the greatest potency (dose-dependent full protection; ED
50
=
0.06
mg/kg, i.p.). No signs of locomotor impairment were observed in the rotarod test after anticonvulsive doses of clonazepam, resulting in a broad therapeutic window and favorable protective index (PI) (33.3). Gabapentin produced dose-dependent protection against convulsions at nontoxic doses (up to 1000
mg/kg), having PI
>29. Diazepam in a very high dose showed full protection but its PI (1.7) was much less favorable than that of clonazepam. The PI values for ethosuximide, phenobarbital and valproate were slightly higher than unity and lower than 2, and for topiramate and felbamate were lower than unity. Phenytoin, carbamazepine, and lamotrigine as well as tiagabine failed to block the convulsant effects of bupropion even at doses that caused severe motor impairment. Our results encourage clinical testing of clonazepam against seizures developing after bupropion overdose.
Most studies evaluating the impact of family planning on fertility treat the presence of family planning clinics as being "randomly" assigned among the areas included in the study. They tend to ...ignore the possibility that the distribution of services may be related to the fertility level observed in a particular area. In some cases the distribution of services may respond to a conscious effort by public authorities or funding agencies to target areas with observed higher fertility. Even in absence of program planning, the factors determining service placement might be related to the determinants of high, or low, fertility in a particular area. If that is the case, and one fails to account for the endogeneity of family planning services, then the estimated impact of family planning programs will be biased. This article presents a modeling approach to address this issue. The model extends the simultaneous equation framework by integrating an individual-level model of timing and spacing of children with the dynamic process of program placement. Individual-level data from the 1991/1992 Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey are augmented with data on the timing of, and factors influencing, family planning service placement to demonstrate the approach. The empirical results show that standard methods yield misleading results on the impact of different components of the family planning program on fertility. In particular, the effect of access to family planning hospitals on births is overstated, and the impact of access to health centers that offer family planning is understated significantly. We quantify the size of these effects through simulations.
Cervical disc arthroplasty (CDA) is a novel motion-preserving procedure that is an alternative to fusion. The Mobi-C disc prosthesis, one of many Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved devices ...for CDA, is the only FDA-approved prosthesis for two-level CDA. Hence, it may allow for improved outcomes compared with multilevel fusion procedures.
To critically assess the available literature on CDA with the Mobi-C prosthesis, with a focus on two-level CDA.
All clinical articles involving the Mobi-C disc prosthesis for CDA through September 1, 2014 were identified on Medline. Any paper that presented Mobi-C CDA clinical results was included. Study design, sample size, length of follow-up, use of statistical analysis, quality of life outcome scores, conflict of interest, and complications were recorded.
Fifteen studies were included that investigated Mobi-C CDA, only one of which was a level Ib randomized control trial. All studies included showed non-inferiority of one-level Mobi-C CDA to one-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). Only one study analyzed outcomes of one-level versus two-level Mobi-C CDA, and only one study analyzed two-level Mobi-C CDA versus two-level ACDF. In comparison with other cervical disc prostheses, the Mobi-C prosthesis is associated with higher rates of heterotopic ossification (HO). Studies with conflicts of interest reported lower rates of HO. Adjacent segment degeneration or disease, along with other complications, were not assessed in most studies.
One-level Mobi-C CDA is non-inferior, but not superior, to one-level ACDF for patients with cervical degenerative disc disease. The Mobi-C CDA procedure is associated with high rates of HO. Two-level Mobi-C CDA may be superior to two-level ACDF. However, insufficient evidence exists, thereby mandating a need for unbiased, well-designed prospective studies with well-defined outcomes in the future.
A recent study published in the
Journal of Health Economics by French and Zarkin French, M.T., Zarkin, G.A., 1995. Is moderate alcohol use related to wages? Evidence from four worksites, Journal of ...Health Economics 14, 319–344 found evidence of a positive, inverse-U-shaped relationship between wages and alcohol consumption for individuals at four worksites. In this paper, we attempted to replicate French and Zarkin's findings using a combined sample of prime-age workers from the 1991 and 1992 National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse (NHSDA). Whereas French and Zarkin found that individuals who consume approximately 1.5 to 2.5 drinks per day have higher wages than non-drinkers and heavy drinkers, we found no evidence of a turning point at this consumption level for either men or women. Our results do suggest that men who use alcohol have approximately 7% higher wages than men who do not drink, and this apparent wage premium is approximately the same over a wide range of alcohol consumption. For women, the estimated alcohol use premium is approximately half as large as for men and is statistically insignificant.
The Hall-Heroult process for producing primary aluminum is used extensively throughout the world; an estimated 18 tonnes of aluminum are produced each year by electrowinning aluminum oxide. Despite ...its widespread use and long history, Hall-Heroult cells experience process inefficiencies that lead to electrical energy waste. The cells are expensive to construct and operate are are also a significant source of pollution. A new family of nonoxide materials has recently been discovered and is being evaluated at Advanced Refractory Technologies. From this family, Ti sub 3 SiC sub 2 was evaluated for use in cell cathodes.It showed a significant degree of resistance in contact with molten cryolite. Corrosion resistance was observed despite the oxidizing conditions employed and the significant portion of TiC contamination observed in hot-pressed parts.
Numerous studies indicate that female education is a major determinant of fertility and that the estimated effects are large relative to other variables, including family planning program variables. ...There are, however, two serious deficiencies in the research relating educational attainment to fertility that could give rise to invalid inferences. First, many public programs, including health and family planning programs, may influence a woman’s decisions about education, and these indirect programmatic effects might be large. Second, nearly all existing studies of the impacts of education on fertility assume that a woman's educational attainment is exogenous. Education could be serving as a proxy for such unobservable determinants as ability, motivation, and parental background, as these factors most likely are important determinants of a woman's educational attainment. We use the 1993 Indonesian Family Life Survey to compare the estimated impacts of education on fertility from a simple model that assumes the exogeneity of education and an unobserved factor model that allows for endogeneity of schooling. The model imposing questionable exogeneity assumptions appears to overpredict the fertility‐reducing effects of female education, better schools, and higher government health expenditures and to underpredict the importance of family planning programs for reducing fertility and for inducing young women to remain in school.
This paper discusses the control of the strip profile in a three stand hot strip mill. The demand for higher quality requires a control system with high accuracy and fast response. Inherent transport ...delays in this process motivates the design of the controller to have a predictive capability. Due to the physical limitations of the actuators the measurements of the strip profile are filtered to ensure the control actions will be feasible. The tuning and robustness of a predictive controller and a PID controller is demonstrated in the frequency domain. The interactions of the profile control with the other mill control systems are discussed. Other salient points of this method including easy installation in existing mills with appropriate actuators, without any modifications.
State risk pools exist primarily for persons who want to buy health insurance, but are either medically uninsurable or are only able to find a policy at considerably higher cost than the rate for a ...standard insured person. While some people enroll in state risk pools for extended periods, many enroll only for a limited time. This study analyzes duration of enrollment in eight state risk pools using data from 1988 through 1991. A discrete time hazard model provides estimates of the relationship between voluntary disenrollment and enrollee and plan characteristics. Among other findings, the regressions provide evidence of substantial increases in disenrollment in most states in response to premium increases that either were implemented by the plan or occurred as enrollees aged into higher risk categories.
This paper presents some results of our investigation for finding an optimised garnet material suitable for ferrite devices operating at high power levels with the magnetic field polarities for ...below-resonance range. It is shown that by using an appropriate doping with rare-earth ions it is possible to achieve low-loss properties of a circulator both at low and at high power levels. The garnets were tested in waveguide and stripline circulators designed for L, S and C bands.
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