Bupropion Reduces Some of the Symptoms of Marihuana Withdrawal in Chronic Marihuana Users: A Pilot Study

Bupropion’s (Zyban® SR) effectiveness to treat symptoms experienced in marihuana withdrawal was tested in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study with chronic, heavy marihuana users. Participants maintained their usual marihuana intake until Quit Day after which they were required to cease intake of THC products for 14 days. A Withdrawal Discomfort Score revealed that for 7 days immediately following cessation, placebo-treated subjects reported more symptoms than bupropion-treated subjects. Self-reported craving for marihuana increased for the placebo-treated group but not for those treated with bupropion. Measures of sleep and cognitive performance were not different between the two groups. Participants in the bupropion treatment arm were more likely to complete the study than those randomized to the placebo arm (50% completion for bupropion vs. 33% completion for placebo). These results suggest that bupropion may be useful for alleviating marihuana withdrawal symptoms and be useful in subject retention during long-term cessation programs

A wideband linear tunable CDTA and its application in field programmable analogue array

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Hu, Z., Wang, C., Sun, J. et al. ‘A wideband linear tunable CDTA and its application in field programmable analogue array’, Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, Vol. 88 (3): 465-483, September 2016. Under embargo. Embargo end date: 6 June 2017. The final publication is available at Springer via https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10470-016-0772-7 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016In this paper, a NMOS-based wideband low power and linear tunable transconductance current differencing transconductance amplifier (CDTA) is presented. Based on the NMOS CDTA, a novel simple and easily reconfigurable configurable analogue block (CAB) is designed. Moreover, using the novel CAB, a simple and versatile butterfly-shaped FPAA structure is introduced. The FPAA consists of six identical CABs, and it could realize six order current-mode low pass filter, second order current-mode universal filter, current-mode quadrature oscillator, current-mode multi-phase oscillator and current-mode multiplier for analog signal processing. The Cadence IC Design Tools 5.1.41 post-layout simulation and measurement results are included to confirm the theory.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Learn And Work: A Hybrid Educational Model For Engineering Education

Traditional models of education are undergoing significant change in recent times due to evolving graduate attributes, shaped in no small part by the changing demands of modern industrial practices. Technology is one of the key elements of the factory of the future. Advances in manufacturing and digital technologies facilitate automation and offer significant benefits in a variety of areas. Academic programmes that feature industrial work placement have long been a feature of engineering education in TU Dublin. The BSc in Process Instrumentation and Automation is a three-year programme that goes further in that it evenly balances on-campus instruction with work placement. The programme was specifically devised in response to industry feedback that had identified significant skills shortages in the areas of industrial instrumentation and automation. It is a hybrid between the apprenticeship model of education (www.apprenticeship.ie) and the traditional engineering degree model and directly addresses industry\u27s immediate need for experienced graduates. Participation in the programme is sponsored by Irish Medtech Skillnet, a learning network for companies in the medical technology and engineering sector that responds to the training needs of that sector. This is one step in the lifelong learning path of a modern graduate. This paper will provide a detailed critical review of the ‘learn and work’ model; strengths, challenges and opportunities offered by this mode of engineering education

Evaluating the drivers of and obstacles to the willingness to use cognitive enhancement drugs: the influence of drug characteristics, social environment, and personal characteristics

Sattler S, Mehlkop G, Graeff P, Sauer C. Evaluating the drivers of and obstacles to the willingness to use cognitive enhancement drugs: the influence of drug characteristics, social environment, and personal characteristics. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy. 2014;9(1): 8.Background The use of cognitive enhancement (CE) by means of pharmaceutical agents has been the subject of intense debate both among scientists and in the media. This study investigates several drivers of and obstacles to the willingness to use prescription drugs non-medically for augmenting brain capacity. Methods We conducted a web-based study among 2,877 students from randomly selected disciplines at German universities. Using a factorial survey, respondents expressed their willingness to take various hypothetical CE-drugs; the drugs were described by five experimentally varied characteristics and the social environment by three varied characteristics. Personal characteristics and demographic controls were also measured. Results We found that 65.3% of the respondents staunchly refused to use CE-drugs. The results of a multivariate negative binomial regression indicated that respondents’ willingness to use CE-drugs increased if the potential drugs promised a significant augmentation of mental capacity and a high probability of achieving this augmentation. Willingness decreased when there was a high probability of side effects and a high price. Prevalent CE-drug use among peers increased willingness, whereas a social environment that strongly disapproved of these drugs decreased it. Regarding the respondents’ characteristics, pronounced academic procrastination, high cognitive test anxiety, low intrinsic motivation, low internalization of social norms against CE-drug use, and past experiences with CE-drugs increased willingness. The potential severity of side effects, social recommendations about using CE-drugs, risk preferences, and competencies had no measured effects upon willingness. Conclusions These findings contribute to understanding factors that influence the willingness to use CE-drugs. They support the assumption of instrumental drug use and may contribute to the development of prevention, policy, and educational strategies

College Student Mental Health: An Evaluation of the DSM-5 Self-Rated Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure

© 2018 American Psychological Association. The DSM-5 Self-Rated Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure was developed to aid in clinical decision-making for clients seeking psychiatric services and to facilitate empirical investigation of the dimensional nature of mental health issues. Preliminary evidence supports its utility with clinical samples. However, the brief, yet comprehensive structure of the DSM-5 Level 1 measure may benefit a high-risk population that is less likely to seek treatment. College students have high rates of hazardous substance use and co-occurring mental health symptoms, yet rarely seek treatment. Therefore, the current study evaluated the psychometric properties (i.e., construct and criterion-related validity) of the DSM-5 Level 1 measure with a large, diverse sample of non-treatment-seeking college/university students. Data from 7,217 college students recruited from 10 universities in 10 different states across the United States evidenced psychometric validation of the DSM-5 Level 1 measure. Specifically, we found acceptable internal consistency across multi-item DSM-5 domains and moderate to strong correlations among domains (internal validity). Further, several DSM-5 domains were positively associated with longer, validated measures of the same mental health construct and had similar strengths of associations with substance use outcomes compared to longer measures of the same construct (convergent validity). Finally, all DSM-5 domains were negatively associated with self-esteem and positively associated with other theoretically relevant constructs, such as posttraumatic stress (criterion-related validity). Taken together, the DSM-5 Level 1 measure appears to be a viable tool for evaluating psychopathology in college students. Several opportunities for clinical application and empirical investigation of the DSM-5 Level 1 measure are discussed

CIRSE Vascular Closure Device Registry

The conclusion of this registry of closure devices with an anchor and a plug is that the use of this device in interventional radiology procedures is safe, with a low incidence of serious access site complications. There seems to be no difference in complications between antegrade and retrograde access and other parameters

Sounding the call for a global library of underwater biological sounds

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Parsons, M., Lin, T.-H., Mooney, T., Erbe, C., Juanes, F., Lammers, M., Li, S., Linke, S., Looby, A., Nedelec, S., Van Opzeeland, I., Radford, C., Rice, A., Sayigh, L., Stanley, J., Urban, E., & Di Iorio, L. Sounding the call for a global library of underwater biological sounds. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 10, (2022): 810156, https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.810156.Aquatic environments encompass the world’s most extensive habitats, rich with sounds produced by a diversity of animals. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is an increasingly accessible remote sensing technology that uses hydrophones to listen to the underwater world and represents an unprecedented, non-invasive method to monitor underwater environments. This information can assist in the delineation of biologically important areas via detection of sound-producing species or characterization of ecosystem type and condition, inferred from the acoustic properties of the local soundscape. At a time when worldwide biodiversity is in significant decline and underwater soundscapes are being altered as a result of anthropogenic impacts, there is a need to document, quantify, and understand biotic sound sources–potentially before they disappear. A significant step toward these goals is the development of a web-based, open-access platform that provides: (1) a reference library of known and unknown biological sound sources (by integrating and expanding existing libraries around the world); (2) a data repository portal for annotated and unannotated audio recordings of single sources and of soundscapes; (3) a training platform for artificial intelligence algorithms for signal detection and classification; and (4) a citizen science-based application for public users. Although individually, these resources are often met on regional and taxa-specific scales, many are not sustained and, collectively, an enduring global database with an integrated platform has not been realized. We discuss the benefits such a program can provide, previous calls for global data-sharing and reference libraries, and the challenges that need to be overcome to bring together bio- and ecoacousticians, bioinformaticians, propagation experts, web engineers, and signal processing specialists (e.g., artificial intelligence) with the necessary support and funding to build a sustainable and scalable platform that could address the needs of all contributors and stakeholders into the future.Support for the initial author group to meet, discuss, and build consensus on the issues within this manuscript was provided by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research, Monmouth University Urban Coast Institute, and Rockefeller Program for the Human Environment. The U.S. National Science Foundation supported the publication of this article through Grant OCE-1840868 to the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research

An exhibition of work by the Victorian tapestry workshop

An exhibition of work by the Victorian tapestry workshop Fine Arts Gallery, University Centre, Churchill Ave., Sandy Bay 24 April - 10 Ma