Effects on Smoking Cessation: Naltrexone Combined with a Cognitive Behavioral

A promising option in substance abuse treatment is the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA). The opioid antagonist naltrexone (NTX) may work in combination with nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to block the effects of smoking stimuli in abstinent smokers. Effects of lower doses than 50 mg/dd. have not been reported. A study was conducted in Amsterdam in 2000/2001 with the objective to explore the effects of the combination NTX (25/50-mg dd.), NRT, and CRA in terms of craving and abstinence. In a randomized open label, 2 × 2 between subjects design, 25 recovered spontaneous pneumothorax (SP) participants received 8 weeks of treatment. Due to side effects, only 3 participants were compliant in the 50-mg NTX condition. Craving significantly declined between each measurement and there was a significant interaction between decline in craving and craving measured at baseline. The abstinence rate in the CRA group was nearly double that in the non-psychosocial therapy group (46% vs. 25%; NS) at 3 months follow-up after treatment

First measurement of the left-right asymmetry in Z boson production

We present the first measurement of the left-right cross-section asymmetry (A(LR)) in Z-boson production observed at the SLAC Linear Collider. In 1992 the SLD detector recorded 10 224 Z events produced by the collision of longitudinally polarized electrons with an unpolarized positron beam at a center-of-mass energy of 91.55 GeV. The average electron beam polarization during the run was (22.4 +/- 0.6)%. We measure A(LR) to be 0.100 +/- 0.044 (stat.) +/- 0.004 (syst.), which determines the effective weak mixing angle to be sin2 theta(W)eff = 0.2378 +/- 0.0056 (stat.) +/- 0.0005 (syst.)