Solar UV Temporal Variations During Solar Cycle 22 and the Twentieth Century

Solar ultraviolet measurements of the Mg II core-to-wing ratio from the NOAA9 satellite show a fast rise for solar cycle 22 from the minimum in September 1986. The high values in late 1989 are comparable to the maximum values for cycle 21. Estimates of earlier solar UV variations are made back to 1947 using a combination of the 10 cm solar radio flux (F10) and the sunspot blocking function. The latter is interpreted to partially remove the gyroresonance component from F10, which is not present in the UV flux

Solar UV variability

Measurements from the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) provide solar UV flux in the 160 to 400 nm wavelength range, backed up by independent measurement in the 115 to 305 nm range from the Solar Mesosphere Explorer (SME). The full disc UV flux from spatially resolved measurements of solar activity was modeled, which provides a better understanding of why the UV variations have their observed temporal and wavelength dependencies. Long term, intermediate term, and short term variations are briefly examined

The Description and Prediction of Antihypertensive Drug Response

In recent years there has been a tendency to move away from a standardised stepped care regimen for treating patients with hypertension and to adopt instead a more flexible approach in which antihypertensive treatment is tailored to the needs of individual patients. A wider choice of drugs is now available and some of the newer agents such as calcium antagonists, ACE inhibitors and alpha1 adrenoceptor antagonists represent reasonable alternatives to a diuretic or beta blocker as first-line treatments. An individualised approach to treatment is a laudable goal but factors which determine the response to antihypertensive therapy - both kinetic and dynamic - are not clearly understood and at present we are unable to predict which patients will respond to which drugs. An additional problem is that very little is known about dose-effect relationships for antihypertensive drugs -information which would constitute a basis for optimising drug therapy prospectively in individual patients. It has been suggested that for a number of antihypertensive drugs no predictable concentration-effeet relationship exists but this probably reflects the negative findings of those previous studies which considered the response for groups of subjects rather than for individuals. In a series of single blind studies 46 patients with mild to moderate essential hypertension received treatment with placebo for 2 weeks followed by nifedipine, or enalapril, or doxazosin, or ketanserin. Each active treatment was administered as monotherapy for 4-6 weeks and patients attended for a series of 8-hour study days to evaluate the effects of placebo, 1st dose and chronic (1-6 weeks) therapy. At frequent intervals during each study day, and at 24 hours after dosing, blood pressure and heart rate were recorded and venous blood samples collected for measurement of plasma drug concentration. Additional blood samples were obtained for plasma renin activity, aldosterone and catecholamines. Pressor responsiveness to intravenous infusions of the selective alpha1 agonist phenylephrine (PE) and the non-adrenergic vasoconstrictor angiotensin II (All) was measured on each study day. The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamic effects were evaluated after acute and chronic treatment. Drug concentration-effect analysis was used to characterise the antihypertensive response of each individual patient in terms of kinetic as well as dynamnic parameters and to describe the temporal discrepancy for the plasma concentration-effect relationship (Keq). In each study there was no simple direct relationship between plasma drug concentration and the placebo-corrected fall in blood pressure. However, using the integrated kinetic-dynamic model drug levels were well correlated with reductions in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in individual patients. The kinetic-dynamic relationships for nifedipine, doxazosin and ketanserin were most appropriately described by the simpler linear model and responses of individual patients were characterised in terms of the fall in blood pressure per unit drug concentration. For example, responsiveness to nifedipine (m), as the mean of the group, was -0.48 following the first dose, -0.45 after 1 week and -0.49 mmHg systolic/ng/ml after 6 weeks. There was an average reduction of 30% in the responsiveness to doxazosin during chronic treatment compared with single dose administration: for example, the mean responsiveness for the group was -2.1 following the first dose and -1.4 mmHg systolic/ng/ml after 6 weeks. There was a similar reduction in responsiveness to ketanserin from -0.47 to -0.25 mmHg systolic/ng/ml after 1 month and additionally there was a significant increase in Keq from 0.49 (1st dose) to 1.86 hours -1 (1 month). The pharmacokinetics and kinetic-dynamic relationships of enalapril were different in several respects compared with the other three drugs. A conventional pharmacokinetic model did not satisfactorily describe all the features of the disposition, particularly the accumulation of enalaprilat during chronic therapy. An alternative approach using a physiologically realistic model which assumes saturable binding of the drug to ACE was most appropriate for characterising both the kinetics and the concentration-effcet relationships. In the case of enalapril, but with none of the other drugs, the linear concentration-effect model was inferior to the full Langmuir (Emax) equation for describing the kinetic-dynamic relationships. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

The Defendant\u27s Right to Waive Jury Trial in Criminal Cases

The right of a defendant in a criminal proceeding to trial by an impartial jury is one of several constitutional safeguards in the attempt to insure a fair trial and to protect the accused from oppression There are times, however, when a defendant considers it desirable to waive this right and to elect trial by the court alone. The crime charged may be of a revolting nature, such as rape; the victim may have been a prominent member of the community or a public official; the crime may have received sensational press notice. He may feel the need for trial by a judge when technical or complicated fact situations are involved. There may be something in the defendant\u27s past life, reputation, or appearance likely to arouse prejudice against him in the minds of a jury. In addition, various psychological and strategic factors may lead defense counsel to believe that a trial without a jury would be advantageous, such as an intuitive lining up of the jury as a prosecution jury, a feeling that the judge\u27s policy or attitude in regard to certain offenses is favorable, or fear of the professional juror\u27s subservience to the prosecutor\u27s office