Combination of tocainide and quinidine for better tolerance and additive effects in patients with coronary artery disease

The efficacy and tolerance of tocainide used alone and in combination with quinidine were studied in 20 patients with coronary artery disease and frequent (≥30/h) ventricular premature complexes. Holter electrocardiographic monitoring was performed at baseline and during therapy with tocainide alone, quinidine alone and a combination of tocainide and quinidine. During single drug therapy, the dose of tocainide was 1,680 ± 437 mg/day and that of quinidine was 1,340 ± 235 mg/day. During combination therapy, with smaller doses of tocainide (1,350 ± 394 mg/day) and quinidine (1,060 ± 268 mg/day) in many patients, no patient had side effects. At baseline before therapy, the mean ventricular premature complexes/h were 629 ± 567, couplets/h were 23.9 ± 29.7 and nonsustained ventricular tachycardias/ 24 h were 60.5 ± 152.2. Compared with baseline values (100%), the frequency of ventricular premature complexes was reduced to 33 ± 44% with quinidine, 39 ± 30% with tocainide and 10 ± 16% with combination therapy (p < 0.01 for combination versus quinidine or tocainide alone; p = NS for quinidine versus tocainide). Individually, an effective regimen (>83% reduction of ventricular premature complexes and abolition of non-sustained ventricular tachycardia) was found in 3 (15%) of 20 patients receiving tocainide alone, in 6 (30%) receiving quinidine alone and in 16 (80%) receiving combination therapy (p < 0.01 for tocainide versus combination, quinidine versus combination; p = NS for tocainide versus quinidine).Thus, the antiarrhythmic effects of quinidine and tocainide are additive. A combination of quinidine and tocainide in smaller and well tolerated doses may avoid dose-related side effects and is more effective than either drug used alone at higher doses. Therefore, when quinidine or tocainide is ineffective because dose-related side effects limit the maximal tolerated dose, combination therapy in smaller and tolerable doses may avoid side effects and may be more effective than either drug alone at the maximal tolerated dose

Preservation of glaciochemical time-series in snow and ice from the Penny Ice Cap, Baffin Island

A detailed investigation of major ion concentrations of snow and ice in the summit region of Penny Ice Cap (PIC) was performed to determine the effects of summer melt on the glaciochemical time-series. While ion migration due to meltwater percolation makes it difficult to confidently count annual layers in the glaciochemical profiles, time-series of these parameters do show good structure and a strong one year spectral component, suggesting that annual to biannual signals are preserved in PIC glaciochemical records

A Discotic Disguised as a Smectic: A Hybrid Columnar Bragg Glass

We show that discotics, lying deep in the columnar phase, can exhibit an x-ray scattering pattern which mimics that of a somewhat unusual smectic liquid crystal. This exotic, new glassy phase of columnar liquid crystals, which we call a ``hybrid columnar Bragg glass'', can be achieved by confining a columnar liquid crystal in an anisotropic random environment of e.g., strained aerogel. Long-ranged orientational order in this phase makes {\em single domain} x-ray scattering possible, from which a wealth of information could be extracted. We give detailed quantitative predictions for the scattering pattern in addition to exponents characterizing anomalous elasticity of the system.Comment: 4 RevTeX pgs, 2 eps figures. To appear in PR

Chapter 11 An International Perspective on the Regulation of Rodenticides

In the late 1940s, anticoagulant active ingredients were introduced into the global rodenticide market. They were rapidly favored over existing rodenticides, such as red squill, zinc phosphide, strychnine and inorganic compounds, because they were comparatively inexpensive and did not appear to have any unpalatable taste, odor or cause any immediate post-ingestive reaction that could lead to bait shyness in rodents (Wardrop and Keeling 2008). The number of products registered in the United States (US) under Section 3 of the Federal Fungicide, Insecticide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), which was passed in 1947 and was the first US law to require product registration, illustrates the rapid dominance of anticoagulants in the US rodenticide market (Fig. 11.1). It is striking that the number of anticoagulant-based rodenticide products (ARs) registered under FIFRA was more than two times greater than the other categories of rodenticide active ingredients 40 years after the enactment of FIFRA. The greatest number of rodenticide products registered in a single year under Section 3 of FIFRA (750) was in 1985, and ARs accounted for 547 (73%) o

Life Support and Habitation and Planetary Protection Workshop

A workshop entitled "Life Support and Habitation and Planetary Protection Workshop" was held in Houston, Texas on April 27-29, 2005 to facilitate the development of planetary protection guidelines for future human Mars exploration missions and to identify the potential effects of these guidelines on the design and selection of related human life support, extravehicular activity and monitoring and control systems. This report provides a summary of the workshop organization, starting assumptions, working group results and recommendations. Specific result topics include the identification of research and technology development gaps, potential forward and back contaminants and pathways, mitigation alternatives, and planetary protection requirements definition needs. Participants concluded that planetary protection and science-based requirements potentially affect system design, technology trade options, development costs and mission architecture. Therefore early and regular coordination between the planetary protection, scientific, planning, engineering, operations and medical communities is needed to develop workable and effective designs for human exploration of Mars

The politicisation of climate change attitudes in Europe

Do voters for different parties have distinct climate attitudes because of their positions on other issues? With European Social Survey (ESS) data, we find that in Western (but not Central and Eastern) Europe there is a linkage between left-right self-placement and climate attitudes that cannot be accounted for by economic egalitarianism or liberal cultural attitudes. That linkage partly but not fully accounts for why voters for different party families have different beliefs and worries about climate change. Green party voters are more climate conscious than other voters with similar left-wing identities and political values. Not only Populist-Right but also mainstream Conservative party-family voters are less worried about climate change than their left-right orientations and other political values suggest. While Western European countries nearly all follow the same pattern, there is no consistent structure in Central and Eastern European countries. Across Europe non-voters are less worried about climate change than voters.publishedVersio