Constant activity of glutamine synthetase after morphine administration versus proteomic results

Glutamine synthetase is a key enzyme which has a regulatory role in the brain glutamate pool. According to previously published proteomic analysis, it was shown that the expression level of this enzyme is affected by morphine administration. In our study, we examined the activity of glutamine synthetase in various structures of rat brain (cortex, striatum, hippocampus and spinal cord) that are biochemically and functionally involved in drug addiction and antinociception caused by morphine. We were not able to observe any significant changes in the enzyme activity between morphine-treated and control samples despite previously reported changes in the expression levels of this enzyme. These findings stressed the fact that changes observed in the expression of particular proteins during proteomic studies may not be correlated with its activity

Asymptotically stable phase synchronization revealed by autoregressive circle maps

A new type of nonlinear time series analysis is introduced, based on phases, which are defined as polar angles in spaces spanned by a finite number of delayed coordinates. A canonical choice of the polar axis and a related implicit estimation scheme for the potentially underlying auto-regressive circle map (next phase map) guarantee the invertibility of reconstructed phase space trajectories to the original coordinates. The resulting Fourier approximated, Invertibility enforcing Phase Space map (FIPS map) is well suited to detect conditional asymptotic stability of coupled phases. This rather general synchronization criterion unites two existing generalisations of the old concept and can successfully be applied e.g. to phases obtained from ECG and airflow recordings characterizing cardio-respiratory interaction.Comment: PDF file, 232 KB, 24 pages, 3 figures; cheduled for Phys. Rev. E (Nov) 200

Retrospective Review of the Patient Cases at a Major Trauma Center in Nairobi, Kenya and Implications for Emergency Care Development

Introduction Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are continuing to experience a “triple burden” of disease - traumatic injury, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and communicable disease with maternal and neonatal conditions (CD&Ms). The epidemiology of this triad is not well characterised and poses significant challenges to resource allocations, administration, and education of emergency care providers. The data collected in this study provide a comprehensive description of the emergency centre at Kenya\u27s largest public tertiary care hospital. Methods This study is a retrospective chart review conducted at Kenyatta National Hospital of all patient encounters over a four-month period. Data were collected from financial and emergency centre triage records along with admission and mortality logbooks. Chief complaints and discharge diagnoses collected by specially trained research assistants were manually converted to standardised diagnoses using International Classification of Disease 10 (ICD-10) codes. ICD-10 codes were categorised into groups based on the ICD-10 classification system for presentation. Results A total of 23,941 patients presented to the emergency centre during the study period for an estimated annual census of 71,823. The majority of patients were aged 18-64 years (58%) with 50% of patients being male and only 3% of unknown sex. The majority of patients (61%) were treated in the emergency centre, observed, and discharged home. Admission was the next most common disposition (33%) followed by death (6%). Head injury was the overall most common diagnosis (11%) associated with admission. Conclusions Trends toward NCDs and traumatic diseases have been described by this study and merit further investigation in both the urban and rural setting. Specifically, the significance of head injury on healthcare cost, utilisation, and patient death and disability points to the growing need of additional resources at Kenyatta National Hospital for acute care. It further demonstrates the mounting impact of trauma in Kenya and throughout the developing world

Anti-dumping measures and the politics of EU-Japan trade relations in the European consumer electronics sector The VCR case

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX185913 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo