Behavioral and antioxidant activity of a tosylbenz[g]indolamine derivative. A proposed better profile for a potential antipsychotic agent

BACKGROUND: Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is a major limitation of older antipsychotics. Newer antipsychotics have various other side effects such as weight gain, hyperglycemia, etc. In a previous study we have shown that an indolamine molecule expresses a moderate binding affinity at the dopamine D(2 )and serotonin 5-HT(1A )receptors in in vitro competition binding assays. In the present work, we tested its p-toluenesulfonyl derivative (TPBIA) for behavioral effects in rats, related to interactions with central dopamine receptors and its antioxidant activity. METHODS: Adult male Fischer-344 rats grouped as: i) Untreated rats: TPBIA was administered i.p. in various doses ii) Apomorphine-treated rats: were treated with apomorphine (1 mg kg(-1), i.p.) 10 min after the administration of TPBIA. Afterwards the rats were placed individually in the activity cage and their motor behaviour was recorded for the next 30 min The antioxidant potential of TPBIA was investigated in the model of in vitro non enzymatic lipid peroxidation. RESULTS: i) In non-pretreated rats, TPBIA reduces the activity by 39 and 82% respectively, ii) In apomorphine pretreated rats, TPBIA reverses the hyperactivity and stereotype behaviour induced by apomorphine. Also TPBIA completely inhibits the peroxidation of rat liver microsome preparations at concentrations of 0.5, 0.25 and 0.1 mM. CONCLUSION: TPBIA exerts dopamine antagonistic activity in the central nervous system. In addition, its antioxidant effect is a desirable property, since TD has been partially attributed, to oxidative stress. Further research is needed to test whether TPBIA may be used as an antipsychotic agent

Trimebutine maleate monotherapy for functional dyspepsia: A multicenter, randomized, double-blind placebo controlled prospective trial

Background and Objectives:Functional dyspepsia (FD) is one of the most common functional gastrointestinal disorders; it has a great impact on patient quality of life and is difficult to treat satisfactorily. This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of trimebutine maleate (TM) in patients with FD.Materials and Methods: A multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled, prospective study was conducted, including 211 patients with FD. Participants were randomized to receive TM 300 mg twice per day (BID, 108 patients) or placebo BID (103 patients) for 4 weeks. The Glasgow Dyspepsia Severity Score (GDSS) was used to evaluate the relief of dyspepsia symptoms. Moreover, as a pilot secondary endpoint, a substudy (eight participants on TM and eight on placebo) was conducted in to evaluate gastric emptying (GE), estimated using a 99mTc-Tin Colloid Semi Solid Meal Scintigraphy test.Results: Of the 211 patients enrolled, 185 (87.7%) (97 (52.4%) in the TM group and 88 (47.6%) in the placebo group) completed the study and were analyzed. The groups did not differ in their demographic and medical history data. Regarding symptom relief, being the primary endpoint, a statistically significant reduction in GDSS for the TM group was revealed between the first (2-week) and final (4-week) visit (p-value = 0.02). The 99 mTc-Tin Colloid Semi Solid Meal Scintigraphy testing showed that TM significantly accelerated GE obtained at 50 min (median emptying 75.5% in the TM group vs. 66.6% in the placebo group,p= 0.036). Adverse effects of low to moderate severity were reported in 12.3% of the patients on TM.Conclusion: TM monotherapy appears to be an effective and safe approach to treating FD, although the findings presented here warrant further confirmation.Galenica A.E. Pharmaceutical Compan

A computational framework for complex disease stratification from multiple large-scale datasets.

BACKGROUND: Multilevel data integration is becoming a major area of research in systems biology. Within this area, multi-'omics datasets on complex diseases are becoming more readily available and there is a need to set standards and good practices for integrated analysis of biological, clinical and environmental data. We present a framework to plan and generate single and multi-'omics signatures of disease states. METHODS: The framework is divided into four major steps: dataset subsetting, feature filtering, 'omics-based clustering and biomarker identification. RESULTS: We illustrate the usefulness of this framework by identifying potential patient clusters based on integrated multi-'omics signatures in a publicly available ovarian cystadenocarcinoma dataset. The analysis generated a higher number of stable and clinically relevant clusters than previously reported, and enabled the generation of predictive models of patient outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: This framework will help health researchers plan and perform multi-'omics big data analyses to generate hypotheses and make sense of their rich, diverse and ever growing datasets, to enable implementation of translational P4 medicine

A surprising new genus and species of cave-adapted Plusiocampinae Cycladiacampa irakleiae (Diplura, Campodeidae) from Irakleia Island, Cyclades Islands in the Aegean Archipelago (Greece)

The surprising discovery of Cycladiacampa irakleiae, a new genus and species, a cave-adapted campodeid dipluran highlights the paleobiogeographical importance of the insular Aegean cave-ecosystems. This new dipluran genus inhabits with other noticeable endemic cave-adapted invertebrate species in the isolated Spilaio Agiou Ioanni cave in Irakleia, a small island in the centre of the Cyclades Archipelago. C. irakleiae gen. nov. et sp. nov. is related with Stygiocampa species, a subgenus of Plusiocampa genus, with hereto six cave-adapted species inhabiting karst areas in Dinaric and the Rhopode Mountains. These species share similarities such as the absence of mesonotal and metanotal macrosetae, the abundance and shape of urosternal macrosetae, as well as the lack of medial posterior macrosetae on mesonotum and metanotum. This can be explained by a common ancestor that probably originated from Asia and expanded its distribution to the fragmented Europe since the Eocene-Oligocene, colonizing cave habitats in recent periods. Cycladiacampa irakleiae is a remarkable addition to the fauna of the cave of Irakleia and should raise awareness on the need to enhance the study and conservation of the cave’s natural heritage

Locating period doubling and Neimark-Sacker bifurcations in parametrically excited rotors on active gas foil bearings

In this work, parametric excitation is introduced in a fully balanced flexible rotor mounted on two identical active gas foil bearings. The active gas foil bearings change the top foil shape harmonically with a specific amplitude and frequency. The deformable foil shape is approximated by an analytical function, while the gas pressure distribution is evaluated by the numerical solution of the Reynolds equation for compressible flow. The harmonic variation of the foil shape generates a respective variation in the bearings’ stiffness and damping properties and the system experiences parametric resonances and antiresonances in specific excitation frequencies. The nonlinear gas bearing forces generate bifurcations in the solutions of the system at certain rotating speeds and excitation frequencies; period doubling and Neimark-Sacker bifurcations are noticed in the examined system, and their progress is evaluated as the two bifurcation parameters (rotating speed and parametric excitation frequency) are changed, though a codimension-2 numerical continuation of limit cycles. It is found that at specific range of excitation frequency there are parametric anti-resonances and the bifurcations collide and vanish. Therefore, a bifurcation-free operating range is established and the system can operate stable at a wide speed range

Calculation and evaluation of the environmental footprint of international airports

Περίληψη: Διανύοντας μόλις την τρίτη δεκαετία του 21ου αιώνα τα σημάδια της ανθρώπινης παρέμβασης στο περιβάλλον είναι ήδη ανεξίτηλα. Η επιτάχυνση της κλιματικής αλλαγής, η οποία προκαλούμε καθημερινά, έχει αυξηθεί κατακόρυφα και η ανάγκη για αντιμετώπιση φαντάζει πιο επιτακτική από ποτέ άλλοτε. Ο τομέας των μεταφορών έχει σημαντική συμμετοχή στη ρύπανση του πλανήτη. Σε αυτόν οφείλεται το 14% των παγκόσμιων εκπομπών αερίων του θερμοκηπίου ( Green House Gasses). Τα αντίστοιχα ποσοστά εκπομπών αυξάνουν ακόμα περισσότερο όταν αναφερόμαστε σε άλλες ρυπογόνους ουσίες όπως τα οξείδια του αζώτου (NOx), το μονοξείδιο του άνθρακα (CO), το διοξείδιο του θείου (SO2), τα μικρά και υπέρλεπτα σωματίδια (PM) και οι οργανικές πτητικές ενώσεις (VOCs). Η αεροπλοΐα είναι ένας από τους ταχύτερα αναπτυσσόμενους κλάδους του τομέα των μεταφορών, ο οποίος έχει σημαντική και αυξανόμενη συμβολή στο σύνολο των εκπομπών στο σύνολο των εκπομπών του. Κέντρα των διεργασιών και δραστηριοτήτων της αεροπλοΐας αποτελούν τα αεροδρόμια. Στη παρούσα έρευνα – διπλωματική εργασία γίνεται ανάλυση των εκπομπών των αερολιμένων. Εξετάζονται αναλυτικά οι πηγές ρύπανσης που υπάρχουν σε αυτά ( αεροσκάφη, μονάδες τροφοδοσίας αεροσκαφών, επίγειος εξοπλισμός υποστήριξης) και η συμβολή κάθε μία από αυτές στο σύνολο των εκπομπών. Ακολούθως παρουσιάζεται και αναλύεται η μεθοδολογία υπολογισμού (μαθηματικά μοντέλα εξισώσεων) των εκπομπών ανάλογα με την προέλευση τους. Βασικό πλεονέκτημα της είναι η δυνατότητα υπολογισμού όλο των οχημάτων και μηχανημάτων που εκπέμπουν ρυπογόνες ουσίες εισάγοντας σε αυτή τα κατάλληλα δεδομένα. Απαραίτητα στοιχεία εισαγωγής αποτελούν οι συντελεστές εκπομπών των μηχανών που φέρουν, ο χρόνος λειτουργίας αυτών και η απόδοση τους κατά το χρονικό διάστημα λειτουργίας. Στη συνέχεια παραθέτονται ποσοτικά και ποιοτικά αποτελέσματα περιπτώσεων αερολιμένων που μελετήθηκαν με τις ίδιες μεθόδους και μέσω αυτών εξάγονται χρήσιμα συμπεράσματα για τη δημιουργία στρατηγικών αντιμετώπισης και μείωσης των εκπομπών των αερολιμένων. Τέλος μελετάται η περίπτωση του Διεθνή Αερολιμένα Ηρακλείου «Νίκος Καζαντζάκης» με τη χρήση του λογισμικού υπολογισμού ανθρακικού αποτυπώματος ACERT. Εισάγοντας τα δεδομένα πτήσεων, λειτουργίας , κατανάλωσης ενέργειας και καυσίμου του έτους 2017 γίνεται μία εκτίμηση του ανθρακικού αποτυπώματος του αεροδρομίου.Summarization: Being in the third decade of the 21st century the signs of human intervention in the environment are already indelible. The acceleration of climate change, which we cause every day, has risen sharply, and the need for treatment seems more imperative than ever before. The transport sector has a major contribution to global pollution. It accounts for 14% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions (Green House Gasses). The correlatively emission rates are being increased when referring to other pollutants such as NOx, CO, SO2, PM and organic volatile compounds (VOCs). Civil aviation is one of the fastest growing sectors of the transport sector, which has a significant and growing contribution to total emissions in its total emissions. The activities of air navigation are being held in airports. In this research - diploma thesis is being analyzed the emissions of the airports. We analyze the sources of pollution in them (aircraft, aircraft feeders, ground support equipment) and the contribution of each of them to the total emissions. Subsequently, the calculation methodology (mathematical models of equations) of emissions is presented and analyzed according to their origin. Its main advantage is the ability to calculate all vehicles and machinery that emit pollutants by entering the appropriate data. Necessary input elements are the emission factors of the engines they carry, their operating time and their performance over the period of operation. The following quantitative and qualitative results are presented in case of airports studied using the same methods and they draw useful conclusions for the establishment of strategies for addressing and reducing emissions of airports. Finally, the case of Heraklion International Airport "Nikos Kazantzakis" is being studied using the ACERT carbon footprint software. By entering flight, operating, fuel and energy data for the year 2017, an estimation of the carbon footprint of the airport is made