Radiopharmaceutical Production and Quality Control

With the development of shorter-lived, organ-specific radiopharmaceuticals, much of the manufacture and quality control of these products have shifted from commercial manufactures to individual nuclear medicine laboratories. Recognizing this fact, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is encouraging quality assurance by proposing that an authorized physician may permit technicians and other paramedical personnel to perform the preparation and quality control testing of radiopharmaceuticals... Cohen has categorized pharmaceutical controls into chemical, biological, and physical. Figure 1 is a diagram of these controls. In each control a degree of purity is implied and is often determined by comparison to standard

Microscopic description of the scissors mode in odd-mass heavy deformed nuclei

Pseudo-SU(3) shell-model results are reported for M1 excitation strengths in 157-Gd, 163-Dy and 169-Tm in the energy range between 2 and 4 MeV. Non-zero pseudo-spin couplings between the configurations play a very important role in determining the M1 strength distribution, especially its rapidly changing fragmentation pattern which differs significantly from what has been found in neighboring even-even systems. The results suggest one should examine contributions from intruder levels.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Global Shifts in Agro-Industrial Capital and the Case of Soybean Crushing: Implications for Managers and Policy Makers

Tremendous shifts are occurring in the location of agro-industrial capital around the globe. To focus discussion on this topic a session was convened at the annual meeting of the International Food and Agribusiness Management Association in Montreux, Switzerland in June of 2004. The session brought together researchers and industry leaders to better understand these dramatic shifts and the implications they hold for the agri-food system. The following article emerges from that session. The first part of the article provides the context for the discussion by looking at global shifts in soybean processing investment. The second part entails reaction by three industry panelists.Soybeans, Processing, Investment, Global strategy, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy,

Pseudo + quasi SU(3): Towards a shell-model description of heavy deformed nuclei

The pseudo-SU(3) model has been extensively used to study normal parity bands in even-even and odd-mass heavy deformed nuclei. The use of a realistic Hamiltonian that mixes many SU(3) irreps has allowed for a successful description of energy spectra and electromagnetic transition strengths. While this model is powerful, there are situations in which the intruder states must be taken into account explicitly. The quasi-SU(3) symmetry is expected to complement the model, allowing for a description of nucleons occupying normal and intruder parity orbitals using a unified formalism.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, invited talk at Computational and Group Theoretical Methods in Nuclear Physics, Playa del Carmen, Mexico, February 18-21, 200

Excited bands in odd-mass rare-earth nuclei

Normal parity bands in [Formula Presented] and [Formula Presented] are studied using the pseudo-SU(3) shell model. Energies and [Formula Presented] transition strengths of states belonging to six low-lying, same-parity rotational bands in each nuclei are considered. The pseudo-SU(3) basis includes states with pseudospin 0 and 1, and [Formula Presented] and [Formula Presented] for even and odd nucleon numbers, respectively. States with pseudospin 1 and [Formula Presented] must be included for a proper description of some excited bands. © 2002 The American Physical Society

Optimization of Drug Prescription and Medication Management in Older Adults with Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease increases incrementally with age and elderly patients concomitantly sustain multimorbidities, with resultant prescription of multiple medications. Despite conforming with disease-specific cardiovascular clinical practice guidelines, this polypharmacy predisposes many elderly individuals with cardiovascular disease to adverse drug events and non-adherence. Patient-centered care requires that the clinician explore with each patient his or her goals of care and that this shared decision-making constitutes the basis for optimization of medication management. This approach to aligning therapies with patient preferences is likely to promote patient satisfaction, to limit morbidity, and to favorably affect healthcare costs

Polymorphisms, Mutations, and Amplification of the EGFR Gene in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancers

Masaharu Nomura and colleagues examine the distribution ofEGFR polymorphisms in different populations and find differences that might explain different responses to tyrosine kinase inhibitors in lung cancer patients

Rhetoric But Whose Reality? The Influence of Employability Messages on Employee Mobility Tactics and Work Group Identification

Over the last decade, employability has been presented by its advocates as the solution to employment uncertainty, and by its critics as a management rhetoric possessing little relevance to the experiences of most workers. This article suggests that while employability has failed to develop into a key research area, a deeper probing of its message is warranted. In particular, it is suggested that employability may have resonance with employees as workers rather than as employees of their immediate employing organisation. This demands a slightly different approach to studying employability than some other related phenomena such as employee commitment which has resonance only in relation to the employing organization. In adopting a social identity approach, the significance of the employability message is shown not only to lie in employees’ willingness to disassociate from their existing work groups and pursue individual mobility, but also in its capacity to undermine workers’ collective responses to grievances and unwanted organizational changes. A future research agenda is presented which highlights the need to address recent attempts to develop employability expectations among graduate career entrants, and for a closer critical engagement with management writings that attempt to justify the unnecessary espousal of the self development message

Identification, characterization, and gene expression analysis of nucleotide binding site (NB)-type resistance gene homologues in switchgrass

Abstract Background Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) is a warm-season perennial grass that can be used as a second generation bioenergy crop. However, foliar fungal pathogens, like switchgrass rust, have the potential to significantly reduce switchgrass biomass yield. Despite its importance as a prominent bioenergy crop, a genome-wide comprehensive analysis of NB-LRR disease resistance genes has yet to be performed in switchgrass. Results In this study, we used a homology-based computational approach to identify 1011 potential NB-LRR resistance gene homologs (RGHs) in the switchgrass genome (v 1.1). In addition, we identified 40 RGHs that potentially contain unique domains including major sperm protein domain, jacalin-like binding domain, calmodulin-like binding, and thioredoxin. RNA-sequencing analysis of leaf tissue from ‘Alamo’, a rust-resistant switchgrass cultivar, and ‘Dacotah’, a rust-susceptible switchgrass cultivar, identified 2634 high quality variants in the RGHs between the two cultivars. RNA-sequencing data from field-grown cultivar ‘Summer’ plants indicated that the expression of some of these RGHs was developmentally regulated. Conclusions Our results provide useful insight into the molecular structure, distribution, and expression patterns of members of the NB-LRR gene family in switchgrass. These results also provide a foundation for future work aimed at elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying disease resistance in this important bioenergy crop