The Effect of Dosage Release Formulations on the Pharmacokinetics of Propranolol Stereoisomers in Humans

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97148/1/j.1552-4604.1995.tb04076.x.pd

A multi-zoo investigation of nutrient provision for captive red-crested turacos

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this record© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. structural, copper-based feather pigments, and a specialized dietary strategy. Tauraco inhabit tropical woodlands, foraging for predominantly folivorous and/or frugivorous food items. Using a study population of 16 red-crested turacos (T. erythrolophus) at seven zoos in the United Kingdom, the nutrient composition of diets from diet sheets was calculated, using Zootrition v.2.6, Saint Louis Zoo, USA for analyses of important nutrients within each diet, and compared against an example of currently available literature. For all nutrients analyzed, significant differences were noted between amounts presented in each zoo's diet (as fed). Turacos are presented with a wide range of ingredients in diets fed, and all zoos use domestic fruits to a large extent in captive diets. Similarities exist between zoos when comparing amounts of as-fed fiber. Analysis of the calcium to phosphorous ratio for these diets showed there to be no significant difference from the published ratio available. While this is a small-scale study on only a limited number of zoos, it provides useful information on current feeding practice for a commonly-housed species of bird and highlights potential areas of deviation away from standard practice, as well as identifying ways of reducing wastage of food. Data on wild foraging behavior and food selection, or collaboration with tauraco keepers from institutions in the tropics, is recommended as a way of improving feeding regimes and updating feeding practice for this and other Tauraco species

The Impact of Mentoring on Social Excluded Adults in a Small Midwest City

Empirical data have indicated that a considerable amount of the world\u27s population, 45.3 million in the United States, live in deplorable conditions, some of which are created by social exclusion. Social exclusion is a disenfranchisement experienced by individuals and families living in poverty conditions created by circumstances such as lack of education, lack of economic sustenance, unemployment, poor health, and other social ills. Mentoring is a multidimensional skills-development opportunity for disadvantaged youth, aspiring new professionals, employed individuals being promoted, and instructor-student relationships. There is the possibility that mentoring could be useful for other societal groups as well, particularly social excluded adults. The purpose of this phenomenological research was to examine and gain an understanding of mentoring as experienced by social excluded adults in a small Midwest city. The theoretical framework included the theory of mentoring as postulated by Kram, Bandura\u27s social cognitive theory, the social exclusion theory by Bourdieu, and the social capital theory by Muddiman. Social excluded adults between 25 and 50 years of age were interviewed regarding their mentoring experience. Ten research participants were interviewed. A NVivo assessment was used to analyze data. The study revealed that mentor and protégé relationships among social excluded adults yielded similar positive results as in other mentored groups. The significant social change provided by this study is that outcomes of the mentoring experiences will provide policy makers and nonprofit services providers with important data to create programs that more adequately meet the needs of social excluded adults

From Print to Digital: Migrating Handbooks and Workflows into a Wiki

Poster presented at the University of Maryland Libraries Research & Innovative Practice Forum on June 11, 2019.This poster highlights considerations when moving information from a static, paper document to a digital Wiki format. These include the use of hyperlinks to external websites, or internal headings, and the using of written directions versus videos and .gifs. The differences between these two formats means that even with the same content there are different ways to use each platform to its fullest potential. Through both physical and digital documentation, and a variety of tools, information can be more easily accessible to a wider range of people

Between Fiction and History

Entre fiction et histoire : l’avortement dans la littérarure africaine. – L’avortement clandestin est le sujet de nombreux romans féministes africains des années 1980 et 1990. Cet article propose aux historiens d’expliquer les raisons de ce phénomène. Dans un premier temps, nous passerons en revue la littérature médicale et socio-scientifique sur l’avortement en Afrique, en montrant comment cette question totalement ignorée au milieu des années 1960 est devenue un sujet de recherche et d’inquiétude, d’abord gynécologique et populaire à la fin des années 1960 puis socio-scientifique et épidémiologique à partir de la fin des années 1980. Nous analyserons ensuite la signification de l’avortement dans cinq romans africains. Chacun de ces romans représente l’avortement comme une épreuve personnelle inextricablement liée aux relations, et la plupart évoquent un besoin de mettre fin à la grossesse comme une réalisation de soi. Cet article avance qu’il est nécessaire d’écrire une histoire des femmes en quête de modernité en Afrique et d’établir un lien entre cette quête, le fantasme et le désir, et le recours à l’avortement. Il ne s’agit pas de lire ni d’enseigner ces romans comme le reflet du social mais comme des objets constitutifs. Les historiens ont beaucoup à apprendre en interrogeant la fiction comme des modes de textualisation qui nous permettent de repenser la forme, la structure, la séquence et l’anachronie dans l’écriture historique.Clandestine, unsafe abortion is a frequent topic in African feminist novels of the 1980s and 1990s, and the paper proposes that historians should wonder why. It first provides a review of the medical and social scientific literature on induced abortion in Africa, showing how the problem went from one virtual ignorance in 1965 through two explosions of research and concern, one gynecological and popular from the late 1960s; another social scientific and epidemiological from the late 1980s. A close reading of five African novels as artifacts about abortion follows. Each represents abortion as a personal trial inextricably entangled with relationships; and most speak to an individual desire to terminate a pregnancy as an aspect of self-realization. The paper argues that we need a history of girls seeking modernity in Africa and knotted links among this seeking, fantasy and desire, and their resorting to abortion. These novels should be read and taught not as reflections of the social, but as constitutive objects, posing selves in formation. Historians have much to learn from interrogating fiction as modes of textualization that enable us to rethink form, structure, sequence, and anachrony in historical writing

Thirty years of science outreach at the University of Otago

Service to the community is one of the three major goals of New Zealand’s universities, the others being advancement of knowledge through research and higher education through teaching. The University of Otago has been taking science to the community for over thirty years. Over that time, strong programmes of outreach to school students and the general public have developed. School programmes, such as Hands-on Science, Science Wānanga and the Advanced School Sciences Academy, present science in accessible and exciting ways and encourage careers in science. This paper outlines the history of science outreach at the University of Otago.

Reduction versus abrupt cessation in smokers who want to quit.

Background\ud The standard way to stop smoking is to quit abruptly on a designated quit day. A number of smokers have tried unsuccessfully to quit this way. Reducing smoking before quitting could be an alternative approach to cessation. Before this method is adopted it is important to determine whether it is at least as successful as abrupt quitting.\ud \ud Objectives\ud 1. To compare the success of reducing smoking to quit and abrupt quitting interventions. 2. To compare adverse events between arms in studies that used pharmacotherapy to aid reduction.\ud \ud Search methods\ud We searched the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Review Group specialised register, MEDLINE, EMBASE and PsycInfo for topic specific terms combined with terms used to identify trials of tobacco addiction interventions. We also searched reference lists of relevant papers and contacted authors of ongoing trials. Date of most recent search: November 2009.\ud \ud Selection criteria\ud We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that recruited adults who wanted to quit smoking. Studies included at least one condition which instructed participants to reduce their smoking and then quit and one condition which instructed participants to quit abruptly.\ud \ud Data collection and analysis\ud The outcome measure was abstinence from smoking after at least six months follow-up. We pooled the included trials using a Mantel-Haenszel fixed-effect model. Trials were split for two sub-group analyses: pharmacotherapy vs no pharmacotherapy, self help therapy vs behavioural support. Adverse events were summarised as a narrative. It was not possible to compare them quantitatively as there was variation in the nature and depth of reporting across studies.\ud \ud Main results\ud Ten studies were relevant for inclusion, with a total of 3760 participants included in the meta-analysis. Three of these studies used pharmacotherapy as part of the interventions. Five studies included behavioural support in the intervention, four included self-help therapy, and the remaining study had arms which included behavioural support and arms which included self-help therapy. Neither reduction or abrupt quitting had superior abstinence rates when all the studies were combined in the main analysis (RR= 0.94, 95% CI= 0.79 to 1.13), whether pharmacotherapy was used (RR= 0.87, 95% CI= 0.65 to 1.22), or not (RR= 0.97, 95% CI= 0.78 to 1.21), whether studies included behavioural support (RR= 0.87, 95% CI= 0.64 to 1.17) or self-help therapy (RR= 0.98, 95% CI= 0.78 to1.23). We were unable to draw conclusions about the difference in adverse events between interventions, however recent studies suggest that pre-quit NRT does not increase adverse events.\ud \ud Authors' conclusions\ud Reducing cigarettes smoked before quit day and quitting abruptly, with no prior reduction, produced comparable quit rates, therefore patients can be given the choice to quit in either of these ways. Reduction interventions can be carried out using self-help materials or aided by behavioural support, and can be carried out with the aid of pre-quit NRT. Further research needs to investigate which method of reduction before quitting is the most effective, and which categories of smokers benefit the most from each method, to inform future policy and intervention development.\ud \u

Psychologically Traumatic Birth: Associations with Increased Drinking and Delayed Risk of Alcohol Harm in Mothers

Background Experience of trauma is a risk factor for increased alcohol use. Childbirth can be psychologically traumatic but there is minimal research investigating whether psychological birth trauma (PBT) is a risk factor for increased maternal drinking or what factors are associated with alcohol use in mothers who have and who have not experienced PBT. Method An online observational survey of mothers with (n = 291) and without (n = 230) experience of PBT. Participants self-reported alcohol use and completed measures of alcohol harm, drinking motives, trauma (general and birth related) and mental health. Free text options were included to complement quantitative data. Results Irrespective of PBT status, stronger endorsement of negative reinforcement drinking motives (e.g. coping) predicted higher alcohol use and hazardous drinking. However, children’s age influenced this relationship. In mothers with a history of PBT, negative reinforcement drinking motives predicted weekly alcohol use and alcohol harm as their children grew older. In mothers without PBT, positive reinforcement drinking motives predicted greater weekly alcohol use as children grew older, but negative drinking motives predicted reduced drinking. Multiple aspects of the parental role influenced drinking (e.g. coping-based motives) and non-drinking (e.g. child well-being motives) behaviour. Changes in motives from pre-motherhood to motherhood focused around a shift from positive to negative reinforcement drinking motives. Mothers with PBT reported mental health symptoms as both a reason to drink and not to drink alcohol. Conclusion This study provides novel evidence on maternal alcohol use, and how PBT may influence drinking behaviour in mothers. Importantly, PBT may be a type of trauma which is associated with a delayed risk for maladaptive alcohol use and risk of alcohol harm. This evidence can facilitate more research aimed at understanding this important public health issue and can inform alcohol interventions tailored to the needs of mothers which consider the long-lasting impact of birth experience

Comparison of the Sentinel-3A and B SLSTR Tandem Phase Data using metrological principles

The Sentinel 3 mission is part of the Copernicus programme space segment and has the objective of making global operational observations of ocean and land parameters with its four onboard sensors. Two Sentinel 3 satellites are currently on orbit, providing near-daily global coverage. Sentinel 3A was launched on 16 February 2016 and Sentinel 3B on 25 April 2018. For the early part of its operation, Sentinel 3B flew in tandem with Sentinel 3A, flying 30 seconds ahead of its twin mission. This provided a unique opportunity to compare the instruments on the two satellites, and to test the per pixel uncertainty values in a metrologically-robust manner. In this work we consider the tandem-phase data from the infrared channels of one of the onboard instruments: the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer, SLSTR. A direct comparison was made of both the Level 1 radiance values and the Level 2 sea surface temperature values derived from those radiances. At Level 1 the distribution of differences between the sensor values were compared to the declared uncertainties for data gridded on to a regular latitude-longitude grid with propagated pixel uncertainties. The results showed good overall radiometric agreement between the two sensors, with mean differences of ∼0.06 K, although there was a scene-temperature dependent difference for the oblique view that was consistent with what was expected from a stray light effect observed pre-flight. We propose a means to correct for this effect based on the tandem data. Level 1 uncertainties were found to be representative of the variance of the data, expect in those channels affected by the stray light effect. The sea surface temperature results show a very small difference between the sensors that could be in part due to the fact that the Sentinel-3A retrieval coefficients were also applied to the Sentinel-3B retrieval because the Sentinel-3B coefficients are not currently available. This will lead to small errors between the S3A and S3B retrievals. The comparison also suggests that the retrieval uncertainties may need updating for two of the retrieval processes, that there are extra components of uncertainty related the quality level and the probability of cloud that should be included. Finally, a study of the quality flags assigned to sea surface temperature pixel values provided valuable insight into the origin of those quality levels and highlighted possible uncertainties in the defined quality level

Recruitment in Degraded Marine Habitats: A Spatially Explicit, Individual-Based Model for Spiny Lobster

Coastal habitats that serve as nursery grounds for numerous marine species are badly degraded, yet the traditional means of modeling populations of exploited marine species handle spatiotemporal changes in habitat characteristics and life history dynamics poorly, if at all. To explore how nursery habitat degradation impacts recruitment of a mobile, benthic species, we developed a spatially explicit, individual-based model that describes the recruitment of Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) in the Florida Keys, where a cascade of environmental disturbances has reconfigured nursery habitat structure. In recent years, the region has experienced a series of linked perturbations, among them, seagrass die-offs, cyanobacteria blooms, and the mass mortality of sponges. Sponges are important shelters for juvenile spiny lobster, an abundant benthic predator that also sustains Florida\u27s most valuable fishery. In the model, we simulated monthly settlement of individual lobster postlarvae and the daily growth, mortality, shelter selection, and movement of individual juvenile lobsters on a spatially explicit grid of habitat cells configured to represent the Florida Keys coastal nursery. Based on field habitat surveys, cells were designated as either seagrass or hard-bottom, and hard-bottom cells were further characterized in terms of their shelter- and size-specific lobster carrying capacities. The effect of algal blooms on sponge mortality, hence lobster habitat structure, was modeled based on the duration of exposure of each habitat cell to the blooms. Ten-year simulations of lobster recruitment with and without algal blooms suggest that the lobster population should be surprisingly resilient to massive disturbances of this type. Data not used in model development showed that predictions of large changes in lobster shelter utilization, yet small effects on recruitment in response to blooms, were realistic. The potentially severe impacts of habitat loss on recruitment were averted by compensatory changes in habitat utilization and mobility by larger individuals, coupled with periods of fortuitously high larval settlement. Our model provides an underutilized approach for assessing habitat effects on open populations with complex life histories, and our results illustrate the potential pitfalls of relying on intuition to infer the effects of habitat perturbations on upper trophic levels