Diazepam and its metabolites in the mothers' and newborns' hair as a biomarker of prenatal exposure

Pregnant women are exposed to benzodiazepines for therapeutic purposes during gestation. The goal of this study was to evaluate prenatal exposure to benzodiazepines. Time of exposure during course of pregnancy is a significant aspect of fetal exposure to drugs. Benzodiazepine concentration assay in hair of mothers and newborns exposed prenatally to these drugs was performed in the studies. Development, validation and evaluation of benzodiazepine determination method in mothers and their newborns enables assessment of health risks for the child and implementation of adequate therapeutic procedures. We used A LC-ESI-MS/MS method that allowed determination of diazepam (the main benzodiazepine used by pregnant women was diazepam) and its metabolites (nordazepam, oxazepam) in hair of mothers and newborns. LOQ 10 pg/mg of hair was used in the study. Results: concentration of nordazepam was higher than parent drug (diazepam) and higher in newborns’ hair when compared to mothers’. The mean concentrations of diazepam in mothers’ hair were 31.6±36.0 and 34.1±42.4 pg/mg in the second and third trimester of pregnancy respectively. The mean concentration of diazepam in newborns’ hair was higher and reached levels of 53.3±36.5 pg/mg. The mean concentration of nordazepam in the mothers’ hair corresponding to the second and third trimester was 52.9±48.1 and 89.9±122.8 pg/mg, respectively. Nordazepam in the newborns’ hair was detected at the mean level of 108.1±144.2 pg/mg. It was concluded that diazepam and nordazepam are permanently incorporated into the hair structure. Presence of diazepam and its metabolites in newborn’s hair confirms that these benzodiazepines permeate placental barrier. Segmental analysis of mothers’ hair enabled the assessment of drug administration time. Diazepam and its metabolites determined in hair of newborns may serve as biomarkers of prenatal exposure to these drugs. The performed LC-MS/MS analysis was accurate enough to determine even low concentrations of benzodiazepines, at the level of few pg/mg of hair. Levels of diazepam detected in hair of newborns were higher than levels determined in mothers. This may confirm the fact, that fetus’s ability to metabolize diazepam is scarce. Nordazepam was found in higher concentrations in hair of newborns than in hair of mothers, which may suggest that it is cumulated in child’s organism. Other metabolites of diazepam - oxazepam and temazepam - were detected in very few cases, in low concentrations

Erosion, permeation and outgassing performances of tin coating under/after hydrogen plasma iffadiation

An erosion behavior of TiN-coated stainless-steel (SS) surfaces was investigated during biased-limiter experiments within the Uragan-3M torsatron and during simulation experiments, which were performed with plasma-accelerator and glow-discharge (GD) plasmas. For a TiN-coated SS head-plate of a limiter the arc ignition probability was found to be lower than 10-4 per plasma pulse. Possible physical mechanisms of this effect had been discussed. Within special vacuum stands, using thermal-desorption and mass-spectrometry methods, there were performed measurements of an outgassing rate and hydrogen permeability of TiNcoatings. The negligible outgassing from TiN-coated SS samples, during their heating up to 473 K, was observed after a cleaning procedure with a molecular hydrogen inflow under pressure of about 10-4 Torr, on contrary to the considerable increase of (q) rate for the irradiated samples. Measured values of the TiN-film hydrogen permeability were several times lower, and activation energy of the hydrogen permeation was considerably lower than that for the SS films (15 kJ/mole instead of 19.9 kJ/mole). The use of TiN-coated SS and diffusion membranes, for the reduction of the erosion, recycling, and hydrogen isotope inventory control, as well as for improvement of vacuum conditions, has been considered

A comparison of selected classifiers in gear fault diagnosis

Niewielkie uszkodzenie przekładni zębatej może prowadzić do poważnej awarii urządzenia. Zatem, bardzo ważnym jest wykrycie takich defektów na ich początkowym etapie powstawania aby zapobiec dalszym uszkodzeniom. Praca przedstawia kilka wybranych teoretycznych narzędzi z obszaru sztucznej inteligencji zastosowanych do rozwiązania problemu diagnozowania uszkodzeń przekładni zębatych. Rozważanymi narzędziami są: perceptron wielowarstwowy, sieć neuronowa o radialnych funkcjach bazowych, drzewo decyzyjne, sieć bayesowska, maszyna wektorów podpierających oraz algorytm k najbliższych sąsiadów. Rezultaty wszystkich eksperymentów zostały otrzymane z wykorzystaniem rzeczywistych danych oraz aplikacji WEKA (ang. Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis) dostępnej na stronach Uniwersytetu Waikato w Nowej Zelandii.Minor gear damage may lead to serious failures of the device. Thus, it is very important to detect such damage as early as possible to prevent further damage. This paper presents a selection of several theoretical tools from the field of artificial intelligence and their application in gear fault classification. The considered tools are: feed forward neural network (multilayer perception), neural network with radial basis functions, decision tree, Bayesian network, support vector machine, and k-nearest neighbor algorithm. All numerical experiments presented in the paper were performed with the use of real-world dataset and WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis) software, available at the server of the University of Waikato

Present status and prospects of research in SINS on the modification of surface properties by pulsed plasma streams

The paper presents examples of the most important results obtained in SINS during the last decade, interesting from the point of view of industrial applications. It also indicates some of the most prospective directions in research on modification of the surface properties of materials by means of pulsed plasma streams

An apparatus for sequential pulsed plasma beam treatment in combination with Arc PVD deposition

A hybrid type of apparatus is described which enables one to form a thin multi-layer film on the surface of any kind of solid substrate. In one process, the surface is treated with a high intensity pulse plasma beam which introduces the chosen kind of atoms into the near-surface layer of the substrate. In the second process, following the first without breaking the vacuum, the coating is formed by arc PVD (physical vapour deposition) process. Two examples of coatings formed on metallic and ceramic substrates are presented

Studies of abrasive wear resistance of padding welds and hot-work tool steels for forging dies

W artykule przedstawiono wyniki badań odporności na zuSycie ścierne stali narzędziowych do pracy na gorąco X37CrMoV5-1 i 55NiCrMoV7 i warstw napawanych materiałami UTOP-38, F-812 i F-818. Badania wykonano na urządzeniu T11 produkcji ITE Radom w temperaturze 250 oC. Najlepsze wyniki uzyskano dla stali X37CrMoV5-1 i 55NiCrMoV7 oraz dla materiału F-818.The article features an analysis of the resistance to abrasive wear of X37CrMoV5-1 and 55NiCrMoV7 hot-work tool steels and of padding welds overlaid with UTOP-38, F-812 and F-818 materials. The analysis was conducted at the temperature of 250 oC on the T11 testing machine produced by ITE Radom. The best outcome was achieved for X37CrMov5-1 and 55NiCrMoV7 steels and for F-81

Renewable energy technical systems installed in the autonomous house

W pracy przedstawiono charakterystykę domu autonomicznego wraz z zainstalowanymi systemami technicznymi odnawialnych źródeł energii. Przedstawiono analizę wyników uzysku z instalacji słonecznej z okresu 6-ciu miesięcy i zużycia energii, pod kątem autonomiczności badanego obiektu. W wyniku analizy statystycznej przeprowadzonych badań wykazano autonomiczność badanego obiektu.The paper presents a characteristic of an autonomous house together with its renewable energy technical systems. The analysis of the test results has been given with regard to solar energy recovery for 6 months and energy consumption in view of self – sufficiency of the investigated house. Based on the statistical analysis of the results the fact that the building is autonomous has been confirmed

The influence of water on the tribological properties of shoe soles

W pracy przedstawiono metodykę oraz wyniki badań tarciowych spodowych materiałów obuwniczych, wykonanych ze skóry naturalnej, kauczuku termoplastycznego oraz styrogumu, które współpracowały z próbkami wykonanymi z ceramiki (płytki podłogowe) oraz drewnem surowym. Badania przeprowadzono w warunkach tarcia technicznie suchego oraz w obecności wody. Analiza wyników badań pozwoliła na stwierdzenie, że najodpowiedniejszym materiałem na podeszwy obuwia jest skóra naturalna, która charakteryzuje się zbliżonymi wartościami współczynnika tarcia na sucho i w obecności wody. Pozostałe materiały spodowe wykazywały się znacząco większym współczynnikiem tarcia na sucho, lecz w obecności wody współczynnik ulegał gwałtownemu obniżeniu, co może przyczyniać się do występowania poślizgu. Zapewnienie bezpieczeństwa i komfortu użytkowania obuwia wymaga stosowania na spody materiałów charakteryzujących się wysokimi i podobnymi współczynnikami tarcia na sucho i w obecności wody.The methodology and the frictional of results of shoe soles made of natural leather, thermoplastic rubber and synthetics rubber cooperating with the samples made of ceramics and wood were presented. The tests were performed in conditions of technically dry friction and with the presence of water. The analysis of the test results lead to a conclusion, that the most appropriate material for shoe soles is a natural leather because it has the similar coefficient of friction in conditions of technically dry friction and in the presence of water

Thermal evolution of solid targets irradiated by pulsed plasma beams

Thermal evolution of various targets irradiated with high intensity pulsed ion or plasma beams was determined by computer simulation i.e. by solving numerically one dimensional heat flow equation. The calculations were carried out using the adopted ETLIT computer code (Energy Transport in Laser Irradiated Targets) based on Finite Element Method. The surface temperature, melt depth and liquid duration were computed as a function of pulse energy density, pulse duration, melting temperature and thermal diffusivity of a given material. In particular, some examples are shown for such materials as: Cu, Al, Zn, Fe, Ti, Mo, W, and Al2O3. Various practical aspects of the obtained results are discussed, with a special attention given to less or no intuitively predictable dependencies