Efficacy and safety of the long-term oral administration of carprofen in the treatment of osteoarthritis in dogs

The aim of this study conducted in France was to confirm the efficacy and safety of the oral administration of carprofen (Rimadyl®) at 4 mg/kg once a day during four months in the treatment of clinically chronic osteoarthritis in dogs. One hundred and ten dogs with chronic clinical signs of osteoarthritis were enrolled. The overall severity of the osteoarthritis condition and the clinical signs of osteoarthritis were assessed using visual analogue scales (VAS) on days 0, 5, 30, 60, 90 and 120. During the same visits, owners were asked to perform their own efficacy assessment through the grading of seven parameters using categorical scales. Hematological analyses were performed on days 0 and 120. Clinical blood chemistry evaluations were performed on days 0, 5, 60 and 120. The percentage of dogs showing a positive treatment effect increased from 12% on day 5 to 74% on day 120. The mean VAS scores significantly decreased throughout the study (P ≤0.05). Gastrointestinal undesirable effects likely to be related to carprofen but with no harmful consequences were observed in 5% of treated dogs. No detrimental effects of the treatment on haematological, renal and hepatic parameters were observed. These results show that carprofen at 4 mg/kg once daily can be safely used over a 4 month period in the treatment of osteoarthritis in dogs and provides a steadily increasing improvement of the clinical signs

The effect of ambipolar diffusion on low-density molecular ISM filaments

The filamentary structure of the molecular interstellar medium and the potential link of this morphology to star formation have been brought into focus recently by high resolution observational surveys. An especially puzzling matter is that local interstellar filaments appear to have the same thickness, independent of their column density. This requires a theoretical understanding of their formation process and the physics that governs their evolution. In this work we explore a scenario in which filaments are dissipative structures of the large-scale interstellar turbulence cascade and ion-neutral friction (also called ambipolar diffusion) is affecting their sizes by preventing small-scale compressions. We employ high-resolution, 3D MHD simulations, performed with the grid code RAMSES, to investigate non-ideal MHD turbulence as a filament formation mechanism. We focus the analysis on the mass and thickness distributions of the resulting filamentary structures. Simulations of both driven and decaying MHD turbulence show that the morphologies of the density and the magnetic field are different when ambipolar diffusion is included in the models. In particular, the densest structures are broader and more massive as an effect of ion-neutral friction and the power spectra of both the velocity and the density steepen at a smaller wavenumber. The comparison between ideal and non-ideal MHD simulations shows that ambipolar diffusion causes a shift of the filament thickness distribution towards higher values. However, none of the distributions exhibit the pronounced peak found in the observed local filaments. Limitations in dynamical range and the absence of self-gravity in these numerical experiments do not allow us to conclude at this time whether this is due to the different filament selection or due to the physics inherent of the filament formation.Comment: A&A accepte

L’autonomie des commissions permanentes de l’Assemblée nationale et la discipline de parti de 1984 à 1991

Dès le début des années soixante s’est posée la question de la revalorisation du rôle du député québécois. Les commissions parlementaires ont été considérées, dès cette époque, comme un bon moyen pour augmenter l’influence du député et favoriser l’autonomie du pouvoir législatif face au pouvoir exécutif. Cet article veut précisément cerner le degré d’autonomie reconnu aux commissions permanentes depuis la dernière grande réforme parlementaire à l’Assemblée nationale du Québec, en 1984. Après avoir examiné trois types d’autonomie, on est amené à conclure qu’une faible partie du travail des commissions est assumée d’une manière autonome, soit essentiellement le travail réalisé dans le cadre des « mandats d’initiative » et des mandats de surveillance des organismes publics.In the early sixties, the idea to increase the powers of National Assembly members became an issue in Québec. At that time (and still now) parliamentary committees were seen as a good way to extend members' influence and render the legislative power more autonomous in relation to the Executive Council. The aim of this paper is to study the degree of autonomy given to the standing committees since the last extensive parliamentary reform, in 1984. We will consider three levels of autonomy which will lead us to conclude that committee activities are essentially free of the Executive Council's control when committees work on self-appointed mandates or exercise their mandate to supervise public bodies

On Algorithms Based on Joint Estimation of Currents and Contrast in Microwave Tomography

This paper deals with improvements to the contrast source inversion method which is widely used in microwave tomography. First, the method is reviewed and weaknesses of both the criterion form and the optimization strategy are underlined. Then, two new algorithms are proposed. Both of them are based on the same criterion, similar but more robust than the one used in contrast source inversion. The first technique keeps the main characteristics of the contrast source inversion optimization scheme but is based on a better exploitation of the conjugate gradient algorithm. The second technique is based on a preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm and performs simultaneous updates of sets of unknowns that are normally processed sequentially. Both techniques are shown to be more efficient than original contrast source inversion.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 5 table