Xylazine as an Emerging Risk in Vermont: Harm Reduction for Primary Care Providers and Patients

Xylazine, a sedative primarily used in large animals, has emerged as an increasingly prevalent adulterant in the illicit opioid supply in the state of Vermont. Xylazine use poses significant health risks to individuals who use illicit substances due to increased risk of overdose in conjunction with opioids and chronic injury, especially skin ulceration and necrosis. This project focused on increasing education and awareness around xylazine in opioid user populations and primary care providers who work with these patients. The project\u27s outcomes and effectiveness will be evaluated through assessments and feedback from healthcare providers. By equipping healthcare professionals and patients with knowledge and resources, this intervention will contribute to reducing the adverse health outcomes associated with xylazine use, thereby improving patient care and public health in the state of Vermont.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/2006/thumbnail.jp

Implementing a National Cancer Clinical Trials System for the 21st Century - Second Workshop Summary

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=1836

Glutathione accelerates sodium channel inactivation in excised rat axonal membrane patches

The effects of glutathione were studied on the gating behaviour of sodium channels in membrane patches of rat axons. Depolarizing pulses from –120 to –40 mV elicited sodium currents of up to 500 pA, indicating the simultaneous activation of up to 250 sodium channels. Inactivation of these channels in the excised, inside-out configuration was fitted by two time constants ( h1=0.81 ms; h2= 5.03 ms) and open time histograms at 0 mV revealed a biexponential distribution of channel openings ( short=0.28 ms; long=3.68 ms). Both, the slow time constant of inactivation and the long lasting single channel openings disappeared after addition of the reducing agent glutathione (2–5 mM) to the bathing solution. Sodium channels of excised patches with glutathione present on the cytoplasmatic face of the membrane had inactivation kinetics similar to channels recorded in the cell-attached configuration. These observations indicate that redox processes may contribute to the gating of axonal sodium channels

Finite mass self-similar blowing-up solutions of a chemotaxis system with non-linear diffusion

For a specific choice of the diffusion, the parabolic-elliptic Patlak-Keller-Segel system with non-linear diffusion (also referred to as the quasi-linear Smoluchowski-Poisson equation) exhibits an interesting threshold phenomenon: there is a critical mass $M_c>0$ such that all the solutions with initial data of mass smaller or equal to $M_c$ exist globally while the solution blows up in finite time for a large class of initial data with mass greater than $M_c$. Unlike in space dimension 2, finite mass self-similar blowing-up solutions are shown to exist in space dimension $d?3$

A study of blow-ups in the Keller-Segel model of chemotaxis

We study the Keller-Segel model of chemotaxis and develop a composite particle-grid numerical method with adaptive time stepping which allows us to accurately resolve singular solutions. The numerical findings (in two dimensions) are then compared with analytical predictions regarding formation and interaction of singularities obtained via analysis of the stochastic differential equations associated with the Keller-Segel model