Educating Desire: Auto/bio/graphical impressions of addiction in/and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

This dissertation is an attempt to connect the personal with the socio-historical--addiction with Addiction, respectively. It is also an attempt to demonstrate that knowledge production can be generated through radically non-traditional means. What follows is an interpretive, impressionistic, exploratory narrative about addiction in/and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). It is also a narrative about Narrative. I \u27tell\u27 a semi-fictional auto/bio/graphical tale of one \u27open\u27 AA meeting in order to disclose what it\u27s like to be an addict and a newcomer in AA. In the \u27notes\u27 sections after all but one of the chapters the sober researcher takes over. These \u27made-up\u27 aspects of the narrative--the multi-tracked narrator\u27s voice, shifts in point-of-view, playing with time, and the semi and sometimes totally imagined characters I encounter at the meeting and elsewhere--are all part of the fiction I\u27ve made of my personal history as an addict and newcomer in AA. This complicates the relation between knower and known while enriching and enlivening the narrative, which is the rationale of the methodology: to draw the reader in. Full disclosure: While I\u27ve never been an AA member, I\u27ve attended at least twenty meetings in earnest in attempts to (re)mediate a serious addiction to prescription painkillers. The standards of my impressionistic auto/bio/graphical tale are literary, not disciplinary. Like the novel, autobiographical writing allows for the psychological and the phenomenological, i.e., for description alongside glimpses into the processes of consciousness, the author/researcher taking the part of the student, and the narrative as a whole leaving the impression of something having been learned. The idea that AA is a formal institution of education in its own right was the birth of the meeting narrator\u27s skeptical pupillary voice. The study\u27s design is emergent and contingent as the framework and methodology changed radically during its several iterations. I came to rely on already existing data including: (1) audio files of an AA circuit speaker downloaded from the Internet, (2) autobiography, biography, fiction, poetry, and films on drugs and alcohol and on addiction/alcoholism (simply \u27addiction\u27 for this study), (3) current academic literature on addiction and AA (and AA\u27s own literature), and (4) autobiographical memory of the lived experience of addiction and of being a newcomer in AA. In the \u27notes\u27 sections some of the history, literature, and philosophy of AA and of addiction are related, e.g., both addiction\u27s socio-historical construction and its literary deconstruction. Two impressionistic bio/graphical tales--of Bill Wilson, cofounder of AA, and of Bob D., an AA circuit speaker--are used to disclose other lived experiences of addiction and of AA besides my own, to explore the notion that we are also not the stories we tell others and ourselves about ourselves, and to reveal Bob D\u27s \u27primary purpose\u27 ethics as a productive analog toward understanding the ethics of alterity (otherness). In a third person autobiographical epilogue, AA\u27s philosophy of spiritual transformation is pitted against the hegemonic bioscientifc logic of total medicalization. I make no claims for generalizability except at the level of theory and methodology, i.e., the storied nature of reflected upon lived experience, or an interpretive narrative phenomenology; and of the role of institutions like AA in grafting onto lived experience new narrative structures, or, new ways of guarding time; and in so doing, helping members to structure and maintain, through time, sober bodies and positively valenced notions of self and identity that emerge and are recursively disclosed in AA\u27s unique form of narrativity

Comparing the efficacy of the monocular trial treatment paradigm with multiple measurements of intraocular pressure before and after treatment initiation in primary open-angle glaucoma

The monocular trial has been proposed as a test to help control for diurnal fluctuations in eye pressure when assessing medication effectiveness. We undertook a prospective study to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the monocular trial as a test for determining the effectiveness of a glaucoma medication. The efficacy of the monocular trial was compared to the diagnostic paradigm of repeated pre- and post-treatment measurements in determining whether an intraocular pressure (IOP)-lowering drug is effective. Forty-two patients with newly diagnosed open-angle glaucoma completed five visits: visit 1 for determining eligibility, obtaining consent, and measuring IOP, visit 2 for a second pressure measurement, and visit 3 for a third pressure reading. The new medication was then started in one eye. IOP measurements were made at weeks 4 and 6. The gold standard IOP change was defined as the difference in mean between the pre- and post-medication visits. A medication was deemed effective if this difference was at least 15%. The monocular trial pressure change was defined as the IOP change in the treated eye between the visit immediately before and immediately after the medication addition, corrected by subtracting the pressure change in the untreated eye. All 42 patients completed the full protocol with good compliance. Twenty-five of 42 (60%) medication additions were considered effective by the gold standard method, and 25/42 (60%) by the monocular trial method. However, the two methods agreed in only 26 patients (17 Yes/Yes, 9 No/No). The calculated sensitivity was low (0.68), with a specificity of 0.53. The monocular trial can give useful clues as to whether a medication is effective, but should not be the only information used in making this determination. To obtain the most valid results, multiple pressure checks should be done before and after starting a new medication

Arm-length stabilisation for interferometric gravitational-wave detectors using frequency-doubled auxiliary lasers

Residual motion of the arm cavity mirrors is expected to prove one of the principal impediments to systematic lock acquisition in advanced gravitational-wave interferometers. We present a technique which overcomes this problem by employing auxiliary lasers at twice the fundamental measurement frequency to pre-stabilise the arm cavities' lengths. Applying this approach, we reduce the apparent length noise of a 1.3 m long, independently suspended Fabry-Perot cavity to 30 pm rms and successfully transfer longitudinal control of the system from the auxiliary laser to the measurement laser

Efficacy and safety of lacosamide as first add-on or later adjunctive treatment for uncontrolled partial-onset seizures: A multicentre open-label trial

AbstractPurposeTo evaluate the efficacy and safety of lacosamide administered as either first add-on or later add-on antiepileptic drug (AED) therapy for patients with uncontrolled partial-onset seizures (POS).MethodsIn this open-label, multicentre trial, patients with POS initiated oral lacosamide (titrated to 400mg/day) either as add-on to first AED monotherapy, or as later add-on to 1–3 concomitant AEDs after ≥2 previous AEDs. The primary efficacy variable was the proportion of patients achieving seizure freedom for the first 12 weeks of the 24-week Maintenance Phase.Results456 patients received ≥1 dose of lacosamide (96 as first add-on, 360 as later add-on). In the first add-on cohort, 27/72 (37.5%) patients completed 12 weeks treatment and remained seizure-free; 18/68 (26.5%) remained seizure-free after 24 weeks. 64/91 (70.3%) patients achieved ≥50% reduction in seizure frequency during maintenance treatment. This was accompanied by a mean 7.1±16.00 point improvement from Baseline in the Quality of Life Inventory in Epilepsy (QOLIE-31-P) total score for 24-week completers, with improvement reported in all subscales. Most common treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were dizziness (31.3%) and headache (13.5%). In the later add-on cohort, 39/261 (14.9%) and 29/249 (11.6%) patients remained seizure-free after completing 12 and 24 weeks’ treatment, respectively. 178/353 (50.4%) patients achieved ≥50% reduction in seizure frequency during maintenance treatment. Mean change in QOLIE-31-P total score was 4.8±14.74 points among 24-week completers. Common TEAEs were dizziness (33.6%), somnolence (15.0%) and headache (11.4%).ConclusionsLacosamide initiated as first add-on treatment was efficacious and well tolerated in patients with uncontrolled POS

Receptor guanylyl cyclase (RGC) family (version 2020.3) in the IUPHAR/BPS Guide to Pharmacology Database

The mammalian genome encodes seven guanylyl cyclases, GC-A to GC-G, that are homodimeric transmembrane receptors activated by a diverse range of endogenous ligands. These enzymes convert guanosine-5'-triphosphate to the intracellular second messenger cyclic guanosine-3',5'-monophosphate (cyclic GMP). GC-A, GC-B and GC-C are expressed predominantly in the cardiovascular system, skeletal system and intestinal epithelium, respectively. GC-D and GC-G are found in the olfactory neuropepithelium and Grueneberg ganglion of rodents, respectively. GC-E and GC-F are expressed in retinal photoreceptors

Receptor guanylyl cyclase (RGC) family in GtoPdb v.2023.1

The mammalian genome encodes seven guanylyl cyclases, GC-A to GC-G, that are homodimeric transmembrane receptors activated by a diverse range of endogenous ligands. These enzymes convert guanosine-5'-triphosphate to the intracellular second messenger cyclic guanosine-3',5'-monophosphate (cyclic GMP). GC-A, GC-B and GC-C are expressed predominantly in the cardiovascular system, skeletal system and intestinal epithelium, respectively. GC-D and GC-G are found in the olfactory neuropepithelium and Grueneberg ganglion of rodents, respectively. GC-E and GC-F are expressed in retinal photoreceptors

LOOC UP: Locating and observing optical counterparts to gravitational wave bursts

Gravitational wave (GW) bursts (short duration signals) are expected to be associated with highly energetic astrophysical processes. With such high energies present, it is likely these astrophysical events will have signatures in the EM spectrum as well as in gravitational radiation. We have initiated a program, "Locating and Observing Optical Counterparts to Unmodeled Pulses in Gravitational Waves" (LOOC UP) to promptly search for counterparts to GW burst candidates. The proposed method analyzes near real-time data from the LIGO-Virgo network, and then uses a telescope network to seek optical-transient counterparts to candidate GW signals. We carried out a pilot study using S5/VSR1 data from the LIGO-Virgo network to develop methods and software tools for such a search. We will present the method, with an emphasis on the potential for such a search to be carried out during the next science run of LIGO and Virgo, expected to begin in 2009.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures; v2) added acknowledgments, additional references, and minor text changes v3) added 1 figure, additional references, and minor text changes. v4) Updated references and acknowledgments. To be published in the GWDAW 12 Conf. Proc. by Classical and Quantum Gravit

The Extreme Hosts of Extreme Supernovae

We use GALEX ultraviolet (UV) and optical integrated photometry of the hosts of seventeen luminous supernovae (LSNe, having peak M_V < -21) and compare them to a sample of 26,000 galaxies from a cross-match between the SDSS DR4 spectral catalog and GALEX interim release 1.1. We place the LSNe hosts on the galaxy NUV-r versus M_r color magnitude diagram (CMD) with the larger sample to illustrate how extreme they are. The LSN hosts appear to favor low-density regions of the galaxy CMD falling on the blue edge of the blue cloud toward the low luminosity end. From the UV-optical photometry, we estimate the star formation history of the LSN hosts. The hosts have moderately low star formation rates (SFRs) and low stellar masses (M_*) resulting in high specific star formation rates (sSFR). Compared with the larger sample, the LSN hosts occupy low-density regions of a diagram plotting sSFR versus M_* in the area having higher sSFR and lower M_*. This preference for low M_*, high sSFR hosts implies the LSNe are produced by an effect having to do with their local environment. The correlation of mass with metallicity suggests that perhaps wind-driven mass loss is the factor that prevents LSNe from arising in higher-mass, higher-metallicity hosts. The massive progenitors of the LSNe (>100 M_sun), by appearing in low-SFR hosts, are potential tests for theories of the initial mass function that limit the maximum mass of a star based on the SFR.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted to ApJ, amended references and updated SN designation