Acute Flecainide Toxicity Treated with Intravenous Lipid Emulsion

Flecainide is a Vaughn-Williams class IC antiarrhythmic used in the treatment of supraventricular tachycardias including atrial fibrillation. While overdose is rare, its negative effects on cardiac inotropy and conduction pathways can be readily fatal. This is further complicated by the redistribution of the drug out of the plasma and deposition in tissue, rendering reversal by sodium bicarbonate (the standard first line treatment agent) relatively ineffective. A case study of the successful treatment of hemodynamic collapse using sodium bicarbonate in conjunction with intravenous lipid emulsion (ILE) in a patient who ingested a large amount of flecainide in a suicide attempt will be discussed

Coordinated neuronal ensembles in primary auditory cortical columns.

The synchronous activity of groups of neurons is increasingly thought to be important in cortical information processing and transmission. However, most studies of processing in the primary auditory cortex (AI) have viewed neurons as independent filters; little is known about how coordinated AI neuronal activity is expressed throughout cortical columns and how it might enhance the processing of auditory information. To address this, we recorded from populations of neurons in AI cortical columns of anesthetized rats and, using dimensionality reduction techniques, identified multiple coordinated neuronal ensembles (cNEs), which are groups of neurons with reliable synchronous activity. We show that cNEs reflect local network configurations with enhanced information encoding properties that cannot be accounted for by stimulus-driven synchronization alone. Furthermore, similar cNEs were identified in both spontaneous and evoked activity, indicating that columnar cNEs are stable functional constructs that may represent principal units of information processing in AI

Error analysis of real time and post processed or bit determination of GFO using GPS tracking

The goal of the Navy's GEOSAT Follow-On (GFO) mission is to map the topography of the world's oceans in both real time (operational) and post processed modes. Currently, the best candidate for supplying the required orbit accuracy is the Global Positioning System (GPS). The purpose of this fellowship was to determine the expected orbit accuracy for GFO in both the real time and post-processed modes when using GPS tracking. This report presents the work completed through the ending date of the fellowship

Relationship between resistivity and specific heat in a canonical non-magnetic heavy fermion alloy system: UPt_5-xAu_x

UPt_(5-x)Au_x alloys form in a single crystal structure, cubic AuBe_5-type, over a wide range of concentrations from x = 0 to at least x = 2.5. All investigated alloys, with an exception for x = 2.5, were non-magnetic. Their electronic specific heat coefficient $\gamma$ varies from about 60 (x = 2) to about 700 mJ/mol K^2 (x = 1). The electrical resistivity for all alloys has a Fermi-liquid-like temperature variation, \rho = \rho_o + AT^2, in the limit of T -> 0 K. The coefficient A is strongly enhanced in the heavy-fermion regime in comparison with normal and transition metals. It changes from about 0.01 (x = 0) to over 2 micro-ohm cm/K^2 (x = 1). A/\gamma^2, which has been postulated to have a universal value for heavy-fermions, varies from about 10^-6 (x = 0, 0.5) to 10^-5 micro-ohm cm (mol K/mJ)^2 (x > 1.1), thus from a value typical of transition metals to that found for some other heavy-fermion metals. This ratio is unaffected, or only weakly affected, by chemical or crystallographic disorder. It correlates with the paramagnetic Curie-Weiss temperature of the high temperature magnetic susceptibility.Comment: 5 pages, 5 eps figures, RevTe

A Report on the “MathBroker” Project for Brokering Mathematical Web Services?

We report on the past achievements and on the current status of a project on the development of a software framework for brokering mathematical services in the Web. The World Wide Web is currently evolving from an infrastructure for delivering static Web pages coded in HTML to an infrastructure for providing dynamic Web services that use XML as the common format for object data and metadata. These services communicate with clients (and other services) using the SOAP protocol [6], their interfaces are described in the Web Service Description Language WSDL [9], their behavior is described by semantic Web technologies like OWL-S [4], interface/behavior descriptions are stored in Web registries such as the one developed by the ebXML initiative [5] that can be queried by clients for lookup of appropriate services. While most Web developers focus on the use of Web service technologies for business applications, projects like our―MathBroker‖ project or the European MONET project [7] aim to support the area of computer mathematics where services provide functionality related to eg computer algebra or automate

Ionospheric calibration for single frequency altimeter measurements

This report investigates the potential of using Global Positioning System (GPS) data and a model of the ionosphere to supply a measure of the sub-satellite Total Electron Current (TEC) of the required accuracy (10 TECU rms) for the purpose of calibrating single frequency radar altimeter measurements. Since climatological (monthly mean) models are known to be in error by as much as 50 percent, this work focused on the Parameterized Real-Time Ionospheric Specification Model (PRISM) which has the capability to improve model accuracy by ingesting (adjusting to) in situ ionospheric measurements. A set of globally distributed TEC measurements were generated using GPS data and were used as input to improve the accuracy of the PRISM model. The adjusted PRISM TEC values were compared to TOPEX dual frequency TEC measurements (which are considered truth) for a number of TOPEX sub-satellite tracks. The adjusted PRISM values generally compared to the TOPEX measurements within the 10 TECU accuracy requirements when the sub-satellite track passed within 300 to 400 km of the GPS TEC data or when the track passed through a night time ionosphere. However, when the sub-satellite points were greater than 300 to 400 km away from the GPS TEC data or when a local noon ionosphere was sampled, the adjusted PRISM values generally differed by greater than 10 TECU rms with data excursions from the TOPEX TEC measurements of as much as 40 TECU (an 8 cm path delay error at K band). Therefore, it can be concluded from this analysis that an unrealistically large number of GPS stations would be needed to predict sub-satellite TEC at the 10 TECU level in the day time ionosphere using a model such as PRISM. However, a technique currently being studied at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) may provide a means of supplying adequate TEC data to meet the 10 TECU ionospheric correction accuracy when using a realistic number of ionospheric stations. This method involves using global GPS TEC data to estimate a global grid of vertical ionospheric TEC as a function of time (i.e. every one half hour) in a sun-fixed longitude frame. Working in a sun-fixed longitude frame, one is not limited by the spatial decorrelation distance of the ionosphere, but instead is limited more by the temporal correlations of the ionosphere in the sun-fixed frame which are a smaller effect. It is the opinion of the authors that using the global sun-fixed TEC grid data, in particular, ingesting it into PRISM, offers the best possibility of meeting the 10 TECU ionospheric correction accuracy requirement, and should be the subject of further study

Effects of saline irrigation on growth, physiology and quality of Mesembryanthemum crystallinum L., a rare vegetable crop.

World wide increased desertification due to recent global changes enhances the need of irrigation, which, in turn, provokes the risk of soil salinization. Furthermore, limited fresh water resources may increasingly constrain the use of low quality irrigation water. Hence, intensified use of halotolerant crop plants will be necessary, even in Europe.Commercial use of halophytes as fresh food is limited. Several facultative halophytic members of Aizoaceae are nowadays used as special crop plants. A rare leafy vegetable species is the common ice plant Mesembryanthemum crystallinum, a Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) species, which is mostly cultivated in India, California, Australia, and New Zealand. It is also known in Europe as a quickly cooked tender vegetable. With their succulent, mellow, slightly salty tasting leaves and young shoots, M. crystallinum is getting interesting as delicious cool flavored salad greens during recent years. However, it is a perishable product and thus, shelf live is short. On the other hand, CAM capacity of M. crystallinum can be largely enhanced by saline irrigation. Increased CAM potentially reduces water and carbon losses.In this project we studied whether moderate salt treatment affects physiology, growth and yield of this rare crop plant. Furthermore, we investigated whether such treatment that enhances the irreversible C3 to CAM shift in young leaves of this CAM species, potentially prolongs shelf live. Results showed that moderate salt treatment did not negatively influence growth, yield and sensory quality. When in CAM, leaves showed reduced transpiration water losses and CAM also reduced carbon losses during storage

Lepton Polarization in Neutrino-Nucleon Interactions

We derive generic formulas for the polarization density matrix of leptons produced in neutrino and antineutrino collisions and briefly consider some important particular cases. Next we employ the general formalism in order to include the final lepton mass and spin into the popular model by Rein and Sehgal for single pion neutrinoproduction.Comment: Talk given at 10th International Workshop on High-Energy Spin Physics (SPIN 03), Dubna, Russia, 16-20 Sep 2003. 12 pages; extended version, typos remove

Geographical Analysis of Housing Cost Variation in the United States, 1982-1989�

Geograph