Achieving a university degree reduces authoritarianism and racial prejudice and increases economic right-wing attitudes

Ralph Scott estimates the change in political values that occurs within individuals who graduate from university by applying longitudinal modelling techniques to data from the 1970 British Cohort Study. He finds that achieving a degree reduces authoritarianism and racial prejudice and that it also increases economic right-wing attitudes

Radiotherapy in the Management of Oral Cancer

Radiotherapy and surgery, used singly or in combination, are the only curative approaches to the treatment of mouth cancer. Preoperative irradiation of advanced cancer is now being evaluated, and shows much promise. This may permit operation in previously inoperable cases, make less extensive operative procedures feasible in others, and possibly decrease the incidence of cancer spread during surgery. However, while surgery often can salvage radiation failures, the reverse is seldom true

Studies with the benzylisoquinolinium muscle relaxants

The characteristics of the hypothetical ideal neuromuscular blocking drug are described and some of the unwanted effects of the older muscle relaxants are reviewed. The history behind the development of short acting rapid onset non-depolarising neuromuscular blockers is outlined. Attention is focused on the benzylisoquinolinium compounds. The development of atracurium, the animal pharmacology and the preliminary studies in man are discussed.Patient studies are performed to investigate how closely the pharmacological characteristics of atracurium relate to those of the ideal drug. Some potential clinical uses for atracurium are investigated.Atracurium is noted to have an onset time significantly slower than suxamethonium. Onset time and duration are found to vary with the mode of neuromuscular monitoring and anaesthetic depth. When 0.6 mg kg"' atracurium is injected rapidly, there is a significant elevation in serum histamine concentration. The associated haemodynamic response may be attenuated by slowing the speed of injection or by pretreating with intravenous HI and H2 antagonists. Onset time may be shortened by using 0.8 mg kg"' but at the expense of a transient drop in blood pressure and increase in heart rate unless administration is slowed. Priming provides no improvement in onset time, nor in haemodynamic stability. Atracurium shows no tendency to cumulate when administered as an infusion. The pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of atracurium in anephric patients are found to be very similar to those of healthy patients. Pretreatment with atracurium does not prevent postoperative suxamethonium myalgia. When suxamethonium is administered during a recovering atracurium block, very high doses of suxamethonium are required to produce 100% blockade of the twitch. The response to atracurium by patients with myasthenia gravis is described.Initial studies with two further benzylisoquinolinium compounds are reportedBWB1090U is a benzylisoquinolinium non-depolarising muscle relaxant hydrolysed by plasma cholinesterase. The initial laboratory studies with Rhesus monkeys and the neuromuscular and cardiovascular effects on volunteers are reported. BWB1090U appears to be a potent drug with a short duration, minimal cumulative activity and reasonable cardiovascular stability. The transient changes observed in the haemodynamic parameters are thought to be due to histamine release.BWA938U is discussed and the first pilot study is described. The first study in patients in Europe is also reported. BWA938U appears to be a very potent long acting non-depolarising blocking drug devoid of haemodynamic effects. It is well reversed with neostigmine but not by edrophonium.Finally, current and future research in the development of new, rapid onset, short acting neuromuscular blocking agents is discussed

Deep Chandra observations of NGC 1404 : cluster plasma physics revealed by an infalling early-type galaxy

The intracluster medium (ICM), as a magnetized and highly ionized fluid, provides an ideal laboratory to study plasma physics under extreme conditions that cannot yet be achieved on Earth. NGC 1404 is a bright elliptical galaxy that is being gas stripped as it falls through the ICM of the Fornax Cluster. We use the new {\sl Chandra} X-ray observations of NGC 1404 to study ICM microphysics. The interstellar medium (ISM) of NGC 1404 is characterized by a sharp leading edge, 8 kpc from the galaxy center, and a short downstream gaseous tail. Contact discontinuities are resolved on unprecedented spatial scales (0\farcs5=45\,pc) due to the combination of the proximity of NGC 1404, the superb spatial resolution of {\sl Chandra}, and the very deep (670 ksec) exposure. At the leading edge, we observe sub-kpc scale eddies generated by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability and put an upper limit of 5\% Spitzer on the isotropic viscosity of the hot cluster plasma. We also observe mixing between the hot cluster gas and the cooler galaxy gas in the downstream stripped tail, which provides further evidence of a low viscosity plasma. The assumed ordered magnetic fields in the ICM ought to be smaller than 5\,μG to allow KHI to develop. The lack of evident magnetic draping layer just outside the contact edge is consistent with such an upper limit