Monte-Carlo-Simulation der Adsorption amphiphiler Moleküle an Feststoffoberflächen

Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt Ergebnisse von Monte-Carlo-Simulationen zur Adsorption und Selbstorganisation amphiphiler Moleküle an Feststoffoberflächen vor. Ziel der Arbeit ist die Untersuchung des Zusammenhanges zwischen Moleküleigenschaften und thermodynamischen Bedingungen für die Bildung von adsorbierten Aggregaten. Im Rahmen eines coarse grainined-Gittermodells wird die Adsorption von Modelltensiden auf ebenen Oberflächen beschrieben. Es werden hydrophile, hydrophobe und chemisch heterogene Modelloberflächen berücksichtigt. Die Resultate der Simulationen stehen im Einklang mit experimentellen Untersuchungen und liefern Interpretationshilfen für die beobachteten Strukturen. Für den Einsatz von Tensidmischungen bei der Kalziumfluorit-Flotation konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Wirkung des Co-Sammler-Tensids auf einer Adsolubilisation im Adsorptionsfilm beruht

Switching opioid-dependent patients in substitution treatment from racemic methadone, levomethadone and buprenorphine to slow-release oral morphine: Analysis of the switching process in routine care

Since 2015 slow-release oral morphine (SROM) is approved for opioid substitution treatment (OST) in Germany. The SROMOS study (efficacy and tolerability of slow-release oral morphine in opioid substitution treatment) evaluates the efficacy and safety of SROM in routine care. This article describes the switching process from racemic methadone, levomethadone and buprenorphine to SROM.Between July 2016 and November 2017 180 patients in 23 study centers in Germany were included in the prospective, non-interventional, naturalistic observational study. Patients were already in OST and switched from a previous medication to SROM. The switching process was analyzed during a period of fourteen days.Data were available for 169 participants. The switching process had a different progression depending on premedication and pre dosage. On the fourteenth day of SROM treatment patients switched from racemic methadone took an average dosage of 922.2 mg/day, from levomethadone 801.0 mg/day and from buprenorphine 626.7 mg/day. Average conversion ratio racemic methadone to SROM was 1:11.8, levomethadone to SROM 1:17.4 and buprenorphine to SROM 1:58.0.This study provides the first data on the switching process from buprenorphine to SROM. Average dose ratio racemic methadone to SROM on the fourteenth day of treatment was considerably higher than recommended in the prescribing information

Is Heroin-Assisted Treatment Effective for Patients with No Previous Maintenance Treatment? Results from a German Randomised Controlled Trial

Background/Aims: Until now, the medical prescription of diamorphine (heroin) has been suggested as suitable for patients who have failed previous maintenance treatments. The aim of this paper is to assess the effects of diamorphine on opioid-dependent patients with no previous maintenance treatment experience (NPME). Methods: The German heroin trial compared diamorphine versus methadone maintenance treatment and included 107 patients with NPME. This paper is a sub-analysis of these patients. Results: When comparing this subsample with the rest of the participants in the study, large baseline differences were found, showing a more severe drug use profile in patients with NPME. However, no differences were found in terms of treatment outcome and treatment retention. In the subsample with NPME, outcome measures on the reduction of illicit drug use were significantly better under diamorphine compared to methadone treatment, while there was no difference in health outcomes. Conclusion: Controlled studies are now necessary to examine whether diamorphine treatment could be considered as one of several options in treating severely opioid-dependent patients, regardless of previous maintenance treatment experience

Effects of Psychiatric Comorbidity on Treatment Outcome in Patients Undergoing Diamorphine or Methadone Maintenance Treatment

Background: Comorbid psychiatric disorders among opioid-dependent patients are associated with several negative outcome factors. However, outcomes of maintenance treatment have not been sufficiently established, and no evidence is available with respect to heroin-assisted treatment (HAT). Methods: For patients in the German heroin trial outcome measures were analyzed for HAT versus methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) both for patients with and without a comorbid diagnosis according to CIDI. Results: 47.2% of the sample had at least one comorbid psychiatric diagnosis, mainly neurotic, stress-related or somatoform (F4) or affective (F3) disorders. HAT had a better outcome than MMT concerning improvement of health and reduction of illicit drug use in both comorbid and non-comorbid patients, but weaker effects were found in the comorbid group. Conclusions:The better outcome of HAT also in comorbid patients suggests that psychiatric comorbidity should be an inclusion criterion for HAT. The weaker advantage of HAT may be due to pharmacological or methodological reasons

Measuring quality of life in opioid dependent people : a systematic review of assessment instruments

Purpose Opioid dependence is a chronic relapsing disorder. Despite increasing research on quality of life (QOL) in people with opioid dependence, little attention has been paid to the instruments used. This systematic review examines the suitability of QOL instruments for use in opioid-dependent populations and the instruments’ quality. Methods A systematic search was performed in the databases Medline, PsycInfo, The Cochrane Library, and CINAHL. Articles were eligible if they assessed QOL of opioid-dependent populations using a validated QOL instrument. Item content relevance to opioid-dependent people was evaluated by means of content analysis, and instrument properties were assessed using minimum standards for patient-reported outcome measures. Results Eighty-nine articles were retrieved, yielding sixteen QOL instruments, of which ten were assessed in this review. Of the ten instruments, six were disease specific, but none for opioid dependence. Two instruments had good item content relevance. The conceptual and measurement model were described in seven instruments. Four instruments were developed with input from the respective target population. Eight instruments had low respondent and administrator burden. Psychometric properties were either not assessed in opioid-dependent populations or were inconclusive or moderate. Conclusions No instrument scored perfectly on both the content and properties. The limited suitability of instruments for opioid-dependent people hinders accurate and sensitive measurement of QOL in this population. Future research is in need of an opioid dependence-specific QOL instrument to measure the true impact of the disease on people’s lives and to evaluate treatment-related services

Effects of heroin-assisted treatment on alcohol consumption: findings of the German randomized controlled trial

Alcohol has been suggested to be a risk factor for opioid-dependent patients in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). Literature shows that MMT has limited effects on alcohol use. Nevertheless, a decrease in alcohol use was detected in the Swiss heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) study. In this article, we carry out an in-depth analysis of the German HAT trial with the aim of determining whether alcohol use was affected among patients undergoing HAT and MMT. Analysis was carried out using self-reported data on consumption units of alcohol used (CU), Addiction Severity Index composite scores (ASI CSs), and carbohydrate-deficient transferrin (CDT) measures. Results suggest significant reduction of CU and CDT in both groups, yet larger effects in the HAT group. ASI CS significantly decreased in the HAT but not in the MMT group. The greater benefit of HAT in reducing alcohol use may be due to the greater daily frequency of dispensing heroin coupled with a requirement of sobriety at each dosing occasion

TOWARDS CROSS-ORGANISATIONAL E-GOVERNMENT: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

One of the most challenging issues in current e-Government initiatives is the seamless exchange of information and the efficient collaboration between public administrations, companies and the private sector. Either from an intra- or cross-organisational point of view spanning processes across multiple authorities leads to a collaboration of autonomous units under consideration of law and regulations. Despite the organisational dimension current approaches are mainly technical solutions – e.g. interoperability frameworks. Within this paper we present an integrated approach which incorporates organisational aspects of the public sector and which supports the correspondent implementation of solutions for cross-organisational e-Government by adopting Model-Driven-Development practices

Autorenidentifikation für wissenschaftliche Publikationen. Bericht über den Workshop der DINI-AG Elektronisches Publizieren auf dem 6. Bibliothekskongress

Identifikationssysteme für Autorinnen und Autoren spielen für das wissenschaftliche Publizieren eine zentrale Rolle. Sie erlauben die eindeutige Zuordnung von Publikationen zu ihren Urheberinnen und Urhebern, ermöglichen - auch auf übergreifenden Plattformen - gezielte Rechercheeinstiege und unterstützen die semantische Verknüpfung im Netz. Darüber hinaus können Autorenidentifikationssysteme zur einfachen Pflege von Publikationslisten und für die Forschungsevaluation genutzt werden. Neben zahlreichen proprietären Systemen von Verlagen und Datenbankbetreibern widmet sich im Wissenschaftsbereich die global agierende Initiative ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributer ID) der Vergabe einer eindeutigen ID für Forschende. Im deutschen Bibliothekswesen kommt zur Erschließung mit Personenbezug vor allem der Gemeinsamen Normdatei (GND) entscheidende Bedeutung zu. In den Open-Access-Repositorien deutscher Hochschulen und Forschungseinrichtungen hat sich die Verwendung übergreifender Autorenidentifikationssystemen dagegen bislang kaum durchgesetzt. Im Rahmen des 6. Bibliothekskongresses veranstaltete die AG Elektronisches Publizieren der Deutschen Initiative für Netzwerkinformation (DINI) am 15.03.2016 einen Workshop zu diesem Themenfeld. Die Referentinnen und Referenten haben das Thema Autorenidentifikation und deren Anwendungsszenarien aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln beleuchtet. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die Themen des Workshops

Benzodiazepine use among patients in heroin-assisted vs. methadone maintenance treatment: findings of the German randomized controlled trial

Benzodiazepine (BZD) use has been found to be associated with poorer psychosocial adjustment, higher levels of polydrug use and more risk-taking behaviors among opioid dependent patients. The aim of this paper is to analyze the correlation between BZD use, BZD prescription and treatment outcome among participants in the German trial on heroin-assisted treatment. 1015 patients who participated in the study comparing heroin-assisted and methadone maintenance treatment (HAT & MMT) for 12 months were included in the analysis. Analyses were carried out to assess the association of treatment outcome with baseline BZD use, with ongoing BZD use and with different patterns of BZD prescription. Baseline BZD use correlated with lower retention rates but not with poorer outcome. Ongoing BZD use correlated with poorer outcomes. Significantly better outcomes were found in the course of phobic anxiety symptomatology for those with regular prescription of BZD. The percentage of BZD positive urine tests decreased more in HAT than in MMT. Poorer outcome for benzodiazepine users may be mediated by a higher severity of addiction. Cautious prescribing of benzodiazepines may be beneficial due to the reduction of overall illicit use

Artic-North Atlantic interactions and multidecadal variability of the thermohaline circulation

Analyses of a 500-yr control integration with the non-flux-adjusted coupled atmosphere–sea ice–ocean model ECHAM5/Max-Planck-Institute Ocean Model (MPI-OM) show pronounced multidecadal fluctuations of the Atlantic overturning circulation and the associated meridional heat transport. The period of the oscillations is about 70–80 yr. The low-frequency variability of the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) contributes substantially to sea surface temperature and sea ice fluctuations in the North Atlantic. The strength of the overturning circulation is related to the convective activity in the deep-water formation regions, most notably the Labrador Sea, and the time-varying control on the freshwater export from the Arctic to the convection sites modulates the overturning circulation. The variability is sustained by an interplay between the storage and release of freshwater from the central Arctic and circulation changes in the Nordic Seas that are caused by variations in the Atlantic heat and salt transport. The relatively high resolution in the deep-water formation region and the Arctic Ocean suggests that a better representation of convective and frontal processes not only leads to an improvement in the mean state but also introduces new mechanisms determining multidecadal variability in large-scale ocean circulation