Effects of Raney-type Nickel Catalyst Production Scale Pretreatment

The need for optimizing chemical production processes in pharmaceutical industry by taking economic issues into account has increased more than ever before. This work deals with the hydrogenation of TLP (N-3-fluor-acethyl-L-lisil-L-proline) over Raney-type Nickel catalysts for the production of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and presents two specific findings at a production site, which influence the overall performance of the process. It is shown that the Raney-type Nickel catalyst pretreatment and the impurities present in the reactants have a large impact on the catalyst surface activity. Both considerably affect the number of cycles a batch of catalyst can be reused, which can obviously lead to increased cost efficiency

Response to Kuhse

In this short paper, we respond to critics of our original paper, The agony of agonal respiration: is the last gasp necessary?. A common thread in both Hawryluckâ s and Kuhseâ s responses is the difficulties encountered when using the agentâ s intentions to make moral distinctions between using neuromuscular blocking drugs to palliate versus using neuromuscular blocking drugs to kill. Although this difficulty does exist we maintain that the intentions of the physician must matter when providing end-of-life care. Originally published Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 28, No. 4, Aug. 200

Island Fox Spatial Ecology and Implications for Management of Disease

Disease, predation, and genetic isolation resulted in 4 of 6 island fox (Urocyon littoralis) subspecies being listed as endangered in 2004. Potential for disease outbreaks continues to pose a major threat to the persistence of these isolated, endemic populations. We examined how roads influence the spatial ecology of San Clemente Island foxes (U. l. clementae), particularly in regard to spread of disease, to provide management recommendations for preventing or minimizing a disease outbreak on San Clemente Island, California, USA. Home range areas (x=0.75 km2) and core areas (x=0.19 km2) of foxes on San Clemente Island were 0.36–1.23 and 2.17 times larger, respectively, than estimates from Santa Cruz Island foxes (U. l. santacruzae). Home ranges and core areas were 78% larger and 73% larger, respectively, for foxes near roads than for foxes away from roads. Home ranges were also largest when foxes were not caring for offspring (i.e., seasons of pup-independence and breeding). We did not detect any dispersal movements, but foxes living near roads moved 33% farther in 2-hour periods than foxes not living near roads. Foxes near roads move faster, range more widely, and could more rapidly spread a pathogen throughout the island; therefore, roads might serve as transmission corridors.We recommend reducing this risk by increasing widths of vaccination firewalls (areas where vaccination is used to induce a disease-resistant or immune population of foxes), ensuring these areas deliberately intersect roads, and vaccinating a higher proportion of foxes living near roads. Disease risk models incorporating these strategies could inform the lowest risk scenarios

Ability of Double-Stranded RNA to Promote Reprogramming in Keratinocytes

The ability to change site-specific skin identity could have numerous potential advantages in the study of skin regenerative medicine. In human skin, volar and non-volar regions are formed during development and are maintained throughout our lifetime. Previous studies demonstrated that this site-specific skin identity is regulated by dermal fibroblasts underlying different epidermal regions. However, the mechanism by which this regulation is maintained remains unclear. Here, we investigate the potential for reprogramming skin identity using double-stranded RNA analog (poly(I:C)) in co-cultures of keratinocytes and fibroblasts. To examine this, cells were cultured in the presence or absence of poly(I:C) and specific genes including KERATIN9 and WNT7b were analyzed by qRT-PCR to characterize reprogrammed skin identity. Initial experiments confirmed that KRT9 is intrinsically expressed in keratinocytes in the absence of fibroblasts, although its expression is induced by fibroblasts. We found that poly(I:C) treatment of solo-cultures stimulates KRT9 mRNA expression over an extended period of time. In addition, KRT9 was preferentially induced in co-culture with volar fibroblasts over non-volar fibroblasts. Significantly, we identified that poly(I:C) induces the WNT/β-catenin signaling pathway and elevates KRT9 expression, a novel mechanism by which poly(I:C) may modulate skin identity. These results establish poly(I:C) treatment as a viable method for KRT9 induction. Collectively, the present study provides the undiscovered effects of poly(I:C) and suggests the possibility of clinical relevance to reprogram skin identity at the stump site of amputees

The commodification of human reproductive materials.

This essay develops a framework for thinking about the moral basis for the commnodification of human reproductive nmaterials. It argues that selling and buyinlg gametes and genes is morally acceptable although there should not be a market for zygotes, embryos, or genomes. Also a market in gametes and genes shouild be regutlated in order to address concerns about the adverse social consequences of conmmodification. Originally published Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 24, No. 6, Dec 199

Can metaphysical structuralism solve the plurality problem?

Metaphysics has a problem with plurality: in many areas of discourse, there are too many good theories, rather than just one. This embarrassment of riches is a particular problem for metaphysical realists who want metaphysics to tell us the way the world is and for whom one theory is the correct one. A recent suggestion is that we can treat the different theories as being functionally or explanatorily equivalent to each other, even though they differ in content. The aim of this paper is to explore whether the notion of functionally equivalent theories can be extended and utilized in the defence of metaphysical realism, drawing upon themes from structuralism in the philosophies of mathematics and science in which the specifics of theories do not matter as long as the relations in which they stand to other theories are maintained. I argue that despite its initial attractiveness, there are significant difficulties with this proposal. Discovering these obstacles (most probably) thwarts the realist structuralist project, but reveals interesting features of metaphysical systems

Telephone and face to face methods of assessment of veteran's community reintegration yield equivalent results

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Community Reintegration of Service Members (CRIS) is a new measure of community reintegration developed to measure veteran's participation in life roles. It consists of three sub-scales: Extent of Participation (Extent), Perceived Limitations with Participation (Perceived), and Satisfaction with Participation (Satisfaction). Testing of the CRIS measure to date has utilized in-person administration. Administration of the CRIS measure by telephone, if equivalent to in-person administration, would be desirable to lower cost and decrease administrative burden. The purpose of this study was to test the equivalence of telephone and in-person mode of CRIS administration.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A convenience sample of 102 subjects (76% male, 24% female, age mean = 49 years, standard deviation = 8.3) were randomly assigned to received either telephone interview at Visit 1 and in-person interview at Visit 2, or in-person interview at Visit 1 and telephone interview a Visit 2. Both Visits were conducted within one week. Intraclass correlation coefficients, ICC (2,1), were used to evaluate correspondence between modes for both item scores and summary scores. ANOVAs with mode order as a covariate were used to test for presence of an ordering effect.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ICCs (95%CI) for the subscales were 0.92 (0.88-0.94) for Extent, 0.85 (0.80-0.90) for Perceived, and 0.89 (0.84-0.93) for Satisfaction. No ordering effect was observed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Telephone administration of the CRIS measure yielded equivalent results to in-person administration. Telephone administration of the CRIS may enable lower costs of administration and greater adoption.</p