EGUIDE project and treatment guidelines

Aim: Although treatment guidelines for pharmacological therapy for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder have been issued by the Japanese Societies of Neuropsychopharmacology and Mood Disorders, these guidelines have not been well applied by psychiatrists throughout the nation. To address this issue, we developed the ‘Effectiveness of Guidelines for Dissemination and Education in Psychiatric Treatment (EGUIDE)’ integrated education programs for psychiatrists to disseminate the clinical guidelines. Additionally, we conducted a systematic efficacy evaluation of the programs. Methods: Four hundred thirteen out of 461 psychiatrists attended two 1‐day educational programs based on the treatment guidelines for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder from October 2016 to March 2018. We measured the participants’ clinical knowledge of the treatment guidelines using self‐completed questionnaires administered before and after the program to assess the effectiveness of the programs for improving knowledge. We also examined the relation between the participants’ demographics and their clinical knowledge scores. Results: The clinical knowledge scores for both guidelines were significantly improved after the program. There was no correlation between clinical knowledge and participant demographics for the program on schizophrenia; however, a weak positive correlation was found between clinical knowledge and the years of professional experience for the program on major depressive disorder. Conclusion: Our results provide evidence that educational programs on the clinical practices recommended in guidelines for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder might effectively improve participants’ clinical knowledge of the guidelines. These data are encouraging to facilitate the standardization of clinical practices for psychiatric disorders

Micro-milling super-fine powdered activated carbon decreases adsorption capacity by introducing oxygen/hydrogen-containing functional groups on carbon surface from water

Superfine powdered activated carbon (SPAC) of micron to submicron particle size is produced by micro-milling of conventionally sized powdered activated carbon. SPAC has attracted attention because of its high adsorption capacity; however, milling to the submicron particle size range lowers its adsorption capacity. Here, we found that this decrease of adsorption capacity was due to the introduction of oxygen/hydrogen containing functional groups into the graphene structure of the carbon from water during the milling, causing it to become less hydrophobic. This finding was supported by three analyses of SPAC particles before and after milling: 1) elemental analysis revealed increased oxygen and hydrogen content, 2) Boehm titration analysis revealed increased amounts of acidic functional groups, including carboxylic and phenolic hydroxyl groups, and 3) Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy showed increased peaks at 1200, 1580, and 3400 cm−1, confirming the presence of those groups. Dissolved oxygen concentration did not strongly affect the increase of oxygen content in SPAC, and no evidence was found for hydroxyl radical production during micro-milling, suggesting that a mechanochemical reaction underlies the increase in oxygen/hydrogen-containing functional groups. An increase in 18O content in the SPAC particles after milling in water-18O indicated that the oxygen in the functional groups originated from the surrounding water

Effects of decreasing activated carbon particle diameter from 30 mu m to 140 nm on equilibrium adsorption capacity

The capacity of activated carbon particles with median diameters (D50s) of >similar to 1 mu m for adsorption of hydrophobic micropollutants such as 2-methylisolborneol (MIB) increases with decreasing particle size because the pollutants are adsorbed mostly on the exterior (shell) of the particles owing to the limited diffusion penetration depth. However, particles with D50s of <1 mu m have not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we prepared particles with D50s of similar to 30 mu m-similar to 140 nm and evaluated their adsorption capacities for MIB and several other environmentally relevant adsorbates. The adsorption capacities for low-molecular-weight adsorbates, including MIB, deceased with decreasing particle size for D50s of less than a few micrometers, whereas adsorption capacities increased with decreasing particle size for larger particles. The oxygen content of the particles increased substantially with decreasing particle size for D50s of less than a few micrometers, and oxygen content was negatively correlated with adsorption capacity. The decrease in adsorption capacity with decreasing particle size for the smaller particles was due to particle oxidation during the micromilling procedure used to decrease D50 to similar to 140 nm. When oxidation was partially inhibited, the MIB adsorption capacity decrease was attenuated. For high molecular-weight adsorbates, adsorption capacity increased with decreasing particle size over the entire range of tested particle sizes, even though particle oxygen content increased with decreasing particle size