Maxims of Action in a Financial Co-operative: Epistemological and Theoretical Issues

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Effet d’un bloc stellaire par bupivacaïne combinée ou non à la néostigmine sur la douleur chez des patients présentant un syndrome douloureux régional complexe

Le syndrome douloureux régional complexe (SDRC) est un trouble neurologique qui se caractérise par des douleurs intenses, des troubles vasomoteurs, sudomoteurs, moteurs et trophiques, accompagnés d’un œdème au niveau du membre affecté. Malgré la présence de peu de données en faveur, à cause de l’absence d’un traitement clé du SDRC, le blocage sympathique a été utilisé depuis de nombreuses années pour traiter ce syndrome. Objectif Le but principal de ce projet est d’étudier l’effet antalgique de la néostigmine utilisée comme adjuvant à la bupivacaïne lors d’un bloc stellaire dans le traitement du syndrome douloureux régional complexe du membre supérieur. Méthodes Il s’agit d’une étude pilote, randomisée en double insu. L’intensité de la douleur a été évaluée en utilisant l’échelle numérique. La force de préhension aux deux mains a été estimée par dynamométrie de Jamar. La dextérité fine des doigts a été mesurée par le « Purdue Pegboard Test ». L’œdème au niveau de la main a été déterminé par la volumétrie. Le questionnaire « SF-36 » a été utilisé afin de déterminer l’homogénéité des échantillons. Résultats Notre étude a eu des difficultés à établir l’efficacité de la thérapie par bloc stellaire dans le traitement du syndrome douloureux régional complexe. Conclusion Notre recherche n’a pu prouver l’hypothèse que le traitement de la douleur dans le SDRC du membre supérieur par un bloc stellaire est plus efficace quand l’action de l’anesthésique local est potentialisée par l’ajout de la néostigmine.

Construction des problèmes publics, controverse et action publique : santé publique et jeux de hasard et d'argent au Québec

Depuis la fin des années 1990, les jeux de hasard et d’argent (JHA) sèment régulièrement la controverse dans l’espace public québécois. En effet, au cours des dernières années, la question du management et de la régulation des JHA a pris une place de plus en plus importante dans les débats publics. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, qui prend la forme d’une thèse par articles, nous nous intéresserons au processus de construction du problème public que représente maintenant le jeu excessif au Québec. Pour ce faire, nous tracerons, dans un premier temps, la genèse de ce problème public en remontant à ses origines. Ce détour historique nous permettra de mettre en relief les diverses constructions par lesquelles l’action de s’adonner aux JHA et ce, de manière excessive ou non, est passée au cours du dernier siècle, soit de vice, à crime, à loisir en passant par maladie et problème de santé publique. Cette genèse nous permettra d’apporter un nouvel éclairage sur la présente controverse relative aux JHA au Québec. Nous tenterons, dans un premier temps, de mettre en relief comment la santé publique a réussi à construire ce « nouveau risque » que représente maintenant l’action de s’adonner aux JHA. Par la suite, nous tenterons de tirer des leçons pour la compréhension, l’analyse et le management des politiques publiques et ce, via une analyse de la controverse portant sur les JHA (article 1), un travail de reconceptualisation théorique (article 2) ainsi qu’une réflexion épistémologique sur des fondements de l’analyse et du management des politiques publiques (article 3).

Studies on magnetic monopole solutions of non-abelian gauge theories and related problems

In 1931 Dirac studied the motion of an electron in the field of a magnetic monopole and found that the quantization of electric charge can be explained by postulating the mere existence of a magnetic monopole. Since 1974 there has been a resurgence of interest in magnetic monopole due to the work of ‘t’ Hooft and Polyakov who independently observed that monopoles can exist as finite energy topologically stable solutions to certain spontaneously broken gauge theories. The thesis, “Studies on Magnetic Monopole Solutions of Non-abelian Gauge Theories and Related Problems”, reports a systematic investigation of classical solutions of non-abelian gauge theories with special emphasis on magnetic monopoles and dyons which possess both electric and magnetic charges. The formation of bound states of a dyon with fermions and bosons is also studied in detail. The thesis opens with an account of a new derivation of a relationship between the magnetic charge of a dyon and the topology of the gauge fields associated with it. Although this formula has been reported earlier in the literature, the present method has two distinct advantages. In the first place, it does not depend either on the mechanism of symmetry breaking or on the nature of the residual symmetry group. Secondly, the results can be generalized to finite temperature monopoles.

A brackishwater isolate of Pseudomonas PS-102, a potential antagonistic bacterium against pathogenic vibrios in penaeid and non-penaeid rearing systems

A Pseudomonas sp PS-102 recovered from Muttukkadu brackish water lagoon, situated south of Chennai, showed significant activity against a number of shrimp pathogenic vibrios. Out of the 112 isolates of bacterial pathogens comprising Vibrio harveyi, V. vulnificus, V. parahaemolyticus, V. alginolyticus, V. fluvialis, and Aeromonas spp, 73% were inhibited in vitro by the cell-free culture supernatant of Pseudomonas sp PS-102 isolate. The organism produced yellowish fluorescent pigment on King's B medium, hydrolysed starch and protein, and produced 36.4% siderophore units by CAS assay and 32 μM of catechol siderophores as estimated by Arnow's assay. The PS-102 isolate showed wide ranging environmental tolerance with, temperatures from 25 to 40 °C, pH from 6 to 8, salinity from 0 to 36 ppt, while the antagonistic activity peaked in cultures grown at 30 °C, pH 8.0 and at 5 ppt saline conditions. The antagonistic activity of the culture supernatant was evident even at 30% v / v dilution against V. harveyi. The preliminary studies on the nature of the antibacterial action indicated that the antagonistic principle as heat stable and resistant to proteolytic, lipolytic and amylolytic enzymes. Pseudomonas sp PS 102 was found to be safe to shrimp when PL-9 stage were challenged at 107 CFU ml−1 and by intramuscular injection into of ∼5 g sub-adults shrimp at 105 to 108 CFU. Further, its safety in a mammalian system, tested by its pathogenicity to mice, was also determined and its LD50 to BALB/c mice was found to be 109 CFU. The results of this study indicated that the organism Pseudomonas sp PS 102 could be employed as a potential probiont in shrimp and prawn aquaculture systems for management and control of bacterial infections

Penaeus monodon larvae can be protected from Vibrio harveyi infection by pre-emptive treatment of a rearing system with antagonistic or non-antagonistic bacterial probiotics

This study shows that the disease resistance and survival rate of Penaeus monodon in a larval rearing systems can be enhanced by supplementing with antagonistic or non-antagonistic probiotics. The antagonistic mode of action of Pseudomonas MCCB 102 and MCCB 103 against vibrios was demonstrated in larval mesocosm with cultures having su⁄cient concentration of antagonistic compounds in their culture supernatant. Investigations on the antagonistic properties of Bacillus MCCB 101, Pseudomonas MCCB 102 and MCCB 103 and Arthrobacter MCCB 104 against Vibrio harveyi MCCB111under in vitro conditions revealed that Pseudomonas MCCB 102 and MCCB 103 were inhibitory to the pathogen.These inhibitory propertieswere further con¢rmed in the larval rearing systems of P. monodon. All these four probionts signi¢cantly improved larval survival in long-term treatments as well as when challengedwith a pathogenic strain ofV. harveyiMCCB111. We could demonstrate that Pseudomonas MCCB 102 andMCCB103 accorded disease resistance and a higher survival rate in P. monodon larval rearing systems throughactive antagonism of vibrios,whereas Bacillus MCCB 101 and Arthrobacter MCCB 104 functioned as probiotics through immunostimulatory and digestive enzyme-supporting modes of action.

Efficient Watermarking Schemes for Speaker Verification Guaranteeing Non-repudiation

Presently different audio watermarking methods are available; most of them inclined towards copyright protection and copy protection. This is the key motive for the notion to develop a speaker verification scheme that guar- antees non-repudiation services and the thesis is its outcome. The research presented in this thesis scrutinizes the field of audio water- marking and the outcome is a speaker verification scheme that is proficient in addressing issues allied to non-repudiation to a great extent. This work aimed in developing novel audio watermarking schemes utilizing the fun- damental ideas of Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT) or Fast Walsh-Hadamard Transform (FWHT). The Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) the best parametric representation of the acoustic signals along with few other key acoustic characteristics is employed in crafting of new schemes. The au- dio watermark created is entirely dependent to the acoustic features, hence named as FeatureMark and is crucial in this work. In any watermarking scheme, the quality of the extracted watermark de- pends exclusively on the pre-processing action and in this work framing and windowing techniques are involved. The theme non-repudiation provides immense significance in the audio watermarking schemes proposed in this work. Modification of the signal spectrum is achieved in a variety of ways by selecting appropriate FFT/FWHT coefficients and the watermarking schemes were evaluated for imperceptibility, robustness and capacity char- acteristics. The proposed schemes are unequivocally effective in terms of maintaining the sound quality, retrieving the embedded FeatureMark and in terms of the capacity to hold the mark bits. Robust nature of these marking schemes is achieved with the help of syn- chronization codes such as Barker Code with FFT based FeatureMarking scheme and Walsh Code with FWHT based FeatureMarking scheme. An- other important feature associated with this scheme is the employment of an encryption scheme towards the preparation of its FeatureMark that scrambles the signal features that helps to keep the signal features unreve- laed. A comparative study with the existing watermarking schemes and the ex- periments to evaluate imperceptibility, robustness and capacity tests guar- antee that the proposed schemes can be baselined as efficient audio water- marking schemes. The four new digital audio watermarking algorithms in terms of their performance are remarkable thereby opening more opportu- nities for further research.

What are the priorities for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases and injuries in sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia?

Last year’s UN high level meeting sought to galvanise the international community into scaling up its response to the escalating global burden of non-communicable diseases. With resources tight, D Chisholm and colleagues examine which interventions should be given priority for action and investment

Conservation strategy maps: a tool to facilitate biodiversity action planning illustrated using the heath fritillary butterfly

1. The UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP) identifies invertebrate species in danger of national extinction. For many of these species, targets for recovery specify the number of populations that should exist by a specific future date but offer no procedure to plan strategically to achieve the target for any species. 2. Here we describe techniques based upon geographic information systems (GIS) that produce conservation strategy maps (CSM) to assist with achieving recovery targets based on all available and relevant information. 3. The heath fritillary Mellicta athalia is a UKBAP species used here to illustrate the use of CSM. A phase 1 habitat survey was used to identify habitat polygons across the county of Kent, UK. These were systematically filtered using relevant habitat, botanical and autecological data to identify seven types of polygon, including those with extant colonies or in the vicinity of extant colonies, areas managed for conservation but without colonies, and polygons that had the appropriate habitat structure and may therefore be suitable for reintroduction. 4. Five clusters of polygons of interest were found across the study area. The CSM of two of them are illustrated here: the Blean Wood complex, which contains the existing colonies of heath fritillary in Kent, and the Orlestone Forest complex, which offers opportunities for reintroduction. 5. Synthesis and applications. Although the CSM concept is illustrated here for the UK, we suggest that CSM could be part of species conservation programmes throughout the world. CSM are dynamic and should be stored in electronic format, preferably on the world-wide web, so that they can be easily viewed and updated. CSM can be used to illustrate opportunities and to develop strategies with scientists and non-scientists, enabling the engagement of all communities in a conservation programme. CSM for different years can be presented to illustrate the progress of a plan or to provide continuous feedback on how a field scenario develops.

Extinction processes in hotspots of avian biodiversity and the targeting of pre-emptive conservation action

Hot spots of endemism are regarded as important global sites for conservation as they are rich in threatened endemic species and currently experiencing extensive habitat loss. Targeting pre-emptive conservation action to sites that are currently relatively intact but which would be vulnerable to particular human activities if they occurred in the future is, however, also valuable but has received less attention. Here, we address this issue by using data on Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs). First, we identify the ecological factors that affect extinction risk in the face of particular human activities, and then use these insights to identify EBAs that should be priorities for pre-emptive conservation action. Threatened endemic species in EBAs are significantly more likely to be habitat specialists or relatively large-bodied than non-threatened species, when compared across avian families. Increasing habitat loss causes a significant increase in extinction risk among habitat specialists, but we found no evidence to suggest that the presence of alien species/human exploitation causes a significant increase in extinction risk among large-bodied species. This suggests that these particular human activities are contributing to high extinction risk among habitat specialists, but not among large-bodied species. Based on these analyses, we identify 39 EBAs containing 570 species (24% of the total in EBAs) that are not currently threatened with severe habitat loss, but would be ecologically vulnerable to future habitat loss should it occur. We show that these sites tend to be poorly represented in existing priority setting exercises involving hot spots, suggesting that vulnerability must be explicitly included within these exercises if such sites are to be adequately protected.

Action following the discovery of a global association between the whole genome and adverse event risk in a clinical drug-development programme

Observation of adverse drug reactions during drug development can cause closure of the whole programme. However, if association between the genotype and the risk of an adverse event is discovered, then it might suffice to exclude patients of certain genotypes from future recruitment. Various sequential and non-sequential procedures are available to identify an association between the whole genome, or at least a portion of it, and the incidence of adverse events. In this paper we start with a suspected association between the genotype and the risk of an adverse event and suppose that the genetic subgroups with elevated risk can be identified. Our focus is determination of whether the patients identified as being at risk should be excluded from further studies of the drug. We propose using a utility function to? determine the appropriate action, taking into account the relative costs of suffering an adverse reaction and of failing to alleviate the patient's disease. Two illustrative examples are presented, one comparing patients who suffer from an adverse event with contemporary patients who do not, and the other making use of a reference control group. We also illustrate two classification methods, LASSO and CART, for identifying patients at risk, but we stress that any appropriate classification method could be used in conjunction with the proposed utility function. Our emphasis is on determining the action to take rather than on providing definitive evidence of an association. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Non-genomic signalling of the retinoic X receptor through inhibition of Gq signalling in human platelets

Retinoid X receptors (RXRs) are important transcriptional nuclear hormone receptors, acting as either homodimers or the binding partner for at least one fourth of all the known human nuclear receptors. Functional nongenomic effects of nuclear receptors are poorly understood; however, recently peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) gamma, PPARbeta, and the glucocorticoid receptor have all been found active in human platelets. Human platelets express RXRalpha and RXRbeta. RXR ligands inhibit platelet aggregation and TXA(2) release to ADP and the TXA(2) receptors, but only weakly to collagen. ADP and TXA(2) both signal via the G protein, Gq. RXR rapidly binds Gq but not Gi/z/o/t/gust in a ligand-dependent manner and inhibits Gq-induced Rac activation and intracellular calcium release. We propose that RXR ligands may have beneficial clinical actions through inhibition of platelet activation. Furthermore, our results demonstrate a novel nongenomic mode for nuclear receptor action and a functional cross-talk between G-protein and nuclear receptor signaling families.

Extinction processes in hot spots of avian biodiversity and the targeting of pre-emptive conservation action

Hot spots of endemism are regarded as important global sites for conservation as they are rich in threatened endemic species and currently experiencing extensive habitat loss. Targeting pre-emptive conservation action to sites that are currently relatively intact but which would be vulnerable to particular human activities if they occurred in the future is, however, also valuable but has received less attention. Here, we address this issue by using data on Endemic Bird Areas (EBAs). First, we identify the ecological factors that affect extinction risk in the face of particular human activities, and then use these insights to identify EBAs that should be priorities for pre-emptive conservation action. Threatened endemic species in EBAs are significantly more likely to be habitat specialists or relatively large-bodied than non-threatened species, when compared across avian families. Increasing habitat loss causes a significant increase in extinction risk among habitat specialists, but we found no evidence to suggest that the presence of alien species/human exploitation causes a significant increase in extinction risk among large-bodied species. This suggests that these particular human activities are contributing to high extinction risk among habitat specialists, but not among large-bodied species. Based on these analyses, we identify 39 EBAs containing 570 species (24% of the total in EBAs) that are not currently threatened with severe habitat loss, but would be ecologically vulnerable to future habitat loss should it occur. We show that these sites tend to be poorly represented in existing priority setting exercises involving hot spots, suggesting that vulnerability must be explicitly included within these exercises if such sites are to be adequately protected.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) inhibit vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation via differential effects on the cell cycle

Abnormal vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation plays an important role in the pathogenesis of both atherosclerosis and restenosis. Recent studies suggest that high-dose salicylates, in addition to inhibiting cyclooxygenase activity, exert an antiproliferative effect on VSMC growth both in-vitro and in-vivo. However, whether all non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) exert similar anti proliferative effects on VSMCs, and do so via a common mechanism of action, remains to be shown. In this study, we demonstrate that the NSAIDs aspirin, sodium salicylate, diclofenac, ibuprofen, indometacin and sulindac induce a dose-dependent inhibition of proliferation in rat A10 VSMCs in the absence of significant cytotoxicity. Flow cytometric analyses showed that exposure of A10 cells to diclofenac, indometacin, ibuprofen and sulindac, in the presence of the mitotic inhibitor, nocodazole, led to a significant G0/G1 arrest. In contrast, the salicylates failed to induce a significant G1 arrest since flow cytometry profiles were not significantly different from control cells. Cyclin A levels were elevated, and hyperphosphorylated p107 was present at significant levels, in salicylate-treated A10 cells, consistent with a post-G1/S block, whereas cyclin A levels were low, and hypophosphorylated p107 was the dominant form, in cells treated with other NSAIDs consistent with a G1 arrest. The ubiquitously expressed cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors, p21 and p27, were increased in all NSAID-treated cells. Our results suggest that diclofenac, indometacin, ibuprofen and sulindac inhibit VSMC proliferation by arresting the cell cycle in the G1 phase, whereas the growth inhibitory effect of salicylates probably affects the late S and/or G2/M phases. Irrespective of mechanism, our results suggest that NSAIDs might be of benefit in the treatment of certain vasculoproliferative disorders.