French summaries of product characteristics: content in relation to therapeutic monitoring of psychotropic drugs.

The prescription information (summary of product characteristics, SPC) is compiled by the pharmaceutical industry as required by the national regulatory authorities. They vary in their content about the properties of drugs and about the usefulness of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) in the blood of patients. Based on a previous study carried out in Germany, the degree of agreement of French SPC for 59 psychotropic drugs with the existing medico-scientific evidence in the area of TDM was examined using a recently developed instrument. A summary score of SPC content (SPCC) related to TDM (SPCC(TDM)) has been calculated and compared with the level of recommendation of TDM of the AGNP-TDM expert group consensus guidelines for TDM in psychiatry [AGNP: Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Neuropsychopharmakologie und Pharmakopsychiatrie (Association for neuropsychopharmacology and pharmacopsychiatry)]. Among the antidepressants, antipsychotics, tranquillizers/hypnotic agents and mood stabilizers, the highest SPCC(TDM) scores in the French SPC were reached for imipramine (16), haloperidol (6), clonazepam (8) and lithium (23), respectively. Results were similar to those obtained from the analysis of German SPC, and considerable disagreement was found between the information on TDM in SPC and existing medico-scientific evidence, albeit less in the case of mood stabilizers. Taking into account the recommendations of the AGNP-TDM expert group guidelines, there is a deficit in the French SPC concerning TDM-relevant information. An amelioration of this situation could help to improve the clinical practice of TDM of psychotropic drugs, as the SPC is a widely used tool.

Performance Analysis of Two Quantum Reaction Dynamics Codes: Time-Dependent and Time-Independent Strategies

The computer simulation of reaction dynamics has nowadays reached a remarkable degree of accuracy. Triatomic elementary reactions are rigorously studied with great detail on a straightforward basis using a considerable variety of Quantum Dynamics computational tools available to the scientific community. In our contribution we compare the performance of two quantum scattering codes in the computation of reaction cross sections of a triatomic benchmark reaction such as the gas phase reaction Ne + H2+ %12. NeH++ H. The computational codes are selected as representative of time-dependent (Real Wave Packet [ ]) and time-independent (ABC [ ]) methodologies. The main conclusion to be drawn from our study is that both strategies are, to a great extent, not competing but rather complementary. While time-dependent calculations advantages with respect to the energy range that can be covered in a single simulation, time-independent approaches offer much more detailed information from each single energy calculation. Further details such as the calculation of reactivity at very low collision energies or the computational effort related to account for the Coriolis couplings are analyzed in this paper.

Biofuel Co-Product Uses for Pavement Geo-Materials Stabilization, TR-582, 2010

The production and use of biofuels has increased in the present context of sustainable development. Biofuel production from plant biomass produces not only biofuel or ethanol but also co-products containing lignin, modified lignin, and lignin derivatives. This research investigated the utilization of lignin-containing biofuel co-products (BCPs) in pavement soil stabilization as a new application area. Laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the performance and the moisture susceptibility of two types of BCP-treated soil samples compared to the performance of untreated and traditional stabilizer-treated (fly ash) soil samples. The two types of BCPs investigated were (1) a liquid type with higher lignin content (co-product A) and (b) a powder type with lower lignin content (co-product B). Various additive combinations (co-product A and fly ash, co-products A and B, etc.) were also evaluated as alternatives to stand-alone co-products. Test results indicate that BCPs are effective in stabilizing the Iowa Class 10 soil classified as CL or A-6(8) and have excellent resistance to moisture degradation. Strengths and moisture resistance in comparison to traditional additives (fly ash) could be obtained through the use of combined additives (co-product A + fly ash; co-product A + co-product B). Utilizing BCPs as a soil stabilizer appears to be one of the many viable answers to the profitability of the bio-based products and the bioenergy business. Future research is needed to evaluate the freeze-thaw durability and for resilient modulus characterization of BCP-modified layers for a variety of pavement subgrade and base soil types. In addition, the long-term performance of these BCPs should be evaluated under actual field conditions and traffic loadings. Innovative uses of BCP in pavement-related applications could not only provide additional revenue streams to improve the economics of biorefineries, but could also serve to establish green road infrastructures.

Resistance of stored-product insects to phosphine

The objectives of this work were to assess phosphine resistance in insect populations (Tribolium castaneum, Rhyzopertha dominica, Sitophilus zeamais and Oryzaephilus surinamensis) from different regions of Brazil and to verify if the prevailing mechanism of phosphine resistance in these populations involves reduced respiration rates. Sixteen populations of T. castaneum, 15 of R. dominica, 27 of S. zeamais and eight of O. surinamensis were collected from 36 locations over seven Brazilian states. Each population was tested for resistance to phosphine, based on the response of adults to discriminating concentrations, according to FAO standard method. For each insect species, the production of carbon dioxide of the most resistant and of the most susceptible populations was inversely related to their phosphine resistance. The screening tests identified possible phosphine resistant populations. R. dominica and O. surinamensis were less susceptible to phosphine than the other two species. The populations with lower respiration rate showed a lower mortality at discriminating concentration, possibly related to a phosphine resistance mechanism. Phosphine resistance occurs in stored-product insects, in different regions of Brazil, and the resistance mechanism involves reduced respiration rate.

Quantum Hall Phases of two-component bosons

The recent production of synthetic magnetic fields acting on electroneutral particles, such as atoms or photons, has boosted interest in the quantum Hall physics of bosons. Adding pseudospin 1/2 to the bosons greatly enriches the scenario, as it allows them to form an interacting integer quantum Hall (IQH) phase with no fermionic counterpart. Here we show that, for a small two-component Bose gas on a disk, the complete strongly correlated regime, extending from the integer phase at filling factor ν = 2 to the Halperin phase at filling factor ν = 2 / 3, is well described by composite fermionization of the bosons. Moreover we study the edge excitations of the IQH state, which, in agreement with expectations from topological field theory, are found to consist of forward-moving charge excitations and backward-moving spin excitations. Finally, we demonstrate how pair-correlation functions allow one to experimentally distinguish the IQH state from competing states, such as non-Abelian spin singlet (NASS) states.

Cadmium-free quantum dots in aqueous solution: potential for fingermark detection, synthesis and an application to the detection of fingermarks in blood on non-porous surfaces

The use of quantum dots (QDs) in the area of fingermark detection is currently receiving a lot of attention in the forensic literature. Most of the research efforts have been devoted to cadmium telluride (CdTe) quantum dots often applied as powders to the surfaces of interests. Both the use of cadmium and the nano size of these particles raise important issues in terms of health and safety. This paper proposes to replace CdTe QDs by zinc sulphide QDs doped with copper (ZnS:Cu) to address these issues. Zinc sulphide-copper doped QDs were successfully synthesized, characterized in terms of size and optical properties and optimized to be applied for the detection of impressions left in blood, where CdTe QDs proved to be efficient. Effectiveness of detection was assessed in comparison with CdTe QDs and Acid Yellow 7 (AY7, an effective blood reagent), using two series of depletive blood fingermarks from four donors prepared on four non-porous substrates, i.e. glass, transparent polypropylene, black polyethylene and aluminium foil. The marks were cut in half and processed separately with both reagents, leading to two comparison series (ZnS:Cu vs. CdTe, and ZnS:Cu vs. AY7). ZnS:Cu proved to be better than AY7 and at least as efficient as CdTe on most substrates. Consequently, copper-doped ZnS QDs constitute a valid substitute for cadmium-based QDs to detect blood marks on non-porous substrates and offer a safer alternative for routine use.

A consistent extension of the local spin density approximation to account for quantum dot mass and dielectric mismatches

A consistent extension of local spin density approximation (LSDA) to account for mass and dielectric mismatches in nanocrystals is presented. The extension accounting for variable effective mass is exact. Illustrative comparisons with available configuration interaction calculations show that the approach is also very reliable when it comes to account for dielectric mismatches. The modified LSDA is as fast and computationally low demanding as LSDA. Therefore, it is a tool suitable to study large particle systems in inhomogeneous media without much effort.

Long sequence duplications, repeats, and palindromes in HIV-1 gp120: length variation in V4 as the product of misalignment mechanism.

We have shown that indels in gp120 V4 are associated to the presence of duplicated and palindromic sequences, suggesting that they may be produced by strand-slippage misalignment mechanism. Indels in V4 involved region-specific duplications 9 to 15 bp long, and repeats of various lengths, associated to trinucleotides AAT. No duplications were found in V3 and C3. The frequency of palindromic sequences in individual genes was found to be significantly higher in gp120 (p < or = 3.00E-7), and significantly lower in Tat (p < or = 9.00E-7) than the average frequency calculated over the full genome. The finding of elements of misalignment in association with indels in V4 suggests that these mutations may occur in proviral DNA after integration of HIV into the host genome. It also implies that occurrence of large indels in gp120 is not random but is directed by the presence and distribution of elements of misalignment in the HIV genome.

Topological phases in small quantum Hall samples

Topological order has proven a useful concept to describe quantum phase transitions which are not captured by the Ginzburg-Landau type of symmetry-breaking order. However, lacking a local order parameter, topological order is hard to detect. One way to detect it is via direct observation of anyonic properties of excitations which are usually discussed in the thermodynamic limit, but so far has not been realized in macroscopic quantum Hall samples. Here we consider a system of few interacting bosons subjected to the lowest Landau level by a gauge potential, and theoretically investigate vortex excitations in order to identify topological properties of different ground states. Our investigation demonstrates that even in surprisingly small systems anyonic properties are able to characterize the topological order. In addition, focusing on a system in the Laughlin state, we study the robustness of its anyonic behavior in the presence of tunable finite-range interactions acting as a perturbation. A clear signal of a transition to a different state is reflected by the system's anyonic properties.

Length variation in HIV-1 gp120 as the product of DNA misalignment mechanism

Background: To determine whether misalignment structures such as duplications, repeats, and palindromes are associated to insertions/deletions (indels) in gp120, indicating that indels are indeed frameshift mutations generated by DNA misalignment mechanism. Methods: Cloning and sequencing of a fragment of HIV-1 gp120 spanning C2-C4 derived from plasma RNA in 12 patients with early chronic disease and naïve to antiretroviral therapy. Results: Indels in V4 involved always insertion and deletion of duplicated nucleotide segments, and AAT repeats, and were associated to the presence of palindromic sequences. No duplications were detected in V3 and C3. Palindromic sequences occurred with similar frequencies in V3, C3 and V4; the frequency of palindromes in individual genes was found to be significantly higher in structural (gp120, p ≤ 3.00E-7) and significantly lower in regulatory (Tat, p ≤ 9.00E-7) genes, as compared to the average frequency calculated over the full genome. Discussion: Indels in V4 are associated to misalignment structures (i.e. duplications repeat and palindromes) indicating DNA misalignment as the mechanism underlying length variation in V4. The finding that indels in V4 are caused by DNA misalignment has some very important implications: 1) indels in V4 are likely to occur in proviral DNA (and not in RNA), after integration of HIV into the host genome; 2) they are likely to occur as progressive modifications of the early founder virus during chronic infection, as more and more cells get infected; 3) frameshift mutations involving any number of base pairs are likely to occur evenly across gp120; however, only those mutants carrying a functional gp120 (indels as multiples of three base pairs) will be able to perpetuate the virus cycle and to keep spreading through the population.

Product Perfect Codes and Steganography

A new coding technique to be used in steganography is evaluated. The performanceof this new technique is computed and comparisons with the well-known theoreticalupper bound, Hamming upper bound and basic LSB are established.

Quantum transport phenomena and shallow impurity states in CdSb

This work is dedicated to investigation of the energy spectrum of one of the most anisotropic narrow-gap semiconductors, CdSb. At the beginning of the present studies even the model of its energy band structure was not clear. Measurements of galvanomagnetic effects in wide temperature range (1.6 - 300 K) and in magnetic fields up to 30 T were chosen for clarifying of the energy spectrum in the intentionally undoped CdSb single crystals and doped with shallow impurities (In, Ag). Detection of the Shubnikov - de Haas oscillations allowed estimating the fundamental energy spectrum parameters. The shapes of the Fermi surfaces of electrons (sphere) and holes (ellipsoid), the number of the equivalent extremums for valence band (2) and their positions in the Brillouin zone were determined for the first time in this work. Also anisotropy coefficients, components of the tensor of effective masses of carriers, effective masses of density of states, nonparabolicity of the conduction and valence bands, g-factor and its anisotropy for n- and p-CdSb were estimated for the first time during these studies. All the results obtained are compared with the cyclotron resonance data and the corresponding theoretical calculations for p-CdSb. This is basic information for the analyses of the complex transport properties of CdSb and for working out the energy spectrum model of the shallow energy levels of defects and impurities in this semiconductor. It was found out existence of different mechanisms of hopping conductivity in the presence of metal - insulator transition induced by magnetic field in n- and p-CdSb. Quite unusual feature opened in CdSb is that different types of hopping conductivity may take place in the same crystal depending on temperature, magnetic field or even orientation of crystal in magnetic field. Transport properties of undoped p-CdSb samples show that the anisotropy of the resistivity in weak and strong magnetic fields is determined completely by the anisotropy of the effective mass of the holes. Temperature and magnetic field dependence of the Hall coefficient and magnetoresistance is attributed to presence of two groups of holes with different concentrations and mobilities. The analysis demonstrates that below Tcr ~ 20 K and down to ~ 6 - 7 K the low-mobile carriers are itinerant holes with energy E2 ≈ 6 meV. The high-mobile carriers, at all temperatures T < Tcr, are holes activated thermally from a deeper acceptor band to itinerant states of a shallower acceptor band with energy E1 ≈ 3 meV. Analysis of temperature dependences of mobilities confirms the existence of the heavy-hole band or a non-equivalent maximum and two equivalent maxima of the light-hole valence band. Galvanomagnetic effects in n-CdSb reveal the existence of two groups of carriers. These are the electrons of a single minimum in isotropic conduction band and the itinerant electrons of the narrow impurity band, having at low temperatures the energies above the bottom of the conduction band. It is found that above this impurity band exists second impurity band of only localized states and the energy of both impurity bands depend on temperature so that they sink into the band gap when temperature is increased. The bands are splitted by the spin, and in strong magnetic fields the energy difference between them decreases and redistribution of the electrons between the two impurity bands takes place. Mobility of the conduction band carriers demonstrates that scattering in n-CdSb at low temperatures is strongly anisotropic. This is because of domination from scattering on the neutral impurity centers and increasing of the contribution to mobility from scattering by acoustic phonons when temperature increases. Metallic conductivity in zero or weak magnetic field is changed to activated conductivity with increasing of magnetic field. This exhibits a metal-insulator transition (MIT) induced by the magnetic field due to shift of the Fermi level from the interval of extended states to that of the localized states of the electron spectrum near the edge of the conduction band. The Mott variablerange hopping conductivity is observed in the low- and high-field intervals on the insulating side of the MIT. The results yield information about the density of states, the localization radius of the resonant impurity band with completely localized states and about the donor band. In high magnetic fields this band is separated from the conduction band and lies below the resonant impurity bands.

Product costing in SAP environment

Kustannuslaskennan ala on muuttumassa. IT teknologian hämmästyttävän nopea kehitys viime vuosina on luonut kustannuslaskennalle uusia mahdollisuuksia. Toisaalta myös kustannuslaskennalle asetetut vaatimukset ovat muuttuneet. Nykyisin kustannustietoutta tarvitaan erityisesti päätöksenteon tueksi. Kaikesta huolimatta yleisesti käytetyt laskentamenetelmät eivät ole muuttuneet. Työn tavoite on tutkia mahdollisia tapoja tuotekohtaisen kustannuslaskennan toteuttamiseksi SAP toiminnanohjausjärjestelmän avulla. Erityisesti toiminnanohjausjärjestelmien nopea kehitys on mahdollistanut aikaisempaa nopeamman ja tarkemman kustannuslaskennan. On kuitenkin muistettava, että järjestelmät ovat vaintyökaluja. On siis erittäin tärkeää valita tarkoituksenmukainen laskentamenetelmä. Työn perimmäinen tarkoitus onkin valita kyseessä olevaan tilanteeseen sopivin menetelmä.Viime vuosien akateemisessa kirjoittelussa on esitelty useita uusia kustannuslaskentamenetelmiä. Toimintolaskennan uusi versio, Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing, on eräs varteenotettava vaihtoehto tuotekohtaisen kustannuslaskennan toteuttamiseksi SAP-ympäristössä. Toinen hyvin soveltuva menetelmä on Resource Consumption Accounting (RCA), joka soveltuu erityisen hyvin SAP-ympäristöön.Molemmilla menetelmillä on hyvät ja huonot puolet, mutta tässä tapauksessa RCA soveltuu tehtävään paremmin. RCA on joustava ja tarjoaa laaja-alaista tietoa. Tästä syystä Resource Consumption Accounting oli paras vaihtoehto.Työssä rakennettu RCA malli testattiin kolmen erilaisen tuotteen historiallisella datalla. RCA:ntuomia mahdollisuuksia pohdittiin ja ongelmia selvitettiin. RCA on hyvin saman tyyppinen yrityksessä jo käytettävän laskentamenetelmän kanssa. Implementointi ei siis olisi mahdoton tehtävä. RCA kuitenkin tarjoaa mahdollisuuksia, joita nykyisellä menetelmällä ei voida saavuttaa.