Oral delivery strategies for the controlled release of cimetidine

It is advantageous to develop controlled release dosage forms utilising site-specific delivery or gastric retention for those drugs with frequent or high dosing regimes. Cimetidine is a potent and selective H2 -reception antagonist used in the treatment of various gastrointestinal disorders and localisation in the upper gastrointestinal tract could significantly improve the drug absorption. Three strategies were undertaken to prepare controlled release systems for the delivery of cimetidine to the GI tract. Firstly, increasing the contact time of the dosage form with the mucus layer which coats the gastrointestinal tract, may lead to increased gastric residence times. Mucoadhesive microspheres, by forming a gel-like structure in contact with the mucus, should prolong the contact between the delivery system and the mucus layer, and should have the potential for releasing the drug in sustained and controlled manner. Gelatin microspheres were prepared, optimised and characterised for their physicochemical properties. Crosslinking concentration, particle size and cimetidine loading influenced drug release profiles. Particle size was influenced by surfactant concentration and stirring speed. Mucoadheisve polymers such as alginates, chitosans, carbopols and polycarbophil were incorporated into the microspheres using different strategies. The mucoadhesion of the microspheres was determined using in vitro surface adsorption and ex vivo rat intestine models. The surface-modification strategy resulted in highest levels of microsphere adhesion, with chitosan, carbopols and polycarbophil as the most successful candidates for improvement of adhesion, with over 70% of the microspheres retained ex vivo. Specific targeting agent UEA I lectin was conjugated to the surface of gelatin microspheres, which enhanced the adhesion of the microspheres. Alginate raft systems containing antacids have been used extensively in the treatment of gastro-oesophageal disease and protection of the oesophageal mucosa from acid reflux by forming a viscous raft layer on the surface of the stomach content, and could be an effective delivery system for controlled release of cimetidine.

Leadership through intellect:the meaning of leadership in the intellectual history of nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany

This study examines the understanding of leadership in Germany, as it developed throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The investigation is based on the work of contemporary writers and thinkers, as well as on the leadership styles of key political figures. Given the ideological connotations of the term "Führung" in post-war Germany, the aim is to reconsider the meaning of leadership, with particular reference to the alternative notion of spiritual guidance. The rise to power of Napoleon I fundamentally influenced the understanding of leadership in Germany, as is demonstrated through an analysis of the Napoleonic reception in contemporary literature. Despite polarised responses, the formation of the heroic ideal may be identified, the quest for spiritual guidance having become subordinate to the charismatic legitimisation of political authority. As advocated by Thomas Carlyle, the mid to late nineteenth century witnessed the realisation of this ideal through Bismarck. The intellectual response to this development is characterised by the work of Wagner, Burckhardt and Nietzsche. In different ways each figure emphasised the need to redefine greatness and to seek spiritual guidance from alternative sources. The reflection on leadership in the early twentieth century is traced through the work of Harry Graf Kessler and the circles around Stefan George. Hitherto unpublished material is examined, revealing both the influences of nineteenth century thought and reactions to the "persönliches Regiment" of Wilhelm II. The intellectual debate culminates in Max Kommerell's 1928 study Der Dichter als Führer. Read in conjunction with unpublished notes and correspondence, this provides new insights into Kommerell's thought. The concept of poetic leadership constitutes a potential spiritual and intellectual alternative to the ideal of the political "Führer" which dominated the forthcoming era. It therefore remains of contemporary significance and may contribute to a broader discussion of the leadership dilemma in modern Germany.

Investigating tiredness and ad complexity effects on visual processing of advertisements:an eye-tracking study

Although advertising is pervasive in our daily, it proves to be not necessarily efficient all the times due to bad conditions or bad contexts of reception. Indeed, the communication process might be jeopardized at its very last stage because of advertising exposure quality. However critical it may be, ad exposure quality is not very much examined by researchers or practitioners. In this paper, we investigate how tiredness combined with ad complexity might influence the way consumers extract and process ad elements. Investigating tiredness is useful because it is a common daily state experienced by everyone at various moments of the day. And although it might drastically alter ad reception, it has not been studied in advertising for the moment. In this regards, we observe eye movement patterns of consumers viewing simple or complex advertisements being tired or not. We surprisingly find that tired subjects viewing complex ads don’t adopt a lessening effort visual strategy. They rather use a resource demanding one. We assume that the Sustained Attention strategy occurring is a kind of adaptive strategy allowing to deal with an anticipated lack of resource.

Effect of fatigue on consumers' advertising processing

Huge advertising budgets are invested by firms to reach and convince potential consumers to buy their products. To optimize these investments, it is fundamental not only to ensure that appropriate consumers will be reached, but also that they will be in appropriate reception conditions. Marketing research has focused on the way consumers react to advertising, as well as on some individual and contextual factors that could mediate or moderate the ad impact on consumers (e.g. motivation and ability to process information or attitudes toward advertising). Nevertheless, a factor that potentially influences consumers’ advertising reactions has not yet been studied in marketing research: fatigue. Fatigue can yet impact key variables of advertising processing, such as cognitive resources availability (Lieury 2004). Fatigue is felt when the body warns to stop an activity (or inactivity) to have some rest, allowing the individual to compensate for fatigue effects. Dittner et al. (2004) defines it as “the state of weariness following a period of exertion, mental or physical, characterized by a decreased capacity for work and reduced efficiency to respond to stimuli.’’ It signals that resources will lack if we continue with the ongoing activity. According to Schmidtke (1969), fatigue leads to troubles in information reception, in perception, in coordination, in attention getting, in concentration and in thinking. In addition, for Markle (1984) fatigue generates a decrease in memory, and in communication ability, whereas it increases time reaction, and number of errors. Thus, fatigue may have large effects on advertising processing. We suggest that fatigue determines the level of available resources. Some research about consumer responses to advertising claim that complexity is a fundamental element to take into consideration. Complexity determines the cognitive efforts the consumer must provide to understand the message (Putrevu et al. 2004). Thus, we suggest that complexity determines the level of required resources. To study this complex question about need and provision of cognitive resources, we draw upon Resource Matching Theory. Anand and Sternthal (1989, 1990) are the first to state the Resource Matching principle, saying that an ad is most persuasive when the resources required to process it match the resources the viewer is willing and able to provide. They show that when the required resources exceed those available, the message is not entirely processed by the consumer. And when there are too many available resources comparing to those required, the viewer elaborates critical or unrelated thoughts. According to the Resource Matching theory, the level of resource demanded by an ad can be high or low, and is mostly determined by the ad’s layout (Peracchio and Myers-Levy, 1997). We manipulate the level of required resources using three levels of ad complexity (low – high – extremely high). On the other side, the resource availability of an ad viewer is determined by lots of contextual and individual variables. We manipulate the level of available resources using two levels of fatigue (low – high). Tired viewers want to limit the processing effort to minimal resource requirements by making heuristics, forming overall impression at first glance. It will be easier for them to decode the message when ads are very simple. On the contrary, the most effective ads for viewers who are not tired are complex enough to draw their attention and fully use their resources. They will use more analytical strategies, looking at the details of the ad. However, if ads are too complex, they will be too difficult to understand. The viewer will be discouraged to process information and will overlook the ad. The objective of our research is to study fatigue as a moderating variable of advertising information processing. We run two experimental studies to assess the effect of fatigue on visual strategies, comprehension, persuasion and memorization. In study 1, thirty-five undergraduate students enrolled in a marketing research course participated in the experiment. The experimental design is 2 (tiredness level: between subjects) x 3 (ad complexity level: within subjects). Participants were randomly assigned a schedule time (morning: 8-10 am or evening: 10-12 pm) to perform the experiment. We chose to test subjects at various moments of the day to obtain maximum variance in their fatigue level. We use Morningness / Eveningness tendency of participants (Horne & Ostberg, 1976) as a control variable. We assess fatigue level using subjective measures - questionnaire with fatigue scales - and objective measures - reaction time and number of errors. Regarding complexity levels, we have designed our own ads in order to keep aspects other than complexity equal. We ran a pretest using the Resource Demands scale (Keller and Bloch 1997) and by rating them on complexity like Morrison and Dainoff (1972) to check for our complexity manipulation. We found three significantly different levels. After having completed the fatigue scales, participants are asked to view the ads on a screen, while their eye movements are recorded by the eye-tracker. Eye-tracking allows us to find out patterns of visual attention (Pieters and Warlop 1999). We are then able to infer specific respondents’ visual strategies according to their level of fatigue. Comprehension is assessed with a comprehension test. We collect measures of attitude change for persuasion and measures of recall and recognition at various points of time for memorization. Once the effect of fatigue will be determined across the student population, it is interesting to account for individual differences in fatigue severity and perception. Therefore, we run study 2, which is similar to the previous one except for the design: time of day is now within-subjects and complexity becomes between-subjects

On the capacity improvement of multicast throughput in wireless ad hoc networks with physical-layer network coding

This paper attempts to address the effectiveness of physical-layer network coding (PNC) on the capacity improvement for multi-hop multicast in random wireless ad hoc networks (WAHNs). While it can be shown that there is a capacity gain by PNC, we can prove that the per session throughput capacity with PNC is ? (nR(n))), where n is the total number of nodes, R(n) is the communication range, and each multicast session consists of a constant number of sinks. The result implies that PNC cannot improve the capacity order of multicast in random WAHNs, which is different from the intuition that PNC may improve the capacity order as it allows simultaneous signal reception and combination. Copyright © 2010 ACM.

"Our kith and kin"?:Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and the ethnonationalist parties of Tamil Nadu

This article explains the impact of substate nationalism on the political dynamic surrounding ethnic kin migration through a case study of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in the southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu. Examples drawn from the migration studies literature identify ethnic kinship between refugees and host as an indicator of favorable reception and assistance. While this expectation is borne out to an extent in the Tamil Nadu case, it is tempered by a period of hostility following the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber, when the refugees were figured as a disruptive and dangerous presence by Tamil Nadu's political elites. A version of the "triadic nexus" model of kin state relations, reconfigured to accommodate the larger political unit within which the substate nationalism is incorporated, is proposed as a framework of analysis for these events. This can better account for Tamil Nadu's substate ethnonationalist elite's movement between expressions of coethnic solidarity with the refugees and the more hostile, security-focused response postassassination. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Cardiocentric neurophysiology:the persistence of a delusion

Aristotle is well known to have taught that the brain was a mere coolant apparatus for overheated blood and to have located the hegemonikon in the heart. This teaching was hotly disputed by his immediate successors in the Alexandrian Museum, who showed that the brain played the central role in psychophysiology. This was accepted and developed by the last great biomedical figure of classical antiquity - Claudius Galen. However, Aristotle's cardiocentric theory did not entirely disappear and this article traces its influence through the Arabic physicians of the Islamic ascendancy, into the European Middle Ages where Albertus Magnus' attempt to reconcile cardiocentric and cerebrocentric physiology was particularly influential. It shows how cardiocentricity was sufficiently accepted to attract the attention of, and require refutation by, many of the great names of the Renaissance, including Vesalius, Fernel, and Descartes, and was still taken seriously by luminaries such as William Harvey in the mid-seventeenth century. The article, in rehearsing this history, shows the difficulty of separating the first-person perspective of introspective psychology and the third-person perspective of natural science. It also outlines an interesting case of conflict between philosophy and physiology. © 2013 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Prolegomenon to a History of Travel

The author attempts to provide a definition of travel by comparing it with the instinctive migration of animals and birds and viewing its changes over time. As a study of motion voluntarily undertaken, a history of travel can contribute to a better understanding of human beings

Effect of delay of first interview and repetition of interview on accuracy and confidence of recall of a flashbulb -type memory

Hearing of the news of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a traffic accident, is taken as an analogue for being a percipient but uninvolved witness to a crime, or a witness to another person's sudden confession to some illegal act. This event (known in the literature as a “reception event”) has previously been hypothesized to cause one to form a special type of memory commonly known as a “flashbulb memory” (FB) (Brown and Kulik, 1977). FB's are hypothesized to be especially resilient against forgetting, highly detailed including peripheral details, clear, and inspiring great confidence in the individual for their accuracy. FB's are dependent for their formation upon surprise, emotional valence, and impact, or consequentiality to the witness of the initiating event. FB's are thought to be enhanced by frequent rehearsal. FB's are very important in the context of criminal investigation and litigation in that investigators and jurors usually place great store in witnesses, regardless of their actual accuracy, who claim to have a clear and complete recollection of an event, and who express this confidently. Therefore, the lives, or at least the freedom, of criminal defendants, and the fortunes of civil litigants hang on the testimony of witnesses professing to have FB's. ^ In this study, which includes a large and diverse sample (N = 305), participants were surveyed within 2–4 days after hearing of the fatal accident, and again at intervals of 2 and 4 weeks, 6, 12, and 18 months. Contrary to the FB hypothesis, I found that participants' FB's degraded over time beginning at least as early as two weeks post event. At about 12 months the memory trace stabilized, resisting further degradation. Repeated interviewing did not have any negative affect upon accuracy, contrary to concerns in the literature. Analysis by correlation and regression indicated no effect or predictive power for participant age, emotionality, confidence, or student status, as related to accuracy of recall; nor was participant confidence in accuracy predicted by emotional impact as hypothesized. Results also indicate that, contrary to the notions of investigators and jurors, witnesses become more inaccurate over time regardless of their confidence in their memories, even for highly emotional events. ^

Functional near infrared spectroscopy study of language, joint attention and motor skills

Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an emerging non-invasive optical neuro imaging technique that monitors the hemodynamic response to brain activation with ms-scale temporal resolution and sub-cm spatial resolution. The overall goal of my dissertation was to develop and apply NIRS towards investigation of neurological response to language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults. Language studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal and fronto-temporal cortex of healthy adults in response to language reception and expression. The mathematical model developed based on granger causality explicated the directional flow of information during the processing of language stimuli by the fronto-temporal cortex. Joint attention and planning/ execution of motor skill studies were performed to investigate the hemodynamic response, synchrony and dominance feature of the frontal cortex of healthy adults and in children (5-8 years old) with autism (for joint attention studies) and individuals with cerebral palsy (for planning/execution of motor skills studies). The joint attention studies on healthy adults showed differences in activation as well as intensity and phase dependent connectivity in the frontal cortex during joint attention in comparison to rest. The joint attention studies on typically developing children showed differences in frontal cortical activation in comparison to that in children with autism. The planning and execution of motor skills studies on healthy adults and individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) showed difference in the frontal cortical dominance, that is, bilateral and ipsilateral dominance, respectively. The planning and execution of motor skills studies also demonstrated the plastic and learning behavior of brain wherein correlation was found between the relative change in total hemoglobin in the frontal cortex and the kinematics of the activity performed by the participants. Thus, during my dissertation the NIRS neuroimaging technique was successfully implemented to investigate the neurological response of language, joint attention and planning and execution of motor skills in healthy adults as well as preliminarily on children with autism and individuals with cerebral palsy. These NIRS studies have long-term potential for the design of early stage interventions in children with autism and customized rehabilitation in individuals with cerebral palsy.

Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow- FIU reception

Reception for the Coral Gables Museum exhibit of "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow" held at Florida International University on October 26,2014

Integration of Colombian refugees in Costa Rica : an ethnographic approach to the refugees' legal, economic, and social experiences

This qualitative study, based on interviews to 17 refugee families, attempts to identify the reasons behind the lack of integration of Colombian refugees in Costa Rica. The model of Immigrant Modes of Incorporation and the studies of Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner about the sources of social capital on migrant communities provided the theoretical framework used to identify the roots of the integration challenges. The findings suggest that Costa Rican policies towards the reception and integration of Colombian refugees are exclusionary. The host labor market is marked by sentiments of xenophobia towards the sample population while reported cases of persecution in the country also inhibit this population's economic integration. The lack of social capital sources contributes to inhibit this community's development, despite their participation in informal networks. There were signs of collective action. Yet, the refugee community fails to come together, while it also seems alienated from the community of Colombian entrepreneurs in Costa Rica.

Shere Hite at Flo Kennedy's Reception

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

The sound of whiteness: early music vocal performance practice in Britain

American Musicological Society annual meeting, San Francisco, 10 Nov. 2011

Contrary Voices: Heine, Holderlin, and Goethe in the music of Hanns Eisler

Contrary Voices examines composer Hanns Eisler’s settings of nineteenth-century poetry under changing political pressures from 1925 to 1962. The poets’ ideologically fraught reception histories, both under Nazism and in East Germany, led Eisler to intervene in this reception and voice dissent by radically fragmenting the texts. His musical settings both absorb and disturb the charisma of nineteenth-century sound materials, through formal parody, dissonance, and interruption. Eisler’s montage-like work foregrounds the difficult position of a modernist artist speaking both to and against political demands placed on art. Often the very charisma the composer seeks to expose for its power to sway the body politic exerts a force of its own. At the same time, his text-settings resist ideological rigidity in their polyphonic play. A dialogic approach to musical adaptation shows that, as Eisler seeks to resignify Heine’s problematic status in the Weimar Republic, Hölderlin’s appropriation under Nazism, and Goethe’s status as a nationalist symbol in the nascent German Democratic Republic, his music invests these poetic voices with surprising fragility and multivalence. It also destabilizes received gender tropes, in the masculine vulnerability of Eisler’s Heine choruses from 1925 and in the androgynous voices of his 1940s Hölderlin exile songs and later Goethe settings. Cross-reading the texts after hearing such musical treatment illuminates faultlines and complexities less obvious in text-only analysis. Ultimately Eisler’s music translates canonical material into a form as paradoxically faithful as it is violently fragmented.