999 resultados para Bruno K Öijer
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Introduction and Aims Wastewater analysis provides a non-intrusive way of measuring drug use within a population. We used this approach to determine daily use of conventional illicit drugs [cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)] and emerging illicit psychostimulants (benzylpiperazine, mephedrone and methylone) in two consecutive years (2010 and 2011) at an annual music festival. Design and Methods Daily composite wastewater samples, representative of the festival, were collected from the on-site wastewater treatment plant and analysed for drug metabolites. Data over 2 years were compared using Wilcoxon matched-pair test. Data from 2010 festival were compared with data collected at the same time from a nearby urban community using equivalent methods. Results Conventional illicit drugs were detected in all samples whereas emerging illicit psychostimulants were found only on specific days. The estimated per capita consumption of MDMA, cocaine and cannabis was similar between the two festival years. Statistically significant (P < 0.05; Z = −2.0–2.2) decreases were observed in use of methamphetamine and one emerging illicit psychostimulant (benzyl piperazine). Only consumption of MDMA was elevated at the festival compared with the nearby urban community. Discussion and Conclusions Rates of substance use at this festival remained relatively consistent over two monitoring years. Compared with the urban community, drug use among festival goers was only elevated for MDMA, confirming its popularity in music settings. Our study demonstrated that wastewater analysis can objectively capture changes in substance use at a music setting without raising major ethical issues. It would potentially allow effective assessments of drug prevention strategies in such settings in the future.
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Introduction and Aims Wastewater analysis (WWA) is intended to be a direct and objective method of measuring substance use in large urban populations. It has also been used to measure prison substance use in two previous studies. The application of WWA in this context has raised questions as to how best it might be used to measure illicit drug use in prisons, and whether it can also be used to measure prescription misuse. We applied WWA to a small regional prison to measure the use of 12 licit and illicit substances. We attempted to measure the non-medical use of methadone and buprenorphine and to compare our findings with the results of the prison's mandatory drug testing (MDT). Design and Methods Representative daily composite samples were collected for two periods of 12 consecutive days in May to July 2013 and analysed for 18 drug metabolites. Prescription data and MDT results were obtained from the prison and compared with the substance use estimates calculated from WWA data. Results Daily use of methamphetamine, methadone, buprenorphine and codeine was detected, while sporadic detection of ketamine and methylone was also observed. Overall buprenorphine misuse appeared to be greater than methadone misuse. Discussion and Conclusions Compared with MDT, WWA provides a more comprehensive picture of prison substance use. WWA also has the potential to measure the misuse of medically prescribed substances. However, a great deal of care must be exercised in quantifying the usage of any substance in small populations, such as in prisons.
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Population size is crucial when estimating population-normalized drug consumption (PNDC) from wastewater-based drug epidemiology (WBDE). Three conceptually different population estimates can be used: de jure (common census, residence), de facto (all persons within a sewer catchment), and chemical loads (contributors to the sampled wastewater). De facto and chemical loads will be the same where all households contribute to a central sewer system without wastewater loss. This study explored the feasibility of determining a de facto population and its effect on estimating PNDC in an urban community over an extended period. Drugs and other chemicals were analyzed in 311 daily composite wastewater samples. The daily estimated de facto population (using chemical loads) was on average 32% higher than the de jure population. Consequently, using the latter would systemically overestimate PNDC by 22%. However, the relative day-to-day pattern of drug consumption was similar regardless of the type of normalization as daily illicit drug loads appeared to vary substantially more than the population. Using chemical loads population, we objectively quantified the total methodological uncertainty of PNDC and reduced it by a factor of 2. Our study illustrated the potential benefits of using chemical loads population for obtaining more robust PNDC data in WBDE.
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The measurement of illicit drug metabolites in raw wastewater is increasingly being adopted as an approach to objectively monitor population-level drug use, and is an effective complement to traditional epidemiological methods. As such, it has been widely applied in western countries. In this study, we utilised this approach to assess drug use patterns over nine days during April 2011 in Hong Kong. Raw wastewater samples were collected from the largest wastewater treatment plant serving a community of approximately 3.5 million people and analysed for excreted drug residues including cocaine, ketamine, methamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and key metabolites using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. The overall drug use pattern determined by wastewater analysis was consistent with that have seen amongst people coming into contact with services in relation to substance use; among our target drugs, ketamine (estimated consumption: 1400–1600 mg/day/1000 people) was the predominant drug followed by methamphetamine (180–200 mg/day/1000 people), cocaine (160–180 mg/day/1000 people) and MDMA (not detected). The levels of these drugs were relatively steady throughout the monitoring period. Analysing samples at higher temporal resolution provided data on diurnal variations of drug residue loads. Elevated ratios of cocaine to benzoylecgonine were identified unexpectedly in three samples during the evening and night, providing evidence for potential dumping events of cocaine. This study provides the first application of wastewater analysis to quantitatively evaluate daily drug use in an Asian metropolitan community. Our data reinforces the benefit of wastewater monitoring to health and law enforcement authorities for strategic planning and evaluation of drug intervention strategies.
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Prison substance use is a major concern for prison authorities and the wider community. Australia has responded to this problem by implementing the National Corrections Drug Strategy. Across Australia, the true extent of prison substance use cannot be determined. As a result, the effectiveness of the interventions employed as part of this strategy cannot be properly assessed. This has important implications for the allocation of corrective services resources and future policy development. This article explores the benefits and limitations, as well as the ethical and practical issues in using wastewater analysis (WWA) to measure levels of substance use in prisons. It reports results from the first application of WWA to an Australian prison, which supports the use of WWA in this context. Given the increasing concern for prescription misuse in prisons, we also highlight the novel use of WWA to measure the extent of prescription misuse by prisoners. The article concludes that as a result of its objectivity, sensitivity and cost-effectiveness, the use of WWA in prisons warrants further consideration in Australia.
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Estimating the use of illicit drugs in the general community is an important task with ramifications for law enforcement agencies, as well as health portfolios. Australia has four ongoing drug monitoring systems, including the AIC’s DUMA program, the National Drug Strategy Household Survey, the Illicit Drug Reporting System and the Ecstasy and Related Drug Reporting System. The systems vary in methods, but broadly they are reliant upon self-report data and may be subject to selection biases. The present study employed a completely different method. By chemically analysing sewerage water, the study produced daily estimates of consumption of methamphetamine, MDMA and cocaine. Samples were collected in November 2009 and November 2010 from a municipality in Queensland, with an population of over 150,000 people. Estimates were made of the average daily dose and average daily street value per 1,000 people. On the basis of estimated dose and price, the methamphetamine market appeared considerably stronger than either MDMA or cocaine. This paper explains the strengths and weaknesses of wastewater analysis. It considers the potential value of wastewater analysis in measuring net consumption of illicit drugs and the effectiveness of law enforcement agency strategies.
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Background The Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 (GBD 2013) aims to bring together all available epidemiological data using a coherent measurement framework, standardised estimation methods, and transparent data sources to enable comparisons of health loss over time and across causes, age–sex groups, and countries. The GBD can be used to generate summary measures such as disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) and healthy life expectancy (HALE) that make possible comparative assessments of broad epidemiological patterns across countries and time. These summary measures can also be used to quantify the component of variation in epidemiology that is related to sociodemographic development. Methods We used the published GBD 2013 data for age-specific mortality, years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLLs), and years lived with disability (YLDs) to calculate DALYs and HALE for 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2013 for 188 countries. We calculated HALE using the Sullivan method; 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) represent uncertainty in age-specific death rates and YLDs per person for each country, age, sex, and year. We estimated DALYs for 306 causes for each country as the sum of YLLs and YLDs; 95% UIs represent uncertainty in YLL and YLD rates. We quantified patterns of the epidemiological transition with a composite indicator of sociodemographic status, which we constructed from income per person, average years of schooling after age 15 years, and the total fertility rate and mean age of the population. We applied hierarchical regression to DALY rates by cause across countries to decompose variance related to the sociodemographic status variable, country, and time. Findings Worldwide, from 1990 to 2013, life expectancy at birth rose by 6·2 years (95% UI 5·6–6·6), from 65·3 years (65·0–65·6) in 1990 to 71·5 years (71·0–71·9) in 2013, HALE at birth rose by 5·4 years (4·9–5·8), from 56·9 years (54·5–59·1) to 62·3 years (59·7–64·8), total DALYs fell by 3·6% (0·3–7·4), and age-standardised DALY rates per 100 000 people fell by 26·7% (24·6–29·1). For communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disorders, global DALY numbers, crude rates, and age-standardised rates have all declined between 1990 and 2013, whereas for non–communicable diseases, global DALYs have been increasing, DALY rates have remained nearly constant, and age-standardised DALY rates declined during the same period. From 2005 to 2013, the number of DALYs increased for most specific non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular diseases and neoplasms, in addition to dengue, food-borne trematodes, and leishmaniasis; DALYs decreased for nearly all other causes. By 2013, the five leading causes of DALYs were ischaemic heart disease, lower respiratory infections, cerebrovascular disease, low back and neck pain, and road injuries. Sociodemographic status explained more than 50% of the variance between countries and over time for diarrhoea, lower respiratory infections, and other common infectious diseases; maternal disorders; neonatal disorders; nutritional deficiencies; other communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases; musculoskeletal disorders; and other non-communicable diseases. However, sociodemographic status explained less than 10% of the variance in DALY rates for cardiovascular diseases; chronic respiratory diseases; cirrhosis; diabetes, urogenital, blood, and endocrine diseases; unintentional injuries; and self-harm and interpersonal violence. Predictably, increased sociodemographic status was associated with a shift in burden from YLLs to YLDs, driven by declines in YLLs and increases in YLDs from musculoskeletal disorders, neurological disorders, and mental and substance use disorders. In most country-specific estimates, the increase in life expectancy was greater than that in HALE. Leading causes of DALYs are highly variable across countries. Interpretation Global health is improving. Population growth and ageing have driven up numbers of DALYs, but crude rates have remained relatively constant, showing that progress in health does not mean fewer demands on health systems. The notion of an epidemiological transition—in which increasing sociodemographic status brings structured change in disease burden—is useful, but there is tremendous variation in burden of disease that is not associated with sociodemographic status. This further underscores the need for country-specific assessments of DALYs and HALE to appropriately inform health policy decisions and attendant actions.
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Background The Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor study 2013 (GBD 2013) is the first of a series of annual updates of the GBD. Risk factor quantification, particularly of modifiable risk factors, can help to identify emerging threats to population health and opportunities for prevention. The GBD 2013 provides a timely opportunity to update the comparative risk assessment with new data for exposure, relative risks, and evidence on the appropriate counterfactual risk distribution. Methods Attributable deaths, years of life lost, years lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) have been estimated for 79 risks or clusters of risks using the GBD 2010 methods. Risk–outcome pairs meeting explicit evidence criteria were assessed for 188 countries for the period 1990–2013 by age and sex using three inputs: risk exposure, relative risks, and the theoretical minimum risk exposure level (TMREL). Risks are organised into a hierarchy with blocks of behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks at the first level of the hierarchy. The next level in the hierarchy includes nine clusters of related risks and two individual risks, with more detail provided at levels 3 and 4 of the hierarchy. Compared with GBD 2010, six new risk factors have been added: handwashing practices, occupational exposure to trichloroethylene, childhood wasting, childhood stunting, unsafe sex, and low glomerular filtration rate. For most risks, data for exposure were synthesised with a Bayesian meta-regression method, DisMod-MR 2.0, or spatial-temporal Gaussian process regression. Relative risks were based on meta-regressions of published cohort and intervention studies. Attributable burden for clusters of risks and all risks combined took into account evidence on the mediation of some risks such as high body-mass index (BMI) through other risks such as high systolic blood pressure and high cholesterol. Findings All risks combined account for 57·2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 55·8–58·5) of deaths and 41·6% (40·1–43·0) of DALYs. Risks quantified account for 87·9% (86·5–89·3) of cardiovascular disease DALYs, ranging to a low of 0% for neonatal disorders and neglected tropical diseases and malaria. In terms of global DALYs in 2013, six risks or clusters of risks each caused more than 5% of DALYs: dietary risks accounting for 11·3 million deaths and 241·4 million DALYs, high systolic blood pressure for 10·4 million deaths and 208·1 million DALYs, child and maternal malnutrition for 1·7 million deaths and 176·9 million DALYs, tobacco smoke for 6·1 million deaths and 143·5 million DALYs, air pollution for 5·5 million deaths and 141·5 million DALYs, and high BMI for 4·4 million deaths and 134·0 million DALYs. Risk factor patterns vary across regions and countries and with time. In sub-Saharan Africa, the leading risk factors are child and maternal malnutrition, unsafe sex, and unsafe water, sanitation, and handwashing. In women, in nearly all countries in the Americas, north Africa, and the Middle East, and in many other high-income countries, high BMI is the leading risk factor, with high systolic blood pressure as the leading risk in most of Central and Eastern Europe and south and east Asia. For men, high systolic blood pressure or tobacco use are the leading risks in nearly all high-income countries, in north Africa and the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. For men and women, unsafe sex is the leading risk in a corridor from Kenya to South Africa. Interpretation Behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks can explain half of global mortality and more than one-third of global DALYs providing many opportunities for prevention. Of the larger risks, the attributable burden of high BMI has increased in the past 23 years. In view of the prominence of behavioural risk factors, behavioural and social science research on interventions for these risks should be strengthened. Many prevention and primary care policy options are available now to act on key risks.
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Nine tie-lines between Fe-Ni alloys and FeTiO3-NiTiO3 solid solutions were determined at 1273 K. Samples were equilibrated in evacuated quartz ampoules for periods up to 10 days. Compositions of the alloy and oxide phases at equilibrium were determined by energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy. X-ray powder diffraction was used to confirm the results. Attainment of equilibrium was verified by the conventional tie-line rotation technique and by thermodynamic analysis of the results. The tie-lines are skewed toward the FeTiO3 corner. From the tie-line data and activities in the Fe-Ni alloy phase available in the literature, activities of FeTiO3 and NiTiO3 in the ilmenite solid solution were derived using the modified Gibbs-Duhem technique of Jacob and Jeffes [K.T. Jacob and J.H.E. Jeffes, An Improved Method for Calculating Activities from Distribution Equilibria, High Temp. High Press., 1972, 4, p 177-182]. The components of the oxide solid solution exhibit moderate positive deviations from Raoult's law. Within experimental error, excess Gibbs energy of mixing for the FeTiO3-NiTiO3 solid solution at 1273 K is a symmetric function of composition and can be represented as: Delta G(E) = 8590 (+/- 200) X-FeTiO3 X-NiTiO3 J/mol Full spectrum of tie-lines and oxygen potentials for the three-phase equilibrium involving Fe-Ni alloys, FeTiO3-NiTiO3 solid solutions, and TiO2 at 1273 K were computed using results obtained in this study and data available in the literature.
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A graph is said to be k-variegated if its vertex set can be partitioned into k equal parts such that each vertex is adjacent to exactly one vertex from every other part not containing it. Bednarek and Sanders [1] posed the problem of characterizing k-variegated graphs. V.N. Bhat-Nayak, S.A. Choudum and R.N. Naik [2] gave the characterization of 2-variegated graphs. In this paper we characterize k-variegated graphs for k greater-or-equal, slanted 3.
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A locked high-pressure cell with working pressure range up to 10 kbars suitable for low-temperature studies to 77 K has been described. It can be used for both EPR and NMR studies of single crystals (and other solid samples). The high-pressure seal and all other aspects of the cell remain the same for either application. Only a change of the bottom plug is required for a switch from a nuclear-magnetic-resonance (NMR) to an electron-paramagnetic-resonance (EPR) experiment. Details of the procedure for the calibration of pressure inside the cell at various temperatures are discussed. The performance of the cell in EPR (Cr3+ion) and NMR (27Al nucleus) studies is reported.
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The subject of this work is the poetics of «The Wax Effigy», a short novel or novella by Jurii Tynianov, Russian writer, literary critic, historian of literature and prominent literary theoretician. The plot structure of the novel is based upon a real event, the creation by Bartolomeo Carlo Rastrelli in 1725 of a wax sculpture of the first Russian emperor, Peter the Great. «Construction of the Sham» consists of three chapters, an introduction and a conclusion. Due to the fact that Tynianov was at the same time a prose writer and theoretician of literature it seemed important to consider the reception of his prose and his works on literary theory in relationship to each other. The introduction is devoted to this task. The first chapter is about the history of the creation of the novel and its reception. Tynianov stopped writing one short story in order to write the novel; these two works have some common traits. It seems almost obvious that his work on the first text was a real step toward the creation of the second. In the first story there is an opposition of dead/alive which is semantic prefiguring of a central motif in «The Wax Effigy». An analysis of the reception of the novel demonstrated that almost every critic writing about the novel has described it as nonsense. Critics considered Tynianov's work in terms of «devices» and «content» and could not understand how devices are related to the content of the novel: the novel was thought as a signifier without any signified. Implicitly, critics thought the signified of the novel as a traditional one of the historical novel, as the historiosophical «idea», embodied in the system of literary devices. In this case literature becomes something instrumental, a kind of expression of extraliterary content. In contradistinction to that Tynianov considered literary semantics as an effect of the literary structure. From his point of view the literary sense is immanent to the process of signification accomplished inside the literary text. The second chapter is devoted to a rhetorical analysis of the opposition dead/alive. Tynianov systematically compares both terms of the opposition. As a result of this strategy the wax effigy of the dead emperor becomes «as if» alive and the world of living people «as if» dead. The qualifier «as if» refers to the fact that Tynianov creates an ambiguous semantic system. This rhetoric is related to European Romanticism and his «fantastic literature» (Merimé, Hoffmann, Maupassant etc.). But Tynianov demonstrates a linguistic origin of the strange fantoms created by romantics; he demystifies these idols by parodying the fantastic literature, that is, showing «how it was done». At the same time, the opposition mentioned above refers to his idea of «incongruity» which plays a prominent role in Tynianov s theory but has never been conceptualised. The incongruity is a inner collision of the literary text; from Tynianov's point of view the meaning of the work of literature is always a dynamic collision of semantically heterogeneous elements struggling with each other. In «The Wax Effigy» Tynianov creates a metalevel of the work demonstrating the process of creation of the literary sense. The third chapter is a reconstruction of Tynianov's conception of the historical prose, specifically of the mechanisms by which historical facts are transformed into literary events. Tynianov thought that the task of the historical novelist is to depict his hero as an actor, to demonstrate that as a wearer of many masks he is a creator of appearances, ambiguities. Here, in the «figure of fiction» (Andrei Belyi), the very idea of the historical prose and rhetoric employed in «The Wax Effigy», history and literature meet each other. In his last theoretical work, «On parody» Tynianov writes about the so-called sham structure of parody. In his opinion every parody is a text about other texts and «serious» work which could be read at the same time as a text about «reality». This twofold structure of parody is that of «The Wax Effigy»: that text speaks about ambiguities of the history and about ambiguities of the literary sense, about social reality of the past and - about the working of the literature itself. «The Wax Effigy» is written as a autoreflective text, as an experiment in literary semantics, as a system of literary ambiguities - of hero, rhetoric and the text itself. The meaning of the novel is created not by the embodiment extraliterary idea, but by the process of signification accomplished inside the work of literature. In this sense Tynianov's novel is parody, a break with the tradition of the historical novel preceding «The Wax Effigy».
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Fillets of five fish species were irradiated at 0, 1 and 3kGy to investigate whether the K-value test of freshness can be applied to irradiated fish. Following irradiation, the fillets were stored on ice and sampled regularly for K-value analysis. Hypoxanthine (Hx) and total nucleotide content were also determined on fillets of two species. K-values of irradiated fillets were generally lower than those of unirradiated controls. Hypoxanthine levels paralleled the K-value changes. These results indicated that quality standards based on K-values or Hx levels that have been set for unirradiated species cannot be directly applied to fish that has been irradiated. Total nucleotide content did not appear to be affected by irradiation.
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The design and fabrication of a spool valve for a two-stage Gifford-McMahon cycle cryorefrigerator is described. The effect of this valve on the P-V diagram and practical methods of reducing the P-V degradation are also discussed.
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The dissertation deals with the prose texts of the Finnish writer Timo K. Mukka, renowned for his depictions of his native Lapland. This research concerns the creation of world view in Mukka s prose, which is approached by studying what Mikhail Bakhtin calls generic change. Such genre change is the most characteristic feature of Mukka s prose. His prose is permeated with two genres in particular and changes between them: the ballad-like, archaistic and romantic prose-poem style and naturalistic, even grotesque expressions. In addition, these genres are associated with sublime and grotesque styles so that generic change tends to involve also stylistic changes in Mukka s prose. This study probes the tension-filled interrelationships between the ballad and naturalistic prose by examining the discourse of Mukka s characters. It is shown that these characters invariably find themselves in what Bakhtin calls the chronotope of the threshold; that is, the plots of Mukka s novels and short stories depict situations in which the characters are faced with decisions and deeds that will profoundly impact their lives. The discourse of the threshold affects the characters speech by filling it with dialogical dimensions. This makes their communication ethically loaded and polyphonic. This study is based on Mikhail Bakhtin s theory of the novel and international Bakhtin s studies. I also take into consideration the theoretical developments of Bakhtin s work; for example, the concept of ressentiment, adapted from the Bakhtin scholar Michel André Bernstein, plays an important role. In order to explicate on the psychology of Mukka s characters such as melancholy, abjection, sadism, and taboo I use the concepts familiar from Freudian psychoanalysis. The corpus of my research consists of the following texts: the long prose texts Maa on syntinen laulu. Balladi (1964), Tabu (1965), Täältä jostakin. Romaani (1965), Laulu Sipirjan lapsista. Romaani (1966), Ja kesän heinä kuolee. Kertomus sairaudesta (1968) ja Kyyhky ja unikko (1970) and the short story collections Koiran kuolema (1967) ja Lumen pelko (1970), and with Tabu published short story Sankarihymni , the short story Katkelma laajemmasta laulelmasta from the collection Rakastaa: Kaksitoista novellia rakkaudesta (1965) and also the short stories which were published in various Finnish journals: Yöt (1965), Liisa (1967), Tyttö (1967) ja Näin hetki sitten ketun (1970). I pay particular attention to the novel Maa on syntinen laulu, because it expresses the generic change characteristic of Mukka s world view in a specifically clear and lively way. The dissertation is in Finnish. Key words: Timo K. Mukka, world view, genre change, ballad, naturalism, grotesque realism, Mikhail Bakhtin, dialogism, polyphony, chronotope, sublime, grotesque, ressentiment, Sigmund Freud, melancholy, taboo, abject, sadism, reduced laughter, modern parody.