The treatment of opiate dependency

The portfolio examines use of opiate antagonist medication (naltrexone hydrochloride) as a safe and effective treatment for opiate dependence. The program incorporates evidence-based assessment, treatment planning and after-care counselling. Detoxification using naltrexone is highly effective. Use of naltrexone predicts long-term abstinence and better health and social outcomes. Naltrexone implants improve compliance and outcomes.

Context dependency of comfort and energy performance in mixed mode offices

This article investigates the context dependency of comfort and energy performance in mixed-mode offices in the climate of Athens, Greece. It is based on a parametric study using the simulation software EnergyPlus. Context refers to different building design priorities on the real estate market (prestige, low cost and green), occupant behaviour scenarios (ideal and worst case) and cooling strategies (fixed and adaptive set points). Results are evaluated according to energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions, daylight autonomy, view and percentage of working time when heating and cooling are operating. The results indicate that a holistic approach to comfort and energy performance evaluation focused on the specific context of a building and its occupants is necessary to develop appropriate optimization strategies. In early design stages, such specific information is not yet available and ideal/worst-case scenarios can indicate the magnitude of influence of occupants compared to building design.

Accountancy and academic/professional inter-dependency (or mutual exclusivity?)

This paper is a report on an Accounting Education Symposium held during the 2009 Annual Congress of the EAA in Tampere, Finland. This was the fourth occasion on which there has been an Accounting Education Symposium (or similar) within an EAA Annual Congress. Previous events were as follows:

2005 (Gotenburg, Sweden) EAA Accounting Educators' Forum
2006 (Dublin, Ireland) 'Universities and Professional Bodies: Complementary or Colliding Roles in Educating and Training Future Accounting Practitioners?' (sponsored by the Irish Accountancy Educational Trust)
2008 (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) 'Accounting Education: The Common Content Project' (sponsored by Royal NIVRA).

Oxygen dependency of hydrogen sulfide-mediated vasoconstriction in cyclostome aortas

Hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) has been proposed to mediate hypoxic vasoconstriction (HVC), however, other studies suggest the vasoconstrictory effect indirectly results from an oxidation product of H₂S. Here we examined the relationship between H₂S and O₂ in isolated hagfish and lamprey vessels that exhibit profound hypoxic vasoconstriction. In myographic studies, H₂S (Na₂S) dose-dependently constricted dorsal aortas (DA) and efferent branchial arteries (EBA) but did not affect ventral aortas or afferent branchial arteries; effects similar to those produced by hypoxia. Sensitivity of H₂S-mediated contraction in hagfish and lamprey DA was enhanced by hypoxia. HVC in hagfish DA was enhanced by the H₂S precursor cysteine and inhibited by amino-oxyacetate, an inhibitor of the H₂S-synthesizing enzyme, cystathionine β-synthase. HVC was unaffected by propargyl glycine, an inhibitor of cystathionine λ-lyase. Oxygen consumption (ṀO₂) of hagfish DA was constant between 15 and 115 mmHg P_O2 (1 mmHg=0.133 kPa), decreased when P_O2 <15 mmHg, and increased after P_O2 exceeded 115 mmHg. 10 μmol l^–1 H₂S increased and ⩾100μ mol l^–1 H₂S decreased ṀO₂. Consistent with the effects on HVC, cysteine increased and amino-oxyacetate decreased Ṁ_O2. These results show that H₂S is a monophasic vasoconstrictor of specific cyclostome vessels and because hagfish lack vascular NO, and vascular sensitivity to H₂S was enhanced at low P_O2, it is unlikely that H₂S contractions are mediated by either H₂S–NO interaction or an oxidation product of H₂S. These experiments also provide additional support for the hypothesis that the metabolism of H₂S is involved in oxygen sensing/signal transduction in vertebrate vascular smooth muscle.

A new hybrid method for Bayesian network learning With dependency constraints

A Bayes net has qualitative and quantitative aspects: The qualitative aspect is its graphical structure that corresponds to correlations among the variables in the Bayes net. The quantitative aspects are the net parameters. This paper develops a hybrid criterion for learning Bayes net structures that is based on both aspects. We combine model selection criteria measuring data fit with correlation information from statistical tests: Given a sample d, search for a structure G that maximizes score(G, d), over the set of structures G that satisfy the dependencies detected in d. We rely on the statistical test only to accept conditional dependencies, not conditional independencies. We show how to adapt local search algorithms to accommodate the observed dependencies. Simulation studies with GES search and the BDeu/BIC scores provide evidence that the additional dependency information leads to Bayes nets that better fit the target model in distribution and structure.

On anomalous depth-dependency of the hardness of NiTi shape memory alloys in spherical nanoindentation

An experimental study on the indentation hardness of NiTi shape memory alloys (SMAs) by using a spherical indenter tip and a finite element investigation to understand the experimental results are presented in this paper. It is shown that the spherical indentation hardness of NiTi SMAs increases with the indentation depth. The finding is contrary to the recent study on the hardness of NiTi SMAs using a sharp Berkovich indenter tip, where the interfacial energy plays a dominant role at small indentation depths. Our numerical investigation indicates that the influence of the interfacial energy is not significant on the spherical indentation hardness of SMAs. Furthermore, the depth dependency of SMA hardness under a spherical indenter is explained by the elastic spherical contact theory incorporating the deformation effect of phase transformation of SMAs. Hertz theory for purely elastic contact shows that the spherical hardness increases with the square root of the indentation depth. The phase transformation beneath the spherical tip weakens the depth effect of a purely elastic spherical hardness. This study enriches our knowledge on the basic concept of hardness for SMAs under spherical indentation at micro- and nanoscales.

Time - Dependency of chloride diffusion in concrete: a brief review and preliminary results

Abstract
Chloride ingress into concrete has long been known to decrease the service life of built infrastructure. Inadequate knowledge of the physical reasons associated with chloride diffusion into concrete could generate chloride penetration profiles that become meaningless for prediction of service life. In this study, the effects of pore closure (physical effect) and changes in chloride binding (chemical effect) on chloride diffusion through Australian General Purpose (GP) cement pastes were investigated. Through - diffusion tests and “in - and - out” diffusion tests were conducted to monitor the time - dependent chloride diffusion through cement pastes cured from 1 to 28 days. The through - diffusion test quantified the overall chloride diffusion behaviour at different stages of cement hydration, which was a combined result of physical and chemical processes controlling diffusion. The “in - and - out” test differentiated the contributions of the physical and chemical processes on the chloride diffusion at different stages of cement hydration. As expected, the reduction of chloride diffusivity was significant during the first two weeks of curing, most likely attributed to the significant reduction of porosity as well as establishment of capillary discontinuities within the pore structure. It was also observed that the amount of bound chloride was not constant but increased significantly from 1 to 28 days of curing age.

From the national-bourgeois to the associated dependency interpretation of latin America

Nos anos 1960 e 1970 a América Latina foi palco de golpes militares modernizadores e da transição de seus intelectuais do nacionalismo para a dependência associada. Nos anos 1950 dois grupos de intelectuais públicos, organizados entre a Cepal, em Santiago, Chile, e o ISEB, no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, abriram caminho para o pensamento das sociedades e economias latino-americanas (inclusive do Brasil) a partir de uma visão nacionalista. A Cepal criticava principalmente a lei das vantagens comparativas e suas essenciais implicações imperialistas; o ISEB se focava na definição política de uma estratégia nacional-desenvolvimentista. A idéia de uma burguesia nacional era a resposta para esta interpretação da América Latina. A Revolução Cubana, a crise econômica dos anos 1960 e os golpes militares nos países do Cone Sul, entretanto, criaram espaço para a crítica a essas idéias com uma nova interpretação: a da dependência. Ao rejeitar totalmente a possibilidade de uma burguesia nacional, duas versões da interpretação da dependência (a interpretação “associada” e a “superexploração”) também rejeitaram a possibilidade de uma estratégia nacional-desenvolvimentista. Apenas uma terceira interpretação, a “nacional-dependente” continuava a afirmar a necessidade e a possibilidade de uma burguesia nacional e de uma estratégia nacional. Entretanto, foi a interpretação da dependência associada que foi dominante na América Latina nos anos 1970 e 1980.

Space dependency of chemical attributes in an area with sugarcane plantation in Pereira Barreto, SP

The behavior of the chemical attributes is directly influenced by superficial flow and water movement inside the soil. This work aimed to study the space dependency of chemical attributes in an area with sugarcane plantation in Pereira Barreto, SP. An area of 530.67 hectares was mapped using an equipment of Global Positioning System and obtaining a Digital Elevation Model. A set of 134 soil samples were collected every seven hectares in the depths of 0-0.25 m and 0.80-1.00 m. The pH, organic matter (OM), Ca, Mg, K, BS, CEC and base saturation (BS) were analyzed. All the chemical attributes presented similar behavior in the superficial and subsuperficial layer of the soil, which provided better visualization and definition of the homogeneous tillage zones.