Focus: Addiction: Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery

There are four main ideas in relapse prevention. First, relapse is a gradual process with distinct stages. The goal of treatment is to help individuals recognize the early stages, in which the chances of success are greatest. Second, recovery is a process of personal growth with developmental milestones. Each stage of recovery has its own risks of relapse. Third, the main tools of relapse prevention are cognitive therapy and mind-body relaxation, which are used to develop healthy coping skills. Fourth, most relapses can be explained in terms of a few basic rules. Educating clients in these rules can help them focus on what is important: 1) change your life (recovery involves creating a new life where it is easier to not use); 2) be completely honest; 3) ask for help; 4) practice self-care; and 5) don’t bend the rules.     

Effect of microwave treatment on the shear bond strength of different types of commercial teeth to acrylic resin

doi:10.1111/j.1741‐2358.2009.00333.x
Effect of microwave treatment on the shear bond strength of different types of commercial teeth to acrylic resin Objective: The purpose of this study was to verify the effect of microwave treatment on the shear bond strength of commercial types of teeth to acrylic resin, when the glossy ridge laps were unmodified (groups 1 and 5), bur abraded (groups 2 and 6), bur grooved (groups 3 and 7) or etched by monomer (groups 4 and 8). Background: Controversial findings have shown that mechanical or chemical changes in ridge‐lap surface of the tooth increase or decrease the bond strength between tooth and acrylic resin, and the microwave disinfection may cause different changes on this bond strength. Materials and methods: Eighty specimens (n = 10) were made with the acrylic resin bonded to tooth glossy ridge lap, polymerised in water at 74°C for 9 h, and deflasked after flask cooling. Specimens of the groups 5, 6, 7 and 8 were individually immersed in 150 ml of water and submitted to microwave treatment in an oven at 650 W for 3 min. Control specimens (groups 1, 2, 3 and 4) were not microwave treated. Shear bond strength test was performed in an Instron machine with a cross‐speed of 1 mm/min. Collected data were submitted to anova and Tukey’s test (α = 0.05). Results: Microwave treatment decreased the shear bond strength values of the tooth/resin bond. In the microwaved and non‐microwaved procedures, mechanical retention improved the shear bond strength when compared with the control and monomer treatments. Conclusion: Shear bond strength of the tooth/resin bond was influenced by the microwave treatment and different commercial teeth association, and was lower for the Biotone tooth.     

A particulate DNA polymerase activity in adult rat brain

A particulate fraction of adult rat brain (sucrose buoyant density 1.24 gm/ml) catalyzed the incorporation of [³H]dTTP into an acid-insoluble product in an endogenously templated reaction sensitive to ribonuclease pretreatment. Upon fractionation, this activity was identified in the cerebellum, pons, frontal lobes and base. The DNA polymerase present in these brain fractions exhibited a strong preference for the synthetic template dT_12–18·poly rA rather than dT_12–18·poly dA; dT₁₀ was completely inactive. Purification and equilibrium Cs₂SO₄ gradient centrifugation of the [³H]DNA product-endogenous template complex suggested that RNA was serving as primer for endogenous DNA synthesis.     

CHARACTER DISCRIMINATORY POWER,CHARACTER-SET CONGRUENCE,AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF INDIVIDUALS FROM HYBRID ZONES: AN EXAMPLE USING STONE CRABS (MENIPPE)

Many investigators categorize individuals from hybrid zones to facilitate comparisons among genotypic classes (e.g., parental, F₁, backcross) for comparative studies in which components of fitness or geographic variation are being analyzed. Frequently, multiple character sets representing genetically independent traits are used to classify these individuals and various methodologies are employed to combine the classifications obtained from the different character sets. We adapted the principles of total evidence and taxonomic congruence (two formalized approaches used by systematists in formulating phylogenetic hypotheses) to address the problem of discriminating hybridizing species and classifying individuals from hybrid zones. As our model, we used two morphological (coloration and morphometric) and two molecular (allozyme and mitochondrial DNA restriction-fragment-length polymorphism) character sets that differentiate two stone crab species (Menippe adina and M. mercenaria). Using principal-components analysis, we determined that combining character sets and eliminating characters or character sets that did not have large eigenvector coefficients for the principal component that best separated the two species yielded the highest level of discrimination between species and allowed us to classify a broad range of morpho-genotypes as hybrids. For the stone crabs, three diagnostic allozyme loci and five diagnostic coloration characters best separated the species. The two character sets were not completely congruent, but they agreed in their classification of 50% of the individuals from the hybrid zone and rarely strongly disagreed in their classifications. Classification discrepancies between the two character sets probably represent variation between traits in interspecific gene flow rather than intraspecific, ecologically mediated variation. Our results support the assertions of previous investigators who espoused the benefits associated with using multiple character sets to classify individuals from hybrid zones and demonstrate that, if character sets are reasonably congruent and numerically balanced, combining diagnostic characters from multiple character sets (a total-evidence approach) can enhance discriminatory power between species and facilitate the assignment of hybrid-zone individuals to genotypic classes. On the contrary, classifying hybrid-zone individuals using character sets separately (a taxonomic-congruence approach) provides the opportunity to compare levels of introgression between species and to assess reasons for discordance among the data sets.     

A neural network study on the dynamic identification of a fermentation system

The objective of this paper is to propose neural networks for the study of dynamic identification and prediction of a fermentation system which produces mainly 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BDL). The metabolic products of the fermentation, acetic acid, acetoin, ethanol, and 2,3-BDL were measured on-line via a mass spectrometer modified by the insertion of a dimethylvinylsilicone membrane probe. The measured data at different sampling times were included as the input and output nodes, at different learning batches, of the network. A fermentation system is usually nonlinear and dynamic in nature. Measured fermentation data obtained from the complex metabolic pathways are often difficult to be entirely included in a static process model, therefore, a dynamic model was suggested instead. In this work, neural networks were provided by a dynamic learning and prediction process that moved along the time sequence batchwise. In other words, a scheme of two-dimensional moving window (number of input nodes by the number of training data) was proposed for reading in new data while forgetting part of the old data. Proper size of the network including proper number of input/output nodes were determined by trained with the real-time fermentation data. Different number of hidden nodes under the consideration of both learning performance and computation efficiency were tested. The data size for each learning batch was determined. The performance of the learning factors such as the learning coefficient η and the momentum term coefficient α were also discussed. The effect of different dynamic learning intervals, with different starting points and the same ending point, both on the learning and prediction performance were studied. On the other hand, the effect of different dynamic learning intervals, with the same starting point and different ending points, was also investigated. The size of data sampling interval was also discussed. The performance from four different types of transfer functions, x/(1+|x|), sgn(x)·x ²/(1+x ²), 2/(1+e ^{? x} )?1, and 1/(1+e ^{? x} ) was compared. A scaling factor b was added to the transfer function and the effect of this factor on the learning was also evaluated. The prediction results from the time-delayed neural networks were also studied.     

Use of acyclovir in the prevention of herpes infections after allogenic bone marrow grafts

In a double-bind controlled study, oral Acyclovir has been compared to a placebo in a series of 39 consecutive patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation. A dose of 200 mg was given every 6 h from day 8 to day 35 after transplantation. Pharmacokinetic studies have shown the good absorption of the drug despite intestinal damage related to chemoradiotherapy or gut graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), there was no sign of toxicity. The protection against herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection was complete in the treated group when compared to the control group even in patients with high anti-HSV antibody titres. The same protection was observed against cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection. The incidence of HSV and CMV was the same in both groups after treatment ended. This study confirms the efficacy of Acyclovir against HSV infection and possibly against CMV infection when it is given prophylactically after bone marrow transplantation.