Background: Little is known about how nursing staff view their participation in clinical research, especially within neonatal care. It has been suggested that nurses are generally supportive of research, although participation may be influenced by time pressures, care of their patient, and limited experience of research. We designed a qualitative study to explore these influences.

Alloxan has been widely used to produce experimental diabetes mellitus syndrome. This compound causes necrosis of pancreatic 脦脦-cells and, as is well known, induces oxidant free radicals which play a relevant role in the etiology and pathogenesis of both experimental and human diabetes mellitus. Previously we have reported hypoglycemic and antilipoperoxidative actions of silymarin in serum and pancreatic tissue respectively. The aim of this study was to test whether silymarin could reduce the hyperglycemia and revert the pancreatic damage in alloxan treated rats, tested with silymarin in two protocols: using both compounds simultaneously for four or eight doses, or using the compound 20 days after alloxan administration for 9 weeks. Serum glucose and insulin were determined, and pancreatic fragments were used for histology and insulin immunohistochemistry. Pancreatic islets were isolated to assess insulin and Pdx1 mRNA expression by RT-PCR.

Aluminum nitride is grown on an alumina substrate by several sequential exposures to trimethyl aluminum and ammonia. Broad similarities are evident between the chemistry in this case and that found for the reaction between trimethylaluminum and water except that temperatures of in excess of 500 K are required to form AlN layers whereas alumina is formed at room temperature. It is found, using infrared spectroscopy to examine the surface species formed during repeated sequential adsorption of trimethylaluminum and ammonia, that trimethylaluminum initially reacts to form an adsorbed dimethylaluminum species. This reacts with ammonia to initially form a Lewis acid-base adduct which subsequently reacts to form bridging and terminal NH2 species. The first methyl group in the adsorbed species is found to be more reactive than the second, an effect that was also noted for reactions with water. The ultimate formation of AlN films by several sequential exposures to trimethylaluminum and ammonia is confirmed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and gravimetrically by weighing the samples after several trimethylaluminum and ammonia exposure cycles.

In this paper the placement of base station within a cellular network is addressed as an optimization problem. A genetic algorithm is used as the optimization tool. This optimization issue is particularly important and critical in the multi-service environment commonly found in new generation cellular communications systems. Particularly, the goal of the algorithm presented in this work is to minimize the interference between base stations. It is shown that, by using the so proposed weighted objective function, it is possible to specify the base station locations, the cell coverage in terms of traffic and area, as well as the overlap levels between base stations. The weighted objective function is based on a preliminary analysis of the load factor for the base stations involved. The proposed algorithm is verified by means of a simulation scenario that considers a non-uniform distribution of users with different types of service. The presented results show an adequate tradeoff between the total traffic serviced and overlap level that allows transfers and minimizes the interference levels. Thus, our algorithm provides a useful tool for finding a near optimal solution for base station placement and efficiently determines number of base stations required in a cell planning procedure.

Background: Pharmacokinetic (PK) studies are difficult to conduct in neonates, due to the repeated need for blood sampling. A PK study of caffeine was undertaken using dried blood spots (DBS) taken opportunistically during other blood tests. We designed a qualitative study to investigate the acceptability of this novel technique to parents and nurses on the neonatal unit.

Amyloid formation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is driven by hydrophobic interactions and dependent on conformational changes in the amyloid-β (Aβ) molecule. The basic unit for fibrillogenesis appears to be the Aβ conformer adopting an antiparallel β-sheet composed of strands involving the regions 10-24 and 29-40/42 of the peptide. Amyloid formation proceeds by intermolecular interactions between the β-strands of several monomers to form an oligomeric β-sheet structure precursor of the fibrillar β-cross conformation. In this study we designed inhibitors of the fibrillogenesis process based on knowledge of the structural determinants for amyloid formation.

Amyloid formation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is driven by hydrophobic interactions and dependent on conformational changes in the amyloid-β (Aβ) molecule. The basic unit for fibrillogenesis appears to be the Aβ conformer adopting an antiparallel β-sheet composed of strands involving the regions 10-24 and 29-40/42 of the peptide. Amyloid formation proceeds by intermolecular interactions between the β-strands of several monomers to form an oligomeric β-sheet structure precursor of the fibrillar β-cross conformation. In this study we designed inhibitors of the fibrillogenesis process based on knowledge of the structural determinants for amyloid formation.