Levantamento dos principais adulterantes encontrados em amostras de cocaína: uma revisão de escopo.

TCC(graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro de Ciências da Saúde. Farmácia.A cocaína (COC) é uma droga ilícita estimulante do sistema nervoso central (SNC) e atualmente se encontra na segunda posição entre as drogas mais consumidas mundialmente. Frequentemente ocorre sua adulteração com componentes farmacologicamente ativos, ao qual compreendem uma grande diversidade presente no mercado. Esses adulterantes são utilizados principalmente com a finalidade de conferir alguma propriedade à droga. O objetivo desse trabalho foi realizar um levantamento dos principais adulterantes encontrados nas amostras de COC através de uma revisão de escopo. Esta revisão seguiu o referencial metodológico proposto por Arksey e O’Malley. As bases de dados selecionadas para realizar a busca foram: PubMed, BVS, Scopus, Scielo e Web of Science, onde foram incluídos artigos redigidos nos idiomas inglês, português, espanhol e publicados até junho de 2019. Realizada a busca, organização dos artigos e levantamento dos adulterantes descritos na literatura, constatou-se que a lidocaína, cafeína, fenacetina, levamisol, benzocaína, procaína, diltiazem, hidroxizina, aminopirina, paracetamol e tetracaína foram os principais adulterantes utilizados nas amostras de COC. Foram abordadas as propriedades farmacológicas desses adulterantes, seu uso para fins terapêuticos, mecanismo de ação, efeitos adversos e tóxicos. Elencados as principais justificativas para a utilização dessas substâncias nas amostras de COC, e também as possíveis consequências geradas ao organismo quando se utiliza os adulterantes em associação a COC. As principais propriedades farmacológicas dos adulterantes incluíram anestésicos locais, analgésicos e antipiréticos, estimulante, anti-helmíntico, anti-histamínico, antiarrítmico, adicionados principalmente com o objetivo de potencializar ou mimetizar os efeitos da COC. Como consequência as associações da COC com esses adulterantes destaca-se, aumentar os efeitos tóxicos no organismo devido ao sinergismo causado pela combinação. Concluiu-se que a prática da adulteração da COC pode trazer riscos graves a saúde do usuário, assim como influenciar nos testes utilizados na identificação da droga. Ter o conhecimento dos componentes utilizados para adulterar a COC demonstra-se importante, pois traz o alerta para a inteligência forense e os impactos que podem gerar na área da saúde.Cocaine (COC) is an illicit central nervous system stimulating drug (CNS) and is currently in second position among the most consumed drugs worldwide. Adulteration often occurs with pharmacologically active components, which comprise a wide diversity present in the market. These adulterants are mainly used with the purpose of imparting some property to the drug. The purpose of this research is to do a survey about the main adulterants found in COC samples through a scope review. This review followed the methodological framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley. The databases selected to perform the search were: PubMed, VHL, Scopus, Scielo and Web of Science, which included articles written in english, portuguese, spanish and published until june 2019. After researching, organizing articles and surveying the adulterants described in the literature, it was found that lidocaine, caffeine, phenacetin, levamisole, benzocaine, procaine, diltiazem, hydroxyzine, aminopyrine, paracetamol and tetracaine were the main adulterants used in the COC samples. The other adulterants found were not deeply studied, considering they were mentioned only in a few articles. Then, the pharmacological properties of these adulterants, their use for therapeutic purposes, mechanism of action, adverse and toxic effects were addressed. Then there were listed the main justifications for the use of these substances in COC samples, and also the possible consequences for the organism when using the adulterants in combination with COC. The main pharmacological properties of adulterants included local anesthetics, analgesics and antipyretics, stimulant, anthelmintic, antihistamine, antiarrhythmic, added mainly to potentiate or mimic the effects of COC. As a consequence the associations of COC with these adulterants stand out, increasing the toxic effects on the organism due to the synergism caused by the combination. It was concluded that the practice of cocaine tampering can bring serious risks to the user's health, as well as influence the tests used to identify the drug. Having the knowledge of the components used to tamper cocaine is important, as it brings alert to forensic intelligence and the impacts that can generate on health area

A consistent picture?

In times of declining party identification, political parties need to persuade and mobilize their voters from election to election. Setting topics in such a way that voters are convinced to cast their vote has become an essential prerequisite for success in modern election campaigns. Social media are suitable for this, as parties can set their own topics or highlight the topics most important to the voters and communicate them to a large audience in organic posts or target specific voter groups with ads. While tendencies of issue ownership in posts on Facebook are repeatedly shown empirically, there is a lack of studies investigating which strategies parties follow in their investment decisions on Facebook ads. Based on theoretical expectations derived from the literature about digital political marketing and issue prioritization in election campaigns, this article investigates whether parties communicated consistently on Facebook with regard to the issues they set in organic posts, sponsored posts, and ads during the 2021 German federal election campaign. The results of a manual quantitative content analysis (n = 1,029 posts, n = 1,197 sponsored posts, n = 2,643 ads) show that parties focused on issue ownership in their posts. Still, their investments in sponsored posts and ads followed different strategies. Here, most parties highlighted social policy, contradicting issue ownership for some parties. The article provides novel insights into digital campaigning and discusses the extent to which parties can engage audiences beyond their organic reach within party-affiliated audiences

Missed opportunity to connect with European citizens? Europarties’ communication on Facebook during the 2019 European election campaign

The digitization of political communication and major transformations in the European Union (EU) have altered the conditions for European election campaigns. Whereas national political parties remain highly visible political actors in the EU, Europarties attract relatively little attention from the media and citizens. Social media could provide Europarties with an opportunity to raise awareness among European citizens. In our study, we investigated the social media campaign strategies of Europarties by conducting a manual quantitative content analysis comparing their Facebook posts with the posts of national parties from 12 European countries, focusing on the communication elements used to inform and mobilize citizens, especially in relation to the lead candidates. Our results revealed that some Europarties employed the concept of European lead candidates by emphasizing their candidates in their Facebook posts. However, in their relative inactivity on Facebook compared with national parties, Europarties did not seem to counteract the oft-cited lack of a European public sphere

The behavioral and immunological impact of maternal separation: a matter of timing

Maternal separation (MS), an early life stressful event, has been demonstrated to trigger neuropsychiatric disorders later in life, in particular depression. Experiments using rodents subjected to MS protocols have been very informative for the establishment of this association. However, the mechanism by which MS leads to neuropsychiatric disorders is far from being understood. This is probably associated with the multifactorial nature of depression but also with the fact that different research MS protocols have been used (that vary on temporal windows and time of exposure to MS). In the present study, MS was induced in rats in two developmental periods: for 6h per day for 14 days between postnatal days 2-15 (MS2-15) and 7-20 (MS7-20). These two periods were defined to differ essentially on the almost complete (MS2-15) or partial (MS7-20) overlap with the stress hypo-responsive period. Behavioral, immunological, and endocrine parameters, frequently associated with depressive-like behavior, were analyzed in adulthood. Irrespectively from the temporal window, both MS exposure periods led to increased sera corticosterone levels. However, only MS2-15 animals displayed depressive and anxious-like behaviors. Moreover, MS2-15 was also the only group presenting alterations in the immune system, displaying decreased percentage of CD8(+) T cells, increased spleen T cell CD4/CD8 ratio, and thymocytes with increased resistance to dexamethasone-induced cell death. A linear regression model performed to predict depressive-like behavior showed that both corticosterone levels and T cell CD4/CD8 ratio explained 37% of the variance observed in depressive-like behavior. Overall, these findings highlight the existence of "critical periods" for early life stressful events to exert programing effects on both central and peripheral systems, which are of relevance for distinct patterns of susceptibility to emotional disorders later in life.We acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for providing a fellowship to S. Roque (SFRH/BPD/72710/2010). This work was also supported by FCT grants (co-financed by COMPETE funds) PTDC/SAU-NEU/105180/2008 and PTDC/PSI-PCO/116612/2010 and co-financed by the Portuguese North Regional Operational Program (ON.2 - O Novo Norte) under the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN), through the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER)

Inkonsistent einseitig : Die Medienberichterstattung über Geflüchtete 2015–2020

Die Medienberichterstattung über Geflüchtete wird von einem großen Teil der deutschen Bevölkerung als einseitig wahrgenommen. Inhaltsanalysen zeigen allerdings sehr unterschiedliche Befunde: Während einige Studien eine einseitig positive Berichterstattung konstatieren, kommen andere zu dem Ergebnis, die Berichterstattung sei einseitig negativ. Dabei handelt es sich jedoch meist um Querschnittstudien im Zusammenhang mit besonders spektakulären Ereignissen von unterschiedlicher Valenz. Zudem werden oft nur wenige Medien und wenige Indikatoren für Einseitigkeit betrachtet. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht deshalb erstmals die Berichterstattung von sechs deutschen Leitmedien über Geflüchtete in einem Zeitraum von fast sechs Jahren (Mai 2015 bis Dezember 2020) anhand verschiedener Indikatoren für Einseitigkeit. Eine manuelle Inhaltsanalyse von 8185 Medienbeiträgen zeigt, dass insgesamt zwei konfligierende Narrative die Berichterstattung dominierten: Geflüchtete wurden als Menschen in Not charakterisiert, die aus humanitären Gründen aufgenommen werden müssen, und gleichzeitig als Sicherheitsrisiko für die deutsche Bevölkerung beschrieben. Im Zeitverlauf zeigten sich ereignisabhängig erhebliche Schwankungen in Menge und Tendenz der Berichterstattung. Zugleich war aber auch ein Trend zu weniger und negativerer Berichterstattung erkennbar. Ursachen und vermutliche Folgen dieser Berichterstattungsmuster werden im Beitrag diskutiert

Laser modulator for SSMB used as a diagnostic tool

At the Metrology Light Source in Berlin, the concept of Steady state microbunching SSMB is evaluated in a proof of principle PoP experiment. SSMB has been proposed to deliver kilowatt level average power EUV radiation from an electron storage ring. In the PoP experiment, an energy modulation is impressed onto the electron beam using an infrared laser pulse co propagating inside an undulator. We show that the beam energy can be measured absolutely by detuning the undulator gap from optimum resonance and observing the intensity of the resulting coherent synchrotron radiatio

Keep Them Engaged! Investigating the Effects of Self-centered Social Media Communication Style on User Engagement in 12 European Countries

On Facebook, patterns of user engagement largely shape what types of political contents citizens can see on the platform. Higher engagement leads to higher visibility. Therefore, one of the major goals of political actors' Facebook communication is to produce content with the potential to provoke user engagement, and thereby increase their own visibility. This study introduces the concept of self-centered social media communication style which focuses on 'salient' and 'owned' issues with populist and negative appeals and investigates how user engagement is related to its main elements. We also explore how users' receptivity to these content-related factors is shaped by country context. More specifically, we hypothesize that users are more likely to react, comment on and share posts focusing on salient topics or issues 'owned' by parties rather than more permanent policy issues, and posts including populist appeals and negativity. Further, we test how these effects are moderated by geographical regions and the level of party system polarization. We manually coded 9,703 Facebook posts of 68 parties from 12 European countries in the context of the 2019 European elections. Our findings show that users are more likely to engage with immigration-related, domestic, populist and negative posts, but react less to posts dealing with environmental or economic issues. While issue ownership does not play a significant role for user engagement, country context plays a minor role. However, some populist appeals are more effective in more polarized countries

Divisive, Negative, and Populist?! An Empirical Analysis of European Populist and Mainstream Parties’ Use of Digital Political Advertisements

For digital political advertising (DPA) on Facebook, parties can complement their organic communication by targeting users with sponsored posts (Facebook-sponsored posts) and advertising campaigns (Facebook ads). Based on the theoretical framework of dissonant public spheres in the digital age, this article provides the first empirical analysis of how and with what content populist and mainstream parties use DPA on Facebook for divisive, negative, and populist messages. We analyze a data set of approximately 10,000 Facebook organic posts, sponsored posts, and ads published by 53 parties across 10 European countries during the 2019 European parliamentary election. Our findings reveal that populist and mainstream parties do not sponsor more posts or spend more money on ads containing divisive topics, negativity, and populist communication styles. Our article extends the debate on digital public spheres by incorporating parties’ use of division, negativity, and populism in DPA, thus offering a better understanding of their implications for shaping dissonant public spheres