The Results of Treatment with Streptomycin Plus Pyrazinamide in Patients with Active Pulmonary Tuberculosis Despite Prolonged Treatment with Isoniazid Plus PAS

This report presents the findings during a year or more of observation of 20 South Indian patients who, after an initial course of isoniazid plus PAS, were treated with streptomycin plus pyrazinamide for active pulmonary tuberculosis. The combination of streptomycin plus pyrazinamide was chosen, first, because of its likely therapeutic effectiveness, since all the patients had streptomycin-sensitive strains of bacilli, secondly, because it presented an opportunity to study supervised drug administration in domiciliary patients in a community in which the selfadministration of antituberculosis drugs could not be depended on (Fox, 1958 ; Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, 1959, 1960 ; Velu et al., 1960). The patients were either unsuitable for or unwilling to undergo surgery

A reason for unreason: Returns-based beliefs in game theory

Players cooperate in experiments more than game theory would predict. In order to explain this, we introduce the 'returns-based beliefs' approach: the expected returns of a particular strategy in proportion to the total expected returns of all strategies. Using a decision analytic solution concept, Luce's (1959) probabilistic choice model, and 'hyperpriors' for ambiguity in players' cooperability, our approach explains empirical observations in classic games such as the Prisoner's Dilemma. Testing the closeness of fit of our model on Selten and Chmura (2008) data for completely mixed 2x2 games shows that with loss aversion, returns-based beliefs explain the data better than other equilibrium concepts

Effect of visual feedback on the occipital-parietal-motor network in Parkinson's disease with freezing of gait.

Freezing of gait (FOG) is an elusive phenomenon that debilitates a large number of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients regardless of stage of disease, medication status, or deep brain stimulation implantation. Sensory feedback cues, especially visual feedback cues, have been shown to alleviate FOG episodes or even prevent episodes from occurring. Here, we examine cortical information flow between occipital, parietal, and motor areas during the pre-movement stage of gait in a PD-with-FOG patient that had a strong positive behavioral response to visual cues, one PD-with-FOG patient without any behavioral response to visual cues, and age-matched healthy controls, before and after training with visual feedback. Results for this case study show differences in cortical information flow between the responding PD-with-FOG patient and the other two subject types, notably, an increased information flow in the beta range. Tentatively suggesting the formation of an alternative cortical sensory-motor pathway during training with visual feedback, these results are proposed as subject for further verification employing larger cohorts of patients

Rate of Inactivation of Isoniazid in South Indian Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis 2. Clinical Implications in the Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis with Isoniazid either Alone or in Combination with PAS

A series of studies on the rate of inactivation of isoniazid in Indian patients with pulmonary tuberculosis undergoing domiciliary chemotherapy with isoniazid, alone or in combination with p-aminosalicylic acid, has recently been undertaken by the Tuberculosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras. In the first study, the serum isoniazid levels of the patients were determined four-and-a-half hours after intramuscular administration of a standard dose of 3 mg/kg body-weight of isoniazid and, according to whether the serum level was 0.58 μg/ml or above, or less than 0.58 μg/ml, the patient was classified as a slow or as a rapid inactivator. The present paper describes the second of these studies, in which the response to treatment of the slow and the rapid inactivators was compared. The results of this investigation suggested that there might be an association between response to treatment and rate of inactivation of isoniazid, since the slow inactivators were more often culturenegative during treatment and showed a higher proportion of individuals with bacteriologically quiescent disease at I2 months and a lower proportion with radiographic deterioration at six months than the rapid inactivators, while the slow inactivators who deteriorated radiographically or clinically to an extent warranting a change of treatment during the two years did so later than the corresponding rapid inactivators. There was slight evidence that the slow and the rapid inactivators differed in the speed of conversion to bacteriological negativity of those patients whose disease was bacteriologically quiescent at 12 months, but no evidence that they differed in the degree of positivity of sputum specimens that were positive on culture at six, nine or 12 months, or in the frequency with which the patients showed moderate or greater radiographic improvement at six months

A double-blind study to determine the maximum tolerated dose of ethionamide, when administered twice-weekly to patients with pulmonary tuberculosis

ATI earlier report from this Centre (Tuber-culosis Chemotherapy Centre, Madras, 1964) showed that a fully supervised twice-weekly regimen of streptomycin plus high-dosage isoniazid was highly effective in the treatment of patients with newly-diagnosed bacteriologi-cally confirmed pulmonary tuberculosis. How-ever, this regimen involves intramuscular injections of streptomycin and may not always be easy to organize, especially in rural areas and in developing countries with limited resources. For this reason, it was decided to investigate the possibility of replacing strepto-mycin in the twice-weekly regimen by two oral drugs, namely ethionamide and PAS. Ethiona-mide was chosen since, apart from isoniazid and streptomycin, it was the most potent drug available at the time, and PAS was included with a view to enhance the efficacy of the regimen. Finally, it was decided that the patients should be given an intensive phase of daily treatment with streptomycin, PAS and isoniazid for two weeks. Experiments in the guinea-pig had shown that the size of the individual dose of a drug needed to be increased as the interval between successive doses was increased (Dickinson & Mitchison, 1966). As PAS is bulky and the dosage of isoniazid in the twice-weekly regimen was already high, namely 15 mg./kg. body-weight, it was decided to explore the possibility of increasing the dosage of ethionamide to a level higher than that usually employed (0.5— 1.0 g.) in daily regimens. An investigation was therefore undertaken to determine the maximum tolerated dose of ethionamide. when administered twice-weekly together with isonia-zid plus PAS. Since the assessment of ethio-namide intolerance is largely subjective, the study was conducted ‘double-blind’ with respect to the dosage of ethionamide

Specific Heat of Liquid Helium in Zero Gravity very near the Lambda Point

We report the details and revised analysis of an experiment to measure the specific heat of helium with subnanokelvin temperature resolution near the lambda point. The measurements were made at the vapor pressure spanning the region from 22 mK below the superfluid transition to 4 uK above. The experiment was performed in earth orbit to reduce the rounding of the transition caused by gravitationally induced pressure gradients on earth. Specific heat measurements were made deep in the asymptotic region to within 2 nK of the transition. No evidence of rounding was found to this resolution. The optimum value of the critical exponent describing the specific heat singularity was found to be a = -0.0127+ - 0.0003. This is bracketed by two recent estimates based on renormalization group techniques, but is slightly outside the range of the error of the most recent result. The ratio of the coefficients of the leading order singularity on the two sides of the transition is A+/A- =1.053+ - 0.002, which agrees well with a recent estimate. By combining the specific heat and superfluid density exponents a test of the Josephson scaling relation can be made. Excellent agreement is found based on high precision measurements of the superfluid density made elsewhere. These results represent the most precise tests of theoretical predictions for critical phenomena to date.Comment: 27 Pages, 20 Figure

Unraveling the performance of dispersion-corrected functionals for the accurate description of weakly bound natural polyphenols

Long-range non-covalent interactions play a key role in the chemistry of natural polyphenols. We have previously proposed a description of supramolecular polyphenol complexes by the B3P86 density functional coupled with some corrections for dispersion. We couple here the B3P86 functional with the D3 correction for dispersion, assessing systematically the accuracy of the new B3P86-D3 model using for that the well-known S66, HB23, NCCE31, and S12L datasets for non-covalent interactions. Furthermore, the association energies of these complexes were carefully compared to those obtained by other dispersion-corrected functionals, such as B(3)LYP-D3, BP86-D3 or B3P86-NL. Finally, this set of models were also applied to a database composed of seven non-covalent polyphenol complexes of the most interest.FDM acknowledges financial support from the Swedish Research Council (Grant No. 621-2014-4646) and SNIC (Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing) for providing computer resources. The work in Limoges (IB and PT) is supported by the “Conseil Régional du Limousin”. PT gratefully acknowledges the support by the Operational Program Research and Development Fund (project CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0058 of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic). IB gratefully acknowledges financial support from “Association Djerbienne en France”

Iron bioavailability in two commercial cultivars of wheat: a comparison between wholegrain and white flour and the effects of nicotianamine and 2'-deoxymugineic acid on iron uptake into Caco-2 cells

Iron bioavailability in unleavened white and wholegrain bread made from two commercial wheat varieties was assessed by measuring ferritin production in Caco-2 cells. The breads were subjected to simulated gastrointestinal digestion and the digests applied to the Caco-2 cells. Although Riband grain contained a lower iron concentration than Rialto, iron bioavailability was higher. No iron was taken up by the cells from white bread made from Rialto flour or from wholegrain bread from either variety, but Riband white bread produced a small ferritin response. The results probably relate to differences in phytate content of the breads, although iron in soluble monoferric phytate was demonstrated to be bioavailable in the cell model. Nicotianamine, an iron chelator in plants involved in iron transport, was a more potent enhancer of iron uptake into Caco-2 cells than ascorbic acid or 2'-deoxymugineic acid, another metal chelator present in plants

Probabilistic Choice Models

We examine a number of probabilistic choice models in which people might form their beliefs to play their strategies in a game theoretic setting in order to propose alternative equilibrium concepts to the Nash equilibrium. In particular, we evaluate the Blavatskyy model, Returns Based Beliefs (RBB) model, Quantal Response Equilibrium (QRE) model, Boundedly Rational Nash Equilibrium (BRNE) model and the Utility Proportional Beliefs (UPB) model. We outline the foundational axioms for these models and fully explicate them in terms of probabilistic actions, probabilistic beliefs and their epistemic characterizations. We test the model predictions using empirical data and show which models perform better under which conditions. We also extend the Blavatskyy model which was developed to consider games with two actions to cases where there are three or more actions. We provide a nuanced understanding of how different types of probabilistic choice models might predict better than others

Antigenic determinants on chicken riboflavin carrier protein. A study with monoclonal antibodies

Monoclonal antibodies raised against chicken egg white riboflavin carrier protein were classified into seven categories each recognizing a distinct epitope. Of these, six were directed against conformation dependent epitopes and one to a sequential epitope. The roles of lysine residues and the post-translationally attached phosphate and oligosaccharide moieties in the antigenicity of riboflavin carrier protein recognized by the monoclonal antibodies were investigated. The binding region of three monoclonal antibodies could be located within the 87-219 amino acid sequence of the protein and one antibody among these recognized a sequence of 182-204 amino acid residues. All the monoclonal antibodies were able to recognize riboflavin carrier proteins present in the sera of pregnant rats, cows and humans indicating that the epitopes to which they are directed are conserved through evolution from chicken to the human