“
“During an international double-blind trial evaluating the
efficacy and tolerability of lamotrigine and carbamazepine in patients aged >= 65 with newly diagnosed epilepsy, the comparative effects of the drugs on health-related quality of life were investigated based on screening and 12-, 28-, and 40-week data, using the modified Side Effect and Life Satisfaction (SEALS) Inventory and the Liverpool Adverse Event Profile. Of 167 patients, 29 discontinued before first follow-up, and data were incomplete for 13. In 125 eligible subjects (62 taking carbamazepine, 63 taking lamotrigine), comparable baseline data did not change significantly during medication, within or across treatments. A borderline difference in the SEALS Dysphoria subscores favored lamotrigine. No difference between selleck inhibitor completers and noncompleters Cell Cycle inhibitor was identified. Twelve-week data for noncompleters were comparable across treatments. Changes in the inventories up to 40 weeks correlated moderately. Neither lamotrigine nor carbamazepine seems likely to cause significant changes in health-related quality of life measures after 40 weeks at therapeutic doses. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.”
“Competition between ordering and disordering processes during growth of granular Si3N4/[Au(t)/Si3N4](n) thin films by vapor deposition
is tracked in a simple, unconventional and nondestructive way by probing the infrared response of the dielectric matrix. Si3N4 crystallization occurs as a consequence of the presence of Au nanostructures. The average Si3N4 crystalline order is improved upon increasing the thickness t(Au) of deposited Au per bilayer. On the contrary, crystalline order is destroyed when the number n of bilayers overcomes a threshold value that varies with t. Additional information provided by conventional measurements (x-ray diffraction, check details visible absorption spectroscopy) and by transmission electron microscopy observations suggests that the Si3N4 atomic ordering results from seed-induced crystallization on
the Au (111) planes. Disordering is tentatively attributed to roughness accumulation upon stacking, whose magnitude is ruled by the roughness of the first deposited Au granular layer. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3520676]“
“Background and aims: To investigate the prevalence of high cardiovascular risk in the Spanish working population, and its distribution among different occupations and gender.
Methods and results: Cross-sectional study of 309,955 workers (72.6% males, mean age 36.5 years, range 16-74 years), who underwent a routine medical check-up. Workers were classified as high, intermediate or low cardiovascular risk, according to the SCORE system. Workers with a relative risk greater than 4 were also considered as high-risk. The prevalence of high cardiovascular risk was 7.6% (95% CI 7.5-7.7) in males and 1.7% (95% CI 1.6-1.8) in females.