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Antipsychotic Drugs and Their Side-Effects
1st Edition
Thomas R.E. Barnes
English
In line with other volumes in the Neuroscience Perspectives Series, this volume covers the background, pharmacology, molecular biology, and biochemistry of antipsychotic drugs, together with an overview assessment of the therapeutic considerations. Over the past 40 years, the effectiveness of conventional neuroleptic agents for psychotic illness has been offset by a wide range of adverse side-effects, including motor side-effects like parkinsonism. Studies show that lowering doses may still produce the antipsychotic effect while lessening the risk of side-effects. As all available antispychotic drugs are able to block dopamine, specifically D2 receptors, doses below the threshold level for producing acute motor disorder can still be therapeutically effective. With the identification and characterization of multiple dopamine receptors, the possibility of more selective drugs with better side-effect potential has arisen. Other novel antipsychotic agents include D1 receptor blockers, partial dopamine agonists and non-dopamine drugs such as 5-HT receptor blockers, sigma receptor antagonists and NMDA receptor agonists. This volume reviews both the basic science of the conventional and atypical neuroleptics and their present and potential therapeutic use.
The Rumen and Its Microbes
1st Edition
Robert E. Hungate
English
The Rumen and Its Microbes is a contribution to the ecology of this important microbial habitat. Relatively few microbial habitats have been subjected to a thorough quantitative ecological analysis. The rumen fermentation is peculiarly suitable because of its relatively constant and continuous nature and because of the very rapid rates of conversion of organic matter. Although analysis of the ruminant-microbe symbiosis is still far from complete, knowledge is sufficient for formulation of principles and for identification and measurement of important parameters. The first eight chapters of the book include a description of the rumen and its microbes, their activities, and the extent of these activities. This basic biology provides a framework in which applications to agriculture can be evaluated. These applications are discussed in the last four chapters: host metabolism, variation in the rumen, possible practical applications, and abnormalities in rumen function.
Optical Characterization of Real Surfaces and Films
Advances in Research and Development
1st Edition
Volume 19
K. Vedam
English
This new volume of the highly respected Physics of Thin Films Serial discusses inhomogeneity in real films and surfaces. The volume, guest-edited by K. Vedam, follows the growth of thin films both from the surface of the substrate, and from the atomic level, layer by layer. The text features coverage of Real-Time Spectroscopic Ellipsometry (RTSE) and Reflectance Anisotropy (RA), two major breakthrough optical techniques used to characterize real time and insitu films and surfaces. In six insightful chapters, the contributors assess the impact of these techniques, their strengths and limitations, and their potential for further development.
Introduction to Clinical Oncology
1st Edition
Stanley T. Crooke + 1 more
English
9780121978020 Cancer and Chemotherapy, Volume II: Introduction to Clinical Oncology provides the basic framework for understanding antineoplastic drugs. The use of chemotherapeutics in the treatment of the most common human malignancies, including leukemias and lymphomas, is discussed. Solid tumors such as those affecting the breast and lung, head and neck, brain and spinal cord are also considered. Comprised of 17 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of leukemias and lymphomas, including their incidence, pathology, and clinical features. The discussion then turns to solid tumors such as breast and lung carcinoma; head and neck cancers; cancer of the brain and spinal cord; gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and gynecological cancers; and malignant melanoma. The next section is devoted to nutritional and infectious disease aspects of cancer and examines infections that arise in the cancer patient, particularly pneumonia and septicemia. The diagnosis of and therapy for these infections are outlined, along with granulocyte transfusion and prophylaxis of infection. The final chapter deals with nutrition in cancer patients and describes the link between cancer and malnutrition as well as the mechanisms of cancer-associated malnutrition. The advantages and methods of nutritional support for cancer patients are also highlighted. This book should be a valuable resource for oncologists.
Advances in Morphogenesis
Volume 8
1st Edition
M. Abercrombie + 2 more
English
Advances in Morphogenesis, Volume 8 covers the developments in the study of morphogenesis. The book discusses the morphogenetic aspects of acrosome formation and reaction; the migration and differentiation of neural crest cells; and the reaggregation of dissociated cells of sea urchin embryos. The text also describes the interacting genetic systems in Paramecium; genome transcription in fish development; as well as the biosynthesis of steroid hormones by the embryonic gonads of vertebrates. Biologists, molecular biologists, and medical students will find the book invaluable.
Preferred Orientation in Deformed Metal and Rocks
An introduction to Modern Texture Analysis
1st Edition
Hans Rudolf Wenk
English
This volume provides an introduction to the texture analysis of deformed materials and explores methods of determining and interpreting the preferred orientation of crystals in deformed polycrystalline aggregates.**The book reviews: 1) the techniques, procedures, and theoretical basis for the accumulation and analysis of orientation data; 2)the processes by which polycrystals deform and the microstructural mechanisms responsible for the development of the preferred orientation; 3) the textures in specific systems and application of principles to the solution of specific problems.**With a combination of metallurgic and geologic applications, Preferred Orientation in Deformed Metals and Rocks: An Introduction to Modern Texture Analysis will be an important source book for students and researchers in materials science, solid state physics, structural geology, and geophysics.**FROM THE PREFACE: Determination and interpretation of the preferred orientation of crystals in deformed polycrystalline aggregates (in this volume also referred to as texture) has been of longstanding concern to both materials scientists and geologists. A similar theoretical background--such as the dislocation theory of crystal plasticity--has been the basis of understanding flow in metals and rocks; and similar determinative techniques--includin... microscopy and x-ray diffraction--have been used to study textures and microstructures. Whereas many of the fundamental principles have been established early this century by scientists such as Jeffery, Sachs, Sander, Schmid, Schmidt, and Taylor, only in recent years has knowledge reached a level that provides a quantitative framework which has replaced a largely phenomenological approach. This is expressed in the sudden new emphasis on textural studies, as documented by the large number of recent publications.**This volume contains material to serve as an introduction for those who wish to enter this field as well as reviews for those who are already engaged in advanced research....**The book is divided into three parts. The first (Chapters 2*b17) deals with techniques, procedures, and theoretical bases for the accumulation and analysis of orientation data. The second (Chapters 8*b112) introduces processes by which polycrystals deform and the microstructural mechanisms responsible for the development of the preferred orientation. All those chapters emphasize basic principles and apply to metals as well as to minerals. The third part (Chapters 13*b126) illustrates textures in specific systems and the application of the principles set out in the earlier chapters to the solution of specific problems. Readers of these chapters will quickly become aware that metals have been more exhaustively studied than minerals; but they will also realize that, because of their structural symmetry, metals are in general much simpler than rocks and that the intepretation of metal textures is less involved. An extensive list of relevant references provides access to much of the original literature on textures....
Advances in Astronomy and Astrophysics
1st Edition
Volume 8
Zdeněk Kopal
English
Advances in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 8 presents reviews on the advances in astronomy and astrophysics. The book discusses microwave studies of thermal emission from the moon; the origin of the thermal emission of the moon at microwave frequencies; and the effect of various specific surface attributes on the characteristics of the microwave emission. The text then describes radar studies of the moon, including radar studies of the moon’s motions and of the statistical properties of the lunar surface and radar mapping of the lunar surface. The theoretical basis of cratering and erosion of the moon’s surface is also considered. Astronomers, astrophysicists, and students taking astronomy and astrophysics will find the book useful.
Sexual Reproduction of Tree Crops
1st Edition
M. Sedgley + 1 more
English
Research into the reproductive biology of crop plants has expanded greatly in recent years and has lead to an increasing awareness of the importance of flowering, pollination, and fruit set in crop productivity. This book focuses specifically on tree cultivation. It deals with the basic biology of sexual reproduction and relates this to the practical aspects of tree crop breeding and orchard management for fruit and seed production, in both temperate and tropical species.It is aimed at both students and research scientists in horticulture, forestry, and pollination ecology as well as those working in tree breeding, tree cultivation, and orchard management. The conservation problems of rainforest regeneration in the tropics and subtropics and of changing land use priorities in Europe and North America also make this book of value to those concerned with tree species preservation and survival.
Anxiety
Psychological Perspectives on Panic and Agoraphobia
1st Edition
Bozzano G Luisa
English
This volume analyses the perplexing and often disabling form of distress known as anxiety from a psychological rather than a biomedical perspective, illustrating the rich contribution that psychological theory has made and is making to this topic.**The first section extensively examines the clinical literature, describing and delineating with case examples the cluster of characteristic features termed panic-anxiety. Research findings in other clinical areas such as alcohol dependence are shown to have conceptual and empirical links with panic-anxiety. The second section of the book reviews and evaluates the main theoretical approaches to anxiety, including specific models of panic and agoraphobia, challenging many traditional assumptions and advocating the analysis of anxiety as a socially constructed meaning imposed on experience rather than a theoretical concept or psychopathological state. The methodological implications are discussed and a schematic model of panic-anxiety is proposed.**The theoretical integration represents a major contribution to the resurgence of interest in this field and will be of relevance to all researchers and postgraduate students within the mental health professions.**FROM THE PREFACE: This book has two main objectives. The first is to describe a dimension of psychological distress I have called panic-anxiety. This takes up the first part of the book, which surveys literature that is primarily descriptive and psychiatric. The second objective is pursued in the second part of the book, in which I examine a large number of theories of anxiety to see what they might have to offer in explaining the panic-anxiety cluster of complaints. I am therefore concerned to apply psychological theory to a real-world problem, that is, to what people who seek professional help loosely describe as panic, anxiety and fears of public situations.**The theoretical and experimental literature on anxiety is so vast that I have had to be disciplined and in no small measure prejudiced in favour of a particular theoretical perspective. I have attempted as far as possible to treat anxiety as a lay construct, that is, as a social construction and not a scientific concept. For this reason, I have endeavoured to refer to reports of anxiety or to complaints of anxiety in order to avoid the common tendency to reify anxiety as a an entity which exists independently of the social origins of the term. Accordingly, I believe that the relevant question to ask is not, What is anxiety? but, What are the antecedents of reports (or complaints) of anxiety?**It is intended that this book should provide a coherent perspective on a common form of psychological distress, of value to therapists, researchers and students of abnormal psychology. In many ways, the problems for which people seek help do not define 'natural' areas of scientific research, and so it is difficult to combine theoretical and practical interests in one book. The complaints with which I am particularly concerned--panic and fears of public places--can be analysed to reveal scientific questions which have a significance much wider than the explanation of particular complaints made to professionals working in a clinical context. Apart from its obvious social significance, a clinical area is therefore simply a point of departure for scientific investigation. My intention, then, is to use this clinical area as an illustration of how such problems might be tackled from a theoretical perspective which is essentially psychological.**The theoretical position I have adopted owes much to the views of Sarbin (1964, 1968), Mandler (1975) and Averill (1980a,b). In taking anxiety to be a lay construct, I assume that the 'What is?' questions rightly belong to the sociology of knowledge. Of course, the applied psychologist also has substantive issues to consider. For example, How can this individual be helped to report calmness rather than anxiety? or, How can that individual be helped to travel freely on public transport? I suggest that the most positive contribution a social constructivist position has to offer is to dissuade researchers from regarding these real-life problems as reflecting an underlying emotion of anxiety, or, even less helpful, an anxiety disorder.**Biologica... and medical research on anxiety is also considered in this light. Reductive biological and pathological hypotheses are rejected, but an attempt is made to integrate the biological aspects at a higher level of analysis. For this reason, the book differs from others which tend to confine themselves to a description and explanation of postulated disorders or syndromes. Because the emphasis of this book is essentially conceptual, there is relatively little discussion of assessment and therapy, apart from a general critique of current approaches.**Most experiences described as fear or anxiety in an everyday context have an identifiable source or object. When these experiences are reported as unbearably intense or lead to the avoidance of various situations, they are generally referred to as phobias. In the past 20 years there has been a considerable advance in the technology of reducing and eliminating unwanted phobias. The new methods of imaginal and real-life confrontation are successful in the majority of cases when anxiety is reported in connection with specific eliciting stimuli. The same success cannot be claimed for methods of dealing with complaints of anxiety that appear to be unrelated to identifiable circumstances. In one form of these complaints, a person may suddenly feel overwhelmed by unpleasant sensations which are usually described as a panic attack. Panic and other complaints of anxiety which are perceived as irrational form the principal interest of this book. A second major concern is the problem of fears of public places, often referred to as agoraphobia. Typically, the person who complains of these fears is unable to leave the home unaccompanied, although travel by car, a 'safe' environment, is usually possible. Although agoraphobia is tied to situations, the fear is not reported to be about these situations but is usually expressed as a fear of experiencing a panic attack in these situations. As I will argue, fears of public situations appear to be associated with panic and complaints of anxiety of a nonspecific kind.**FROM THE FOREWORD: This book is a welcome addition to a growing literature that treats perplexing and sometimes disabling conduct from a psychological rather than a biomedical perspective. It is one of an increasing number of treatises that boldly assume that psychological events may be studied in their own right without reducing the phenomena to biological or mentalistic categories. Among other topics, Hallam critically reviews the clinical and experimental work on self-reported anxiety, panic and agoraphobia. He demonstrates with considerable force the disutility of the traditional practice of assigning such phenomena to a world of disordered minds.**Anxiety has been employed as a key concept in many psychoanalytic and psychological theories. Before its use as a theoretical construct, anxiety was a lay construct, a metaphor invented to communicate about vaguely perceived and poorly understood sensory experience. This lay construct, or metaphor, was metonymically transformed by certain theorists seeking a universal intervening variable to account for puzzling conduct. That is to say, the theorists transfigured anxiety to a cause from its original use as a metaphor for effects of interpersonal actions and physiological responses. As a staple of biomedical research and practice, anxiety is a reified metaphor. One of the results of the uncritical use of the reified metaphor was the creation of such unproductive diagnostic categories as anxiety neurosis, anxiety hysteria and anxiety state. Hallam's review of research and practice makes abundantly clear that this metaphor-to-myth transformation has little utility, either as a heuristic for research or as a model for therapy.**Many lessons are to be learned from this book, not the least of which is the demonstration that the lay construct, anxiety, is multireferential. When a clinician asks a client for referents for such complaints as, 'I am anxious' (or 'panicky' or 'agoraphobic'), the client's response is drawn from a limitless pool of vague and ambiguous descriptors. Examples of the interpretations offered by clients include such diverse referents as 'I had the feeling I was about to die', 'I was suffocating, gasping for air', 'My legs became rubbery', 'I was about to faint', 'My brain was racing ahead of my thought', and so on.**From Hallam's detailed analysis of the multireferential nature of anxiety complaints, one could formulate the following rule for praxis: When a client employs 'anxiety' or a similar descriptor in his or her self-report, regard it as metaphoric utterance, not as a statement that demands causal analysis. The metaphoric utterance, that is, the complaint, is a social construction whose building blocks include the client's beliefs, linguistic skills, purposes and concurrent existential or identity problems.**Another lesson to be learned from this book is the continuity of anxiety complaints as reported in clinical settings with those of persons who do not come to the attention of professional helpers. Such continuity is an argument against the identification of anxiety complaints as a psychiatric disorder. For example, the fear of strange places may be universal and not restricted to a clinical population if the definition of strange places is broad enough.**The author holds that the client, like the rest of us, constructs his or her world from perceptions, beliefs, imaginings and rememberings. Thus anxiety is a construction, and it is communicated to others (and to the self) with the aid of metaphoric and metonymic translations. This constructivist view is fast displacing the entrenched biomedical view that treats human beings as passive reactors to stimuli according to still-to-be discovered mechanistic laws. Metaphors drawn from physics, geology and technology, so tightly woven into the texture of the mechanistic world view, have lost the power to stimulate meaningful research and theory about the complexities of human action. As a result, social scientists are turning to humanistic disciplines for their working metaphors, among them, game playing, narrative, drama and rhetoric.**The use of such descriptive metaphors reflects a world view that is in sharp contrast to the mechanistic world view that has dominated scientific thought, including that of psychology and psychiatry, for so long. Contextualism is the name assigned to this alternative world view, and its root metaphor is the historical act. Among other things, this root metaphor entails that the actors who participate in the creation of historical acts are agents. They engage in intentional actions not only to solve problems of a practical nature, but also to maintain or enhance their identities. Toward this end, they construct their worlds. Some constructions provide the backdrop for personal drama, one outcome of which may be the self-report of anxiety. Another element of the contextualist metaphysic is that change and novelty, rather than invariance, are to be expected.**Hallam's critical review of the scientific literature on anxiety and emotion supports the conclusion that the failure of modern science to formulate a general theory of anxiety is traceable to the slavish (and often unrecognized) adherence to the biomedical model. The users of this model seek causality within the organism, either in the somatic networks or in the assumed mind-space. It is not an inappropriate strategy, given their stance that the objects of their attention are regarded as passive, not as active agents. The supporters of the biomedical model have failed to achieve a consistently workable theory as a basis for therapy because human beings are, in fact, agents. Thus, a clinican who reads this book and elects to apply its wisdom would not address a person's complaint of anxiety with the question, What is the cause of the anxiety? but rather with questions of this sort: What are the antecedent and concurrent interpersonal conditions that influence a person as agent to turn his or her attention to vaguely defined internal events, to choose the sick role or to describe perplexing happenings with particular metaphors or metonymies? What are his or her concerns about death and dying, being abandoned or loss of face? What are the person's power relations and how does the sick role influence his or her relative power? How does the person's self-narrative fit into the self-narratives of significant others?**In my own experience, I have found it useful to look upon complaints of anxiety as a form of attention deployment, not unlike the attention deployment of the classical hypochondriac. The broad focus on bodily symptoms, besides providing the basis for adopting the sick role, effectively supports efforts in the context of significant social relationships not to spell out certain imagined or perceived flaws in one's character. The question that guides the search for understanding is, What are the client's reasons for turning attention to complaints of anxiety? In this respect, the clinician might entertain the hypothesis of self-deception and its implications for discovering and formulating reasons for the client's attention deployment to events described as anxiety.**The foregoing remarks are but a sample of the clinical and theoretical notions generated in my reading of Hallam's treatise. A bountiful harvest of insights awaits both the practicing clinician and the laboratory scientist engaged in solving the mystery of anxiety. The rich yield is due in no small measure to the author's ability simultaneously to reflect his experience as clinician and as scientist. As clinician*b1scientis... he illuminates many puzzling observations and opens the way for a better understanding of human problems.
Autoradiography at the Cellular Level
Physical Techniques in Biological Research
2nd Edition
Brigitte Schultze
Arthur W. Pollister
English
Physical Techniques in Biological Research, Second Edition, Volume III, Part B: Autoradiography at the Cellular Level focuses on high resolution autoradiography with tritium. This book reviews the different autoradiographic techniques and difficulties in theoretical principles needed for the interpretation of autoradiograms. The topics include the characteristics of the different types of radiation; autoradiographic resolution; techniques for applying photographic emulsions; and autoradiography of water-soluble substances. The application of different isotopes; general aspects of the use of thymidine; physiological RNA synthesis; and RNA synthesis under pathological conditions are also elaborated. This text likewise covers the protein synthesis under normal conditions; electron microscopic autoradiography; application of electron microscopic autoradiography; and autoradiographic methods in cytochemistry. This publication is a good reference for students, researchers, and clinicians conducting work on the use of tritiated compounds in high resolution autoradiography.

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