The respiratory depression induced by buprenorphine and its active metabolite, norbuprenorphine (NBN), was evaluated in rats by measurement of changes in respiratory rate and arterial pCO2 levels. After i.v. bolus administration of buprenorphine no effects were noted over the dose range 0.008 to 3 mg/kg; by contrast, the respiratory rate after rapid i.v. administration of NBN decreased in a dos...

We studied the growth and oxidation of niobium nitride (NbN) films that we used to fabricate superconductive tunnel junctions. The thin films were deposited by dc reactive magnetron sputtering using a mixture of argon and nitrogen. The process parameters were optimized by monitoring the plasma with an optical spectroscopy technique. This technique allowed us to obtain NbN as well as good qualit...

Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome (NBS) is a rare autosomal recessive disease characterized by microcephaly, growth retardation, immunodeficiency, chromosomal instability, and predisposition to cancer. Heterozygous NBS patients show increased chromosomal instability and are suspected to be at a high risk for cancer. To study the impact of NBS1 heterozygosity on malignancy susceptibility, we disrupted ...

Methylating agents are first-line therapeutics for gliomas and malignant melanomas. They attack DNA at various sites, and both O(6)-methylguanine and N-methylated base adducts contribute to the killing response. The mechanism of cellular defense against these agents primarily involves O(6)-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) and base excision repair (BER). Here, we determined whether a k...

The differential conductance of NbN/GdN/TiN superconductor / ferromagnetic insulator / normal metal junctions, with a thick NbN layer shows a large zero-field voltage offset interpreted as a spin-filtered Zeeman splitting of the NbN density of states (DOS) by an effective exchange field (H0) from the GdN. The splitting increases linearly with applied field (Hext) enabling the relative sign of H...

The Australian government has recognised the importance of broadband for their social and economic development. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of policy issues on broadband Internet access in Australia. This research has clearly indicated that the state of broadband Internet access is closely related to the Government’s policy and regulatory framework. The Government bas...

Currently, psychotropic drug “vocabulary” is based on clinical indications,mostly 6 classes, namely, antipsychotic, antidepressant, mood stabilizer, stimulant, anxiolytic, and hypnotic. This naming system creates much confusion, since so-called antidepressants are commonly used as anxiolytics, antipsychotics increasingly as antidepressants, and so on. Vocabulary based on clinical indications al...

The effects of NbN nanoparticles synthesized via a simple "urea glass" route on the dehydrogenation properties of LiAlH4 have been systematically investigated. The particle size of the as-synthesized NbN nanoparticles is determined to be about 10 nm. The surface configuration and dehydrogenation behaviors of the 2 mol% NbN-doped LiAlH4 (2% NbN-LiAlH4) system are also discussed. It is found that...

A metastable phase of NbN with superconducting T c =16.4 K was reported recently by Treece and collaborators. The reported structure of the thin film sample deviates from the rocksalt (B1) NbN structure with 25% ordered vacancies on each sublattice (space group Pm3m) and a lattice constant of 4.442Å. Using full potential electronic structure methods, we contrast the electronic structure with th...