Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation of the Supplementary Motor Area in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Multi-Site Study

Recently, strategies beyond pharmacological and psychological treatments have been developed for the management of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Specifically, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been employed as an adjunctive treatment in cases of treatment-refractory OCD. Here, we investigate six weeks of low frequency rTMS, applied bilaterally and simultaneously over the sensory motor area, in OCD patients in a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial. Twenty-two participants were randomly enrolled into the treatment (ACTIVE = 10) or placebo (SHAM = 12) groups. At each of seven visits (baseline; day 1 and weeks 2, 4, and 6 of treatment; and two and six weeks after treatment) the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) was administered. At the end of the six weeks of rTMS, patients in the ACTIVE group showed a clinically significant decrease in Y-BOCS scores compared to both the baseline and the SHAM group. This effect was maintained six weeks following the end of rTMS treatment. Therefore, in this sample, rTMS appeared to significantly improve the OCD symptoms of the treated patients beyond the treatment window. More studies need to be conducted to determine the generalizability of these findings and to define the duration of rTMS’ clinical effect on the Y-BOCS. Clinical Trial Registration Number (NCT) at www.clinicaltrials.gov: {"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT00616486","term_id":"NCT00616486"}}NCT00616486.     

Stability of linear impulsive differential equations

In the present paper the notion of stability of linear impulsive differential equations at fixed moments is made more precise.     

Influence of bond defects on coiling of graphite

The effect of annealing at 1400 °C in argon on the bond structure of graphite ball milled for 100 h at 400 rpm in polar (water) and in non-polar (n-dodecane) liquids was investigated primarily by near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (NEXAFS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Carbon K-edge NEXAFS allows the distortion of bonds in the hexagonal lattice to be investigated. It is shown that in-plane sp² bonds are strained and distorted after ball milling because sp³ bonds are introduced. Not surprisingly, annealing of the milled product restores sp² bonds but at the same time, coiling and formation of tube-like structures takes place. It is well established that graphite is not formed on annealing, and hence the results shown here demonstrate that the loss of sp³ carbons on annealing must proceed via a different mechanism by which they are formed by milling.     

X-ray diffraction line profile analysis of nanocrystalline graphite

The structure evolution to nanocrystalline graphite produced by ball milling in n-dodecane has been studied by Fourier analysis of broadened X-ray diffraction line profiles according to double-Voigt method. The Fourier analysis gave size and strain distributions of the coherently diffracting domains (X-ray crystallite size) and root-mean-square-strain (rmss) and their average values. The precursor graphite was defined by average crystal sizes of about hundreds of nanometers, measured along the in-plane and out-of-plane directions, and low rmss value of 0.38 × 10⁻³. During milling, the average crystallite sizes of graphite decreased to about 6 and 43 nm along the out-of-plane and in-plane directions, respectively. Correspondingly, the rmss of milled graphite increased to 6.54 × 10⁻³. Analysis of the out-of-plane to in-plane crystallite size ratios showed that the crystallites became progressively thinner and flatter. A linear relationship between rmss and reciprocal crystallite size along the stacking axis revealed that size of disordered boundary regions gradually increased at the expense of ordered crystalline regions. A model describing crystalline–nanocrystalline transformation of graphite along different crystallographic axis was formulated and used to discuss the experimental data. It was concluded that a distortion-controlled process is responsible for the crystalline–nanocrystalline transformation of graphite milled in n-dodecane.     

Catalytic upgrading of biorefinery oil from micro-algae

Micro-algae are seen as one of the major future fuel sources. Culture and growth of oil rich micro-algae and catalytic process for the conversion of their crude oils or biomass is reviewed here. While there is a significant literature on growth and extraction of oil from the resultant biomass the literature on the problems of refining these oils is diverse and needs collation. It is clear that previous work has been focused on the two green algae Botryococcus braunii and Chlorella protothecoides containing terpenoid hydrocarbons and glyceryl lipids as their major crude oils, respectively, both of which will need different refinery technology for upgrading. Studies show a number of conventional catalysts in the petroleum refining industry including transition metals, zeolites, acid and base catalysts can be used with variable effect. These have been employed for cracking, hydrocracking, liquefaction, pyrolysis and transesterification processes to produce diesel, jet fuel and petrol (gasoline). However there is strong evidence that new nano-scale materials containing a high number of active sites and high surface areas may offer more potential.