No description available.

No description available.

Clinical and forensic toxicology analysts rely heavily in their daily tests on the analysis of the conventional samples (blood and urine). However, these specimens are limited in the time scale they reflect with regard to drug intake history and also in terms of drug stability within the matrices. Alternative matrices such as hair, oral fluids and dried blood spots (DBS) provide new horizons and new opportunities. Drugs incorporated within hair are very stable. Hair also provides a very long detection window, for at least one year, if not a lot longer. Oral fluids on the other hand are non-intrusive, easy to collect and much cleaner sample matrix than blood or urine. DBS also offer great drug stability, are easy to collect, faster to analyse and suitable for automated analysis. However, a number of studies are needed to assess the limits of these alternative samples in terms of the correlation of their results with the results of conventional samples and with regard to drug stability. Such studies will enable a more reliable and confident interpretation of results obtained from these matrices especially for medico-legal purposes. The main aims of this research were: to develop and validate analytical methods for detection and quantitation of drugs of use and abuse in hair, oral fluids, blood and DBS samples, to investigate the correlation between dose and drug concentration in hair, blood and oral fluids after controlled chronic drug administration, to investigate the stability of anti-psychotic drugs in DBS (from patients) stored under different conditions and the effect of addition of preservative, and to investigate the alcohol intake prevalence among Kuwaiti drug addicts and correlate these results with selfreported intake. As the majority of drugs were basic, an extraction method based on methanolic incubation was developed for detection of basic/weak basic drugs in hair. It was compared to alkaline digestion (with NaOH) followed by liquid-liquid extraction (LLE). Detection was achieved by LC-MS/MS (Sciex2000) after separation on a C18 column. When applying both methods on positive authentic hair samples the results showed that the methanolic method was capable of extracting most basic drugs in hair but only partially, while the alkaline digestion method was found to degrade V some unstable drugs like sulpiride, but was capable of fully extracting the alkaline stable drugs such as quetiapine. After development and validation of the LLE-LC-MS(Exactive) method for the analysis of anti-psychotics in blood, oral fluids and hair, an investigation was carried out on the correlation pattern between trough concentrations in those three matrices. The most significant correlation coefficients (r) found were those between blood and hair concentrations, procyclidine r=0.83 (18 subjects p=<0.001), risperidone r=0.96 (14 subjects p=<0.001), haloperidol r=0.90 (10 subjects p=<0.001), OH-risperidone r=0.24 (13 subjects p=>0.44), quetiapine r=0.28 (14 subjects p=>0.33) and chlorprothixene r=0.32 (13 subjects p=>0.32). Among the interesting results was the strong correlation found between drugs half-lives and the mean ratio of hair concentration/dose (r=0.96, p=<0.003). The stability of anti-pyschotics in DBS from patients’ samples was assessed by storing them at four different temperatures (25, 4, -20 and -80°C) with and without prior impregnation of the DBS cards with sodium fluoride. After development and validation of the LLE-LC-MS method, samples were analysed at days 0, 45, 90 and 180. Results showed good stability of all the compounds (procyclidine, quetiapine, risperidone, OH-risperidone, chlorprothixene and haloperidol) in all the different storage conditions and no significant increase or decrease in drug concentrations with sodium fluoride impregnation. Finally, after trials with five different HPLC columns, two SPE cartridges, two LLE extraction procedures and two mass spectrometer instruments, a method was developed and validated for the detection and quantitation of alcohol’s minor and specific metabolite in hair, ethyl glucuronide (EtG). The method has a limit of detection (LOD) of 3pg/mg and lower limit of quantitation (LLOQ) of 9pg/mg. This method was applied to 59 hair samples from patients at a general addiction centre and alcohol prevalence was investigated and its correlation with self-reported use was investigated.

In this dissertation, we introduce a framework for simulating the dynamics between liquid and thin structures, including the effects of buoyancy, drag, capillary cohesion, dripping, and diffusion. After introducing related works, Part I begins with a discussion on the interactions between Newtonian fluid and fabrics. In this discussion, we treat both the fluid and the fabrics as continuum media; thus, the physical model is built from mixture theory. In Part II, we discuss the interactions between Newtonian fluid and hairs. To have more detailed dynamics, we no longer treat the hairs as continuum media. Instead, we treat them as discrete Kirchhoff rods. To deal with the thin layer of liquid that clings to the hairs, we augment each hair strand with a height field representation, through which we introduce a new reduced-dimensional flow model to solve the motion of liquid along the longitudinal direction of each hair. In addition, we develop a faithful model for the hairs' cohesion induced by surface tension, where a penalty force is applied to simulate the collision and cohesion between hairs. To enable the discrete strands interact with continuum-based, shear-dependent liquid, in Part III, we develop models that account for the volume change of the liquid as it passes through strands and the momentum exchange between the strands and the liquid. Accordingly, we extend the reduced-dimensional flow model to simulate liquid with elastoviscoplastic behavior. Furthermore, we use a constraint-based model to replace the penalty-force model to handle contact, which enables an accurate simulation of the frictional and adhesive effects between wet strands. We also present a principled method to preserve the total momentum of a strand and its surface flow, as well as an analytic plastic flow approach for Herschel-Bulkley fluid that enables stable semi-implicit integration at larger time steps. We demonstrate a wide range of effects, including the challenging animation scenarios involving splashing, wringing, and colliding of wet clothes, as well as flipping of hair, animals shaking, spinning roller brushes from car washes being dunked in water, and intricate hair coalescence effects. For complex liquids, we explore a series of challenging scenarios, including strands interacting with oil paint, mud, cream, melted chocolate, and pasta sauce.

Hair, as a vital component of the human's appearance, plays an important role in producing digital characters. However, the generation of realistic hairstyles usually needs professional digital artists and/or complex hardware, and the procedure is often time-consuming due to its numerous numbers, and diverse hairstyles. Thus, automatic capture of real-world hairstyles with easy input can greatly benefit the production pipeline. State-of-the-art 3D hair modeling systems require either multi-view images or a single- view image with complementary synthetic 3D hair models. For the multi-view image based 3D hair reconstruction, the capture systems are often made of a large number of cameras, projectors, light sources, and are usually in the indoor environment, which prevents popular use of the methods. On the contrary, single-view image based methods only use simple capture devices, e.g.; a handheld camera. However, a front view containing a face is often required and the resulting 3D hair strand reconstruction quality is compromised. Meanwhile, several hairstyles can not be easily modeled, such as braids and kinky hairstyles (afro-textured hairs), even though they are very common in real life. In this dissertation, we implement a single-view imaged based 3D hair modeling system, where our hair reconstruction is done through 2D hair analysis and 3D strands creation, which benefits from both traditional image processing techniques and the strengths of machine learning. Our 2D hair analysis is used to learn the attributes of input hairs, including 2D hair strands, detailed hairstyle patterns, and the corresponding parametric representation (which includes braids and kinky hairs), and braid structures. Simultaneously 3D hair strands are generated using deep-learning models. Our method is different from previous methods as our generated hair models can be modified by controlling the attributes and parameters we learned from the 2D hair recognition/analysis system. Our system does not require a face to be shown in the input image and to our best knowledge, our work is the first work that can reconstruct 3D braided hair and kinky hair given a single-view image. Qualitatively and quantitatively assessments indicate that our system can generate a variety of realistic 3D hairstyle models.

To determine the relationship of tobacco and marijuana smoking to levels of cadmium and zinc manifested in hair samples, a study was conducted at Portland State University using atomic.absorption spectrophotometry. 97 adult student volunteers participated in the main study.

O consumo abusivo de substâncias psicoativas é um problema de saúde pública, sendo as análises toxicológicas uma importante ferramenta para seu controle. Atualmente, o cabelo está entre as mais utilizadas matrizes biológicas para análise de substâncias psicoativas, devido principalmente ao seu amplo período de deteção. As análises toxicológicas de drogas de abuso podem ser conduzidas através de técnicas de triagem seguidas por técnicas confirmatórias para os resultados positivos. No presente trabalho, foi avaliada a adaptação do método de triagem para substâncias psicoativas em cabelo a partir do kit para imunoensaio em sangue DOA I WB P com a tecnologia Biochip - Randox Laboratórios®. As análises foram realizadas para as classes das anfetaminas, benzodiazepínicos, barbitúricos, cocaína, opiáceos e canabinoides. Os ensaios imunológicos seguiram a partir da análise de amostras reais, adicionadas e artificiais sendo todas previamente confirmadas por técnica de cromatografia em fase gasosa acoplada à espectrometria de massas (GC-MS). Pelos resultados obtidos pôde-se observar que o kit não apresenta capacidade de analisar a classe de canabinoides. Já para os opiáceos, barbitúricos e anfetamina a aplicação do imunoensaio se mostrou promissora, entretanto a falta de amostras reais positivas impossibilitou a validação do método. Para cocaína, possíveis fontes de contaminação podem ter alterado os resultados impossibilitando a sua avaliação. Benzodiazepínicos, MDMA e metanfetamina apresentaram efeito matriz significativo, não havendo diferenciação entre amostras positivas e negativas. Desta forma, a validação e aplicação do método de imunoensaio para amostras de cabelo não foi possível devido ao elevado efeito de matriz apresentado pelo kit e a falta de amostras reais positivas impossibilitando a validação de parâmetros como sensibilidade, especificidade e exatidão. / The abuse of psychoactive substances is a public health problem and toxicological analysis is an important tool for its control. Currently, hair is among the most widely used biological matrices psychoactive substance analysis, mainly for its detection window. The toxicological analysis of drugs of abuse may be conduted by screening techniques followed by confirmation techniques for positive results. In the present work, an adaptation of a screening method for psychoactive substances in hair was evaluated from the DOA I WB P blood immunoassay kit with a Biochip - Randox Laboratories® technology. The analysis were performed for the drug classes of amphetamines, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, cocaine, opiates and cannabinoids. The immunological assays followed the analysis of real, spiked and artificial samples that have been previously confirmed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique. From the results obtained it was observed that the kit does not sufficient capacity for analysis of cannabinoids. As for opiates, barbiturates and amphetamines, the immunoassay application proved to be promising. However, a lack of real samples made it impossible to validate the method. For cocaine, finding sources of contamination may have altered the results, making it impossible to evaluate. Benzodiazepines, MDMA and methamphetamine showed significant matrix effect, with no difference between positive and negative samples. Thus, a validation and application of the immunoassay method for hair samples was not possible due to the high matrix effect for the kit and a lack of actual samples making it extremely difficult to validate parameters such as sensitivity, specificity and accuracy.

O consumo abusivo de substâncias psicoativas é um problema de saúde pública, sendo as análises toxicológicas uma importante ferramenta para seu controle. Atualmente, o cabelo está entre as mais utilizadas matrizes biológicas para análise de substâncias psicoativas, devido principalmente ao seu amplo período de deteção. As análises toxicológicas de drogas de abuso podem ser conduzidas através de técnicas de triagem seguidas por técnicas confirmatórias para os resultados positivos. No presente trabalho, foi avaliada a adaptação do método de triagem para substâncias psicoativas em cabelo a partir do kit para imunoensaio em sangue DOA I WB P com a tecnologia Biochip - Randox Laboratórios®. As análises foram realizadas para as classes das anfetaminas, benzodiazepínicos, barbitúricos, cocaína, opiáceos e canabinoides. Os ensaios imunológicos seguiram a partir da análise de amostras reais, adicionadas e artificiais sendo todas previamente confirmadas por técnica de cromatografia em fase gasosa acoplada à espectrometria de massas (GC-MS). Pelos resultados obtidos pôde-se observar que o kit não apresenta capacidade de analisar a classe de canabinoides. Já para os opiáceos, barbitúricos e anfetamina a aplicação do imunoensaio se mostrou promissora, entretanto a falta de amostras reais positivas impossibilitou a validação do método. Para cocaína, possíveis fontes de contaminação podem ter alterado os resultados impossibilitando a sua avaliação. Benzodiazepínicos, MDMA e metanfetamina apresentaram efeito matriz significativo, não havendo diferenciação entre amostras positivas e negativas. Desta forma, a validação e aplicação do método de imunoensaio para amostras de cabelo não foi possível devido ao elevado efeito de matriz apresentado pelo kit e a falta de amostras reais positivas impossibilitando a validação de parâmetros como sensibilidade, especificidade e exatidão. / The abuse of psychoactive substances is a public health problem and toxicological analysis is an important tool for its control. Currently, hair is among the most widely used biological matrices psychoactive substance analysis, mainly for its detection window. The toxicological analysis of drugs of abuse may be conduted by screening techniques followed by confirmation techniques for positive results. In the present work, an adaptation of a screening method for psychoactive substances in hair was evaluated from the DOA I WB P blood immunoassay kit with a Biochip - Randox Laboratories® technology. The analysis were performed for the drug classes of amphetamines, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, cocaine, opiates and cannabinoids. The immunological assays followed the analysis of real, spiked and artificial samples that have been previously confirmed by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique. From the results obtained it was observed that the kit does not sufficient capacity for analysis of cannabinoids. As for opiates, barbiturates and amphetamines, the immunoassay application proved to be promising. However, a lack of real samples made it impossible to validate the method. For cocaine, finding sources of contamination may have altered the results, making it impossible to evaluate. Benzodiazepines, MDMA and methamphetamine showed significant matrix effect, with no difference between positive and negative samples. Thus, a validation and application of the immunoassay method for hair samples was not possible due to the high matrix effect for the kit and a lack of actual samples making it extremely difficult to validate parameters such as sensitivity, specificity and accuracy.

Die missbräuchliche Anwendung von anabolen Substanzen erfolgt mit dem Ziel eines verstärkten Muskelaufbaus - im Sport zur Leistungsverbesserung, in der Tierzucht zum Erreichen von Zuchtidealen oder bei der Masttierhaltung zur Produktivitätssteigerung. Bisher wurden Doping- oder Medikationskontrollen zum Nachweis von anabolen Steroidhormonen üblicherweise im Urin bzw. im Blut durchgeführt. Für bestimmte Fragestellungen kann der analysierbare Zeitraum allerdings unzureichend sein oder aber die Untersuchungsmaterialien sind unter praktischen Gegebenheiten nur eingeschränkt verfügbar. Das Sammeln von Urinproben ist beispielsweise bei Zuchthengsten nur mit einem unverhältnismäßig hohen Aufwand realisierbar. Haare stellen in solchen Situationen eine Alternative dar, da sich das Entnahmeverfahren unkompliziert gestaltet und bei einer entsprechenden Haarlänge die eingelagerten Fremdstoffe länger als in Urin- oder Blutproben detektierbar sein sollten. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde ein effektiver Langzeitnachweis für insgesamt 11 anabole Substanzen in Pferdehaar-Proben mittels GC-HRMS und GC-MS/MS entwickelt (Nachweisgrenzen zwischen 0,1 und 5,0 pg/mg). Dabei können zum einen körperfremde anabole Wirkstoffe (z. B. Steroidester in Depotpräparaten) und zum anderen körper-eigene Steroide analysiert werden (z. B. Testosteron und Nandrolon beim Hengst). In verschiedenen Applikationsversuchen wurde gezeigt, dass durch eine Haaranalyse der Nachweis bis zu einem Jahr möglich ist. Für die endogene Nandrolonmenge in Schweifproben von unbehandelten Hengsten wurde eine signifikante Altersabhängigkeit festgestellt. Die ermittelten physiologischen Höchstkonzentrationen für Nandrolon betragen zwischen 1,1 pg/mg bei Junghengsten (1-3 Jahre) und 3,1 pg/mg bei Althengsten (11-20 Jahre). Die Bestimmung von Nandrolon in Haarproben erwies sich für die Körungskontrollen bei Junghengsten als ein geeignetes Verfahren zur Detektion einer exogenen Zufuhr. Die Untersuchung von Haaren ist zum Langzeitnachweis als Alternative gegenüber Blut- und Urinanalysen vorzuziehen, auch wenn sich retrospektiv nicht alle Fragen zum Behandlungsablauf präzise klären lassen (z. B. Angaben zur Dosierung oder zum genauen Applikationszeitpunkt). Das neu etablierte Verfahren ist außerdem die Methode der Wahl, wenn die Verfügbarkeit der übrigen Probematerialien eingeschränkt bzw. eine einfache und schnelle Beprobung erforderlich ist. Es wird bereits zur Medikationskontrolle bei Zuchthengsten sowie bei speziellen forensischen Untersuchungen eingesetzt.

The threat of environmental mercury (Hg), particularly methylmercury (MeHg), exposure to the health of humans has been well documented. Thus, it is important to monitor exposure and body burden for public health protection. The first objective of this thesis was to characterize the risk of Hg exposure in two Canadian coastal communities: Grand Marian (n = 91) and St. Andrews/St. Stephen (n = 52), New Brunswick, Canada, using dietary questionnaires and hair analysis. Average Hg intakes and body burden were below the most conservative guidelines. We attributed these results to the low Hg concentrations found in the species commonly consumed: haddock, canned tuna, lobster and pollock (all below 0.2 mg/kg). The analytical method employed to determine Hg in hair, cold vapor atomic absorption (CV-AAS), required a bundle of 100-150 hair strands and involved lengthy chemical digestion procedures which reduce throughput. Direct solid introduction techniques minimize these weaknesses. Our second and third objectives were to evaluate two such methods: (1) combustion, gold amalgamation, atomic absorption spectrometry (C-GA-AAS) and (2) laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for measuring total Hg in single hair strands. Hair samples with a wide range of Hg exposure were obtained from communities. A 1:1 relationship was observed between C-GA-AAS and the established CV-AAS for analysis of 1-cm hair segments. Additionally, the average relative standard deviation (RSD) of Hg between hair strands within an individual was 6.5 +/- 2.8%, thus justifying the use of a single hair strand for biomonitoring. With a limit of quantification of 0.10 ng of total Hg, a single hair strand with average weight of 0.5 mg and Hg concentrations of 0.2 mg/kg can be measured routinely. Using LA-ICP-MS, we showed that a single laser shot can sample hair material within 50 mum along a single hair strand which is equivalent to less than one day of