Class of 2008 Abstract / Objectives: To determine the active drug content and weight uniformity for half tablets of commonly split medications as a means to outline the safety and efficacy of tablet splitting. Methods: This analytical study was performed using the following six medications: warfarin, simvastatin, metoprolol succinate, metoprolol tartrate, citalopram, and lisinopril. Whole tablets (n=15) and half tablets (n= 30) were analyzed for drug content using high pressure liquid chromatography as compared to established standard curves. Weight uniformity was assessed using half tablet weights as compared to one half of the average whole tablet weight. Results: Percent deviation from the expected drug content for all drugs analyzed ranged from 81%- 126%. All drugs produced tablet halves falling outside of the range of 90%-110% for active drug content: warfarin (1), simvastatin (3), metoprolol succinate (10), metoprolol tartrate (4), citalopram (5), and lisinopril (10). Percent relative standard deviation for drug content was less than 6% for all drugs analyzed. Weight uniformity, defined as 85%-115% of the expected weight, was found for all drugs analyzed with the exception of lisinopril, with one half tablet at 122% of the expected weight. Statistical significance for the data was not determined. Conclusions: Half tablet drug content uniformity was not concluded for the medications/ manufacturers studied. To determine true safety and efficacy of tablet splitting, additional research must be performed assessing clinical endpoints using patient-split tablets. Furthermore, USP methods for assessing drug content uniformity must be developed for half tablets, as a means to determine which medications are safe to split.

This thesis discusses the philosophical positions that have arisen out of the research with cerebral commissurotomy patients. Following this discussion we develop and defend a position of our own. The first chapter discusses the operation and the postoperative tests that were conducted. Evidence is set out that makes it prima facie plausible that these patients have two minds. This evidence is basically evidence that the two hemispheres are not capable of pooling their informational content in special situations. Evidence for this non integration is found in all the senses except taste. This chapter also discusses hemispheric specialization, language in the minor hemisphere and the cuing mechanisms of the split hemispheres. The second chapter is devoted to Puccetti and Bogen who argue that normal humans have two minds. Their evidence for this comes from the evidence for two minds in the cerebral commissurotomy patients. Puccetti argues that if two minds were not present to start with, a simple operation would not elicit two minds from one. Puccetti also discusses tests on normal humans that are to support his position. These arguments are discussed and rejected. The third chapter discusses additional evidence for only one mind in normal humans. Puccetti's arguments are not only inadequate in that they do not prove their point but they ignore a great deal of evidence that there is only one mind in normal humans. This evidence comes from interference that two different tasks cause for each other. There is also evidence that the two hemispheres work together on one task and that their specialization is complimentary, resulting in functional dependence, rather than being duplicative. The fourth chapter is devoted to Eccles' attempt to reduce the minor hemisphere to an unconscious, computer like entity. He argues from what he calls, 'the unity of consciousness' and on epistomological grounds concerning evidence for a mind other than one's own. The argument from the unity of consciousness, however, begs the question and his epistomological considerations leave him in grave danger of solipsism. Chapter five discusses Dewitt's attempt to mediate between Eccles and Puccetti. Dewitt believes that Puccetti is right in asserting that these patients have two minds. On the other hand he is impressed with Eccles theory that the lack of language in the minor hemisphere causes a great disparity between the minor hemisphere and the major hemisphere. He therefore concludes that the patients have two minds, one of which does not qualify for personhood. Dewitt, however, has gravely underestimated the ability of the minor hemisphere. It has more language capacity than he believes and gives every evidence of being a person. It is also questionable whether or not language is a necessary condition for the self-awareness that goes with personhood. Chapter six looks at Robinson's attempts to undermine the two mind interpretation of the evidence. He does this mainly by trying to find tiimilar counter examples that resist a two mind interpretation. His program fails due to the dissimilarity of the counter examples and the cerebral commissurotomy results. Chapter seven considers Nagel's contention that the patients have an uncountable number of minds. Nagel does not believe that there is a strange uncountable number of minds that these patients actually have. Instead he believes that it is impossible to say how many minds they do have because we do not know how to count them. Nagel reasons that we have good evidence to believe that the patients have one mine and good evidence that they have two. Since both cannot be true we do not know what to say about these patients. Nagel believes that the above considerations make it difficult for us to understand these patients' mental lives. We agree with Nagel that there are times when it is difficult if not impossible to say how many minds the commissurotomy patient has. We disagree that this is always the case. Our problem with counting is not, however, a failure to understand something about the patients' mental lives, but is due to a counting problem when two hemispheres are only partially integrated. We agree with a suggestion from Nagel that an unusual connection between the hemispheres does not settle the question of how many minds the patient might be said to have. The hemispheres do seem to be able to integrate or pool their information using sophisticated muing mechanisms. Our position is that the patients usually have one mind that integrates the two hemispheres of the brain by cuing. The testing situations, however, interfere with this cuing and thereby cause a temporary, partial nonintegration between the hemispheres. During this time we, therefore do not know how many minds the patient can be said to have. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

The issue of the division of equity is one that founders of joint ventures inevitably face during the start-up phase of business development. Whilst this is an issue of great importance in that it shapes the capital structure of the business (Roberts and Zender, 2008) and impacts on the future productivity of founder members (Holstrom, 1982), it is an area that has received little systematic attention in academic literature. Hellman and Wasserman (2011) conducted a large scale study of equity splits in start-up’s and noted that the three factors of (1) the value of the idea, (2) past entrepreneurial experience and (3) capital contribution played a significant role in determining the division of equity. This study employs a qualitative research methodology to investigate the process of equity negotiation with the aim of identifying further factors that may guide decisions in equity negotiation. The key findings of the research are that the dynamics of the interpersonal relationships that exist between founder members appear to influence equity negotiations, in that preserving goodwill in these relationships was a factor that motivated founder members to lean towards equal equity splits. The two phenomena that are associated with a need to preserve goodwill within the relationship are the existence of a relationship prior to entering into business, and the business venture being based on a shared idea.Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Gene regulation in C. elegans germ cells depend on transgenerational chromatin modification and small RNA pathways. Germline silencing mechanisms evolved to repress foreign DNA from compromising the transfer of genetic information to progeny. Effective genetic tools that circumvent the silencing machinery will facilitate studies using this model organism. Specifically, translation of heat-shock inducible transgenes is inhibited in the germline making it challenging to transiently express enzymes to modify the genome. Here, we describe a genetic screen design that can be used to identify pathways that prevent germline expression of heat-shock induced transgenes. We use split-GFP (GFP1-10 and GFP11) to confine a genetic screen to germ cells. Stable transgenic lines with germline expression of single-copy integrated GFP11 were produced using MosSCI. The insertion lines will be used in RNAi or chemical mutagenesis screens for the germline de-repression of GFP1-10 expressed under heat-shock promoters. The screen is likely to identify candidate RNAi or chromatin factors involved in repressing heat-shock expression in the germline, particularly from extrachromosomal arrays. Inducible high-level expression in the germline from extrachromosomal arrays would be a valuable tool for large-scale genome engineering.

No description available.

GaSb is a semiconductor material having a narrow band gap in the infrared spectrum of 0.72 eV. This research is intended to investigate the low cost growth and properties of GaSb and to propose this material as a candidate for a cost effective method of developing a GaSb /silicon tandem solar cell. This work investigated the sputtering of GaSb films onto a glass substrate from a GaSb/Sb split-sputtering target. A GaSb compound was formed by placing Ga and Sb elements inside a vacuum sealed ampule. The ampule was placed inside a box furnace and heated at 800 0 C successfully forming a GaSb compound. Both GaSb and Sb were molded into a semicircular shape in a quartz container. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was conducted on sputtered films in order to confirm their structure. XRD peaks of the film were compared with reference peaks found on the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD). GaSb peaks were apparent at specific sputtering chamber conditions of substrate temperature and source-to-substrate distance. Sputtered GaSb films were then further characterized with the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Hall Effect measurements. A theoretical thickness of the films was calculated using FTIR measurements to be about 1 μm and 0.35 μm for the films grown on a substrate heated with heater powers of 280 watts and 250 watts respectively. SEM confirmed the sample thicknesses with 20% error. Hall Effect measurements resulted in a high carrier concentration and low free carrier activation energy; 7.545 x1019 cm-3 and 0.1017 eV respectively. These values are attributed to the possible existence of anti-site defects. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p> The logit format for a modal split model, which has previously been used for only binary cases, is used to build a new set of behavioural, probabilistic, multi-mode models. The models and the testing were carried out on a CDC 6400 Computer. </p> <p> A program developed at Chicago was used to construct the models while a separate program was developed to analyze the results. The type and number of variables to be used in the different sections of the model were investigated and an attempt was made to find the best method of aggregation. An inferred 'value of time' was also calculated and statistical testing of the individual and aggregate models was made. </p> <p> It is shown that this method of modelling is indeed feasible in terms of the significance of the models and the accuracy of the predictions on a separate data set. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (ME)

A group of Influenza viruses, RNA containing viruses of the Orthomyxoviridae family, consists of Influenza virus types A-D and has been known to cause the Flu, a respiratory illness associated with numerous detrimental symptoms that can lead to death. Influenza A virus (IAV) is constantly changing and is capable of causing pandemics. Currently used diagnostic methods include virus culturing, immunoassays including rapid influenza detection tests (RIDTs), and molecular assays including those based on RT-PCR. Most of the methods can be only performed in the certified diagnostic laboratories equipped with sophisticated instrumentation and/or special biosafety facilities. The results using these methods are not available on a timely basis. RIDTs provide response within 15 minutes but are unable to differentiate between the IAV subtypes. New diagnostic technique, which allows reliable detection of the influenza virus infection and virus genotyping at point-of-care setting, are needed to prevent the spread of the virus and the occurrence of a pandemic. In this project, we propose to use split G-quadruplex (G4) peroxidase probes targeting a fragment of the IAV genome amplified using an isothermal RNA amplification reaction for the detection of IAV infection and virus genotyping. The probes selectively report the virus RNA target with a color change, which can be read by the naked eye. They are capable of differentiating the targets containing as little as a single-nucleotide variation in their sequences. This study aims to optimize the probes, test their selectivity, and calculate the detection limit.

This dissertation examines the Split Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem (SDVRP), a relaxed version of classical capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) in which the demand of any client can be split among the vehicles that visit it. We study both scenarios of the SDVRP in this dissertation. For the SDVRP with a fixed number of the vehicles, we provide a Two-Stage algorithm. This approach is a cutting-plane based exact method called Two-Stage algorithm in which the SDVRP is decomposed into two stages of clustering and routing. At the first stage, an assignment problem is solved to obtain some clusters that cover all demand points and get the lower bound for the whole problem; at the second stage, the minimal travel distance of each cluster is calculated as a traditional Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP), and the upper bound is obtained. Adding the information obtained from the second stage as new cuts into the first stage, we solve the first one again. This procedure stops when there are no new cuts to be created from the second stage. Several valid inequalities have been developed for the first stage to increase the computational speed. A valid inequality is developed to completely solve the problem caused by the index of vehicles. Another strong valid inequality is created to provide a valid distance lower bound for each set of demand points. This algorithm can significantly outperform other exact approaches for the SDVRP in the literature. If the number of the vehicles in the SDVRP is a variable, we present a column generation based branch and price algorithm. First, a restricted master problem (RMP) is presented, which is composed of a finite set of feasible routes. Solving the linear relaxation of the RMP, values of dual variables are thus obtained and passed to the sub-problem, the pricing problem, to generate a new column to enter the base of the RMP and solve the new RMP again. This procedure repeats until the objective function value of the pricing problem is greater than or equal to zero (for minimum problem). In order to get the integer feasible (optimal) solution, a branch and bound algorithm is then performed. Since after branching, it is not guaranteed that the possible favorable column will appear in the master problem. Therefore, the column generation is performed again in each node after branching. The computational results indicate this approach is promising in solving the SDVRP in which the number of the vehicles is not fixed.

No description available.