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To investigate the pharmacokinetics of ropivacaine in rat blood and brain, a sensitive HPLC method and microdialysis were developed for the simultaneous determination of unbound ropivacaine in rat blood and brain. Adult, male Sprague–Dawley rats (290–350 g) were anesthetized with sodium pentobarbital (50 mg/kg, i.p.). Two microdialysis probes were inserted, one into the jugular vein toward right atrium, and one into the brain striatum of rats. Ropivacaine (5 mg/kg, i.v.) was then administered via the femoral vein. Blood and brain dialysates were collected and eluted with a mobile phase containing methanol–acetonitrite–20 m M monosodium phosphoric acid (pH 5.5) (10:40:50, v/v/v) in a liquid chromatographic system. Separation of ropivacaine was achieved by a CN column (Phenomenex Luna, 250×4.6 mm, particle size 5 μm; Torrance, CA, USA) within 10 min. The UV detector wavelength was set at 205 nm and the detection limit of ropivacaine was 20 ng/ml. The intra- and inter-day accuracy and precision of the analyses were less than 10% in the ranges of 0.02–5 μg/ml. The pharmacokinetic data were calculated from the individual animal measurements of dialysate concentration versus time. This method exhibits no endogenous interference and its sensitivity is sufficient for the determination of biological samples. The present results confirm that microdialysis sampling followed by LC separation with UV detection represents a viable approach for the measurement of free ropivacaine in rat brain and plasma.

This paper describes a digital signal processor designed for mobile communication applications. The DSP, called MDSP-II, has a mobile communication accelerator which enables higher signal processing performance than the other general-purpose DSPs. With the assistance of the accelerator, the GSM baseband functions which usually need 53 million instructions per second can be performed only with 19 MIPS. MDSP-II fabricated on 9.7 mm/spl times/9.8 mm die with a 0.6-/spl mu/m TLM CMOS process operates at 55 MHz.

Relaxation Oscillation SQUIDs (ROS) and Double Relaxation Oscillation SQUIDs (DROS) combine the sensitivity of dc-SQUIDs with a large transfer, thus enabling flux locked loop operation with direct voltage readout by a room-temperature dc-amplifier, without flux modulation techniques. We fabricated several ROSs and DROSs with relaxation frequencies from 5 to 180 MHz. The experimental flux-to-frequency curves of the ROSs can well be fitted with theory, and the transfer (up to 170 MHz/Φ 0 ) is large enough for practical use in a FLL without flux modulation. The experimental flux-to-voltage characteristics of the DROSs show very large transfer values of typically 10 to 30 mV/Φ 0 . A DROS operated in a simple FLL with direct voltage readout showed a white noise level of about 2 μΦ 0 /√Hz. A three channel DROS magnetometer system for biomagnetic measurements is under construction. In the DROSs that are to be used in this system, the signal flux is coupled to the SQUID by a tightly coupled 50-turn input coil

Dyadic Green's functions (DGFs) for multi-layered uniaxially anisotropic media are developed analytically when the optic axis of each layer is arbitrarily oriented. DGFs are expressed in terms of two characteristic waves ' ordinary and extraordinary, in the k -domain with Fresnel reflection and transmission coefficients. The Fresnel coefficients are obtained by the application of boundary conditions at the anisotropic interfaces. The results have been checked in the limiting cases with existing results analytically. The results of this work can be used in electromagnetic radiation and scattering problems in the presence of multi-layered anisotropic media.

Corrigendum to: The diagnostic value of the sagittal multiplanar reconstruction CT images for nasal bone fractures [65(4): 308e314] B.H. Kim , H.S. Seo *, A.-Y. Kim , Y.S. Lee , Y.H. Lee , S.-I. Suh , D.H. Lee d Department of Radiology, Korea University Ansan Hospital, 516 Gojan1-dong, Danwon-gu, Ansan-si, Gyunggi-do, 425e707, Republic of Korea Department of Radiology, Dongguk University International Hospital, Gyunggi-do, Republic of Korea Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Korea University Guro Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea Department of Radiology, Seoul Medical Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Sweet corn ( Zea mays ) is one of the most important crops in Korea. In Goesan District, Korea in 2007 it was cultivated on 1,178.7 ha and produced 9,725 tonnes (http://www.goesan.go.kr). Bacterial stalk rot of sweet corn (cv. Daehak) was…