Beta-lactam antibiotic prevents tolerance to the hypothermic effect of a kappa opioid receptor agonist.

Beta-lactam antibiotics are the only clinically approved drugs which directly increase glutamate uptake. They activate the glutamate transporter subtype 1 (GLT-1), the protein responsible for 90% of glutamate uptake in the mammalian brain. The capacity of GLT-1 to clear extracellular glutamate suggests that glutamate transporter activators be explored for therapeutic approaches to clinical conditions caused by increased glutamatergic transmission.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of behaviour change interventions: a proposed new approach and an application to Egypt.

This paper presents a new approach to cost analysis of family planning programmes that focuses on behaviour change of programme clients as the final 'output' rather than units of contraceptive services delivered, as does the familiar couple-years-of-protection index. It is useful to know how much it costs to deliver a unit of contraceptive services, but it would also seem useful to know how much it costs to change a prospective client's behaviour. The proposed approach rests on the familiar 'steps to behaviour change' paradigm and: (1) develops a methodology for applying a client-behaviour-change-centred cost analysis to programme activities; (2) tests the methodology and concepts by applying them retrospectively to a case study of mass media interventions in Egypt; (3) derives cost per unit of behaviour changes for these Egyptian communications campaigns to demonstrate the workability of the approach.

Policy implications of the next world demographic transition.

Although the world demographic transition from high to low fertility appears to be nearing its completion, observed in perspective, this is the latest in a series of such transitions stretching back into prehistory. A stable new equilibrium is far from inevitable; indeed, it is unlikely. Many countries are experiencing below-replacement-level fertility, and this trend is spreading.