This paper examines modern economic growth according to the multidimensional scaling (MDS) method and state space portrait (SSP) analysis. Electing GDP per capita as the main indicator for economic growth and prosperity, the long-run perspective from 1870 to 2010 identifies the main similarities among 34 world partners' modern economic growth and exemplifies the historical waving mechanics of the largest world economy, the USA. MDS reveals two main clusters among the European countries and their old offshore territories, and SSP identifies the Great Depression as a mild challenge to the American global performance, when compared to the Second World War and the 2008 crisis.

Until now, immunoassays for detection of anti-muscle relaxant IgE in serum have been performed with the drug coupled to epoxy-activated Sepharose or to RAST papers dics. In the present work we have used a quaternary ammonium-Sepharose in which the quaternary ammonium reactive group (choline chloride) was directly coupled to Sepharose via an ether linkage. 50 microliters of the quaternary ammonium solid phase (QAS) was incubated with 50 microliters of serum for 3 h, washed, incubated 18 h with 125I-anti-IgE and washed again. The results were expressed as the percentage of 125I-anti-IgE absorbed onto the solid phase. The results were at 1.3 +/- 0.5% for 20 control sera, with an upper normal limit estimated to 2.3%. The within-run reproducibility ranged from 3.2% to 10.0%. The results were significantly correlated with those obtained with either alcuronium-epoxy-Sepharose, choline-epoxy-Sepharose, the RAST-alcuronium or with the RAST-succinyl choline (respectively, r = 0.66, r = 0.80, r = 0.81, r = 0.40 and r = 0.85). The values obtained with the sera of 83 patients ranged from 0.3 to 38.5%. The sensitivity was estimated at 87.9%, 66.7% and 40.7% with the QAS-RIA, the RAST-succinyl choline and the RAST-alcuronium, respectively. The inhibition of adsorption of specific IgE onto the gel ranged from 13.0 to 90.6% in presence of 130 nmol of soluble muscle relaxants. In 83.3% of 30 cases, the highest inhibition was obtained with the muscle relaxant which was clinically incriminated.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

We have evaluated the in vitro leukocyte histamine release tests for the diagnosis of allergy to muscle relaxant drugs in 40 patients (Group A) and a control group of 44 subjects with negative leukocyte histamine release (Group B). Non-IgE dependent histamine release, expressed as a percentage of the total blood histamine, was 3.94% +/- 0.49 in Group B. The upper limit of positivity was estimated to be 5% (mean + 2 SD). Leukocyte histamine release tests were positive in 65% of the patients from Group A. The concordance between LHR and QAS-RIA was 64%. The maximal histamine release was observed at dilutions of 10(-2)-10(-4) in 20 of the 26 positive cases. The maximal histamine release was 43.8% +/- 23.3. The spontaneous histamine release was as low as 1.7% +/- 1.1. Cross-reactivity among the 5 different muscle relaxant drugs has been investigated and compared by intradermal testing. The muscle relaxant drugs which gave the lower skin reaction (M2) and the drug responsible for shock (M1) were selected for the study of in vitro leukocyte histamine release. Of 20 M2. All of the 10 cases had negative ID tests with M2. Three of these patients subsequently underwent general anesthesia with the muscle relaxant chosen as harmless (M2) without any clinical reaction.

No abstract