This investigation characterised the effects of exogenous insulin on exocrine pancreatic secretion in anaesthetised healthy and diabetic rats. Animals were rendered diabetic by a single injection of streptozotocin (STZ, 60 mg kg(-1) I.P.). Age-matched controls were injected citrate buffer. Rats were tested for hyperglycaemia 4 days after STZ injection and 7-8 weeks later when they were used for the experiments. Following anaesthesia (1 g kg(-1) urethane I.P.), laparotomy was performed and the pancreatic duct cannulated for collection of pure pancreatic juice. Basal pancreatic juice flow rate in diabetic rats was significantly (p < 0.001) increased whereas protein and amylase outputs were significantly (p < 0.001) decreased compared to control rats. Insulin (1 IU, I.P.) produced in healthy rats significant increases in pancreatic flow rate, amylase secretion and protein output compared to basal (p < 0.05). Insulin action also included a reduction in blood glucose (152.7 +/- 16.9 mg dl(-1), n = 6, prior to insulin and 42.0 +/- 8.4 mg dl(-1), n = 4, 100 min later). In fact, flow rate and glycaemia showed a strong negative correlation (p < 0.01, Pearson). Pretreatment with atropine (0.2 mg kg(-1), I.V.) abolished the effects of insulin on secretory parameters despite a similar reduction in glycaemia; in this series of experiments the correlation between flow rate and blood glucose was lost. In diabetic rats, insulin (4 IU, I.P.) did not modify exocrine pancreatic secretion. There was a fall in blood glucose (467.6 +/- 14.0 mg dl(-1), n = 10, prior to insulin and 386.6 +/- 43.6 mg dl(-1), n = 7, 120 min later). Rats, however, did not become hypoglycaemic. Similar results were observed in diabetic atropinized rats. The results of this study indicate that the effects of insulin on exocrine pancreatic secretion in anaesthetised healthy rats are mediated by hypoglycaemia-evoked vagal cholinergic activation.

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When a group of individuals try to collectively make a decision, it is important that all of them accept the decision adopted. It means, to improve consensus, some adjustments could be inevitably performed to the initial assessments given by the individuals. To do it, several models have been recently developed from the viewpoint of the granular computing paradigm. However, the models dealing with intuitionistic reciprocal preference relations do not consider that the modified assessments could be very different from the initial ones. The aim of this work is to develop a model based on the granular computing paradigm that tries to increase the consensus at the same time that tries to reduce the dissimilarity between the original assessments and the adjusted ones. In addition to it, this model is able to deal with multicriteria group decision making problems.

Decision making is a line of research that has been consolidating since its beginnings in the 1960s. The aim of this paper is to show the evolution and future challenges of this line of research, focusing especially on its evaluation and information methods. For this purpose, some issues and trends of the fuzzy decision system are presented. By doing so, it is possible to show which trend fuzzy decision systems will follow and the challenges that may arise.