Conclusions and Further Perspectives

Monitoring of Thiopurine Therapy Thiopurine S-Methyltransferase Conclusions and Further Perspectives References... 

The best conclusion that can be drawn from these data is perhaps that treatment with naltrexone may offer promise for some, but certainly not all, patients with self-injury. Treatment effects may depend on background opioid levels, dosage, and treatment regimen. Noninvasive measures that predict individual treatment response have not been established. Self-injury is a heterogeneous phenomenon from a clinical and biological perspective (Buitelaar, 1993 Willemsen-Swinkels et ah, 1998). Further studies are required in this area, and and should include carefully clinically documented cases, large samples, and controlled designs. At this time, the use of naltrexone for the treatment of self-injury is to be considered experimental. 

We can learn from history that all kinds of persons were interested in the subject from a philosophical perspective and/or with respect to the application of techniques (engineering) but always motivated by the specific problems (e. g. pollution) of their era. We also hold deep respect for our scientific ancestors for their brilliant conclusions, based on scientific experiments with very simple techniques and limited quantitative measurements. The great interest in historical data from the era before fossil fuel combustion lies in determining background concentrations, in other words, the natural reference concentrations for assessing the human-influenced changes in chemical air composition. The endeavor remains to learn from previous studies to ask the appropriate open questions and draw the right conclusions for further studies. 

This book marks the conclusion of this strong period of development and is therefore a milestone in measurement science. As such, the field already has a history. But as history makes no sense without a future, the last Chapter of this book deals with expected further developments in terms of organization and needs. Between history and future the book presents, as a snap shot, the application of standards in analytical chemistry. The perspective of Quality Assurance is never forgotten. 

Here, I would like to elaborate further on the theme of bifurcation. Section II describes the present state of bifurcation analysis of nonequilibrium systems and gives some of my personal perspectives on what I consider to be some promising lines of development. Section III reviews a number of physical, chemical, or biological problems which can be modeled by means of this theory and which provide us with illustrations of chemical evolution, the subject of the present volume. A representative case, the origin and selection of chirality, is analyzed in Section IV. Some conclusions regarding the dynamics of self-organizing systems are presented in Section V. 

A team of PwC professionals with experience in sustainability and the chemical industry reviewed the survey results and consulted with a panel of experts and practitioners from the industry for their perspective on what the raw numbers and responses indicated. We then developed our preliminary findings. We also identified additional issues where more structured discussion might elicit further insights and conducted two focus groups to better understand some of the findings and validate our overall conclusions. 

---