The use of a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model to predict GABA-A receptor binding of newly emerging benzodiazepines

The illicit market for new psychoactive substances is forever expanding. Benzodiazepines and their derivatives are one of a number of groups of these substances and thus far their number has grown year upon year. For both forensic and clinical purposes it is important to be able to rapidly understand these emerging substances. However as a consequence of the illicit nature of these compounds, there is a deficiency in the pharmacological data available for these ‘new’ benzodiazepines. In order to further understand the pharmacology of ‘new’ benzodiazepines we utilised a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) approach. A set of 69 benzodiazepine-based compounds was analysed to develop a QSAR training set with respect to published binding values to GABA_A receptors. The QSAR model returned an R² value of 0.90. The most influential factors were found to be the positioning of two H-bond acceptors, two aromatic rings and a hydrophobic group. A test set of nine random compounds was then selected for internal validation to determine the predictive ability of the model and gave an R² value of 0.86 when comparing the binding values with their experimental data. The QSAR model was then used to predict the binding for 22 benzodiazepines that are classed as new psychoactive substances. This model will allow rapid prediction of the binding activity of emerging benzodiazepines in a rapid and economic way, compared with lengthy and expensive in vitro/in vivo analysis. This will enable forensic chemists and toxicologists to better understand both recently developed compounds and prediction of substances likely to emerge in the future.     

Book reviews

Tibor Szamuely, The Russian Tradition. (Edited and with an Introduction by Robert Conquest.) London: Secker & Warburg, 1974. x+443 pp. £5.00.

Mahmoud Abdel‐Fadil, La Planification des prix en économie socialiste, Essai méthodologique. (Préface de Henri Bartoli.) Série: Sciences Economiques —3. Paris: Publications de l'Université de Paris I—Panthéon‐Sorbonne, 1975. 296 pp.

Jan Adam, Wage, Price and Taxation Policy in Czechoslovakia 1948–1970. Veröffentlichungen des Osteuropa‐Institutes, München. Reihe: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Heft 15. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1974. 231 pp. DM 66.60.

Stephen Osofsky, Soviet Agricultural Policy. Toward the Abolition of Collective Farms. (Praeger Special Studies in International Economics and Development.) New York: Praeger, 1974. xi+300 pp. $20.00.

Peter J. Potichnyj, Soviet Agricultural Trade Unions, 1917–70. Toronto: University of Toronto Press and London: OUP, 1972. xix+258 pp. £6.25.

Roy A. Medvedev, On Socialist Democracy. (Translated from the Russian and edited by Ellen de Kadt.) London: Macmillan, 1975. xxii+405 +xv pp. £12.00.

The Bolsheviks and the October Revolution. Minutes of the Central Committee of the Russian Social‐Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks) August 1917‐February 1918. Translated from the Russian by Ann Bone. London: Pluto Press, 1974. x+331 pp. £6.60. £2.70 (paperback).

G. I. Tunkin, Theory of International Law. Translated, with an introduction, by William E. Butler. London: Allen & Unwin, 1975. First published in Great Britain in 1974. xxv+497 pp. £8.00.

Bohdan R. Bociurkiw and John W. Strong (eds.), Religion and Atheism in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. London: Macmillan, 1975. xviii+412 pp. £10.00.

R. S. Mathieson, The Soviet Union: An Economic Geography. London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1975. xvii+342 pp. £7.50.

Violet Conolly, Siberia Today and Tomorrow. A Study of Economic Resources, Problems and Achievements. London and Glasgow: Collins, 1975. 248 pp. £4–95.

Burton Paulu, Radio and Television Broadcasting in Eastern Europe. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP and London: OUP, 1974. xi+592 pp. £13.25.

John McLeish, Soviet Psychology: History, Theory, Content. London: Methuen, 1975. xii+308 pp. £6.95.

Robin Edmonds, Soviet Foreign Policy 1962–1973: The Paradox of Super Power. London: OUP, 1975. xiv+197 pp. £4.50.

Michael MccGwire, Ken Booth and John McDonnell (eds.), Soviet Naval Policy. Objectives and Constraints. (Praeger Special Studies in International Politics and Government.) New York: Praeger and London: Pall Mall Press, 1975. xxvi+663 pp. $32.50. £14.25.

Jerome M. Gilison, The Soviet Image of Utopia. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1975. 192 pp. £4.85.

Victor Serge and Natalia Sedova Trotsky, The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky. London: Wildwood House, 1975. 296 pp. £6.95.     

Reviews

K. Post and P. Wright, Socialism and Underdevelopment. London and New York: Routledge, 1989, x+204 pp.

Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams. Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, viii+307 pp., £26.00.

Henry S. Rowen and Charles Wolf Jr. eds., The Future of the Soviet Empire. foreword by Donald H. Rumsfeld. London: Macmillan Press, 1988, xx+368 pp., £27.50.

Alexander Shtromas and Morton A. Kaplan eds., The Soviet Union and the Challenge of the Future—Volume 1: Stasis and Change. New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1988, xx+555 pp., $29.95.

Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Moscow's Third World Strategy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989, xi+311 pp., $29.95.

Leo Cooper, The Political Economy of Soviet Military Power. London: Macmillan, 1989, xi+263 pp., £29.50.

Clive Archer ed., The Soviet Union and Northern Waters. London: Routledge for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1988, xvii+261 pp., £35.00.

Jeffry Klugman, The New Soviet Elite: How They Think and What They Want. New York: Praeger, 1989, 237 pp., $24.95.

Bruno Grancelli, Soviet Management and Labour Relations. London: Allen and Unwin, 1988, xvi+248 pp., £28.00.

Ellen Mickiewicz, Split Signals: Television and Politics in the Soviet Union. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988, xi+286 pp., £18.00.

William van den Bercken, Ideology and Atheism in the Soviet Union (Religion and Society 28). Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1989, viii+191 pp., DM 98.00.

Stephen White, The Origins of Detente: The Genoa Conference and Soviet‐Western Relations, 1921–1922. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, xv+255 pp., £25.00.

Anita Prazmowska, Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front, 1939. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, viii+231 pp., £25.00.

Ivo Banac, With Stalin against Tito: Cominformist Splits in Yugoslav Communism. London: Cornell University Press, 1988, XVI+294 pp., $35.75.

Harold Lydall, Yugoslavia in Crisis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, xii+255 pp., £25.00.

Josef C. Brada and Istvan Dobozi, eds., The Hungarian Economy in the 1980s: Reforming the System and Adjusting to External Shocks. London: JAI Press Inc., 1988, xv+277 pp., $58.50 (Instit), $35.10 (Indiv.).

J. C. Brada, E. A. Hewett & T. A. Wolf, eds., Economic Adjustment and Reform in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1988, xxv+428 pp., £54.00.

John P. Hardt and Carl H. McMillan, Planned Economies Confronting the Challenge of the 1980s. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, xiv+193 pp., £25.00.

Pedro Ramet, ed., Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1988, viii+465 pp., $47.50.

Jan Zielonka, Political Ideas in Contemporary Poland. Avebury: Gower, 1989, ix+210 pp., £25.00.

A. J. Motyl, Will the Non‐Russians Rebel? State Ethnicity and Stability in the USSR. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, xii+188 pp., $27.45.

Mike Dennis, German Democratic Republic. Politics, Economics and Society. London and New York: Pinter, 1988, vii+223 pp., h/b £25.00, p/b £8.95.

Marilyn Rueschemeyer and Christiane Lemke eds., The Quality of Life in the German Democratic Republic. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989, xiii+242 pp., $40.00.

Stephen F. Burant ed., East Germany: a Country Study. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1988, 3rd ed., xxxiii+433 pp.

Artemy Troitsky, Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia. (Title of British edition: Tell Tchaikovsky the News...) Boston, MA, and London: Faber and Faber, 1988, 160 pp., $9.95 p/b.     

A failure of imagination: R.G. Casey and Australian plans for counter-subversion in Asia, 1954-1956

This article is a study of some aspects of the non-military response of the Menzies government to the decolonisation of the European empires and the cold war in Asia. In the mid-1950s R.G. Casey, the Minister for External Affairs, was given responsibility by the cabinet to develop a programme of Colombo Plan - educational, cultural, propaganda, intelligence and political initiatives - which the Menzies government hoped would influence the outcome of the cold war in Asia. This article suggests that an examination of these government initiatives reveals some important insights into the nature of the Menzies government's understanding of and response to the revolutionary changes which swept through Asia in the decade after the Second World War.     

Mobilising against Globalisation: Attac and the French Intellectuals

Contemporary France has witnessed the rise of an anti-globalisation movement that has mobilised with considerable intensity and force on a national and international stage. This article examines the role of Attac, the leading French organisation against neo-liberal globalisation, focusing on its impact within mainstream political life. Attac has been characterised by unparalleled success within formal politics, gaining access to key institutions of government and developing alliances with parties on both the Left and Right. It will be argued here that the political success of Attac is linked to the place of intellectual elites within it, who hold positions of power and influence within political, university and media circles. This is an organisation in which intellectuals play a pre-eminent role, placing their own knowledge and expertise at the service of a political cause.     

Discursive democracy and the challenge of state building in divided societies: reckoning with symbolic capital in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Current approaches to democratic state building place serious conceptual limits on policy options. A democratic future for Bosnia's people will require far more searching engagement with identity formation and its politicization than reform efforts have so far contemplated. Theories of discursive democracy illuminate how this might be possible. We deploy the discursive idea of symbolic capital to show how one might identify the lines along which people in Bosnia could constitute meaningful, internally legitimated political communities – or that would indicate the experiment was not worth attempting. Unless advocates of democratic state building can articulate, rather than assume, a sufficiency of common ground among the populations' multiple, overlapping and conflicting identities, they may have to revert to the default of separate political communities.