Nickel-silver composition shows promise as catalyst for hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells

Carburized 3-1 nickel-silver preparation exhibits considerable catalytic activity, although not as high as platinum black. Cost and availability factors warrant further evaluation of nickel-silver materials

Thermal expansion of a lead sulfide nanofilm

The thermal expansion of a lead sulfide nanofilm produced by chemical bath deposition was determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The thickness of the synthesized film was about 100 nm, and the average size of the coherent scattering regions as determined from XRD was about 40 nm. The lattice constant of the PbS nanofilm was measured as a function of the annealing temperature from 293 to 473 K and as a function of the annealing time at a constant temperature of 423 K. The thermal expansion coefficient derived was found almost twice as large as that for coarse-grained PbS. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. All rights reserved

Near Surface Crystallization of Pluronic P123

On a hydrophilic substrate the growth of a Bragg peak was observed at Q≈0.05 Å−1 which we attribute to a layering of micelles. This ordering is destroyed when the system is sheared. When shear is removed, it builds up and reaches equilibrium at ambient temperature after approximately 700s. However, there is a waiting time of 200s before any structure becomes visible again. When lower shear rates are applied the ordering recovers more quickly, but it does not build up to the same extent

design of the HELP study extension

Background Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is characterized by recurrent attacks of subcutaneous or submucosal edema. Attacks are unpredictable, debilitating, and have a significant impact on quality of life. Patients may be prescribed prophylactic therapy to prevent angioedema attacks. Current prophylactic treatments may be difficult to administer (i.e., intravenously), require frequent administrations or are not well tolerated, and breakthrough attacks may still occur frequently. Lanadelumab is a subcutaneously-administered monoclonal antibody inhibitor of plasma kallikrein in clinical development for prophylaxis of hereditary angioedema attacks. A Phase 1b study supported its efficacy in preventing attacks. A Phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo- controlled, parallel-arm study has been completed and an open-label extension is currently ongoing. Methods/design The primary objective of the open-label extension is to evaluate the long-term safety of repeated subcutaneous administrations of lanadelumab in patients with type I/II HAE. Secondary objectives include evaluation of efficacy and time to first angioedema attack to determine outer bounds of the dosing interval. The study will also evaluate immunogenicity, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics, quality of life, characteristics of breakthrough attacks, ease of self-administration, and safety/efficacy in patients who switch to lanadelumab from another prophylactic therapy. The open-label extension will enroll patients who completed the double-blind study (“rollover patients”) and those who did not participate in the double-blind study (“non-rollover patients”), which includes patients who may or may not be currently using another prophylactic therapy. Rollover patients will receive a single 300 mg dose of lanadelumab on Day 0 and the second dose after the patient’s first confirmed angioedema attack. Thereafter, lanadelumab will be administered every 2 weeks. Non- rollover patients will receive 300 mg lanadelumab every 2 weeks regardless of the first attack. All patients will receive their last dose on Day 350 (maximum of 26 doses), and will then undergo a 4-week follow-up. Discussion Prevention of attacks can reduce the burden of illness associated with HAE. Prophylactic therapy requires extended, repeated dosing and the results of this study will provide important data on the long-term safety and efficacy of lanadelumab, a monoclonal antibody inhibitor of plasma kallikrein for subcutaneous administration for the treatment of HAE. Trial registration NCT0274159

Aspects of hereditary angioedema genotyping in the era of NGS: The case of F12 gene = Wybrane aspekty genotypowania wrodzonego obrzȩku naczynioruchowego w erze NGS: Gen F12

Objective. To screen a cohort of patients diagnosed with non-FXII angioedema for carriage of variants of F12 gene. Material and methods. DNA samples from 191 patients suffering from primary angioedema with normal C1-INH, 54 samples from non- -affected family members, and 161 samples from C1-INH-HAE (154 type I, 7 type II) patients were included in the study. The F12 gene was genotyped by targeted NGS (100% coverage of translated regions). Sanger sequencing was performed for the verification of all identified variants and family segregation studies. Results. The pathogenic F12 variant c.983C>A was detected in three patients from two unrelated families initially diagnosed as U-HAE. Six additional mutations were identified, four of which were characterized as benign (c.41T>C, c.418C>G, c.1025C>T, c.530C>T) and two of uncertain significance (c.1530G>C, c.1768T>G). Two synonymous variants (c.756C>T and c.711C>T), the common polymorphism c.619G>C, and the functional polymorphism c.-4T>C were detected in allele frequencies similar to those presented in the ExAC database for the European population. One more not yet reported synonymous variant (c. 1599A>G) was also found. Conclusion. Analyzing the entire translated region of F12 gene is important in order to identify new variants that possibly affect HAE expressivity. Interestingly, genetic analysis of F12 supports not only the diagnosis of FXII-HAE but also the correct exclusion diagnosis of U-HAE

In situ investigation of two-step nucleation and growth of CdS nanoparticles from solution

We report on a combined ultra-fast in situ SAXS and WAXS study along a free-jet providing insight into the evolution of the morphology and crystalline structure of CdS quantum dots in the very early stage of nucleation between 100 μs and 2.5 ms with a time resolution down to 10 μs. Accessing this yet unexplored time regime provides direct evidence of a two-step mechanism via formation of prenucleation clusters followed by nanoparticle nucleation from coalescing precursors. Using ab initio calculations, the latter species is identified as Cd13S4(SH)18 clusters, the stability of which results from a compact surface and inner structure

A Study of The Formation of Stationary Localized States Due to Nonlinear Impurities Using The Discrete Nonlinear Schr\"odinger Equation

The Discrete Nonlinear Schr$\ddot{o}$dinger Equation is used to study the formation of stationary localized states due to a single nonlinear impurity in a Caley tree and a dimeric nonlinear impurity in the one dimensional system. The rotational nonlinear impurity and the impurity of the form $-\chi \mid C \mid^{\sigma}$ where $\sigma$ is arbitrary and $\chi$ is the nonlinearity parameter are considered. Furthermore, $\mid C \mid$ represents the absolute value of the amplitude. Altogether four cases are studies. The usual Greens function approach and the ansatz approach are coherently blended to obtain phase diagrams showing regions of different number of states in the parameter space. Equations of critical lines separating various regions in phase diagrams are derived analytically. For the dimeric problem with the impurity $-\chi \mid C \mid^{\sigma}$, three values of $\mid \chi_{cr} \mid$, namely, $\mid \chi_{cr} \mid = 2$, at $\sigma = 0$ and $\mid \chi_{cr} \mid = 1$ and $\frac{8}{3}$ for $\sigma = 2$ are obtained. Last two values are lower than the existing values. Energy of the states as a function of parameters is also obtained. A model derivation for the impurities is presented. The implication of our results in relation to disordered systems comprising of nonlinear impurities and perfect sites is discussed.Comment: 10 figures available on reques

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13