The preparation, metal binding ability and catalytic activity of poly itaconate copolymers with pendant ethylene amine groups

A polymeranalogous reaction in homogeneous medium was carried out to prepare poly itaconate copolymers with pendant ethylene imine groups. Three copolymers, poly- (MHpI+DHpI), poly (MBI+DBI) and poly (MMI+DMI) were prepared, characterised and their composition analysed. The acid groups in the monoesters were reacted with ethylene diamine, diethylenetriamine, triethylenetetramine or tetraethylenepentamine in the presence of dicyclohexyl car bodiimide. Two types of polymer-metal complexes, polymer chelates and pendant-type polymer-metal complexes were prepared. The complexation between the polymeric ligands and cobalt(II) chloride or copper(II) chloride was studied by visible spectroscopy. The electron microscopy study of these polymer-metal complexes shows that the size and the number of the metal ion clusters increases proportionally with the mole percentage of the metal ions. The catalytic activity of the polymer-metal complexes on the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide has been studied. Graphical and mathematical methods were used to show and compare the catalytic activity of these polymer-metal complexes. It was found that the catalyst efficiencies were in the decreasing order of: poly(MHpI+DHpI)/EN/ Co(en)2Cl] 2+ 2Cl" ^ poly(MMI+DMI)/EN/[ Co(en)2Cl] 2+ 2C1~ ^ poly(MHpI+DHpI)/TEPA/CoCl2 ^ poly(MHpI+DHpI)/TEPA/CuCl2^ poly (MMI+DMI) /TEPA/CoCl^ poly (MMI+DMI) /TEPA/CuC12. The thermal stability of these modified polymers and polymer-metal complexes confirms that degradation was a random chain scission process and that the thermal stability of the polymer-metal complexes were higher than the polymeric ligands due to crosslinking. The viscoelasticity study shows that the modulus in the rubbery region increases when the mole percentage of the pendant ethylene amine group was less than 6.3. The glass transition temperature increases and becomes broader and ill-defined as the mole percentage of pendant ethylene amine group increases due to enhanced inter molecular interactions in the system

10 years of experience in adopting, implementing and evaluating progress testing for Saudi medical students

Objectives: The progress test (PT) is a comprehensive examination that is designed to match the knowledge acquisition necessary at graduation and monitors progress during the entire period of an undergraduate program. Qassim College of Medicine (QCM) began using the multi-institutional PT in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). This study aimed to determine if the PT can be utilized to assess the progress of medical students at different Saudi medical colleges with different educational approaches, as well as whether this testing modality could be accepted by other colleges. Methods: Beside the establishment of a PT committee, comprehensive blueprinting was crafted to sample 200 A-type multiple choice questions (MCQs) from different disciplines. The PT is a paper-and-pencil model and is answered in a 4-h period. All PT items followed a uniform design. Results: In total, 13 rounds of the progress test have been conducted. The number of participating colleges increased from three (with 285 students) in the first test (May 2012) to more than 20 (with &gt;6000 students) in the ninth round (February 2017). The average % scores for first-year students ranged from 3.0% to 7.9% while the average scores for fifth-year students ranged from 34.0% to 43.0%. Conclusion: The conduction of this meticulously crafted test to evaluate knowledge achievement at medical graduation is a fruitful tool and helps to provide constructive feedback for test-takers and other stakeholders relating to their relative positions among other fellows at the national level.</p

Why honey is effective as a medicine. 1. Its use in modern medicine

Honey has been used as a medicine for thousands of years and its curative properties are well documented. However, modern medicine turned its back on honey and it is only now, with the advent of multi-resistant bacteria, that the antibiotic properties of honey are being rediscovered

Quantum dynamics in strong fluctuating fields

A large number of multifaceted quantum transport processes in molecular systems and physical nanosystems can be treated in terms of quantum relaxation processes which couple to one or several fluctuating environments. A thermal equilibrium environment can conveniently be modelled by a thermal bath of harmonic oscillators. An archetype situation provides a two-state dissipative quantum dynamics, commonly known under the label of a spin-boson dynamics. An interesting and nontrivial physical situation emerges, however, when the quantum dynamics evolves far away from thermal equilibrium. This occurs, for example, when a charge transferring medium possesses nonequilibrium degrees of freedom, or when a strong time-dependent control field is applied externally. Accordingly, certain parameters of underlying quantum subsystem acquire stochastic character. Herein, we review the general theoretical framework which is based on the method of projector operators, yielding the quantum master equations for systems that are exposed to strong external fields. This allows one to investigate on a common basis the influence of nonequilibrium fluctuations and periodic electrical fields on quantum transport processes. Most importantly, such strong fluctuating fields induce a whole variety of nonlinear and nonequilibrium phenomena. A characteristic feature of such dynamics is the absence of thermal (quantum) detailed balance.Comment: review article, Advances in Physics (2005), in pres

A experiência da loucura segundo o espiritismo: uma análise dos prontuários médicos do Sanatório Espírita de Uberaba

Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar, a partir da análise dos prontuários de internamento de uma instituição destinada ao tratamento de alienados administrada por seguidores do espiritismo, as concepções particulares sobre saúde, doença e loucura produzidas por essa doutrina e o modo pelo qual elas eram transpostas para o interior de uma instituição de caráter asilar, o Sanatório Espírita de Uberaba, no Brasil da primeira metade do século XX

Proteomic identification and characterization of hepatic glyoxalase 1 dysregulation in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Background: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disease worldwide. However, its molecular pathogenesis is incompletely characterized and clinical biomarkers remain scarce. The aims of these experiments were to identify and characterize liver protein alterations in an animal model of early, diet-related, liver injury and to assess novel candidate biomarkers in NAFLD patients. Methods: Liver membrane and cytosolic protein fractions from high fat fed apolipoprotein E knockout (ApoE−/−) animals were analyzed by quantitative proteomics, utilizing isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) combined with nano-liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry (nLC-MS/MS). Differential protein expression was confirmed independently by immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry in both murine tissue and biopsies from paediatric NAFLD patients. Candidate biomarkers were analyzed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in serum from adult NAFLD patients. Results: Through proteomic profiling, we identified decreased expression of hepatic glyoxalase 1 (GLO1) in a murine model. GLO1 protein expression was also found altered in tissue biopsies from paediatric NAFLD patients. In vitro experiments demonstrated that, in response to lipid loading in hepatocytes, GLO1 is first hyperacetylated then ubiquitinated and degraded, leading to an increase in reactive methylglyoxal. In a cohort of 59 biopsy-confirmed adult NAFLD patients, increased serum levels of the primary methylglyoxal-derived advanced glycation endproduct, hydroimidazolone (MG-H1) were significantly correlated with body mass index (r = 0.520, p < 0.0001). Conclusion: Collectively these results demonstrate the dysregulation of GLO1 in NAFLD and implicate the acetylation-ubquitination degradation pathway as the functional mechanism. Further investigation of the role of GLO1 in the molecular pathogenesis of NAFLD is warranted. Keywords: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, Glyoxalase, Methylglyoxal, Proteomics, iTRA

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe