627 research outputs found
The Law of Standard Form Contracts: Misguided Intuitions and Suggestions for Reconstruction
No description supplie
Kinetics of cell-free activation of neutrophil NADPH oxidase. Effects of neomycin and guanine nucleotides
Paraoxonase Activity and Expression Is Modulated by Therapeutics in Experimental Rat Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Objective. The objective of the present study is to investigate the effect of rosiglitazone, metformin, ezetimibe, and valsartan (alone or in combinations) on paraoxonase (PON) activity and PON-mRNA expression in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Methods. 54 Male Sprague–Dawley rats were divided to 9 groups: chow diet group (15 weeks); methionine-choline-deficient diet (MCDD) group (15 weeks); MCDD-treated groups for the last 6 weeks with either metformin (M), rosiglitazone (R), metformin plus rosiglitazone (M+R), ezetimibe (E), valsartan (V), or a combination of R+M+V or of R+M+V+E for a total period of 15 weeks. Results. PON activities in serum and liver were decreased in MCDD rats. PON activity in serum increased significantly in all treatment groups. PON activity in liver was also increased significantly, except only in groups R, E, V, R+M+V, and R+M+V+E. Liver PON3 mRNA expression increased significantly in groups R+M, E, V, R+M+V, and R+M+V+E whereas liver PON2 mRNA expression increased significantly in MCDD, R+M, E, V, R+M+V, and R+M+V+E. Conclusions. PON activities in serum and liver were decreased in NAFLD. Treatment with insulin sensitizers, ezetimibe, and valsartan increased PON activity and reduced oxidative stress both in serum and liver
Antiresonances in Molecular Wires
We present analytic and numerical studies based on Landauer theory of
conductance antiresonances of molecular wires. Our analytic treatment is a
solution of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation for the wire that includes the
effects of the non-orthogonality of the atomic orbitals on different atoms
exactly. The problem of non-orthogonality is treated by solving the transport
problem in a new Hilbert space which is spanned by an orthogonal basis. An
expression is derived for the energies at which antiresonances should occur for
a molecular wire connected to a pair of single-channel 1D leads. From this
expression we identify two distinct mechanisms that give rise to antiresonances
under different circumstances. The exact treatment of non-orthogonality in the
theory is found to be necessary to obtain reliable results. Our numerical
simulations extend this work to multichannel leads and to molecular wires
connected to 3D metallic nanocontacts. They demonstrate that our analytic
results also provide a good description of these more complicated systems
provided that certain well-defined conditions are met. These calculations
suggest that antiresonances should be experimentally observable in the
differential conductance of molecular wires of certain types.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure
The assembly of neutrophil NADPH oxidase: effects of mastoparan and its synthetic analogues
Electron transport through dipyrimidinyl-diphenyl diblock molecular wire: protonation effect
Recently, rectifying direction inversion has been observed in
dipyrimidinyl-diphenyl (PMPH) diblock molecular wire [J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2005)
127, 10456], and a protonation mechanism was suggested to explain this
interesting phenomena. In this paper, we study the protonation effect on
transport properties of PMPH molecule by first principles calculations. No
significant rectification is found for the pristine diblock molecular wire.
Protonation leads to conductance enhancement and rectification. However, for
all considered junctions with rectifying effect, the preferential current
directions are samely from dipyrimidinyl side to diphenyl side. Effect of
molecule-electrode anchoring geometry is studied, and it is not responsible for
the discrepancy between experiment and theory.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure
Molecular Wires Acting as Coherent Quantum Ratchets
The effect of laser fields on the electron transport through a molecular wire
being weakly coupled to two leads is investigated. The molecular wire acts as a
coherent quantum ratchet if the molecule is composed of periodically arranged,
asymmetric chemical groups. This setup presents a quantum rectifier with a
finite dc-response in the absence of a static bias. The nonlinear current is
evaluated in closed form within the Floquet basis of the isolated, driven wire.
The current response reveals multiple current reversals together with a
nonlinear dependence (reflecting avoided quasi-energy crossings) on both, the
amplitude and the frequency of the laser field. The current saturates for long
wires at a nonzero value, while it may change sign upon decreasing its length.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX
Kirchhoff's Rule for Quantum Wires
In this article we formulate and discuss one particle quantum scattering
theory on an arbitrary finite graph with open ends and where we define the
Hamiltonian to be (minus) the Laplace operator with general boundary conditions
at the vertices. This results in a scattering theory with channels. The
corresponding on-shell S-matrix formed by the reflection and transmission
amplitudes for incoming plane waves of energy is explicitly given in
terms of the boundary conditions and the lengths of the internal lines. It is
shown to be unitary, which may be viewed as the quantum version of Kirchhoff's
law. We exhibit covariance and symmetry properties. It is symmetric if the
boundary conditions are real. Also there is a duality transformation on the set
of boundary conditions and the lengths of the internal lines such that the low
energy behaviour of one theory gives the high energy behaviour of the
transformed theory. Finally we provide a composition rule by which the on-shell
S-matrix of a graph is factorizable in terms of the S-matrices of its
subgraphs. All proofs only use known facts from the theory of self-adjoint
extensions, standard linear algebra, complex function theory and elementary
arguments from the theory of Hermitean symplectic forms.Comment: 40 page
Lipid Profile and Serum Characteristics of the Blind Subterranean Mole Rat, Spalax
to underground life resulted in structural and molecular-genetic differences comparing to above-ground mammals. These differences include higher myocardial maximal oxygen consumption, increased lung diffusion capacity, increased blood vessels density, and unique expression patterns of cancer and angiogenesis related genes such as heparanase, vascular endothelial growth factor, and P53. revealed special features in this mammal. pursue underground, dietary components, and evolutionary genetic adaptations. Unfolding the genetic basis of these differences will probably result in unique treatments for a variety of human diseases such as dyslipedemias, inflammation and cancer
Paraoxonase Activity and Expression Is Modulated by Therapeutics in Experimental Rat Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Objective. The objective of the present study is to investigate the effect of rosiglitazone, metformin, ezetimibe, and valsartan (alone or in combinations) on paraoxonase (PON) activity and PON-mRNA expression in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Methods. 54 Male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided to 9 groups: chow diet group (15 weeks); methionine-choline-deficient diet (MCDD) group (15 weeks); MCDD-treated groups for the last 6 weeks with either metformin (M), rosiglitazone (R), metformin plus rosiglitazone (M+R), ezetimibe (E), valsartan (V), or a combination of R+M+V or of R+M+V+E for a total period of 15 weeks. Results. PON activities in serum and liver were decreased in MCDD rats. PON activity in serum increased significantly in all treatment groups. PON activity in liver was also increased significantly, except only in groups R, E, V, R+M+V, and R+M+V+E. Liver PON3 mRNA expression increased significantly in groups R+M, E, V, R+M+V, and R+M+V+E whereas liver PON2 mRNA expression increased significantly in MCDD, R+M, E, V, R+M+V, and R+M+V+E. Conclusions. PON activities in serum and liver were decreased in NAFLD. Treatment with insulin sensitizers, ezetimibe, and valsartan increased PON activity and reduced oxidative stress both in serum and liver
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