Luminescent probe method in the study of the interaction of glycated human serum albuminwith non-glycated human serum albumin

Background and Objectives: The development and functioning of all living beings ends with the inevitable aging process, as a result of which the activity of all organs and the body as a whole is suppressed, which leads to imminent death. Protein glycation is considered to be one of the causes of aging. This process takes place throughout life, but it intensifies with age. Protein glycation is a reaction of covalent coupling of free amino groups of proteins and reducing carbohydrates, which proceeds without the participation of enzymes and leads to disruption of protein functions. This process is unregulated, as it occurs without the participation of biological catalysts. As a result of glycation of proteins in humans, inflammatory processes occur in the body and a number of diseases such as heart attack, stroke, atherosclerosis, cataract, glycemia, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes mellitus, etc. develop. In the tasks of medical diagnostics, methods of monitoring the state of proteins in the human body are necessary. In this regard, the work is devoted to the study of the processes of interaction of human serum albumin globules (HSA) with globules of human glycated serum albumin (gHSA). Materials and Methods: In conducting a study of the spectral-kinetic characteristics of the eosin luminescent probe in solutions of glycated and non-glycated HSA, as well as in a mixture of glycated and non–glycated HSA, an exponential dependence of the second order was used to approximate the dependencies of DF (delayed fluorescence) and PHOS (phosphorescence), and an anisotropy equation was used to assume the formation of the gHSA-HSA complex. Results: It has been found that the intensity and kinetics of quenching of delayed fluorescence and phosphorescence of the eosin fluorescent probe associated with proteins are sensitive to the ratio of glycated and non-glycated proteins in solution. To explain the increase in the intensity and lifetime of eosin phosphorescence during the transition from a solution of HSA to a mixture of HSA and gHSA, it is assumed that the globules of HSA and gHSA form a complex of the composition of gHSA-HSA, as a result of diffusion encounters. The rotational mobility of this complex is much less than the separate globules of HSA and gHSA. The formation of the complex is confirmed by an increase in the anisotropy of delayed fluorescence and phosphorescence of eosin in a mixture of HSA and gHSA. Conclusion: The obtained results of the work can be used to diagnose the presence of a complex of glycated with non-glycated proteins in human blood plasma.&nbsp

Применение комбинированной экстракорпоральной детоксикации у пациентов с тяжелым острым панкреатитом: ретроспективное когортное исследование

АКТУАЛЬНОСТЬ: Заболеваемость тяжелым острым панкреатитом и летальность пациентов остаются высокими. Важнейшим направлением терапии является купирование эндотоксикоза. Вопрос применения экстракорпоральной детоксикации (ЭКД) остается дискуссионным. ЦЕЛЬ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ: Улучшение результатов лечения пациентов с тяжелым острым панкреатитом путем применения методов ЭКД. МАТЕРИАЛЫ И МЕТОДЫ: В исследование включены 25 пациентов. Группа 1 (ЭКД) включала 9 пациентов, применяли стандартную терапию с селективной гемоперфузией (СГ) и продленной вено-венозной гемофильтрацией (ПВВГФ). Группа 2 (контроль): 16 пациентов получали стандартную терапию. Выполняли сравнительный анализ основных клинико-лабораторных показателей и исходов лечения между группами. РЕЗУЛЬТАТЫ: Применение ЭКД позволило снизить количество лейкоцитов с 14,9 до 8,6 × 109/л к 5-м суткам терапии в группе 1 и с 17,6 до 16,1 × 109/л группы 2 соответственно. Динамика концентрации С-реактивного белка с 1-х по 5-е сутки изменилась с 315,6 до 184,6 мг/мл и 274,2 до 352,9 мг/мл в группе 1 и группе 2 соответственно. Уровень концентрации прокальцитонина (PCT) в 1–5-е сутки снизился с 4,5 до 2,1 нг/мл и 3,95 до 6,9 нг/мл в группе 1 и группе 2 соответственно. Концентрация интерлейкина-6 снизилась с 1624,3 до 914,3 пг/мл в группе 1 и повысилась с 1529,8 до 1861,8 пг/мл в группе 2. Динамика рН в группе 1 составила с 7,14 до 7,4 к 5-м суткам терапии и с 7,13 до 7,22 в группе 2. Показатели по шкале SOFA к 5-м суткам в группе 1 составили 4 балла, в группе 2 — 11 баллов. ВЫВОДЫ: Применение СГ и ПВВГФ в комплексной интенсивной терапии сопровождается регрессом маркеров эндогенной интоксикации, разрешением кислотно-основного состояния и уменьшает выраженность органной дисфункции и риска неблагоприятного исхода по сравнению со стандартным лечением

Compton Large Area Silicon Timing Tracker for Cosmic Vision M3

International audienceProposed in response to the ESA call for the third Medium size mission (M3), CAPSiTT is a small mission designed for a 3-year survey of the non-thermal high energy sky from an equatorial LEO orbit. With a large effective area and a very wide field of view, its single instrument, a silicon tracker, provides good imaging, spectroscopic and polarimetric capabilities with a sensitivity 10-100 times better than COMPTEL. Nucleosynthesis and particle acceleration mechanisms in various sites are the main scientific topics addressed by CAPSiTT

Dynamic modelling of local fuel inventory and desorption in the whole tokamak vacuum vessel for auto-consistent plasma-wall interaction simulations

An extension of the SolEdge2D-EIRENE code package, named D-WEE, has been developed to add the dynamics of thermal desorption of hydrogen isotopes from the surface of plasma facing materials. To achieve this purpose, DWEE models hydrogen isotopes implantation, transport and retention in those materials. Before launching autoconsistent simulation (with feedback of D-WEE on SolEdge2D-EIRENE), D-WEE has to be initialised to ensure a realistic wall behaviour in terms of dynamics (pumping or fuelling areas) and fuel content. A methodology based on modelling is introduced to perform such initialisation. A synthetic plasma pulse is built from consecutive SolEdge2D-EIRENE simulations. This synthetic pulse is used as a plasma background for the D-WEE module. A sequence of plasma pulses is simulated with D-WEE to model a tokamak operation. This simulation enables to extract at a desired time during a pulse the local fuel inventory and the local desorption flux density which could be used as initial condition for coupled plasma-wall simulations. To assess the relevance of the dynamic retention behaviour obtained in the simulation, a confrontation to post-pulse experimental pressure measurement is performed. Such confrontation reveals a qualitative agreement between the temporal pressure drop obtained in the simulation and the one observed experimentally. The simulated dynamic retention during the consecutive pulses is also studied

Current Research into Applications of Tomography for Fusion Diagnostics

Retrieving spatial distribution of plasma emissivity from line integrated measurements on tokamaks presents a challenging task due to ill-posedness of the tomography problem and limited number of the lines of sight. Modern methods of plasma tomography therefore implement a-priori information as well as constraints, in particular some form of penalisation of complexity. In this contribution, the current tomography methods under development (Tikhonov regularisation, Bayesian methods and neural networks) are briefly explained taking into account their potential for integration into the fusion reactor diagnostics. In particular, current development of the Minimum Fisher Regularisation method is exemplified with respect to real-time reconstruction capability, combination with spectral unfolding and other prospective tasks

The effect of beryllium oxide on retention in JET ITER-like wall tiles

Preliminary results investigating the microstructure, bonding and effect of beryllium oxide formation on retention in the JET ITER-like wall beryllium tiles, are presented. The tiles have been investigated by several techniques: Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) equipped with Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), Transmission Electron microscopy (TEM) equipped with EDX and Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS), Raman Spectroscopy and Thermal Desorption Spectroscopy (TDS). This paper focuses on results from melted materials of the dump plate tiles in JET. From our results and the literature, it is concluded, beryllium can form micron deep oxide islands contrary to the nanometric oxides predicted under vacuum conditions. The deepest oxides analyzed were up to 2-micron thicknesses. The beryllium Deuteroxide (BeOxDy) bond was found with Raman Spectroscopy. Application of EELS confirmed the oxide presence and stoichiometry. Literature suggests these oxides form at temperatures greater than 700 °C where self-diffusion of beryllium ions through the surface oxide layer can occur. Further oxidation is made possible between oxygen plasma impurities and the beryllium ions now present at the wall surface. Under Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) nanometric Beryllium oxide layers are formed and passivate at room temperature. After continual cyclic heating (to the point of melt formation) in the presence of oxygen impurities from the plasma, oxide growth to the levels seen experimentally (approximately two microns) is proposed. This retention mechanism is not considered to contribute dramatically to overall retention in JET, due to low levels of melt formation. However, this mechanism, thought the result of operation environment and melt formation, could be of wider concern to ITER, dependent on wall temperatures

Modelling of tungsten erosion and deposition in the divertor of JET-ILW in comparison to experimental findings

The erosion, transport and deposition of tungsten in the outer divertor of JET-ILW has been studied for an HMode discharge with low frequency ELMs. For this specific case with an inter-ELM electron temperature at the strike point of about 20 eV, tungsten sputtering between ELMs is almost exclusively due to beryllium impurity and self-sputtering. However, during ELMs tungsten sputtering due to deuterium becomes important and even dominates. The amount of simulated local deposition of tungsten relative to the amount of sputtered tungsten in between ELMs is very high and reaches values of 99% for an electron density of 5E13 cm$^{-3}$ at the strike point and electron temperatures between 10 and 30 eV. Smaller deposition values are simulated with reduced electron density. The direction of the B-field significantly influences the local deposition and leads to a reduction if the E×B drift directs towards the scrape-off-layer. Also, the thermal force can reduce the tungsten deposition, however, an ion temperature gradient of about 0.1 eV/mm or larger is needed for a significant effect. The tungsten deposition simulated during ELMs reaches values of about 98% assuming ELM parameters according to free-streaming model. The measured WI emission profiles in between and within ELMs have been reproduced by the simulation. The contribution to the overall net tungsten erosion during ELMs is about 5 times larger than the one in between ELMs for the studied case. However, this is due to the rather low electron temperature in between ELMs, which leads to deuterium impact energies below the sputtering threshold for tungsten

Impact of fast ions on density peaking in JET : fluid and gyrokinetic modeling

The effect of fast ions on turbulent particle transport, driven by ion temperature gradient (ITG)/trapped electron mode turbulence, is studied. Two neutral beam injection (NBI) heated JET discharges in different regimes are analyzed at the radial position rho(t) = 0.6, one of them an L-mode and the other one an H-mode discharge. Results obtained from the computationally efficient fluid model EDWM and the gyro-fluid model TGLF are compared to linear and nonlinear gyrokinetic GENE simulations as well as the experimentally obtained density peaking. In these models, the fast ions are treated as a dynamic species with a Maxwellian background distribution. The dependence of the zero particle flux density gradient (peaking factor) on fast ion density, temperature and corresponding gradients, is investigated. The simulations show that the inclusion of a fast ion species has a stabilizing influence on the ITG mode and reduces the peaking of the main ion and electron density profiles in the absence of sources. The models mostly reproduce the experimentally obtained density peaking for the L-mode discharge whereas the H-mode density peaking is significantly underpredicted, indicating the importance of the NBI particle source for the H-mode density profile

Comparison of the structure of the plasma-facing surface and tritium accumulation in beryllium tiles from JET ILW campaigns 2011-2012 and 2013-2014

In this study, beryllium tiles from Joint European Torus (JET) vacuum vessel wall were analysed and compared regarding their position in the vacuum vessel and differences in the exploitation conditions during two campaigns of ITER-Like-Wall (ILW) in 2011–2012 (ILW1) and 2013–2014 (ILW2) Tritium content in beryllium samples were assessed. Two methods were used to measure tritium content in the samples – dissolution under controlled conditions and tritium thermal desorption. Prior to desorption and dissolution experiments, scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy were used to study structure and chemical composition of plasma-facing-surfaces of the beryllium samples. Experimental results revealed that tritium content in the samples is in range of 2·10$^{11}$–2·10$^{13}$ tritium atoms per square centimetre of the surface area with its highest content in the samples from the outer wall of the vacuum vessel (up to 1.9·10$^{13}$ atoms/cm$^{2}$ in ILW1 campaign and 2.4·10$^{13}$ atoms/cm$^{2}$ in ILW2). The lowest content of tritium was found in the upper part of the vacuum vessel (2.0·10$^{12}$ atoms/cm$^{2}$ and 2.0·10$^{11}$ atoms/cm$^{2}$ in ILW1 and ILW2, respectively). Results obtained from scanning electron microscopy has shown that surface morphology is different within single tile, however if to compare two campaigns main tendencies remains similar