Long-run validity of purchasing power parity and rank tests for cointegration for Central Asian Countries

This study finds that Purchasing Power Parity holds in the long-run for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, based on Breitung’s (2001) rank tests for cointegration. Results from further analysis indicates that nominal exchange rates and relative prices are nonlinearly interrelated. Trade barriers, transportation costs and government intervention in the pricing system in these countries may have resulted in the establishment of the above-mentioned nonlinear relationship.Purchasing power parity; Cointegration; Nonlinear; Rank tests; Central Asia.

6,6′-Dimethyl-2,2′-[oxalylbis(aza­nedi­yl)]dipyridinium dichloride acetonitrile solvate

In the crystal structure of the title compound, C14H16N4O2 2+·2Cl−·CH3CN, weak inter­molecular N—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds are found between the H atoms bound to the pyridine and amine N atoms and the chloride anions. The asymmetric unit consits of one half cationic mol­ecule which is located on a centre of inversion, one chloride anion in a general position and one half acetonitrile mol­ecule which is located on a twofold axis. Because of symmetry, the C—H hydrogens of the acetonitrile solvent mol­ecule are disordered over two orientations

N-(6-Methyl-2-pyrid­yl)formamide

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C7H8N2O, is essentially planar with a maximum deviation of 0.0439 (1) Å from the best plane. In the crystal, N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between self-complementary amide groups join mol­ecules into centrosymmetric dimers

Effects of Jia-Wei-Xiao-Yao-San on the Peripheral and Lymphatic Pharmacokinetics of Paclitaxel in Rats

Paclitaxel is effective against breast cancer. The herbal medicine, Jia-Wei-Xiao-Yao-San (JWXYS), is the most frequent prescription used to relieve the symptoms of breast cancer treatments. The aim of the study was to investigate the herb-drug interaction effects of a herbal medicine on the distribution of paclitaxel to lymph. A validated ultraperformance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method was used to determine the paclitaxel levels in rat plasma and lymph after intravenous infusion of paclitaxel alone with or without 7 days of JWXYS pretreatment. The pharmacokinetic results indicate that paclitaxel concentrations in plasma exceeded those in lymph by approximately 3.6-fold. The biodistribution of paclitaxel from plasma to lymph was 39±5%; however, this increased to 45±4% with JWXYS pretreatment. With JWXYS pretreatment, the AUC and Cmax of paclitaxel in plasma were significantly reduced by approximately 1.5-fold, compared to paclitaxel alone. Additionally, JWXYS decreased the AUC and Cmax of paclitaxel in lymph. However, the lymph absorption rate of paclitaxel with or without JWXYS pretreatment was not significantly changed (27±3 and 30±2%, resp.). Our findings demonstrate that when paclitaxel is prescribed concurrently with herbal medicine, monitoring of the blood pharmacokinetics of paclitaxel is recommended

Electrochemical Oxidation of Fragrances 4-Allyl and 4-Propenylbenzenes on Platinum and Carbon Paste Electrodes

The electrochemical oxidation behaviors of 4-allylbenzenes (estragole, safrole and eugenol) and 4-propenylbenzenes (anethole, asarone and isoeugenol) on platinum and carbon paste electrodes were investigated in a Britton-Robinson buffer (pH = 2.93 and 10.93), acetate buffer, phosphate buffer solutions (pH = 2.19 and 6.67), and acetonitrile containing various supporting electrolytes examined lithium perchlorate. Their oxidation potential with Hammett (free-energy relationships) and possible reaction mechanisms were discussed

Sesamin: A Naturally Occurring Lignan Inhibits CYP3A4 by Antagonizing the Pregnane X Receptor Activation

Inconsistent expression and regulation of drug-metabolizing enzymes (DMEs) are common causes of adverse drug effects in some drugs with a narrow therapeutic index (TI). An important cytochrome, cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4), is predominantly regulated by a nuclear receptor, pregnane X receptor (PXR). Sesamin, a major lignan constituent in sesame seeds and oil, exhibits a variety of biological functions; however, the effect of sesamin on the modulation of CYP3A4 is not well understood. In this study, the effects of sesamin on the PXR-CYP3A4 pathway were characterized, as well as the underlying mechanisms of those effects. Sesamin potently attenuated CYP3A4 induction in a dose-dependent manner by blocking the activation of PXR. The PXR inducer-mediated inhibition of CYP3A4 was further evidenced by the ability of sesamin to attenuate the effects of several PXR ligands in the CYP3A4 reporter assay. Further mechanistic studies showed that sesamin inhibited PXR by interrupting the interacting with coregulators. These results may lead to the development of new therapeutic and dietary approaches to reduce the frequency of inducer-drug interaction. Sesamin was established as a novel inhibitor of PXR and may be useful for modulating DMEs expression and drug efficacies. Modification of CYP3A4 expression and activity by consumption of sesamin may have important implications for drug safety

VisANT 3.5: multi-scale network visualization, analysis and inference based on the gene ontology

Despite its wide usage in biological databases and applications, the role of the gene ontology (GO) in network analysis is usually limited to functional annotation of genes or gene sets with auxiliary information on correlations ignored. Here, we report on new capabilities of VisANT—an integrative software platform for the visualization, mining, analysis and modeling of the biological networks—which extend the application of GO in network visualization, analysis and inference. The new VisANT functions can be classified into three categories. (i) Visualization: a new tree-based browser allows visualization of GO hierarchies. GO terms can be easily dropped into the network to group genes annotated under the term, thereby integrating the hierarchical ontology with the network. This facilitates multi-scale visualization and analysis. (ii) Flexible annotation schema: in addition to conventional methods for annotating network nodes with the most specific functional descriptions available, VisANT also provides functions to annotate genes at any customized level of abstraction. (iii) Finding over-represented GO terms and expression-enriched GO modules: two new algorithms have been implemented as VisANT plugins. One detects over-represented GO annotations in any given sub-network and the other finds the GO categories that are enriched in a specified phenotype or perturbed dataset. Both algorithms take account of network topology (i.e. correlations between genes based on various sources of evidence). VisANT is freely available at http://visant.bu.edu

VisANT 3.5: multi-scale network visualization, analysis and inference based on the gene ontology

Despite its wide usage in biological databases and applications, the role of the gene ontology (GO) in network analysis is usually limited to functional annotation of genes or gene sets with auxiliary information on correlations ignored. Here, we report on new capabilities of VisANT—an integrative software platform for the visualization, mining, analysis and modeling of the biological networks—which extend the application of GO in network visualization, analysis and inference. The new VisANT functions can be classified into three categories. (i) Visualization: a new tree-based browser allows visualization of GO hierarchies. GO terms can be easily dropped into the network to group genes annotated under the term, thereby integrating the hierarchical ontology with the network. This facilitates multi-scale visualization and analysis. (ii) Flexible annotation schema: in addition to conventional methods for annotating network nodes with the most specific functional descriptions available, VisANT also provides functions to annotate genes at any customized level of abstraction. (iii) Finding over-represented GO terms and expression-enriched GO modules: two new algorithms have been implemented as VisANT plugins. One detects over-represented GO annotations in any given sub-network and the other finds the GO categories that are enriched in a specified phenotype or perturbed dataset. Both algorithms take account of network topology (i.e. correlations between genes based on various sources of evidence). VisANT is freely available at http://visant.bu.edu