Co-Crystallization and Polymorphism of Naturally Occurring Peptide Derivatives

Carnosine is a dipeptide compound that is found in many dietary supplements and food products. Carnosine has many functions in the body, such as alleviating oxidative stress on tissues by acting as an antioxidant compound. Carnosine, therefore, has important anti-aging properties. Carnosine is also capable of forming protective sequestration structures around heavy metal ions; this process of chelating metals ions in solutions is very beneficial for maintaining the well-being of cells in the body. Thus, carnosine could be useful in pharmaceutical products for creating anti-aging drugs that would reduce tissue stress and promote a healthy cellular environment. I attempted to co-crystallize carnosine with four polycarboxylated aromatic acids and two Krebs cycle metabolites to generate various supramolecular structures based on the placement of carboxyl groups on the co-crystallants. If a co-crystallization method is created for carnosine, pharmaceutical products can utilize the same method in producing carnosine-based drugs. Furthermore, carnosine chelation of various metal ions was conducted to determine if carnosine would chelate in a variety of solution environments. Co-crystallization of carnosine with the four polycarboxylated aromatic acids and two Krebs cycle metabolites was not fully achieved, possibly due to environmental and stability conditions of solutions. Carnosine demonstrated metal-ion chelation properties with copper ions, whereas iron and zinc and iron ion solutions did not reveal carnosine chelation properties. In conclusion, more experiments with carnosine should be conducted to find optimal co-crystallization conditions for the production of pharmaceutical products

Co-Crystallization and Polymorphism of Naturally Occurring Peptide Derivatives

Carnosine is a dipeptide compound that is found in many dietary supplements and food products. Carnosine has many functions in the body, such as alleviating oxidative stress on tissues by acting as an antioxidant compound. Carnosine, therefore, has important anti-aging properties. Carnosine is also capable of forming protective sequestration structures around heavy metal ions; this process of chelating metals ions in solutions is very beneficial for maintaining the well-being of cells in the body. Thus, carnosine could be useful in pharmaceutical products for creating anti-aging drugs that would reduce tissue stress and promote a healthy cellular environment. I attempted to co-crystallize carnosine with four polycarboxylated aromatic acids and two Krebs cycle metabolites to generate various supramolecular structures based on the placement of carboxyl groups on the co-crystallants. If a co-crystallization method is created for carnosine, pharmaceutical products can utilize the same method in producing carnosine-based drugs. Furthermore, carnosine chelation of various metal ions was conducted to determine if carnosine would chelate in a variety of solution environments. Co-crystallization of carnosine with the four polycarboxylated aromatic acids and two Krebs cycle metabolites was not fully achieved, possibly due to environmental and stability conditions of solutions. Carnosine demonstrated metal-ion chelation properties with copper ions, whereas iron and zinc and iron ion solutions did not reveal carnosine chelation properties. In conclusion, more experiments with carnosine should be conducted to find optimal co-crystallization conditions for the production of pharmaceutical products

Multimode bolometer development for the PIXIE instrument

The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) is an Explorer-class mission concept designed to measure the polarization and absolute intensity of the cosmic microwave background. In the following, we report on the design, fabrication, and performance of the multimode polarization-sensitive bolometers for PIXIE, which are based on silicon thermistors. In particular we focus on several recent advances in the detector design, including the implementation of a scheme to greatly raise the frequencies of the internal vibrational modes of the large-area, low-mass optical absorber structure consisting of a grid of micromachined, ion-implanted silicon wires. With $\sim30$ times the absorbing area of the spider-web bolometers used by Planck, the tensioning scheme enables the PIXIE bolometers to be robust in the vibrational and acoustic environment at launch of the space mission. More generally, it could be used to reduce microphonic sensitivity in other types of low temperature detectors. We also report on the performance of the PIXIE bolometers in a dark cryogenic environment.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Childcare Practitioners’ Knowledge and Perceptions of Play Therapy

This study investigated the awareness of play therapy in childcare practitioners working in the areas of health, social care, education and childcare. Questionnaires were distributed to 65 workers drawn from these occupational categories in order to investigate their understanding of issues such as the nature of play therapy, the referral process, and the distinction between play therapy and other forms of play based interventions. In addition, one child care professional from each of the four sectors was selected to take part in a follow-up interview to build on the information generated from the questionnaires. The results from the questionnaires and follow-up interviews showed that while most of the child care professionals had heard of this approach, they had a limited knowledge of the nature of play therapy. There was also much confusion amongst the child care professionals around the difference between play therapy and other play based interventions as well as around different professionals’ roles and responsibilities for referring children and young people to therapeutic interventions. The implications of these findings for the practice of play therapy are considered

Brain responses to biological motion predict treatment outcome in young children with autism

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are common yet complex neurodevelopmental disorders, characterized by social, communication and behavioral deficits. Behavioral interventions have shown favorable results—however, the promise of precision medicine in ASD is hampered by a lack of sensitive, objective neurobiological markers (neurobiomarkers) to identify subgroups of young children likely to respond to specific treatments. Such neurobiomarkers are essential because early childhood provides a sensitive window of opportunity for intervention, while unsuccessful intervention is costly to children, families and society. In young children with ASD, we show that functional magnetic resonance imaging-based stratification neurobiomarkers accurately predict responses to an evidence-based behavioral treatment—pivotal response treatment. Neural predictors were identified in the pretreatment levels of activity in response to biological vs scrambled motion in the neural circuits that support social information processing (superior temporal sulcus, fusiform gyrus, amygdala, inferior parietal cortex and superior parietal lobule) and social motivation/reward (orbitofrontal cortex, insula, putamen, pallidum and ventral striatum). The predictive value of our findings for individual children with ASD was supported by a multivariate pattern analysis with cross validation. Predicting who will respond to a particular treatment for ASD, we believe the current findings mark the very first evidence of prediction/stratification biomarkers in young children with ASD. The implications of the findings are far reaching and should greatly accelerate progress toward more precise and effective treatments for core deficits in ASD

On Lagrangian Coherent Structures in Laparoscopy

Laparoscopy is an electrosurgical medical operation often involving an application of high-frequency alternating current to remove undesired biological tissue from the insufflated abdomen accessible through inlet and outlets trocars. One of the main byproducts in this process are the gaseous particles, called surgical smoke, which is found hazardous for both the patient and the operating room staff. The elimination of this hazardous material is an area of active research in the medical community. Thus, understanding dynamics influenced by the underlying flow inside the abdomen is crucial. In this article, we propose a computational fluid dynamics model and analyse the velocity field in an insufflated abdomen shaped domain by identifying the Lagrangian Coherent Structures (LCS) that are responsible for the transportation, mixing and accumulation of the material particles in the flow. By calculating the mixing strength we show that the regions revealed by these material curves are dependent on the angle, positions and number of the outlets and inlets. Hence, a novel utility of LCS in medical surgery is presented that can detail the dynamics of surgical smoke informing better design of effective smoke removal technologies

Adjunctive therapy for severe malaria: a review and critical appraisal.

BACKGROUND: Despite recent efforts and successes in reducing the malaria burden globally, this infection still accounts for an estimated 212 million clinical cases, 2 million severe malaria cases, and approximately 429,000 deaths annually. Even with the routine use of effective anti-malarial drugs, the case fatality rate for severe malaria remains unacceptably high, with cerebral malaria being one of the most life-threatening complications. Up to one-third of cerebral malaria survivors are left with long-term cognitive and neurological deficits. From a population point of view, the decrease of malaria transmission may jeopardize the development of naturally acquired immunity against the infection, leading to fewer total cases, but potentially an increase in severe cases. The pathophysiology of severe and cerebral malaria is not completely understood, but both parasite and host determinants contribute to its onset and outcomes. Adjunctive therapy, based on modulating the host response to infection, could help to improve the outcomes achieved with specific anti-malarial therapy. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: In the last decades, several interventions targeting different pathways have been tested. However, none of these strategies have demonstrated clear beneficial effects, and some have shown deleterious outcomes. This review aims to summarize evidence from clinical trials testing different adjunctive therapy for severe and cerebral malaria in humans. It also highlights some preclinical studies which have evaluated novel strategies and other candidate therapeutics that may be evaluated in future clinical trials

Chapter 11: City-Wide Collaborations for Urban Climate Education

Although cities cover only 2 percent of the Earth's surface, more than 50 percent of the world's people live in urban environments, collectively consuming 75 percent of the Earth's resources. Because of their population densities, reliance on infrastructure, and role as centers of industry, cities will be greatly impacted by, and will play a large role in, the reduction or exacerbation of climate change. However, although urban dwellers are becoming more aware of the need to reduce their carbon usage and to implement adaptation strategies, education efforts on these strategies have not been comprehensive. To meet the needs of an informed and engaged urban population, a more systemic, multiplatform and coordinated approach is necessary. The Climate and Urban Systems Partnership (CUSP) is designed to explore and address this challenge. Spanning four cities-Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC-the project is a partnership between the Franklin Institute, the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research, the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, New York Hall of Science, and the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences. The partnership is developing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary network to educate urban residents about climate science and the urban impacts of climate change