Behavior and Impact of Zirconium in the Soil–Plant System: Plant Uptake and Phytotoxicity

Because of the large number of sites they pollute, toxic metals that contaminate terrestrial ecosystems are increasingly of environmental and sanitary concern (Uzu et al. 2010, 2011; Shahid et al. 2011a, b, 2012a). Among such metals is zirconium (Zr), which has the atomic number 40 and is a transition metal that resembles titanium in physical and chemical properties (Zaccone et al. 2008). Zr is widely used in many chemical industry processes and in nuclear reactors (Sandoval et al. 2011; Kamal et al. 2011), owing to its useful properties like hardness, corrosion-resistance and permeable to neutrons (Mushtaq 2012). Hence, the recent increased use of Zr by industry, and the occurrence of the Chernobyl and Fukashima catastrophe have enhanced environmental levels in soil and waters (Yirchenko and Agapkina 1993; Mosulishvili et al. 1994 ; Kruglov et al. 1996)

Immune Cell Recruitment and Cell-Based System for Cancer Therapy

Immune cells, such as cytotoxic T lymphocytes, natural killer cells, B cells, and dendritic cells, have a central role in cancer immunotherapy. Conventional studies of cancer immunotherapy have focused mainly on the search for an efficient means to prime/activate tumor-associated antigen-specific immunity. A systematic understanding of the molecular basis of the trafficking and biodistribution of immune cells, however, is important for the development of more efficacious cancer immunotherapies. It is well established that the basis and premise of immunotherapy is the accumulation of effective immune cells in tumor tissues. Therefore, it is crucial to control the distribution of immune cells to optimize cancer immunotherapy. Recent characterization of various chemokines and chemokine receptors in the immune system has increased our knowledge of the regulatory mechanisms of the immune response and tolerance based on immune cell localization. Here, we review the immune cell recruitment and cell-based systems that can potentially control the systemic pharmacokinetics of immune cells and, in particular, focus on cell migrating molecules, i.e., chemokines, and their receptors, and their use in cancer immunotherapy

Contribution to the quasichemical model of reciprocal molten salt solutions

The Gibbs energy of a reciprocal ternary molten salt solution may be estimated from the Gibbs energies of the pure components and of the constituent binary subsystems by means of solution models. The standard sublattice model often gives unsatisfactory results for systems with a large exchange Gibbs energy due to its neglect of the effect of non-random mixing upon the second-nearest-neighbor interactions. An extended quasichemical model is proposed to account for this effect without the introduction of adjustable parameters. Several reciprocal salt phase diagrams are calculated as examples

Evaluation critique des données thermodynamiques et des diagrammes de phases des systèmes AOH-AX, ANO

Les propriétés thermodynamiques et les diagrammes de phases des systèmes binaires de sels fondus peuvent être optimisées simultanément et conjointement, grâce à des programmes informatiques, pour obtenir une série de coefficients numériques. Par la suite, ces coefficients pourront reproduire les propriétés thermodynamiques à l'intérieur des marges d'incertitude expérimentales et pourront servir à calculer des diagrammes de, phases. Il est donc possible d'obtenir une représentation thermodynamique qui est consistante avec les principes théoriques de la thermodynamique et avec les mesures expérimentales. Dans ce travail, vingt-et-un systèmes binaires ont été évalués. Les systèmes binaires sont assemblés par groupe d'anion ou de cation commun et sont comparés entre eux pour mettre en évidence les tendances observables à l'intérieur des groupes. Une représentation consistante des propriétés thermodynamiques des sels purs a été adoptée et quelques propriétés thermodynamiques des sels nitrates et hydroxydes alcalins purs ont été révisées