4,071 research outputs found
Corporate Financing in Great Britain
Background: The antifungal compound ketoconazole has, in addition to its ability to interfere with fungal ergosterol synthesis, effects upon other enzymes including human CYP3A4, CYP17, lipoxygenase and thromboxane synthetase. In the present study, we have investigated whether ketoconazole affects the cellular uptake and hydrolysis of the endogenous cannabinoid receptor ligand anandamide (AEA). Methodology/Principal Findings: The effects of ketoconazole upon endocannabinoid uptake were investigated using HepG2, CaCo2, PC-3 and C6 cell lines. Fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) activity was measured in HepG2 cell lysates and in intact C6 cells. Ketoconazole inhibited the uptake of AEA by HepG2 cells and CaCo2 cells with IC50 values of 17 and 18 mu M, respectively. In contrast, it had modest effects upon AEA uptake in PC-3 cells, which have a low expression of FAAH. In cell-free HepG2 lysates, ketoconazole inhibited FAAH activity with an IC50 value (for the inhibitable component) of 34 mu M. Conclusions/Significance: The present study indicates that ketoconazole can inhibit the cellular uptake of AEA at pharmacologically relevant concentrations, primarily due to its effects upon FAAH. Ketoconazole may be useful as a template for the design of dual-action FAAH/CYP17 inhibitors as a novel strategy for the treatment of prostate cancer
Chloroplast microsatellites: measures of genetic diversity and the effect of homoplasy
Chloroplast microsatellites have been widely used in population genetic
studies of conifers in recent years. However, their haplotype configurations
suggest that they could have high levels of homoplasy, thus limiting the power
of these molecular markers. A coalescent-based computer simulation was used to
explore the influence of homoplasy on measures of genetic diversity based on
chloroplast microsatellites. The conditions of the simulation were defined to
fit isolated populations originating from the colonization of one single
haplotype into an area left available after a glacial retreat. Simulated data
were compared with empirical data available from the literature for a species
of Pinus that has expanded north after the Last Glacial Maximum. In the
evaluation of genetic diversity, homoplasy was found to have little influence
on Nei's unbiased haplotype diversity (H(E)) while Goldstein's genetic distance
estimates (D2sh) were much more affected. The effect of the number of
chloroplast microsatellite loci for evaluation of genetic diversity is also
discussed
Gauge Coupling Instability and Dynamical Mass Generation in N=1 Supersymmetric QED(3)
Using superfield Dyson-Schwinger equations, we compute the infrared dynamics
of the semi-amputated full vertex, corresponding to the effective running gauge
coupling, in N-flavour {\mathcal N}=1 supersymmetric QED(3). It is shown that
the presence of a supersymmetry-preserving mass for the matter multiplet
stabilizes the infrared gauge coupling against oscillations present in the
massless case, and we therefore infer that the massive vacuum is thus selected
at the level of the (quantum) effective action. We further demonstrate that
such a mass can indeed be generated dynamically in a self-consistent way by
appealing to the superfield Dyson-Schwinger gap equation for the full matter
propagator.Comment: 14 pages ReVTeX; four axodraw figures incorporate
Diffractive Dissociation In The Interacting Gluon Model
We have extended the Interacting Gluon Model (IGM) to calculate diffractive
mass spectra generated in hadronic collisions. We show that it is possible to
treat both diffractive and non-diffractive events on the same footing, in terms
of gluon-gluon collisions. A systematic analysis of available data is
performed. The energy dependence of diffractive mass spectra is addressed. They
show a moderate narrowing at increasing energies. Predictions for LHC energies
are presented.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 14 figures (PostScript Files included); accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev. D (Feb.97
Strangelet spectra from type II supernovae
We study in this work the fate of strangelets injected as a contamination in
the tail of a "strange matter-driven" supernova shock. A simple model for the
fragmentation and braking of the strangelets when they pass through the
expanding oxygen shell is presented and solved to understand the reprocessing
of this component. We find that the escaping spectrum is a scaled-down version
of the one injected at the base of the oxygen shell. The supernova source is
likely to produce low-energy particles of quite independently
of the initial conditions. However, it is difficult that ultrarrelativistic
strangelets (such as the hypothetical Centauro primaries) can have an origin in
those explosive events.Comment: RevTex file, 5 pp., no figure
Temperature dependent BCS equations with continuum coupling
The temperature dependent BCS equations are modified in order to include the
contribution of the continuum single particle states. The influence of the
continuum upon the critical temperature corresponding to the phase transition
from a superfluid to a normal state and upon the behaviour of the excitation
energy and of the entropy is discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Certainty Closure: Reliable Constraint Reasoning with Incomplete or Erroneous Data
Constraint Programming (CP) has proved an effective paradigm to model and
solve difficult combinatorial satisfaction and optimisation problems from
disparate domains. Many such problems arising from the commercial world are
permeated by data uncertainty. Existing CP approaches that accommodate
uncertainty are less suited to uncertainty arising due to incomplete and
erroneous data, because they do not build reliable models and solutions
guaranteed to address the user's genuine problem as she perceives it. Other
fields such as reliable computation offer combinations of models and associated
methods to handle these types of uncertain data, but lack an expressive
framework characterising the resolution methodology independently of the model.
We present a unifying framework that extends the CP formalism in both model
and solutions, to tackle ill-defined combinatorial problems with incomplete or
erroneous data. The certainty closure framework brings together modelling and
solving methodologies from different fields into the CP paradigm to provide
reliable and efficient approches for uncertain constraint problems. We
demonstrate the applicability of the framework on a case study in network
diagnosis. We define resolution forms that give generic templates, and their
associated operational semantics, to derive practical solution methods for
reliable solutions.Comment: Revised versio
Effect of Magnetic Field on the Phase Transition from Nuclear Matter to Quark Matter during Proto-Neutron Star Evolution
We have studied phase transition from hadron matter to quark matter in the
presence of high magnetic fields incorporating the trapped electron neutrinos
at finite temperatures. We have used the density dependent quark mass (DDQM)
model for the quark phase while the hadron phase is treated in the frame-work
of relativistic mean field theory. It is seen that the nuclear energy at phase
transition decreases with both magnetic field and temperature. A brief
discussion of the effect of magnetic field in supernova explosions and
proto-neutron star evolution is given.Comment: LaTex2e file with four postscript figure
Quantum Phase Diagram of the t-Jz Chain Model
We present the quantum phase diagram of the one-dimensional - model
for arbitrary spin (integer or half-integer) and sign of the spin-spin
interaction , using an {\it exact} mapping to a spinless fermion model
that can be solved {\it exactly} using the Bethe ansatz. We discuss its
superconducting phase as a function of hole doping . Motivated by the new
paradigm of high temperature superconductivity, the stripe phase, we also
consider the effect the antiferromagnetic background has on the - chain
intended to mimic the stripe segments.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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