Diversity of felodipine solvates: Structure and physicochemical properties

Solvates of the calcium-channel blocking agent felodipine with three structurally related common organic solvents, acetone (ATN), dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and acetophenone (APN), are described. A relationship between the felodipine packing arrangement in all known solvates and the van der Waals volume of the solvent molecule is established. Intermolecular interaction energies in the crystals are examined using the PIXEL approach in order to rationalize the difference between alternative molecule packing arrangements. DSC studies show that the desolvation onset temperatures of the solvates are closely comparable, despite the large difference in the boiling points of the solvent molecules. The enthalpies of formation derived from the calorimetric data for the solvates are also found to be similar, despite the difference in the van der Waals volume of the solvent molecules.This work was supported by a grant from the President of the Russian Federation no. МК- 67.2014.3 and Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project № 14-03-31001).This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2015/CE/C5CE00350D#!divAbstract

An effective theory for jet propagation in dense QCD matter: jet broadening and medium-induced bremsstrahlung

Two effects, jet broadening and gluon bremsstrahlung induced by the propagation of a highly energetic quark in dense QCD matter, are reconsidered from effective theory point of view. We modify the standard Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) Lagrangian to include Glauber modes, which are needed to implement the interactions between the medium and the collinear fields. We derive the Feynman rules for this Lagrangian and show that it is invariant under soft and collinear gauge transformations. We find that the newly constructed theory SCET$_{\rm G}$ recovers exactly the general result for the transverse momentum broadening of jets. In the limit where the radiated gluons are significantly less energetic than the parent quark, we obtain a jet energy-loss kernel identical to the one discussed in the reaction operator approach to parton propagation in matter. In the framework of SCET$_{\rm G}$ we present results for the fully-differential bremsstrahlung spectrum for both the incoherent and the Landau-Pomeranchunk-Migdal suppressed regimes beyond the soft-gluon approximation. Gauge invariance of the physics results is demonstrated explicitly by performing the calculations in both the light-cone and covariant $R_{\xi}$ gauges. We also show how the process-dependent medium-induced radiative corrections factorize from the jet production cross section on the example of the quark jets considered here.Comment: 52 pages, 15 pdf figures, as published in JHE

Constraints on Randall-Sundrum model from top-antitop production at the LHC

We study the top pair production cross section at the LHC in the context of Randall-Sundrum model including the Kaluza-Klein (KK) excited gravitons. It is shown that the recent measurement of the cross section of this process at the LHC restricts the parameter space in Randall-Sundrum (RS) model considerably. We show that the coupling parameter ($\frac{k}{\bar{M}_{pl}}$) is excluded by this measurement from 0.03 to 0.22 depending on the mass of first KK excited graviton ($m_1$). We also study the effect of KK excitations on the spin correlation of the top pairs. It is shown that the spin asymmetry in $t\bar{t}$ events is sensitive to the RS model parameters with a reasonable choice of model parameters.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Mesenchymal stem cell-based therapy for ischemic stroke

Ischemic stroke represents a major, worldwide health burden with increasing incidence. Patients affected by ischemic strokes currently have few clinically approved treatment options available. Most currently approved treatments for ischemic stroke have narrow therapeutic windows, severely limiting the number of patients able to be treated. Mesenchymal stem cells represent a promising novel treatment for ischemic stroke. Numerous studies have demonstrated that mesenchymal stem cells functionally improve outcomes in rodent models of ischemic stroke. Recent studies have also shown that exosomes secreted by mesenchymal stem cells mediate much of this effect. In the present review, we summarize the current literature on the use of mesenchymal stem cells to treat ischemic stroke. Further studies investigating the mechanisms underlying mesenchymal stem cells tissue healing effects are warranted and would be of benefit to the field

How Exposures to Biologics Influence the Induction and Incidence of Asthma

A number of environmental factors can affect the development and severity of allergy and asthma; however, it can be argued that the most significant inhaled agents that modulate the development of these conditions are biologics. Sensitization to environmental allergens is an important risk factor for the development of asthma. Innate immune responses are often mediated by receptors on mononuclear cells whose primary ligands arise from microorganisms. Many pathogens, especially viruses, target epithelial cells and affect the host immune response to those pathogens. The acquired immune response to an allergen is influenced by the nature of the innate immune system. Products of innate immune responses to microbes promote T(H)1-acquired responses. In the absence of T(H)1 responses, T(H)2 responses can dominate. Central to T(H)1/T(H)2 balance is the composition of contaminants that derive from microbes. In this review we examine the biology of the response to allergens, viruses, and bacterial products in the context of the development of allergy and asthma

NLL soft and Coulomb resummation for squark and gluino production at the LHC

We present predictions of the total cross sections for pair production of squarks and gluinos at the LHC, including the stop-antistop production process. Our calculation supplements full fixed-order NLO predictions with resummation of threshold logarithms and Coulomb singularities at next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy, including bound-state effects. The numerical effect of higher-order Coulomb terms can be as big or larger than that of soft-gluon corrections. For a selection of benchmark points accessible with data from the 2010-2012 LHC runs, resummation leads to an enhancement of the total inclusive squark and gluino production cross section in the 15-30 % range. For individual production processes of gluinos, the corrections can be much larger. The theoretical uncertainty in the prediction of the hard-scattering cross sections is typically reduced to the 10 % level.Comment: 45 pages, 16 Figures, LaTex. v2: published version. Grids with numerical results for the NLL cross sections for squark and gluino production at the 7/8 TeV LHC are included in the submission and are also available at http://omnibus.uni-freiburg.de/~cs1010/susy.htm

The brain's response to pleasant touch: an EEG investigation of tactile caressing

Somatosensation as a proximal sense can have a strong impact on our attitude toward physical objects and other human beings. However, relatively little is known about how hedonic valence of touch is processed at the cortical level. Here we investigated the electrophysiological correlates of affective tactile sensation during caressing of the right forearm with pleasant and unpleasant textile fabrics. We show dissociation between more physically driven differential brain responses to the different fabrics in early somatosensory cortex - the well-known mu-suppression (10-20 Hz) - and a beta-band response (25-30 Hz) in presumably higher-order somatosensory areas in the right hemisphere that correlated well with the subjective valence of tactile caressing. Importantly, when using single trial classification techniques, beta-power significantly distinguished between pleasant and unpleasant stimulation on a single trial basis with high accuracy. Our results therefore suggest a dissociation of the sensory and affective aspects of touch in the somatosensory system and may provide features that may be used for single trial decoding of affective mental states from simple electroencephalographic measurements

Recent XAS studies into Homogeneous metal catalyst in fine chemical and pharmaceutical syntheses

A brief review of studies using X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) to investigate homogeneous catalytic reactions in fine chemical and pharmaceutical context since 2010 is presented. The advantages of the techniques over traditional lab-based analytical tools, particularly when NMR spectroscopy fails to deliver mechanistic insights, are summarised using these examples. A discussion on the current limitations of the techniques and challenges in the near future is also included

Two Simple W' Models for the Early LHC

W' gauge bosons are good candidates for early LHC discovery. We define two reference models, one containing a W'_R and one containing a W'_L, which may serve as ``simplified models'' for presenting experimental results of W' searches at the LHC. We present the Tevatron bounds on each model and compute the constraints from precision electroweak observables. We find that indirect low-energy constraints on the W'_L are quite strong. However, for a W'_R coupling to right-handed fermions there exists a sizeable region in parameter space beyond the bounds from the Tevatron and low-energy precision measurements where even 50 inverse picobarns of integrated LHC luminosity are sufficient to discover the W'_R. The most promising final states are two leptons and two jets, or one lepton recoiling against a ``neutrino jet''. A neutrino jet is a collimated object consisting of a hard lepton and two jets arising from the decay of a highly boosted massive neutrino.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. v2: references adde

Pathological and ecological host consequences of infection by an introduced fish parasite

The infection consequences of the introduced cestode fish parasite Bothriocephalus acheilognathi were studied in a cohort of wild, young-of-the-year common carp Cyprinus carpio that lacked co-evolution with the parasite. Within the cohort, parasite prevalence was 42% and parasite burdens were up to 12% body weight. Pathological changes within the intestinal tract of parasitized carp included distension of the gut wall, epithelial compression and degeneration, pressure necrosis and varied inflammatory changes. These were most pronounced in regions containing the largest proportion of mature proglottids. Although the body lengths of parasitized and non-parasitized fish were not significantly different, parasitized fish were of lower body condition and reduced weight compared to non-parasitized conspecifics. Stable isotope analysis (δ15N and δ13C) revealed trophic impacts associated with infection, particularly for δ15N where values for parasitized fish were significantly reduced as their parasite burden increased. In a controlled aquarium environment where the fish were fed ad libitum on an identical food source, there was no significant difference in values of δ15N and δ13C between parasitized and non-parasitized fish. The growth consequences remained, however, with parasitized fish growing significantly slower than non-parasitized fish, with their feeding rate (items s−1) also significantly lower. Thus, infection by an introduced parasite had multiple pathological, ecological and trophic impacts on a host with no experience of the parasite