Structural analysis and corrosion studies on an ISO 5832-9 biomedical alloy with TiO2 sol–gel layers

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the relationship between the structural and corrosion properties of an ISO 5832-9 biomedical alloy modified with titanium dioxide (TiO2) layers. These layers were obtained via the sol–gel method by acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of titanium isopropoxide in isopropanol solution. To obtain TiO2 layers with different structural properties, the coated samples were annealed at temperatures of 200, 300, 400, 450, 500, 600 and 800 C for 2 h. For all the prepared samples, accelerated corrosion measurements were performed in Tyrode’s physiological solution using electrochemical methods. The most important corrosion parameters were determined: corrosion potential, polarization resistance, corrosion rate, breakdown and repassivation potentials. Corrosion damage was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy. Structural analysis was carried out for selected TiO2 coatings annealed at 200, 400, 600 and 800 C. In addition, the morphology, chemical composition, crystallinity, thickness and density of the deposited TiO2 layers were determined using suitable electron and X-ray measurement methods. It was shown that the structure and character of interactions between substrate and deposited TiO2 layers depended on annealing temperature. All the obtained TiO2 coatings exhibit anticorrosion properties, but these properties are related to the crystalline structure and character of substrate–layer interaction. From the point of view of corrosion, the best TiO2 sol–gel coatings for stainless steel intended for biomedical applications seem to be those obtained at 400 C.This study was supported by Grant No. N N507 501339 of the National Science Centre. The authors wish to express their thanks to J. Borowski (MEDGAL, Poland) for the Rex 734 alloy

Production of phi mesons at mid-rapidity in sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions at RHIC

We present the first results of meson production in the K^+K^- decay channel from Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV as measured at mid-rapidity by the PHENIX detector at RHIC. Precision resonance centroid and width values are extracted as a function of collision centrality. No significant variation from the PDG accepted values is observed. The transverse mass spectra are fitted with a linear exponential function for which the derived inverse slope parameter is seen to be constant as a function of centrality. These data are also fitted by a hydrodynamic model with the result that the freeze-out temperature and the expansion velocity values are consistent with the values previously derived from fitting single hadron inclusive data. As a function of transverse momentum the collisions scaled peripheral.to.central yield ratio RCP for the is comparable to that of pions rather than that of protons. This result lends support to theoretical models which distinguish between baryons and mesons instead of particle mass for explaining the anomalous proton yield.Comment: 326 authors, 24 pages text, 23 figures, 6 tables, RevTeX 4. To be submitted to Physical Review C as a regular article. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

Degradation of GSPT1 causes TP53-independent cell death in leukemia whilst sparing normal hematopoietic stem cells

Targeted protein degradation is a rapidly advancing and expanding therapeutic approach. Drugs that degrade GSPT1 via the CRL4CRBN ubiquitin ligase are a new class of cancer therapy in active clinical development with evidence of activity against acute myeloid leukemia in early phase trials. However, other than activation of the integrated stress response, the downstream effects of GSPT1 degradation leading to cell death are largely undefined, and no murine models are available to study these agents. We identified the domains of GSPT1 essential for cell survival and show that GSPT1 degradation leads to impaired translation termination, activation of the integrated stress response pathway, and TP53-independent cell death. CRISPR-Cas9 screens implicated decreased translation initiation as protective to GSPT1 degradation, suggesting that cells with higher levels of translation are more susceptible to GSPT1 degradation. We defined two Crbn amino acids that prevent Gspt1 degradation in mice, generated a knock-in mouse with alteration of these residues, and demonstrated the efficacy of GSPT1-degrading drugs in vivo with relative sparing of numbers and function of long-term hematopoietic stem cells. Our results provide a mechanistic basis for the use of GSPT1 degraders for the treatment of cancer, including TP53-mutant AML

Life Expectancy at Birth for People with Serious Mental Illness and Other Major Disorders from a Secondary Mental Health Care Case Register in London

Despite improving healthcare, the gap in mortality between people with serious mental illness (SMI) and general population persists, especially for younger age groups. The electronic database from a large and comprehensive secondary mental healthcare provider in London was utilized to assess the impact of SMI diagnoses on life expectancy at birth.People who were diagnosed with SMI (schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder), substance use disorder, and depressive episode/disorder before the end of 2009 and under active review by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM) in southeast London during 2007-09 comprised the sample, retrieved by the SLAM Case Register Interactive Search (CRIS) system. We estimated life expectancy at birth for people with SMI and each diagnosis, from national mortality returns between 2007-09, using a life table method.A total of 31,719 eligible people, aged 15 years or older, with SMI were analyzed. Among them, 1,370 died during 2007-09. Compared to national figures, all disorders were associated with substantially lower life expectancy: 8.0 to 14.6 life years lost for men and 9.8 to 17.5 life years lost for women. Highest reductions were found for men with schizophrenia (14.6 years lost) and women with schizoaffective disorders (17.5 years lost).The impact of serious mental illness on life expectancy is marked and generally higher than similarly calculated impacts of well-recognised adverse exposures such as smoking, diabetes and obesity. Strategies to identify and prevent causes of premature death are urgently required

Dilaton dominance relaxes LHC and cosmological constraints in supersymmetric models

It has been pointed out recently that the presence of dilaton field in the early Universe can dilute the neutralino dark matter (DM) abundance, if Universe is not radiation dominated at DM decoupling, due to its dissipative-like coupling to DM. In this scenario two basic mechanisms compete, the modified Hubble expansion rate tending to increase the relic density and a dissipative force that tends to decrease it. The net effect can lead to an overall dramatic decrease of the predicted relic abundance, sometimes by amounts of the order of O(10^2) or so. This feature is rather generic, independent of any particular assumption on the underlying string dynamics, provided dilaton dominates at early eras after the end of inflation but before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). The latter ensures that BBN is not upset by the presence of the dilaton. In this paper, within the context of such a scenario, we study the phenomenology of the constrained minimal supersymmetric model (CMSSM) by taking into account all recent experimental constraints, including those from the LHC searches. We find that the allowed parameter space is greatly enlarged and includes regions that are beyond the reach of LHC. The allowed regions are compatible with Direct Dark Matter searches since the small neutralino annihilation rates, that are now in accord with the cosmological data on the relic density, imply small neutralino-nucleon cross sections below the sensitivities of the Direct Dark Matter experiments. It is also important that the new cosmologically accepted regions are compatible with Higgs boson masses larger than 120 GeV, as it is indicated from the LHC experimental data. The smaller annihilation cross sections needed to explain WMAP data require that the detector performances of current and planned indirect DM search experiments through gamma rays should be greatly improved in order to probe the CMSSM regions.Comment: 20 pages, 10 eps figures. Revised and extended version to appear in JHEP; a section on gamma rays adde

Phosphodiesterase-4 Inhibition Alters Gene Expression and Improves Isoniazid – Mediated Clearance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Rabbit Lungs

Tuberculosis (TB) treatment is hampered by the long duration of antibiotic therapy required to achieve cure. This indolent response has been partly attributed to the ability of subpopulations of less metabolically active Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) to withstand killing by current anti-TB drugs. We have used immune modulation with a phosphodiesterase-4 (PDE4) inhibitor, CC-3052, that reduces tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) production by increasing intracellular cAMP in macrophages, to examine the crosstalk between host and pathogen in rabbits with pulmonary TB during treatment with isoniazid (INH). Based on DNA microarray, changes in host gene expression during CC-3052 treatment of Mtb infected rabbits support a link between PDE4 inhibition and specific down-regulation of the innate immune response. The overall pattern of host gene expression in the lungs of infected rabbits treated with CC-3052, compared to untreated rabbits, was similar to that described in vitro in resting Mtb infected macrophages, suggesting suboptimal macrophage activation. These alterations in host immunity were associated with corresponding down-regulation of a number of Mtb genes that have been associated with a metabolic shift towards dormancy. Moreover, treatment with CC-3052 and INH resulted in reduced expression of those genes associated with the bacterial response to INH. Importantly, CC-3052 treatment of infected rabbits was associated with reduced ability of Mtb to withstand INH killing, shown by improved bacillary clearance, from the lungs of co-treated animals compared to rabbits treated with INH alone. The results of our study suggest that changes in Mtb gene expression, in response to changes in the host immune response, can alter the responsiveness of the bacteria to antimicrobial agents. These findings provide a basis for exploring the potential use of adjunctive immune modulation with PDE4 inhibitors to enhance the efficacy of existing anti-TB treatment

The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC

High energy collisions at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produce a large number of particles along the beam collision axis, outside of the acceptance of existing LHC experiments. The proposed Forward Physics Facility (FPF), to be located several hundred meters from the ATLAS interaction point and shielded by concrete and rock, will host a suite of experiments to probe standard model (SM) processes and search for physics beyond the standard model (BSM). In this report, we review the status of the civil engineering plans and the experiments to explore the diverse physics signals that can be uniquely probed in the forward region. FPF experiments will be sensitive to a broad range of BSM physics through searches for new particle scattering or decay signatures and deviations from SM expectations in high statistics analyses with TeV neutrinos in this low-background environment. High statistics neutrino detection will also provide valuable data for fundamental topics in perturbative and non-perturbative QCD and in weak interactions. Experiments at the FPF will enable synergies between forward particle production at the LHC and astroparticle physics to be exploited. We report here on these physics topics, on infrastructure, detector, and simulation studies, and on future directions to realize the FPF's physics potential

J/psi production from proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV

J/psi production has been measured in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)= 200 GeV over a wide rapidity and transverse momentum range by the PHENIX experiment at RHIC. Distributions of the rapidity and transverse momentum, along with measurements of the mean transverse momentum and total production cross section are presented and compared to available theoretical calculations. The total J/psi cross section is 3.99 +/- 0.61(stat) +/- 0.58(sys) +/- 0.40(abs) micro barns. The mean transverse momentum is 1.80 +/- 0.23(stat) +/- 0.16(sys) GeV/c.Comment: 326 authors, 6 pages text, 4 figures, 1 table, RevTeX 4. To be submitted to PRL. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm

The dominant Anopheles vectors of human malaria in the Asia-Pacific region: occurrence data, distribution maps and bionomic précis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The final article in a series of three publications examining the global distribution of 41 dominant vector species (DVS) of malaria is presented here. The first publication examined the DVS from the Americas, with the second covering those species present in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Here we discuss the 19 DVS of the Asian-Pacific region. This region experiences a high diversity of vector species, many occurring sympatrically, which, combined with the occurrence of a high number of species complexes and suspected species complexes, and behavioural plasticity of many of these major vectors, adds a level of entomological complexity not comparable elsewhere globally. To try and untangle the intricacy of the vectors of this region and to increase the effectiveness of vector control interventions, an understanding of the contemporary distribution of each species, combined with a synthesis of the current knowledge of their behaviour and ecology is needed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expert opinion (EO) range maps, created with the most up-to-date expert knowledge of each DVS distribution, were combined with a contemporary database of occurrence data and a suite of open access, environmental and climatic variables. Using the Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) modelling method, distribution maps of each DVS were produced. The occurrence data were abstracted from the formal, published literature, plus other relevant sources, resulting in the collation of DVS occurrence at 10116 locations across 31 countries, of which 8853 were successfully geo-referenced and 7430 were resolved to spatial areas that could be included in the BRT model. A detailed summary of the information on the bionomics of each species and species complex is also presented.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This article concludes a project aimed to establish the contemporary global distribution of the DVS of malaria. The three articles produced are intended as a detailed reference for scientists continuing research into the aspects of taxonomy, biology and ecology relevant to species-specific vector control. This research is particularly relevant to help unravel the complicated taxonomic status, ecology and epidemiology of the vectors of the Asia-Pacific region. All the occurrence data, predictive maps and EO-shape files generated during the production of these publications will be made available in the public domain. We hope that this will encourage data sharing to improve future iterations of the distribution maps.</p

Measurement of Single Electron Event Anisotropy in Au+Au Collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV

The transverse momentum dependence of the azimuthal anisotropy parameter v_2, the second harmonic of the azimuthal distribution, for electrons at mid-rapidity (|eta| < 0.35) has been measured with the PHENIX detector in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV. The measurement was made with respect to the reaction plane defined at high rapidities (|eta| = 3.1 -- 3.9). From the result we have measured the v_2 of electrons from heavy flavor decay after subtraction of the v_2 of electrons from other sources such as photon conversions and Dalitz decay from light neutral mesons. We observe a non-zero single electron v_2 with a 90% confidence level in the intermediate p_T region.Comment: 330 authors, 11 pages text, RevTeX4, 9 figures, 1 tables. Submitted to Physical Review C. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (or will be) publicly available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/papers.htm