1,024 research outputs found
Albumin-heparin microspheres as carriers for cytostatic agents
Much work has been done on adriamycin-loaded albumin microspheres (Alb-MS) for chemoembolization [1–4], the rationale being that site-specific drug delivery may increase the therapeutic efficacy of the drug. Alb-Ms are being investigated because of their biocompatibility and because the degradation products of these microspheres are non-toxic. However, these microspheres have some disadvantages (i.e. drug loading during the microsphere preparation, low payloads, large burst effects). These disadvantages can be overcome by the incorporation of heparin (a highly negatively charged mucopolysaccharide). Albumin-heparin microspheres were prepared (i) by crosslinking of soluble albumin and heparin first using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) and subsequently glutaraldehyde (Alb-Hep-MS) and (ii) by crosslinking a preformed soluble conjugate of heparin and albumin with glutaraldehyde (Alb-Hep-Conj-MS). Albumin-heparin microspheres could be loaded with adriamycin after microsphere preparation giving payloads of 15–30%. Preliminary in vitro adriamycin release experiments showed that Alb-Hep-Conj-MS exhibit sustained release properties. Furthermore ion-exchange properties could be observed both with Alb-Hep-MS and Alb-Hep-Conj-MS. In vitro and in vivo toxicity experiments with Alb-Hep-MS showed no adverse effects
Uptake, accumulation and metabolization of the antidepressant fluoxetine by Mytilus galloprovincialis
Fluoxetine, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant, is among the most prescribed pharmaceutical active substances worldwide. This study aimed to assess its accumulation and metabolization in the mussel Mytillus galloprovincialis, considered an excellent sentinel species for traditional and emerging pollutants. Mussels were collected from Ria Formosa Lagoon, Portugal, and exposed to a nominal concentration of fluoxetine (75 ng L-1) for 15 days. Approximately 1 g of whole mussel soft tissues was extracted with acetonitrile:formic acid, loaded into an Oasis MCX cartridge, and fluoxetine analysed by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MSn). After 3 days of exposure, fluoxetine was accumulated in 70% of the samples, with a mean of 2.53 ng g(-1) dry weight (d.w.) and norfluoxetine was only detected in one sample (10%), at 3.06 ng g(-1) d.w. After 7 days of exposure, the accumulation of fluoxetine and norfluoxetine increased up to 80 and 50% respectively, and their mean accumulated levels in mussel tissues were up to 4.43 and 2.85 ng g(-1) d.w., respectively. By the end of the exposure period (15 days), both compounds were detected in 100% of the samples (mean of 9.31 and 11.65 ng g(-1) d.w., respectively). Statistical analysis revealed significant accumulation differences between the 3rd and 15th day of exposure for fluoxetine, and between the 3rd and 7th against the 15th day of exposure for norfluoxetine. These results suggest that the fluoxetine accumulated in mussel tissues is likely to be metabolised into norfluoxetine with the increase of the time of exposure, giving evidence that at these realistic environmental concentrations, toxic effects of fluoxetine in mussel tissues may occur. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Slow Relaxation in a Constrained Ising Spin Chain: a Toy Model for Granular Compaction
We present detailed analytical studies on the zero temperature coarsening
dynamics in an Ising spin chain in presence of a dynamically induced field that
favors locally the `-' phase compared to the `+' phase. We show that the
presence of such a local kinetic bias drives the system into a late time state
with average magnetization m=-1. However the magnetization relaxes into this
final value extremely slowly in an inverse logarithmic fashion. We further map
this spin model exactly onto a simple lattice model of granular compaction that
includes the minimal microscopic moves needed for compaction. This toy model
then predicts analytically an inverse logarithmic law for the growth of density
of granular particles, as seen in recent experiments and thereby provides a new
mechanism for the inverse logarithmic relaxation. Our analysis utilizes an
independent interval approximation for the particle and the hole clusters and
is argued to be exact at late times (supported also by numerical simulations).Comment: 9 pages RevTeX, 1 figures (.eps
Many-body aspects of positron annihilation in the electron gas
We investigate positron annihilation in electron liquid as a case study for
many-body theory, in particular the optimized Fermi Hypernetted Chain (FHNC-EL)
method. We examine several approximation schemes and show that one has to go up
to the most sophisticated implementation of the theory available at the moment
in order to get annihilation rates that agree reasonably well with experimental
data. Even though there is basically just one number to look at, the
electron-positron pair distribution function at zero distance, it is exactly
this number that dictates how the full pair distribution behaves: In most
cases, it falls off monotonously towards unity as the distance increases. Cases
where the electron-positron pair distribution exhibits a dip are precursors to
the formation of bound electron--positron pairs. The formation of
electron-positron pairs is indicated by a divergence of the FHNC-EL equations,
from this we can estimate the density regime where positrons must be localized.
This occurs in our calculations in the range 9.4 <= r_s <=10, where r_s is the
dimensionless density parameter of the electron liquid.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. B (2003
S-matrix elements and off-shell tachyon action with non-abelian gauge symmetry
We propose that there is a unique expansion for the string theory S-matrix
elements of tachyons that corresponds to non-abelian tachyon action. For those
S-matrix elements which, in their expansion, there are the Feynman amplitudes
resulting from the non-abelian kinetic term, we give a prescription on how to
find the expansion. The gauge invariant action is an expanded action,
and the tachyon mass which appears as coefficient of many different
couplings, is arbitrary. We then analyze in details the S-matrix element of
four tachyons and the S-matrix element of two tachyons and two gauge fields, in
both bosonic and superstring theories, in favor of this proposal. In the
superstring theory, the leading terms of the non-abelian gauge invariant
couplings are in agreement with the symmetrised trace of the direct non-abelian
generalization of the tachyonic Born-Infeld action in which the tachyon
potential is consistent with . In the bosonic
theory, on the other hand, the leading terms are those appear in superstring
case as well as some other gauge invariant couplings which spoils the
symmetrised trace prescription. These latter terms are zero in the abelian
case.Comment: Latex, 27 pages, no figures,v4:change the introduction section, add
some notes to clarify the idea, add reference
A Measurement of the Decay Asymmetry Parameters in \Xi_{c}^{0}\to \X^{-}\pi^{+}
Using the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring we have
measured the decay asymmetry parameter in the decay . We find , using the world average value of
we obtain . The physically allowed range of a decay
asymmetry parameter is . Our result prefers a negative value:
is at the 90% CL. The central value occupies the
middle of the theoretically expected range but is not yet precise enough to
choose between models.Comment: 10 pages postscript, also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Production and Decay of D_1(2420)^0 and D_2^*(2460)^0
We have investigated and final states and
observed the two established charmed mesons, the with mass
MeV/c and width MeV/c and
the with mass MeV/c and width
MeV/c. Properties of these final states, including
their decay angular distributions and spin-parity assignments, have been
studied. We identify these two mesons as the doublet predicted
by HQET. We also obtain constraints on {\footnotesize } as a function of the cosine of the relative phase of the two
amplitudes in the decay.Comment: 15 pages in REVTEX format. hardcopies with figures can be obtained by
sending mail to: [email protected]
Measurement of the branching fraction for
We have studied the leptonic decay of the resonance into tau
pairs using the CLEO II detector. A clean sample of tau pair events is
identified via events containing two charged particles where exactly one of the
particles is an identified electron. We find . The result is consistent with
expectations from lepton universality.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, two Postscript figures available upon request, CLNS
94/1297, CLEO 94-20 (submitted to Physics Letters B
Study of Decays
We report on a study of decays using
29.1 fb of annihilation data recorded at the
resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB storage ring. Making no
assumptions about the intermediate mechanism, the branching fractions for
and are
determined to be and respectively. An analysis of candidates yields to the first observation of the color-suppressed
hadronic decay with the branching fraction . We measure the ratio of branching fractions
= 1.6 0.8.Comment: 13 pages, LaTex, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.
Measurement of the Branching Fraction for B->eta' K and Search for B->eta'pi+
We report measurements for two-body charmless B decays with an eta' meson in
the final state. Using 11.1X10^6 BBbar pairs collected with the Belle detector,
we find BF(B^+ ->eta'K^+)=(79^+12_-11 +-9)x10^-6 and BF(B^0 ->
eta'K^0)=(55^+19_-16 +-8)x10^-6, where the first and second errors are
statistical and systematic, respectively. No signal is observed in the mode B^+
-> eta' pi^+, and we set a 90% confidence level upper limit of BF(B^+->
eta'pi^+) eta'K^+- decays is
investigated and a limit at 90% confidence level of -0.20<Acp<0.32 is obtained.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters
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