Biodegradable polymeric prodrugs of naltrexone

The development of a biodegradable polymeric drug delivery system for the narcotic antagonist naltrexone may improve patient compliance in the treatment of opiate addiction. Random copolymers consisting of the ¿-amino acids N5-(3-hydroxypropyl--glutamine and -leucine were synthesized with equimolar initial monomer feeds. The molecular weight of this chemical carrier was determined by viscometry and wide-angle light scattering. In order to get selective covalent coupling of drug to polymer the 3-acetate derivative and the 14-acetate derivative of naltrexone were synthesized and characterized by NMR. Hydrolytic conversion of each monoacetate to parent drug was monitored by HPLC and the rate constant was determined. Both derivatives were coupled via hydrolytically labile carbonate linkages to the polymer hydroxyl groups. The drug conjugates were prepared as particles of various size ranges between 20 and 350 ¿. In vitro studies in phosphate-buffered saline (pH 7.4) demonstrated a release rate dependence on particle size. Nearly constant plasma levels of naltrexone were obtained for one month after subcutaneous injection in rats

Tortoise coordinate and Hawking effect in a dynamical Kerr black hole

Hawking effect from a dynamical Kerr black hole is investigated using the improved Damour-Ruffini method with a new tortoise coordinate transformation. Hawking temperature of the black hole can be obtained point by point at the event horizon. It is found that Hawking temperatures of different points on the surface are different. Moreover, the temperature does not turn to zero while the dynamical black hole turns to an extreme one.Comment: 7 page

Nonorientable spacetime tunneling

Misner space is generalized to have the nonorientable topology of a Klein bottle, and it is shown that in a classical spacetime with multiply connected space slices having such a topology, closed timelike curves are formed. Different regions on the Klein bottle surface can be distinguished which are separated by apparent horizons fixed at particular values of the two angular variables that eneter the metric. Around the throat of this tunnel (which we denote a Klein bottlehole), the position of these horizons dictates an ordinary and exotic matter distribution such that, in addition to the known diverging lensing action of wormholes, a converging lensing action is also present at the mouths. Associated with this matter distribution, the accelerating version of this Klein bottlehole shows four distinct chronology horizons, each with its own nonchronal region. A calculation of the quantum vacuum fluctuations performed by using the regularized two-point Hadamard function shows that each chronology horizon nests a set of polarized hypersurfaces where the renormalized momentum-energy tensor diverges. This quantum instability can be prevented if we take the accelerating Klein bottlehole to be a generalization of a modified Misner space in which the period of the closed spatial direction is time-dependent. In this case, the nonchronal regions and closed timelike curves cannot exceed a minimum size of the order the Planck scale.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex, Accepted in Phys. Rev.

Gene transcription analysis during interaction between potato and Ralstonia solanacearum

Bacterial wilt (BW) caused by Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs) is an important quarantine disease that spreads worldwide and infects hundreds of plant species. The BW defense response of potato is a complicated continuous process, which involves transcription of a battery of genes. The molecular mechanisms of potato-Rs interactions are poorly understood. In this study, we combined suppression subtractive hybridization and macroarray hybridization to identify genes that are differentially expressed during the incompatible interaction between Rs and potato. In total, 302 differentially expressed genes were identified and classified into 12 groups according to their putative biological functions. Of 302 genes, 81 were considered as Rs resistance-related genes based on the homology to genes of known function, and they have putative roles in pathogen recognition, signal transduction, transcription factor functioning, hypersensitive response, systemic acquired resistance, and cell rescue and protection. Additionally, 50 out of 302 genes had no match or low similarity in the NCBI databases, and they may represent novel genes. Of seven interesting genes analyzed via RNA gel blot and semi-quantitative RT-PCR, six were induced, one was suppressed, and all had different transcription patterns. The results demonstrate that the response of potato against Rs is rapid and involves the induction of numerous various genes. The genes identified in this study add to our knowledge of potato resistance to Rs

An interpretation for the entropy of a black hole

We investigate the meaning of the entropy carried away by Hawking radiations from a black hole. We propose that the entropy for a black hole measures the uncertainty of the information about the black hole forming matter's precollapsed configurations, self-collapsed configurations, and inter-collapsed configurations. We find that gravitational wave or gravitational radiation alone cannot carry all information about the processes of black hole coalescence and collapse, while the total information locked in the hole could be carried away completely by Hawking radiation as tunneling

The K600 Focal Plane Polarimeter

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY-931478

Ambient Isotopic Meshing of Implicit Algebraic Surface with Singularities

A complete method is proposed to compute a certified, or ambient isotopic, meshing for an implicit algebraic surface with singularities. By certified, we mean a meshing with correct topology and any given geometric precision. We propose a symbolic-numeric method to compute a certified meshing for the surface inside a box containing singularities and use a modified Plantinga-Vegter marching cube method to compute a certified meshing for the surface inside a box without singularities. Nontrivial examples are given to show the effectiveness of the algorithm. To our knowledge, this is the first method to compute a certified meshing for surfaces with singularities.Comment: 34 pages, 17 Postscript figure

Hawking's radiation in non-stationary rotating de Sitter background

Hawking's radiation effect of Klein-Gordon scalar field, Dirac particles and Maxwell's electromagnetic field in the non-stationary rotating de Sitter cosmological space-time is investigated by using a method of generalized tortoise co-ordinates transformation. The locations and the temperatures of the cosmological horizons of the non-stationary rotating de Sitter model are derived. It is found that the locations and the temperatures of the rotating cosmological model depend not only on the time but also on the angle. The stress-energy regularization techniques are applied to the two dimensional analog of the de Sitter metrics and the calculated stress-energy tensor contains the thermal radiation effect.Comment: 13 pages, LaTex format, accepted for publication Astrophysics and Space Science, Springer; Journal ID: 10509, Article ID: 606, Date 2011-01-1

Big Changes in How Students are Tested

For the past decade, school accountability has relied on tests for which the essential format has remained unchanged. Educators are familiar with the yearly testing routine: schools are given curriculum frameworks, teachers use the frameworks to guide instruction, students take one big test at year’s end which relies heavily upon multiple-choice bubble items, and then school leaders wait anxiously to find out whether enough of their students scored at or above proficiency to meet state standards. All this will change with the adoption of Common Core standards. Testing and accountability aren’t going away. Instead, they are developing and expanding in ways that aim to address many of the present shortcomings of state testing routines. Most importantly, these new tests will be computer-based. As such, they will potentially shorten testing time, increase tests’ precision, and provide immediate feedback to students and teachers

Sharing and Access Right Delegation for Confidential Documents: A Practical Solution

This paper addresses a practical problem in Document Management Systems for which no existing solution is available in the market. To store confidential documents in a Document Management System, a common approach is to keep only the encrypted version of the documents to ensure the confidentiality of the contents. However, how to share these encrypted documents and how to delegate the access rights of these documents are not straightforward while these operations are common in most companies. In this paper, we discuss the issues related to this problem and provide a practical and easy-to-implement solution for solving the problem. Our solution has been shown to be feasible by a prototype implementation. We also show how to extend our solution to take advantage of the hierarchical structure of a company to make it more scalable. As a remark, this problem was initiated by a local company based on its actual needs to fulfil a set of business objectives and requirements