Domperidone for Drug-Induced Orthostatic Hypotension-A Review

Drug-induced orthostatic hypotension (OH) is a common side effect of heterocyclic and MAOI antidepressant medications. It usually does not respond to conservative treatment and drug treatments with mineralocorticoids or central dopaminergic antagonists such as metoclopramide have significant long-term side effects that limit their use. Domperidone, a peripherally acting dopaminergic antagonist with few side effects, has been used in a number of small clinical trials to treat OH of various etiologies. We reviewed 9 studies of domperidone in the treatment of OH. Although limited by small sample sizes and poor design, these studies generally showed successful treatment of OH by domperidone. Further controlled studies of domperidone for antidepressant induced OH in relevant patient samples are warranted

Low-threshold organic laser based on an oligofluorene truxene with low optical losses

A blue-emitting distributed feedback laser based on a star-shaped oligofluorene truxene molecule is presented. The gain, loss, refractive index, and (lack of) anisotropy are measured by amplified spontaneous emission and variable-angle ellipsometry. The waveguide losses are very low for an organic semiconductor gain medium, particularly for a neat film. The results suggest that truxenes are promising for reducing loss, a key parameter in the operation of organic semiconductor lasers. Distributed feedback lasers fabricated from solution by spin-coating show a low lasing threshold of 270 W/cm(2) and broad tunability across 25 nm in the blue part of the spectrum

Large deviations for many Brownian bridges with symmetrised initial-terminal condition

Consider a large system of $N$ Brownian motions in $\mathbb{R}^d$ with some non-degenerate initial measure on some fixed time interval $[0,\beta]$ with symmetrised initial-terminal condition. That is, for any $i$, the terminal location of the $i$-th motion is affixed to the initial point of the $\sigma(i)$-th motion, where $\sigma$ is a uniformly distributed random permutation of $1,...,N$. Such systems play an important role in quantum physics in the description of Boson systems at positive temperature $1/\beta$. In this paper, we describe the large-N behaviour of the empirical path measure (the mean of the Dirac measures in the $N$ paths) and of the mean of the normalised occupation measures of the $N$ motions in terms of large deviations principles. The rate functions are given as variational formulas involving certain entropies and Fenchel-Legendre transforms. Consequences are drawn for asymptotic independence statements and laws of large numbers. In the special case related to quantum physics, our rate function for the occupation measures turns out to be equal to the well-known Donsker-Varadhan rate function for the occupation measures of one motion in the limit of diverging time. This enables us to prove a simple formula for the large-N asymptotic of the symmetrised trace of ${\rm e}^{-\beta \mathcal{H}_N}$, where $\mathcal{H}_N$ is an $N$-particle Hamilton operator in a trap

Anatomy of Spin-Transfer Torque

Spin-transfer torques occur in magnetic heterostructures because the transverse component of a spin current that flows from a non-magnet into a ferromagnet is absorbed at the interface. We demonstrate this fact explicitly using free electron models and first principles electronic structure calculations for real material interfaces. Three distinct processes contribute to the absorption: (1) spin-dependent reflection and transmission; (2) rotation of reflected and transmitted spins; and (3) spatial precession of spins in the ferromagnet. When summed over all Fermi surface electrons, these processes reduce the transverse component of the transmitted and reflected spin currents to nearly zero for most systems of interest. Therefore, to a good approximation, the torque on the magnetization is proportional to the transverse piece of the incoming spin current.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

High glucose exposure promotes proliferation and in vivo network formation of adipose-tissue-derived microvascular fragments

High glucose concentrations have been shown to activate endothelial cells and promote angiogenesis. In the present study, it was investigated whether high glucose concentrations could improve the vascularisation capacity of adipose-tissue-derived microvascular fragments (ad-MVF). Ad-MVF were isolated from the epididymal fat pads of donor mice and cultivated for 24 h in University of Wisconsin (UW) solution supplemented with vehicle or 30 mM glucose. Protein expression, morphology, viability and proliferation of the cultivated ad-MVF were analysed by means of proteome profiler mouse angiogenesis array, scanning electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry. Additional cultivated ad-MVF were seeded on to collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffolds to study their in vivo vascularisation capacity in the dorsal skinfold chamber model by intravital fluorescence microscopy, histology and immunohistochemistry. In vitro, high glucose exposure changed the protein expression pattern of ad-MVF with endoglin, interleukin (IL)-1β and monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP)-1 as the most up-regulated pro-angiogenic factors. Moreover, high glucose exposure induced the formation of nanopores in the ad-MVF wall. In addition, ad-MVF contained significantly larger numbers of proliferating endothelial and perivascular cells while exhibiting a comparable number of apoptotic cells when compared to vehicle-treated controls. In vivo, scaffolds seeded with high-glucose-exposed ad-MVF exhibited an improved vascularisation and tissue incorporation. These findings demonstrated that the exposure of cultivated ad-MVF to high glucose concentrations is a promising approach to improve their in vivo performance as vascularisation units for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Comment on Intrinsic and dynamically generated scalar meson states

The scalar-meson assignments of Shakin and Wang in a generalized Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model are contradicted by recent experimental information. Also the strict distinction made by these authors between ``intrinsic'' and ``dynamically generated'' states is contested, as well as a number of other statements.Comment: 7 pages, (v2 cosmetics, v3 corrections in one reference), to be published in Phys.Rev.