Phase transitions and magnetic domain coexistence in Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 thin films

We present a study of the physical properties of perovskite oxide Nd0.5Sr0.5MnO3 (NSMO) thin films grown on (110)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates. In bulk form, NSMO displays coupled magnetic and electronic transitions from paramagnetic/insulator to ferromagnetic (FM)/metal and then to antiferromagnetic (AFM)/charge-ordered insulator with decreasing temperature. In thin films, the AFM ordering only occurs when the films exist in an anisotropic strain state such as those obtained on (110)-oriented cubic substrates. In this work, resonant X-ray reflectivity, soft X-ray photoemission electron microscopy (X-PEEM), and magnetometry measurements showed that the NSMO film displays both vertical and lateral magnetic phase separation. Specifically, the film consists of three layers with different density and magnetic properties. The FM and AFM properties of the main NSMO layer were probed as a function of temperature using soft X-ray magnetic spectroscopy, and the coexistence of lateral FM and AFM domains was demonstrated at 110 K using X-PEEM

Increasing complexity and interactions of oxidative stress in chronic respiratory diseases: An emerging need for novel drug delivery systems

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Oxidative stress is intensely involved in enhancing the severity of various chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), infections and lung cancer. Even though there are various existing anti-inflammatory therapies, which are not enough to control the inflammation caused due to various contributing factors such as anti-inflammatory genes and antioxidant enzymes. This leads to an urgent need of novel drug delivery systems to combat the oxidative stress. This review gives a brief insight into the biological factors involved in causing oxidative stress, one of the emerging hallmark feature in CRDs and particularly, highlighting recent trends in various novel drug delivery carriers including microparticles, microemulsions, microspheres, nanoparticles, liposomes, dendrimers, solid lipid nanocarriers etc which can help in combating the oxidative stress in CRDs and ultimately reducing the disease burden and improving the quality of life with CRDs patients. These carriers improve the pharmacokinetics and bioavailability to the target site. However, there is an urgent need for translational studies to validate the drug delivery carriers for clinical administration in the pulmonary clinic

A Novel Mutation in the Upstream Open Reading Frame of the CDKN1B Gene Causes a MEN4 Phenotype

PubMed ID: 23555276This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Precise measurement of the W-boson mass with the CDF II detector

We have measured the W-boson mass MW using data corresponding to 2.2/fb of integrated luminosity collected in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV with the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. Samples consisting of 470126 W->enu candidates and 624708 W->munu candidates yield the measurement MW = 80387 +- 12 (stat) +- 15 (syst) = 80387 +- 19 MeV. This is the most precise measurement of the W-boson mass to date and significantly exceeds the precision of all previous measurements combined

A Review of the Adverse Effects of Peripheral Alpha-1 Antagonists in Hypertension Therapy

BACKGROUND: Doxazosin and its role as an antihypertensive agent have come under recent scrutiny as a result of the early termination of that treatment arm in ALLHAT. It is unclear why the cardiovascular (CV) event rate in this randomized, controlled trial (RCT), especially heart failure, is higher in those treated with a doxazosin-based regimen than with a chlorthalidone based-regimen. There has been little work in the past to summarize information on peripheral alpha-1 antagonists that may be helpful in evaluating the results of this randomized controlled trial. METHODS: Using Medline and the Cochrane databases, we performed a comprehensive review of the literature on the use of peripheral alpha-1 antagonists as antihypertensive agents, focusing on available information that could explain the excess cardiovascular events observed in the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT). RESULTS: Minimal data were available concerning the effects of peripheral alpha-1 antagonists on CV endpoints. A multitude of short-term studies-ranging from small observational studies to short-term moderate-sized RCTs – focused on safety, efficacy, and tolerability, and some studies investigated the physiologic effects of these agents. These previously reported studies reveal associations with weight gain, fluid retention, and neurohormonal changes among various populations of those treated with peripheral alpha-1 antagonists. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest several possible mechanisms by which doxazosin may be inferior to low-dose diuretics as antihypertensive therapy for the prevention of heart failure

Rapid HIV testing program implementation: lessons from the emergency department

Background: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and the World Health Organization (WHO) both recommend HIV testing in health-care settings. However, neither organization provides prescriptive details regarding how these recommendations should be adapted into clinical practice in an emergency department. Methods: We have implemented an HIV-testing program in the ED of a major academic medical center within the scope of the Universal Screening for HIV Infection in the Emergency Room (USHER) Trial—a randomized clinical trial evaluating the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of HIV screening in this setting. Results and conclusion: Drawing on our collective experiences in establishing programs domestically and internationally, we offer a practical framework of lessons learned so that others poised to embark on such HIV testing programs may benefit from our experiences

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

X-ray emission from the Sombrero galaxy: discrete sources

We present a study of discrete X-ray sources in and around the bulge-dominated, massive Sa galaxy, Sombrero (M104), based on new and archival Chandra observations with a total exposure of ~200 ks. With a detection limit of L_X = 1E37 erg/s and a field of view covering a galactocentric radius of ~30 kpc (11.5 arcminute), 383 sources are detected. Cross-correlation with Spitler et al.'s catalogue of Sombrero globular clusters (GCs) identified from HST/ACS observations reveals 41 X-rays sources in GCs, presumably low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). We quantify the differential luminosity functions (LFs) for both the detected GC and field LMXBs, whose power-low indices (~1.1 for the GC-LF and ~1.6 for field-LF) are consistent with previous studies for elliptical galaxies. With precise sky positions of the GCs without a detected X-ray source, we further quantify, through a fluctuation analysis, the GC LF at fainter luminosities down to 1E35 erg/s. The derived index rules out a faint-end slope flatter than 1.1 at a 2 sigma significance, contrary to recent findings in several elliptical galaxies and the bulge of M31. On the other hand, the 2-6 keV unresolved emission places a tight constraint on the field LF, implying a flattened index of ~1.0 below 1E37 erg/s. We also detect 101 sources in the halo of Sombrero. The presence of these sources cannot be interpreted as galactic LMXBs whose spatial distribution empirically follows the starlight. Their number is also higher than the expected number of cosmic AGNs (52+/-11 [1 sigma]) whose surface density is constrained by deep X-ray surveys. We suggest that either the cosmic X-ray background is unusually high in the direction of Sombrero, or a distinct population of X-ray sources is present in the halo of Sombrero.Comment: 11 figures, 5 tables, ApJ in pres