In vitro and in vivo anti-Trypanosoma cruzi activity of new arylamine Mannich base-type derivatives

Chagas disease is a neglected tropical disease with 6-7 million people infected worldwide and there is no effective treatment. Therefore, there is an urgent need to continue researching in order to discover novel therapeutic alternatives. We present a series of arylaminoketone derivatives as means of identifying new drugs to treat Chagas disease in the acute phase with greater activity, less toxicity and with a larger spectrum of action than that corresponding to the reference drug benznidazole. Indexes of high selectivity found in vitro formed the basis for later in vivo assays in BALB/c mice. Murine model results show that compounds 3, 4, 7 and 10 induced a remarkable decrease in parasitemia levels in acute phase and the parasitemia reactivation following immunosuppression, and curative rates were higher than with benznidazole. These high anti-parasitic activities encourage us to propose these compounds as promising molecules for developing an easy to synthesize anti-Chagas agent

¿Es una sabana nativa un sumidero de carbono? ¿Y cuáles son los cambios que se generan al convertirse en un pastizal?

Como parte de los cambios de uso del suelo en las tierras bajas del Orinoco, las sabanas han sido reemplazadas por Brachiaria. La pregunta que sigue sin respuesta es:¿cómo la sustitución de la vegetación nativa afecta el intercambio de CO2 en las escalas estacionales y anuales? Para evaluarlos intercambios de carbono, hemos determinado los flujos de CO2 por el método Eddy,y los flujos de CO2 del suelo. La dinámica fuente/sumidero del carbono en los dos doseles difiere notablemente. Mediciones anuales de la producción neta del ecosistema indican que Brachiaria constituyó un sumidero de carbono de 216gCm-2 año-1 Por el contrario,la sabana presentó un estado equilibrado de carbono(36 gCm-2 año-1). La respiración estacional del ecosistema estuvo linealmente relacionada con la producción estacional primaria bruta enuna proporción de 53%.La captación de carbono fue limitada por el contenido volumétrico de agua en el suelo como se reflejó en la eficiencia del uso del agua.After land use changes in the Orinoco lowlands, savannas have been replaced by Brachiaria pasture. Question that remain unanswered include: how do the replacement of the native vegetation affect the exchange of CO2 on the seasonal and annual course.To address the inquires, we determined the CO2 fluxes by eddy covariance and soil CO2 efflux system. The carbon source/sink dynamics over the two canopies differed markedly. Annual measurements of the Net Ecosystem Production indicated that the Brachiaria field was a carbon sink of 216 g C m- 2 y-1. However, this carbon accumulation by the ecosystem is trading for water losses. By contrast, the savanna stand presented a balanced carbon status (36 g C m-2 y-1).Seasonal ecosystem respiration was linearly related to seasonal gross primary production and the proportion of 53 percent. Carbon uptake was limited for the volumetric soil water content as reflected by the water use efficiency.Eje A4: Ambiente, Naturaleza y AgroecologíaFacultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

¿Es una sabana nativa un sumidero de carbono? ¿Y cuáles son los cambios que se generan al convertirse en un pastizal?

Como parte de los cambios de uso del suelo en las tierras bajas del Orinoco, las sabanas han sido reemplazadas por Brachiaria. La pregunta que sigue sin respuesta es:¿cómo la sustitución de la vegetación nativa afecta el intercambio de CO2 en las escalas estacionales y anuales? Para evaluarlos intercambios de carbono, hemos determinado los flujos de CO2 por el método Eddy,y los flujos de CO2 del suelo. La dinámica fuente/sumidero del carbono en los dos doseles difiere notablemente. Mediciones anuales de la producción neta del ecosistema indican que Brachiaria constituyó un sumidero de carbono de 216gCm-2 año-1 Por el contrario,la sabana presentó un estado equilibrado de carbono(36 gCm-2 año-1). La respiración estacional del ecosistema estuvo linealmente relacionada con la producción estacional primaria bruta enuna proporción de 53%.La captación de carbono fue limitada por el contenido volumétrico de agua en el suelo como se reflejó en la eficiencia del uso del agua.After land use changes in the Orinoco lowlands, savannas have been replaced by Brachiaria pasture. Question that remain unanswered include: how do the replacement of the native vegetation affect the exchange of CO2 on the seasonal and annual course.To address the inquires, we determined the CO2 fluxes by eddy covariance and soil CO2 efflux system. The carbon source/sink dynamics over the two canopies differed markedly. Annual measurements of the Net Ecosystem Production indicated that the Brachiaria field was a carbon sink of 216 g C m- 2 y-1. However, this carbon accumulation by the ecosystem is trading for water losses. By contrast, the savanna stand presented a balanced carbon status (36 g C m-2 y-1).Seasonal ecosystem respiration was linearly related to seasonal gross primary production and the proportion of 53 percent. Carbon uptake was limited for the volumetric soil water content as reflected by the water use efficiency.Eje A4: Ambiente, Naturaleza y AgroecologíaFacultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestale

Gemini multi-conjugate adaptive optics system review II: Commissioning, operation and overall performance

The Gemini Multi-conjugate Adaptive Optics System - GeMS, a facility instrument mounted on the Gemini South telescope, delivers a uniform, near diffraction limited images at near infrared wavelengths (0.95 microns- 2.5 microns) over a field of view of 120 arc seconds. GeMS is the first sodium layer based multi laser guide star adaptive optics system used in astronomy. It uses five laser guide stars distributed on a 60 arc seconds square constellation to measure for atmospheric distortions and two deformable mirrors to compensate for it. In this paper, the second devoted to describe the GeMS project, we present the commissioning, overall performance and operational scheme of GeMS. Performance of each sub-system is derived from the commissioning results. The typical image quality, expressed in full with half maximum, Strehl ratios and variations over the field delivered by the system are then described. A discussion of the main contributor to performance limitation is carried-out. Finally, overheads and future system upgrades are described.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Multiplicity dependence of jet-like two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02 TeV

Two-particle angular correlations between unidentified charged trigger and associated particles are measured by the ALICE detector in p-Pb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV. The transverse-momentum range 0.7 $< p_{\rm{T}, assoc} < p_{\rm{T}, trig} <$ 5.0 GeV/$c$ is examined, to include correlations induced by jets originating from low momen\-tum-transfer scatterings (minijets). The correlations expressed as associated yield per trigger particle are obtained in the pseudorapidity range $|\eta|<0.9$. The near-side long-range pseudorapidity correlations observed in high-multiplicity p-Pb collisions are subtracted from both near-side short-range and away-side correlations in order to remove the non-jet-like components. The yields in the jet-like peaks are found to be invariant with event multiplicity with the exception of events with low multiplicity. This invariance is consistent with the particles being produced via the incoherent fragmentation of multiple parton--parton scatterings, while the yield related to the previously observed ridge structures is not jet-related. The number of uncorrelated sources of particle production is found to increase linearly with multiplicity, suggesting no saturation of the number of multi-parton interactions even in the highest multiplicity p-Pb collisions. Further, the number scales in the intermediate multiplicity region with the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions estimated with a Glauber Monte-Carlo simulation.Comment: 23 pages, 6 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 17, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/161

Charge separation relative to the reaction plane in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}= 2.76 TeV

Measurements of charge dependent azimuthal correlations with the ALICE detector at the LHC are reported for Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV. Two- and three-particle charge-dependent azimuthal correlations in the pseudo-rapidity range $|\eta| < 0.8$ are presented as a function of the collision centrality, particle separation in pseudo-rapidity, and transverse momentum. A clear signal compatible with a charge-dependent separation relative to the reaction plane is observed, which shows little or no collision energy dependence when compared to measurements at RHIC energies. This provides a new insight for understanding the nature of the charge dependent azimuthal correlations observed at RHIC and LHC energies.Comment: 12 pages, 3 captioned figures, authors from page 2 to 6, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/286

A note on comonotonicity and positivity of the control components of decoupled quadratic FBSDE

In this small note we are concerned with the solution of Forward-Backward Stochastic Differential Equations (FBSDE) with drivers that grow quadratically in the control component (quadratic growth FBSDE or qgFBSDE). The main theorem is a comparison result that allows comparing componentwise the signs of the control processes of two different qgFBSDE. As a byproduct one obtains conditions that allow establishing the positivity of the control process.Comment: accepted for publicatio