19,205 research outputs found
Translocating the blood-brain barrier using electrostatics
Copyright © 2012 Ribeiro,Domingues,
Freire,Santos and Castanho. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.Mammalian cell membranes regulate homeostasis, protein activity, and cell signaling. The charge at the membrane surface has been correlated with these key events. Although mammalian cells are known to be slightly anionic, quantitative information on the membrane charge and the importance of electrostatic interactions in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics remain elusive. Recently, we reported for the first time that brain endothelial cells (EC) are more negatively charged than human umbilical cord cells, using zeta-potential measurements by dynamic light scattering. Here, we hypothesize that anionicity is a key feature of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and contributes to select which compounds cross into the brain. For the sake of comparison, we also studied the membrane surface charge of blood components—red blood cells (RBC), platelets, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC).To further quantitatively correlate the negative zeta-potential values with membrane charge density, model membranes with different percentages of anionic lipids were also evaluated. From all the cells tested, brain cell membranes are the most anionic and those having their lipids mostly exposed, which explains why lipophilic cationic compounds are more prone to cross the blood-brain barrier.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia — Ministério da Educação e Ciência (FCT-MEC, Portugal) is acknowledged for funding (including fellowships SFRH/BD/42158/2007 to Marta M.B. Ribeiro, SFRH/BD/41750/2007 to Marco M. Domingues and SFRH/BD/70423/2010 to João M. Freire) and project PTDC/QUI-BIQ/119509/2010. Marie Curie Industry-Academia Partnerships and Pathways (European Commission) is also acknowledged for funding (FP7-PEOPLE-2007-3-1-IAPP, Project 230654)
Magnetocaloric effect in integrable spin-s chains
We study the magnetocaloric effect for the integrable antiferromagnetic
high-spin chain. We present an exact computation of the Gr\"uneisen parameter,
which is closely related to the magnetocaloric effect, for the quantum spin-s
chain on the thermodynamical limit by means of Bethe ansatz techniques and the
quantum transfer matrix approach. We have also calculated the entropy S and the
isentropes in the (H,T) plane. We have been able to identify the quantum
critical points H_c^{(s)}=2/(s+1/2) looking at the isentropes and/or the
characteristic behaviour of the Gr\"uneisen parameter.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
The Apparent Fractal Conjecture: Scaling Features in Standard Cosmologies
This paper presents an analysis of the smoothness problem in cosmology by
focussing on the ambiguities originated in the simplifying hypotheses aimed at
observationally verifying if the large-scale distribution of galaxies is
homogeneous, and conjecturing that this distribution should follow a fractal
pattern in perturbed standard cosmologies. This is due to a geometrical effect,
appearing when certain types of average densities are calculated along the past
light cone. The paper starts reviewing the argument concerning the possibility
that the galaxy distribution follows such a scaling pattern, and the premises
behind the assumption that the spatial homogeneity of standard cosmology can be
observable. Next, it is argued that to discuss observable homogeneity one needs
to make a clear distinction between local and average relativistic densities,
and showing how the different distance definitions strongly affect them,
leading the various average densities to display asymptotically opposite
behaviours. Then the paper revisits Ribeiro's (1995: astro-ph/9910145) results,
showing that in a fully relativistic treatment some observational average
densities of the flat Friedmann model are not well defined at z ~ 0.1, implying
that at this range average densities behave in a fundamentally different manner
as compared to the linearity of the Hubble law, well valid for z < 1. This
conclusion brings into question the widespread assumption that relativistic
corrections can always be neglected at low z. It is also shown how some key
features of fractal cosmologies can be found in the Friedmann models. In view
of those findings, it is suggested that the so-called contradiction between the
cosmological principle, and the galaxy distribution forming an unlimited
fractal structure, may not exist.Comment: 30 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX. This paper is a follow-up to
gr-qc/9909093. Accepted for publication in "General Relativity and
Gravitation
Fractals and the Distribution of Galaxies
This paper presents a review of the fractal approach for describing the large scale distribution of galaxies. We start by presenting a brief, but general, introduction to fractals, which emphasizes their empirical side and applications rather than their mathematical side. Then we discuss the standard correlation function analysis of galaxy catalogues and many observational facts that brought increasing doubts about the reliability of this method, paying special attention to the standard analysis implicit assumption of an eventual homogeneity of the distribution of galaxies. Some new statistical concepts for analysing this distribution is presented, and without the implicit assumption of homogeneity they bring support to the hypothesis that the distribution of galaxies does form a fractal system. The Pietronero-Wertz's single fractal (hierarchical) model is presented and discussed, together with the implications of this new approach for understanding galaxy clustering
Aharonov-Bohm signature for neutral excitons in type-II quantum dot ensembles
It is commonly believed that the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect is a typical
feature of the motion of a charged particle interacting with the
electromagnetic vector potential. Here we present a magnetophotoluminescence
study of type-II InP/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots, unambiguously revealing
the Aharonov-Bohm-type oscillations for neutral excitons when the hole ground
state changes its angular momentum from lh = 0 to lh = 1, 2, and 3. The hole
ring parameters derived from a simple model are in excellent agreement with the
structural parameters for this system.Comment: Revised version, 10 pages, 3 figure
Demonstration of the Complementarity of One- and Two-Photon Interference
The visibilities of second-order (single-photon) and fourth-order
(two-photon) interference have been observed in a Young's double-slit
experiment using light generated by spontaneous parametric down-conversion and
a photon-counting intensified CCD camera. Coherence and entanglement underlie
one-and two-photon interference, respectively. As the effective source size is
increased, coherence is diminished while entanglement is enhanced, so that the
visibility of single-photon interference decreases while that of two-photon
interference increases. This is the first experimental demonstration of the
complementarity between single- and two-photon interference (coherence and
entanglement) in the spatial domain.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure
Differential Density Statistics of Galaxy Distribution and the Luminosity Function
This paper uses data obtained from the galaxy luminosity function (LF) to
calculate two types of radial number densities statistics of the galaxy
distribution as discussed in Ribeiro (2005), namely the differential density
and the integral differential density . By applying the
theory advanced by Ribeiro and Stoeger (2003), which connects the relativistic
cosmology number counts with the astronomically derived LF, the differential
number counts are extracted from the LF and used to calculate both
and with various cosmological distance definitions,
namely the area distance, luminosity distance, galaxy area distance and
redshift distance. LF data are taken from the CNOC2 galaxy redshift survey and
and are calculated for two cosmological models:
Einstein-de Sitter and an , standard
cosmology. The results confirm the strong dependency of both statistics on the
distance definition, as predicted in Ribeiro (2005), as well as showing that
plots of and against the luminosity and redshift
distances indicate that the CNOC2 galaxy distribution follows a power law
pattern for redshifts higher than 0.1. These findings bring support to
Ribeiro's (2005) theoretical proposition that using different cosmological
distance measures in statistical analyses of galaxy surveys can lead to
significant ambiguity in drawing conclusions about the behavior of the observed
large scale distribution of galaxies.Comment: LaTeX, 37 pages, 6 tables, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in
"The Astrophysical Journal
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