Water Treatment Process

Water scarcity is the main factor driving the enhancement of available technologies and the development of new technologies [...

Treatment of noninfectious posterior uveitis with dexamethasone intravitreal implant

Jane S Myung, Grant D Aaker, Szilárd KissDepartment of Ophthalmology, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, NY, USAPurpose: To report our experience with dexamethasone 0.7 mg sustained-release intravitreal implant (Ozurdex®; Allergan, Inc, Irvine, CA) in noninfectious posterior uveitis.Methods: A retrospective chart review of patients with noninfectious uveitis treated with sustained-release dexamethasone 0.7 mg intravitreal implant was performed. Complete ophthalmic examination including signs of inflammatory activity, visual acuity, fundus photography, fluorescein angiography, optical coherence tomography, and tolerability of the implant were assessed.Results: Six eyes of 4 consecutive patients treated with a total of 8 dexamethasone 0.7 mg sustained-release intravitreal implants for posterior noninfectious uveitis were included. Two patients presented with unilateral idiopathic posterior uveitis; 2 patients had bilateral posterior uveitis, one secondary to sarcoidosis and the other to Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome. All eyes showed clinical and angiographic evidence of decreased inflammation following implant placement. Mean follow-up time post-injection was 5.25 months. Four eyes received 1 and 2 eyes received 2 Ozurdex implants during the follow-up period. The duration of effect of the implant was 3 to 4 months. No serious ocular or systemic adverse events were noted during the follow-up period.Conclusions: In patients with noninfectious posterior uveitis, sustained-release dexamethasone 0.7 mg intravitreal implant may be an effective treatment option for controlling intraocular inflammation.Keywords: corticosteroids, dexamethasone implant, Ozurdex, uveiti

Partial separability revisited: Necessary and sufficient criteria

We extend the classification of mixed states of quantum systems composed of arbitrary number of subsystems of arbitrary dimensions. This extended classification is complete in the sense of partial separability and gives 1+18+1 partial separability classes in the tripartite case contrary to a former 1+8+1. Then we give necessary and sufficient criteria for these classes, which make it possible to determine to which class a mixed state belongs. These criteria are given by convex roof extensions of functions defined on pure states. In the special case of three-qubit systems, we define a different set of such functions with the help of the Freudenthal triple system approach of three-qubit entanglement.Comment: v3: 22 pages, 5 tables, 1 figure, minor corrections (typos), clarification in the Introduction. Accepted in Phys. Rev. A. Comments are welcom

Design, synthesis and biological evaluation of thiosemicarbazones, hydrazinobenzothiazoles and arylhydrazones as anticancer agents with a potential to overcome multidrug resistance

There is a constant need for new therapies against multidrug resistant (MDR) cancer. An attractive strategy is to develop chelators that display significant antitumor activity in multidrug resistant cancer cell lines overexpressing the drug efflux pump P-glycoprotein. In this study we used a panel of sensitive and MDR cancer cell lines to evaluate the toxicity of picolinylidene and salicylidene thiosemicarbazone, arylhydrazone, as well as picolinylidene and salicylidene hydrazino-benzothiazole derivatives. Our results confirm the collateral sensitivity of MDR cells to isatin-β-thiosemicarbazones, and identify several chelator scaffolds with a potential to overcome multidrug resistance. Analysis of structure-activity-relationships within the investigated compound library indicates that NNS and NNN donor chelators show superior toxicity as compared to ONS derivatives regardless of the resistance status of the cells. © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS

Identification and Validation of Compounds Selectively Killing Resistant Cancer: Delineating Cell Line-Specific Effects from P-Glycoprotein-Induced Toxicity.

Despite significant progress, resistance to chemotherapy is still the main reason why cancer remains a deadly disease. An attractive strategy is to target the collateral sensitivity of otherwise multidrug resistant (MDR) cancer. In this study, our aim was to catalog various compounds that were reported to elicit increased toxicity in P-glycoprotein (Pgp)-overexpressing MDR cells. We show that the activity of most of the serendipitously identified compounds reported to target MDR cells is in fact cell-line specific, and is not influenced significantly by the function of Pgp. In contrast, novel 8-hydroxyquinoline derivatives that we identify in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) drug repository possess a robust Pgp-dependent toxic activity across diverse cell lines. Pgp expression associated with the resistance of the doxorubicin-resistant Brca1-/-;p53-/- spontaneous mouse mammary carcinoma cells could be eliminated by a single treatment with NSC57969, suggesting that MDR-selective compounds can effectively revert the MDR phenotype of cells expressing Pgp at clinically relevant levels. The discovery of new MDR-selective compounds shows the potential of this emerging technology and highlights the 8-hydroxyquinoline scaffold as a promising starting point for the development of compounds targeting the Achilles heel of drug-resistant cancer. Mol Cancer Ther; 16(1); 45-56. (c)2016 AACR

The Orbit of Warm Jupiter WASP-106 b is aligned with its Star

Understanding orbital obliquities, or the misalignment angles between a star's rotation axis and the orbital axis of its planets, is crucial for unraveling the mechanisms of planetary formation and migration. In this study, we present an analysis of Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) observations of the warm Jupiter exoplanet WASP-106 b. The high-precision radial velocity measurements were made with HARPS and HARPS-N during the transit of this planet. We aim to constrain the orientation of the planet's orbit relative to its host star's rotation axis. The RM observations are analyzed using a code which models the RM anomaly together with the Keplerian orbit given several parameters in combination with a Markov chain Monte Carlo implementation. We measure the projected stellar obliquity in the WASP-106 system for the first time and find $\lambda = (-1 \pm 11)^\circ$, supporting the theory of quiescent migration through the disk.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables, submitted to AA

The Disappearing Act of KH 15D: Photometric Results from 1995 to 2004

We present results from the most recent (2002-2004) observing campaigns of the eclipsing system KH 15D, in addition to re-reduced data obtained at Van Vleck Observatory (VVO) between 1995 and 2000. Phasing nine years of photometric data shows substantial evolution in the width and depth of the eclipses. The most recent data indicate that the eclipses are now approximately 24 days in length, or half the orbital period. These results are interpreted and discussed in the context of the recent models for this system put forward by Winn et al. and Chiang & Murray-Clay. A periodogram of the entire data set yields a highly significant peak at 48.37 +/- 0.01 days, which is in accord with the spectroscopic period of 48.38 +/- 0.01 days determined by Johnson et al. Another significant peak, at 9.6 days, was found in the periodogram of the out-of-eclipse data at two different epochs. We interpret this as the rotation period of the visible star and argue that it may be tidally locked in pseudosynchronism with its orbital motion. If so, application of Hut's theory implies that the eccentricity of the orbit is e = 0.65 +/- 0.01. Analysis of the UVES/VLT spectra obtained by Hamilton et al. shows that the v sin(i) of the visible star in this system is 6.9 +/- 0.3 km/sec. Using this value of v sin(i) and the measured rotation period of the star, we calculate the lower limit on the radius to be R = (1.3 +/- 0.1), R_Sun, which concurs with the value obtained by Hamilton et al. from its luminosity and effective temperature. Here we assume that i = 90 degrees since it is likely that the spin and orbital angular momenta vectors are nearly aligned.Comment: 55 pages, 18 figures, 1 color figure, to appear the September issue of the Astronomical Journa

Simultaneous observations of HD 106315 with 11 identical telescopes

The Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) is a photometric survey for transiting exoplanets, consisting of 12 identical 0.2‐m telescopes. We report a measurement of the transit of HD 106315 c using a novel observing mode in which multiple NGTS telescopes observed the same target, with the aim of increasing the signal‐to‐noise ratio. Combining the data allows the robust detection of the transit, which has a depth less than 0.1%, rivaling the performance of much larger telescopes. We demonstrate the capability of NGTS to contribute to the follow‐up of K2 and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite discoveries using this observing mode. In particular, NGTS is well‐suited to the measurement of shallow transits of bright targets. This is particularly important to improve orbital ephemerides of relatively long‐period planets, where only a small number of transits are observed from space