Ethyl chloride spray for injection site analgesia

Objective: To determine if ethyl chloride spray provides adequate analgesia prior to injections. Design: Systematic literature review. Methods: A search was conducted in both Pubmed and Scopus using search terms ethyl chloride and injection. The Pubmed search was narrowed to include studies within a 10-year publication range. Articles were excluded based on: population age range, date of publication, and if ethyl chloride was used in conjunction with another analgesic. There were no relevant articles in the Scopus search. Results: Franko O, Stern P. demonstrated that there was no statistically significant improvement in anxiety or pain perceived with ethyl chloride treatment as compared to the control.1 Irkoren et al. found that ethyl chloride spray and Eutectic Mixture of Local Anesthetic (EMLA) cream each significantly decreased the pain associated with forehead botulinum toxin (BTX) injections when compared to the control.2 The majority of patients preferred the ethyl chloride spray over the EMLA cream as an analgesic.2 Moon et al. determined lidocaine and ethyl chloride are equally effective methods for decreasing pain associated with injections.3 Ethyl chloride spray had the added benefit of a lack of metallic taste.3 Conclusion: We cannot conclude that ethyl chloride spray is an effective analgesic prior to injections in men and women. However, we do recommend its use prior to BTX forehead injections and dorsal hand propofol injections in women age 18 and older, based on results from Irkoren et al. and Moon et al.2,

Brzozowski goes concurrent - A kleene theorem for pomset languages

Concurrent Kleene Algebra (CKA) is a mathematical formalism to study programs that exhibit concurrent behaviour. As with previous extensions of Kleene Algebra, characterizing the free model is crucial in order to develop the foundations of the theory and potential applications. For CKA, this has been an open question for a few years and this paper makes an important step towards an answer. We present a new automaton model and a Kleene-like theorem that relates a relaxed version of CKA to series-parallel pomset languages, which are a natural candidate for the free model. There are two substantial differences with previous work: from expressions to automata, we use Brzozowski derivatives, which enable a direct construction of the automaton; from automata to expressions, we provide a syntactic characterization of the automata that denote valid CKA behaviours

Equivalence checking for weak bi-kleene algebra∗

Pomset automata are an operational model of weak bi-Kleene algebra, which describes programs that can fork an execution into parallel threads, upon completion of which execution can join to resume as a single thread. We characterize a fragment of pomset automata that admits a decision procedure for language equivalence. Furthermore, we prove that this fragment corresponds precisely to series-rational expressions, i.e., rational expressions with an additional operator for bounded parallelism. As a consequence, we obtain a new proof that equivalence of series-rational expressions is decidable

Kleene algebra with observations

Kleene algebra with tests (KAT) is an algebraic framework for reasoning about the control flow of sequential programs. Generalising KAT to reason about concurrent programs is not straightforward, because axioms native to KAT in conjunction with expected axioms for concurrency lead to an anomalous equation. In this paper, we propose Kleene algebra with observations (KAO), a variant of KAT, as an alternative foundation for extending KAT to a concurrent setting. We characterise the free model of KAO, and establish a decision procedure w.r.t. its equational theory

Ethyl 2-(2-acetoxy­benzyl­idene)-7-methyl-3-oxo-5-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-5H-1,3-thia­zolo[3,2-a]pyrimidine-6-carboxyl­ate1

In the title mol­ecule, C25H22N2O5S, the atoms of the thia­zolopyrimidine ring system, with the exception of the phenyl-bearing C atom [deviation = 0.177 (2) Å], are essentially planar [r.m.s deviation = 0.100 (2) °] and the mean plane of these atoms forms dihedral angles of 89.86 (10) and 7.97 (8)° with the phenyl and benzene rings, respectively. In the crystal, co-operative C—H⋯O and C—H⋯π inter­actions lead to a supra­molecular chain along the a axis. These chains are connected via π–π inter­actions [centroid–centroid = 3.7523 (13) Å]

The Transmembrane Isoform of Plasmodium falciparum MAEBL Is Essential for the Invasion of Anopheles Salivary Glands

Malaria transmission depends on infective stages in the mosquito salivary glands. Plasmodium sporozoites that mature in midgut oocysts must traverse the hemocoel and invade the mosquito salivary glands in a process thought to be mediated by parasite ligands. MAEBL, a homologue of the transmembrane EBP ligands essential in merozoite invasion, is expressed abundantly in midgut sporozoites. Alternative splicing generates different MAEBL isoforms and so it is unclear what form is functionally essential. To identify the MAEBL isoform required for P. falciparum (NF54) sporozoite invasion of salivary glands, we created knockout and allelic replacements each carrying CDS of a single MAEBL isoform. Only the transmembrane form of MAEBL is essential and is the first P. falciparum ligand validated as essential for invasion of Anopheles salivary glands. MAEBL is the first P. falciparum ligand experimentally determined to be essential for this important step in the life cycle where the vector becomes infectious for transmitting sporozoites to people. With an increasing emphasis on advancing vector-based transgenic methods for suppression of malaria, it is important that this type of study, using modern molecular genetic tools, is done with the agent of the human disease. Understanding what P. falciparum sporozoite ligands are critical for mosquito transmission will help validate targets for vector-based transmission-blocking strategies

Ethyl 6-methyl-2-sulfanyl­idene-4-[4-(trifluoro­meth­yl)phen­yl]-1,2,3,4-tetra­hydro­pyrimidine-5-carboxyl­ate

The title compound, C15H15F3N2O2S, adopts a conformation with an intra­molecular C—H⋯π inter­action. The dihedral angles between the planes of the 4-(trifluoro­meth­yl)phenyl and ester groups with the plane of the six-membered tetra­hydro­pyrimidine ring are 81.8 (1) and 16.0 (1)°, respectively. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular N—H⋯S hydrogen bonds link pairs of mol­ecules into dimers and N—H⋯O inter­actions generate hydrogen-bonded mol­ecular chains along the crystallographic a axis

Microwave Assisted Synthesis of Py-Im Polyamides

Microwave synthesis was utilized to rapidly build Py-Im polyamides in high yields and purity using Boc-protection chemistry on Kaiser oxime resin. A representative polyamide targeting the 5′-WGWWCW-3′ (W = A or T) subset of the consensus Androgen and Glucocorticoid Response Elements was synthesized in 56% yield after 20 linear steps and HPLC purification. It was confirmed by Mosher amide derivatization of the polyamide that a chiral α-amino acid does not racemize after several additional coupling steps

Gene Disruption of Plasmodium falciparum p52 Results in Attenuation of Malaria Liver Stage Development in Cultured Primary Human Hepatocytes

Difficulties with inducing sterile and long lasting protective immunity against malaria with subunit vaccines has renewed interest in vaccinations with attenuated Plasmodium parasites. Immunizations with sporozoites that are attenuated by radiation (RAS) can induce strong protective immunity both in humans and rodent models of malaria. Recently, in rodent parasites it has been shown that through the deletion of a single gene, sporozoites can also become attenuated in liver stage development and, importantly, immunization with these sporozoites results in immune responses identical to RAS. The promise of vaccination using these genetically attenuated sporozoites (GAS) depends on translating the results in rodent malaria models to human malaria. In this study, we perform the first essential step in this transition by disrupting, p52, in P. falciparum an ortholog of the rodent parasite gene, p36p, which we had previously shown can confer long lasting protective immunity in mice. These P. falciparum P52 deficient sporozoites demonstrate gliding motility, cell traversal and an invasion rate into primary human hepatocytes in vitro that is comparable to wild type sporozoites. However, inside the host hepatocyte development is arrested very soon after invasion. This study reveals, for the first time, that disrupting the equivalent gene in both P. falciparum and rodent malaria Plasmodium species generates parasites that become similarly arrested during liver stage development and these results pave the way for further development of GAS for human use