Liposome Technology for Industrial Purposes

Liposomes, spherical vesicles consisting of one or more phospholipid bilayers, were first described in the mid 60s by Bangham and coworkers. Since then, liposomes have made their way to the market. Today, numerous lab scale but only a few large-scale techniques are available. However, a lot of these methods have serious limitations in terms of entrapment of sensitive molecules due to their exposure to mechanical and/or chemical stress. This paper summarizes exclusively scalable techniques and focuses on strengths, respectively, limitations in respect to industrial applicability. An additional point of view was taken to regulatory requirements concerning liposomal drug formulations based on FDA and EMEA documents

'To serve and protect' when expecting to be seen negatively:The relation between police officers' contact with citizens, meta-stereotyping, and work-related well-being

We examined the relationship between contact of police officers with citizens, their (meta-)stereotypes about citizens, and their work-related well-being. Ninety-three police officers from 4 police stations in low- and high-crime regions in France completed the questionnaire. As expected, negative well-being of police officers is predicted by negative contact with citizens and their belief that police officers are stereotyped negatively by citizens. Moreover, the relationship between negative contact and negative well-being was mediated by police officers' beliefs that police officers are perceived negatively by citizens, whereas their perceptions of citizens did not mediate this relationship. Interestingly, level of crime did not influence these relationships. Together, this research shows the important role of beliefs about how one's group is stereotyped when in contact with another group as it may have consequences for people's well-being.</p

Del espacio monofuncional a la heterogeneidad

Universidad Pablo de OlavideMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación CSO2009-06819-EUniversidad de Granada 1975-200

Antibody charge heterogeneity formation in a mammalian cell culture fed-batch process

The charge heterogeneity of a monoclonal antibody (mAb) is as a sum factor of several post translational modifications and most of them are of high importance regarding product quality and efficacy. For this reason monitoring and controlling of this sum factor can be beneficial. The work presented here builds the basis for on-line monitoring and will help to achieve Quality by Control (Sommeregger et al., 2017). The aim of this work was to develop a method that allows fast and accurate determination of the charge profile of monoclonal antibodies directly from cell culture supernatants. We were able to circumvent a pre-purification step by adapting a cation exchange method (CEX) using a highly linear pH gradient (Lingg et al, 2013). The established method was then used to gain information about the formation of charge variants during a fed-batch process of an industrial relevant mAb produced by a Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell line. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

The spotlight effect and the illusion of transparency in social anxiety

[Clark, D. M., &amp; Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In: R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope, &amp; F. R. Schneier (Eds.), Social phobia: diagnosis, assessment, and treatment (pp. 69–93). New York: Guildford Press] cognitive model of social phobia suggests that both public and private sources of information contribute to the construction of the self as a social object, which is thought to maintain the disorder. This study used two concepts developed in social psychology that might help to explain the processes that contribute to the development of this constructed self. These two concepts are the spotlight effect [Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., &amp; Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: an egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 211–222] and the illusion of transparency [Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., &amp; Savitsky, K. (1998). The Illusion of transparency: biased assessments of others’ ability to read one’s own emotional states. Journal of personality and social psychology, 75(2), 332–346]. Participants performed a memory task under either a low or a high social-evaluative condition. In the high social-evaluative condition, participants reported higher levels of the spotlight effect and more negative evaluation of task performance, compared to participants in the low social-evaluative condition. There were no differences between the two conditions in levels of the illusion of transparency. Surprisingly, however, in the low socialevaluative condition, participants reported higher levels of the illusion of transparency than the spotlight effect, whereas, in the high social-evaluative condition, they reported the opposite. Results suggest that the spotlight effect may be specific to social-evaluative concerns, whereas, the illusion of transparency may represent more general features of social anxiety concerns. Implications of the results for Clark and Wells’ cognitive model of social phobia model are discussed

Neural processing of social rejection: the role of schizotypal personality traits

A fear of being rejected can cause perceptions of more insecurity and stress in close relationships. Healthy individuals activate the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) when experiencing social rejection, while those who are vulnerable to depression deactivate the dACC presumably to downregulate salience of rejection cues and minimize distress. Schizotypal individuals, characterized by unusual perceptual experiences and/or odd beliefs, are more rejection sensitive than normal. We tested the hypothesis, for the first time, that individuals with high schizotypy also have an altered dACC response to rejection stimuli. Twenty-six healthy individuals, 14 with low schizotypy (LS) and 12 with high schizotypy (HS), viewed depictions of rejection and acceptance and neutral scenes while undergoing functional MRI. Activation maps in LS and HS groups during each image type were compared using SPM5, and their relation to participant mood and subjective ratings of the images was examined. During rejection relative to neutral scenes, LS activated and HS deactivated the bilateral dACC, right superior frontal gyrus, and left ventral prefrontal cortex. Across both groups, a temporo-occipito-parieto-cerebellar network was active during rejection, and a left fronto-parietal network during acceptance, relative to neutral scenes, and the bilateral lingual gyrus during rejection relative to acceptance scenes. Our finding of dACC-dorso-ventral PFC activation in LS, but deactivation in HS individuals when perceiving social rejection scenes suggests that HS individuals attach less salience to and distance themselves from such stimuli. This may enable them to cope with their higher-than-normal sensitivity to rejection

Andrey Tarkovski, Scupting in time : Reflexions on the cinema, Londres, Bodley Head, 1986, 239 pp., Illustrations. Documents en annexe.

Two studies examined the effect of exposure to sexism on implicit gender bias, focusing specifically on stereotypes of men as competent and women as warm. Male and female participants were exposed to sexism or no sexism. In both Experiment 1 ( Implicit Association Task; N=115) and Experiment 2 ( Go/No-go Association Task; N=167), women who had been exposed to sexist beliefs demonstrated less implicit gender stereotype bias relative to women who were not exposed to sexism. In contrast, exposure to sexism did not influence men's implicit gender stereotype bias. In Experiment 2, process modelling revealed that women's reduction in bias in response to sexism was related to increased accuracy orientation and a tendency to make warmth versus competence judgments. The implications of these findings for current understandings of sexism and its effects on gender stereotypes are discussed.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Prejudice-reduction in culturally mixed classrooms : The development and assessment of a theory-driven prejudice-reduction intervention among majority and minority youth in Finland

Peer reviewe

Impact of solid-electrolyte interphase reformation on capacity loss in silicon-based lithium-ion batteries

High-density silicon composite anodes show large volume changes upon charging/discharging triggering the reformation of the solid electrolyte interface (SEI), an interface initially formed at the silicon surface. The question remains how the reformation process and accompanied material evolution, in particular for industrial up-scalable cells, impacts cell performance. Here, we develop a correlated workflow incorporating X-ray microscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy tomography, elemental imaging and deep learning-based microstructure quantification suitable to witness the structural and chemical progression of the silicon and SEI reformation upon cycling. The nanometer-sized SEI layer evolves into a micron-sized silicon electrolyte composite structure at prolonged cycles. Experimental-informed electrochemical modelling endorses an underutilisation of the active material due to the silicon electrolyte composite growth affecting the capacity. A chemo-mechanical model is used to analyse the stability of the SEI/silicon reaction front and to investigate the effects of material properties on the stability that can affect the capacity loss