452 research outputs found

    Observation of sub-natural linewidths for cold atoms in a magneto-optic trap

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    We have studied the absorption of a weak probe beam through cold rubidium atoms in a magneto-optic trap. The absorption spectrum shows two peaks with the smaller peak having linewidth as small as 28% of the natural linewidth. The modification happens because the laser beams used for trapping also drive the atoms coherently between the ground and excited states. This creates ``dressed'' states whose energies are shifted depending on the strength of the drive. Linewidth narrowing occurs due to quantum coherence between the dressed states. The separation of the states increases with laser intensity and detuning, as expected from this model.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

    A Review Article: Free Radical and Replacement Synthetic Antioxidant by Natural Antioxidant

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    Free radical may be responsible of several pathophysiology disease for threatening human life, and they are produced from endogenous and exogenous sources. Using the balanced amount  of nutritious diet lead to a good health, may be neutralizing or scavenging  free radicals by antioxidants compounds. daily diet have large number of vitamin A, E and C, carotenoids, polyphenols, etc. as natural antioxidants, the main bases of them are fruits, cereals, vegetables, and beverages. Enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant substances are two different kinds that lessen the reactions of free radicals. In order to protect itself from reactive oxygen species, the human body uses an enzyme antioxidant. The two kinds of non-enzymatic antioxidants are natural antioxidants and synthetic antioxidants. The aim of this review is to knowledge a reasons which causes the free radical and balance them by natural antioxidant constituents, and replacement synthetic antioxidant by natural antioxidant, due to daily diet have large amounts from natural antioxidants, and natural antioxidants more effective than synthetic antioxidants, in additional they occurrence in nature and more inexpensive

    Application of Allelopathy in Crop Production

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    Need for food production has been increasing greatly in recent years throughout the world. The interest on the supply of quality of food has also increased, but a significant loss of crop production was observed annually, especially the main cereal crops, including rice, wheat and maize, due to the presence of weeds accompanying them in the growing season. Allelopathy has emerged as an alternative approach to solve problem agriculture that including: crop rotations, intercropping, crop residue incorporation and aqueous extracts all that used to explore allelopathy for pest management, enhancement of growth and crop production. As will allelopathic consider as weeds, insect and diseases natural control. Secondary metabolites biosynthesis of at high rates have a great role in provides defense against abiotic stresses. In plant rhizosphere allelochemicals exuded improve nutrient acquisition through the processes of solublization; biological nitrification; chelation and selected retention. In this chapter, application of the allelopathic phenomenon in crop production is discussed and his roller in managing agricultural pests and improving the productivity of agricultural systems. It was found that allelochemicals promote plant growth and production at low concentration; however it can suppress the growth if applied at high concentrations, for that can be used allelopathic compounds for weed control by used high concentrations of plant residues or aqueous extracts of plant

    Loading of a Rb magneto-optic trap from a getter source

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    We study the properties of a Rb magneto-optic trap loaded from a commercial getter source which provides a large flux of atoms for the trap along with the capability of rapid turn-off necessary for obtaining long trap lifetimes. We have studied the trap loading at two different values of background pressure to determine the cross-section for Rb--N2_2 collisions to be 3.5(4)x10^{-14} cm^2 and that for Rb--Rb collisions to be of order 3x10^{-13} cm^2. At a background pressure of 1.3x10^{-9} torr, we load more than 10^8 atoms into the trap with a time constant of 3.3 s. The 1/e lifetime of trapped atoms is 13 s limited only by background collisions.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

    Artificial Intelligence For The Discovery Of Novel Antimicrobial Agents For Emerging Infectious Diseases

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    The search for effective drugs to treat new and existing diseases is a laborious one requiring a large investment of capital, resources, and time. The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been a painful reminder of the lack of development of new antimicrobial agents to treat emerging infectious diseases. Artificial intelligence (AI) and other in silico techniques can drive a more efficient, cost friendly approach to drug discovery by helping move potential candidates with better clinical tolerance forward in the pipeline. Several research teams have developed successful AI platforms for hit identification, lead generation, and lead optimization. In this review, we investigate the technologies at the forefront of spearheading an AI revolution in drug discovery and pharmaceutical sciences

    A new Manifestation of Atomic Parity Violation in Cesium: a Chiral Optical Gain induced by linearly polarized 6S-7S Excitation

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    We have detected, by using stimulated emission, an Atomic Parity Violation (APV) in the form of a chiral optical gain of a cesium vapor on the 7S - 6P3/2_{3/2} transition,consecutive to linearly polarized 6S-7S excitation. We demonstrate the validity of this detection method of APV, by presenting a 9% accurate measurement of expected sign and magnitude. We underline several advantages of this entirely new approach in which the cylindrical symmetry of the set-up can be fully exploited. Future measurements at the percent level will provide an important cross-check of an existing more precise result obtained by a different method.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

    A phase 1b study of Selumetinib in combination with Cisplatin and Gemcitabine in advanced or metastatic biliary tract cancer: the ABC-04 study

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    BACKGROUND: Combined treatment with cisplatin and gemcitabine (CisGem) is the standard of care for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer (ABC). Selumetinib (AZD6244, ARRY-142886) potently and selectively inhibits MEK1/2, an intracellular kinase and has shown activity in ABC. The objective of the ABC-04 trial was to establish the recommended dose of selumetinib in combination with CisGem in patients with ABC. METHODS: Eligible patients were ≥ 18 years, had histologically or cytologically-confirmed unresectable recurrent or metastatic biliary tract, gallbladder or ampullary carcinoma, WHO performance status 0-2, and adequate major organ function. Patients may have had prior surgery, radiotherapy or adjuvant chemotherapy, but no prior CisGem and no prior chemotherapy for locally advanced or metastatic disease. Patients received cisplatin 25 mg/m(2) plus gemcitabine 1000 mg/m(2) intravenously on days 1 and 8 of a 21-day cycle. Selumetinib capsules were taken daily. Patients received up to 8 cycles of CisGem and could receive selumetinib until disease progression. A dose de-escalation scheme was used to determine the recommended dose of selumetinib. The first dose level was 75 mg bd. Patients were recruited in cohorts of 3 and assessed for dose limiting toxicity (DLT) during the first cycle of treatment. RESULTS: Thirteen patients were recruited, of whom 12 were evaluable for DLT (1 did not start treatment). All evaluable patients received the starting dose of selumetinib 75 mg bd and one patient experienced a DLT (cardiac chest pain). The median number of days selumetinib was taken (adjusted for the number of days of dose interruptions) was 171.5 (IQR: 75.5 to 344). Two patients remained on treatment at 14 and 19 months post registration. There were 3 temporary and 1 permanent interruptions of selumetinib in cycle 1. Eight patients were evaluable for objective response (RECIST v1.1): 3 had a partial response and 5 stable disease. The median PFS was 6.4 months (IQR 5.2 to 13.7). Toxicities related to selumetinib were mostly related to oedema and rash, grade 1-2 and manageable. Pharmacokinetic analysis showed that the AUC(0-t), AUC(0-∞) and Cmax of selumetinib increased by 12, 11 and 30 % respectively when it was administered with CisGem, while Cmax for the N-desmethyl metabolite of selumetinib decreased by 40 %. There was no evidence that the time of Cmax for selumetinib or N-desmethyl metabolite of selumetinib were different when selumetinib was administered alone or with CisGem. CONCLUSION: The recommended dose of selumetinib when combined with CisGem was 75 mg bd. Translational studies are underway to identify biomarkers that may predict outcome (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01242605 July 6(th) 2010)

    Mechanical Properties of Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) with Various Steel Fiber and Silica Fume Contents

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    An experimental work was carried out to investigate some mechanical properties of Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) which are particularly required as input data for structural design. These properties include compressive strength, tensile strength (direct, splitting and flexural), flexural toughness, load-deflection capacity and static modulus of elasticity. The effects of three variable parameters on these properties were carefully studied which are, the silica fume content SF (0%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and 30%) as a partial replacement by weight of cement, hooked macro steel fibers volume fraction Vf (0%, 1%, 2% and 3%) and superplasticizertype(Sikament®-163N and PC200).The diameter of the steel fiber is 0.5mm and its length is 30mm with aspect ratio 60.The experimental results showed that as the silica fume content (SF) increases from 0% to 30% the compressive strength significantly increases, while the increase in tensile strength is relatively lower. The inclusion of steel fibers leads to a considerable increase intensile strength, while the addition of steel fibers causes a slight increase in compressive strength of RPC as fiber volume fraction increases from 0% to 3%.The increase in the steel fibers volume fraction and silica fume content improved the loaddeflection behavior and consequently gave higher ductility and fracture toughness of RPC

    Molecular dynamics simulation of nanocolloidal amorphous silica particles: Part II

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    Explicit molecular dynamics simulations were applied to a pair of amorphous silica nanoparticles of diameter 3.2 nm immersed in a background electrolyte. Mean forces acting between the pair of silica nanoparticles were extracted at four different background electrolyte concentrations. Dependence of the inter-particle potential of mean force on the separation and the silicon to sodium ratio, as well as on the background electrolyte concentration, are demonstrated. The pH was indirectly accounted for via the ratio of silicon to sodium used in the simulations. The nature of the interaction of the counter-ions with charged silica surface sites (deprotonated silanols) was also investigated. The effect of the sodium double layer on the water ordering was investigated for three Si:Na+ ratios. The number of water molecules trapped inside the nanoparticles was investigated as the Si:Na+ ratio was varied. Differences in this number between the two nanoparticles in the simulations are attributed to differences in the calculated electric dipole moment. The implications of the form of the potentials for aggregation are also discussed.Comment: v1. 33 pages, 7 figures (screen-quality PDF), submitted to J. Chem. Phys v2. 15 pages, 4 tables, 6 figures. Content, author list and title changed; single space

    CDX2 mutations do not account for juvenile polyposis or Peutz–Jeghers syndrome and occur infrequently in sporadic colorectal cancers

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    Peutz–Jeghers syndrome (PJS) and juvenile polyposis (JPS) are both characterized by the presence of hamartomatous polyps and increased risk of malignancy in the gastrointestinal tract. Mutations of the LKB1 and SMAD4 genes have been shown recently to cause a number of PJS and JPS cases respectively, but there remains considerable uncharacterized genetic heterogeneity in these syndromes, particularly JPS. The mouse homologue of CDX2 has been shown to give rise to a phenotype which includes hamartomatous-like polyps in the colon and is therefore a good candidate for JPS and PJS cases which are not accounted for by the SMAD4 and LKB1 genes. By analogy with SMAD4CDX2 is also a candidate for somatic mutation in sporadic colorectal cancer. We have screened 37 JPS families/cases without known SMAD4 mutations, 10 Peutz-Jeghers cases without known LKB1 mutations and 49 sporadic colorectal cancers for mutations in CDX2. Although polymorphic variants and rare variants of unlikely significance were detected, no pathogenic CDX2 mutations were found in any case of JPS or PJS, or in any of the sporadic cancers. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign www.bjcancer.co
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