Cytotoxicity of Essential Oil of Chenopodium ambrosioides L against Human Breast Cancer MCF-7 Cells

Purpose: To investigate the cytotoxic activity of the essential oil of Chenopodium ambrosioides L. against human breast cancer MCF-7 cells.Methods: Cytotoxicity was characterized by 50 % inhibition (IC50) of human breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7) using 3-(4,5-dimethylthaizol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Apoptosis was analysed by Hoechst33258 staining and DNA ladder. MCF-7 cellular superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) vitality and malondialdehyde (MDA) content were evaluated.Results: The essential oil was cytotoxic to MCF-7 cell line. A dose- and time-dependent inhibition was observed with IC50 values of 18.75, 9.45 and 10.50 μg/ml at 6, 24 and 48 h, respectively. Analyses by Hoechst33258 staining and DNA ladder indicate that the essential oil induced apoptosis. SOD vitality significantly decreased (p＜ 0.05) by 51 % when the concentration of the essential oil increased from 1.25 to 12.5 μg/ml while CAT vitality significantly increased (p ＜ 0.05) by 71 % when essential oil concentration was similarly increased. The MDA content of each treatment group, when compare to control, did not show any significant difference (p ＜ 0.05).Conclusion: The essential oil of C. ambrosioides was cytotoxic to MCF-7 cell line and induced apoptosis.Keywords: Chenopodium ambrosioides L., Essential oil, Cytotoxicity, Apoptosis, Breast cancer, MCF-7 cells

Spin 3/2 Pentaquarks

We investigate the possible existence of the spin 3/2 pentaquark states using interpolating currents with K-N color-octet structure in the framework of QCD finite energy sum rule (FESR). We pay special attention to the convergence of the operator product expansion

Phenomenological Scaling of Rapidity Dependence for Anisotropic Flows in 25 MeV/nucleon Ca + Ca by Quantum Molecular Dynamics Model

Anisotropic flows ($v_1$, $v_2$, $v_3$ and $v_4$) of light fragments up till the mass number 4 as a function of rapidity have been studied for 25 MeV/nucleon $^{40}$Ca + $^{40}$Ca at large impact parameters by Quantum Molecular Dynamics model. A phenomenological scaling behavior of rapidity dependent flow parameters $v_n$ (n = 1, 2, 3 and 4) has been found as a function of mass number plus a constant term, which may arise from the interplay of collective and random motions. In addition, $v_4/{v_2}^2$ keeps almost independent of rapidity and remains a rough constant of 1/2 for all light fragments.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Parallel momentum distribution of the 28^{28}Si fragments from 29^{29}P

Distribution of the parallel momentum of $^{28}$Si fragments from the breakup of 30.7 MeV/nucleon $^{29}$P has been measured on C targets. The distribution has the FWHM with the value of 110.5 $\pm$ 23.5 MeV/c which is consistent quantitatively with Galuber model calculation assuming by a valence proton in $^{29}$P. The density distribution is also predicted by Skyrme-Hartree-Fock calculation. Results show that there might exist the proton-skin structure in $^{29}$P.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Ly-alpha/H-alpha Ratio of Singly Ionized Helium in Quasars

He II Ly-alpha 304/H-alpha 1640 emission lines are mainly produced by recombination, and their canonical ratio of about 10 may be a sensitive reddening indicator. We obtain the high S/N optical spectra of two quasars and combine them with the far-UV spectra that show the He II 304 emission. For HS 1700+64, the He II 1640 emission is not detected, and an upper limit to it sets the ratio greater than 20. For Q0302-003, the ratio is very low, on the order of unity. The most plausible cause for such a low ratio is extinction in the EUV band by very fine grains of dust. Q0302-003 has a prominent narrow component of FWHM ~ 2000 km/s in its major emission lines, and it appears that reddening is associated only with the line-emitting region. We suggest that the geometry of the line-emitting region in high-z quasars resembles that in the low-luminosity active galaxies, with the presence of dust mostly in the outer part.Comment: 18 pages, including 2 figures To appear in Astrophysical Journa

Method of determining cosmological parameter ranges with samples of candles with an intrinsic distribution

In this paper, the effect of the intrinsic distribution of cosmological candles is investigated. We find that, in the case of a narrow distribution, the deviation of the observed modulus of sources from the expected central value could be estimated within a ceratin range. We thus introduce a lower and upper limits of $\chi ^{2}$, $\chi_{\min}^{2}$ and $\chi_{\max}^{2}$, to estimate cosmological parameters by applying the conventional minimizing $\chi ^{2}$ method. We apply this method to a gamma-ray burst (GRB) sample as well as to a combined sample including this GRB sample and an SN Ia sample. Our analysis shows that: a) in the case of assuming an intrinsic distribution of candles of the GRB sample, the effect of the distribution is obvious and should not be neglected; b) taking into account this effect would lead to a poorer constraint of the cosmological parameter ranges. The analysis suggests that in the attempt of constraining the cosmological model with current GRB samples, the results tend to be worse than what previously thought if the mentioned intrinsic distribution does exist.Comment: 6 pages,4 figures,1 tables.Data updated. Main conclusion unchange

Experimental entanglement verification and quantification via uncertainty relations

We report on experimental studies on entanglement quantification and verification based on uncertainty relations for systems consisting of two qubits. The new proposed measure is shown to be invariant under local unitary transformations, by which entanglement quantification is implemented for two-qubit pure states. The nonlocal uncertainty relations for two-qubit pure states are also used for entanglement verification which serves as a basic proposition and promise to be a good choice for verification of multipartite entanglement.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures and 2 table

Impact of Fermion Mass Degeneracy on Flavor Mixing

We carry out a systematic analysis of flavor mixing and CP violation in the conceptually interesting limit where two quarks or leptons of the same charge are degenerate in mass. We pay some particular attention to the impact of neutrino mass degeneracy and Majorana phase degeneracy on the lepton flavor mixing matrix.Comment: 14 page