280 research outputs found
Pyridazine-bridged cationic diiridium complexes as potential dual-mode bioimaging probes
A novel diiridium complex [(N^C^N)2Ir(bis-N^C)Ir(N^C^N)2Cl]PF6 (N^C^N = 2-[3-tert-butyl-5-(pyridin-2-yl)phenyl]pyridine; bis-N^C = 3,6-bis(4-tert-butylphenyl)pyridazine) was designed, synthesised and characterised. The key feature of the complex is the bridging pyridazine ligand which brings two cyclometallated Ir(III) metal centres close together so that Cl also acts as a bridging ligand leading to a cationic complex. The ionic nature of the complex offers a possibility of improving solubility in water. The complex displays broad emission in the red region (λem = 520â720 nm, Ï = 1.89 ÎŒs, Ίem = 62% in degassed acetonitrile). Cellular assays by multiphoton (λex = 800 nm) and confocal (λex = 405 nm) microscopy demonstrate that the complex enters cells and localises to the mitochondria, demonstrating cell permeability. Further, an appreciable yield of singlet oxygen generation (ΊΠ= 0.45, direct method, by 1O2 NIR emission in air equilibrated acetonitrile) suggests a possible future use in photodynamic therapy. However, the complex has relatively high dark toxicity (LD50 = 4.46 ÎŒM), which will likely hinder its clinical application. Despite this toxicity, the broad emission spectrum of the complex and high emission yield observed suggest a possible future use of this class of compound in emission bioimaging. The presence of two heavy atoms also increases the scattering of electrons, supporting potential future applications as a dual fluorescence and electron microscopy probe
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A utility survey and market assessment on repowering in the electric power industry
Section 1 of this report provides a background about the DOE High Performance Power Systems (HIPPS) program. There are two kinds of HIPPS cycles under development. One team is led by the Foster Wheeler Development Corporation, the other team is led by the United Technologies Research Center. These cycles are described. Section 2 summarizes the feedback from the survey of the repowering needs of ten electric utility companies. The survey verified that the utility company planners favor a repowering for a first-of-a-kind demonstration of a new technology rather than an all-new-site application. These planners list the major factor in considering a unit as a repowering candidate as plant age: they identify plants built between 1955 and 1965 as the most likely candidates. Other important factors include the following: the need to reduce operating costs; the need to perform major maintenance/replacement of the boiler; and the need to reduce emissions. Section 3 reports the results of the market assessment. Using the size and age preferences identified in the survey, a market assessment was conducted (with the aid of a power plant data base) to estimate the number and characteristics of US generating units which constitute the current, primary potential market for coal-based repowering. Nearly 250 units in the US meet the criteria determined to be the potential repowering market
Photodynamic killing of cancer cells by a Platinum(II) complex with cyclometallating ligand
Photodynamic therapy that uses photosensitizers which only become toxic upon light-irradiation provides a strong alternative to conventional cancer treatment due to its ability to selectively target tumour material without affecting healthy tissue. Transition metal complexes are highly promising PDT agents due to intense visible light absorption, yet the majority are toxic even without light. This study introduces a small, photostable, charge-neutral platinum-based compound, Pt(II) 2,6-dipyrido-4-methyl-benzenechloride, complex 1, as a photosensitizer, which works under visible light. Activation of the new photosensitizer at low concentrations (0.1â1âÎŒM) by comparatively low dose of 405ânm light (3.6âJ cmâ2) causes significant cell death of cervical, colorectal and bladder cancer cell lines, and, importantly, a cisplatin resistant cell line EJ-R. The photo-index of the complex is 8. We demonstrate that complex 1 induces irreversible DNA single strand breaks following irradiation, and that oxygen is essential for the photoinduced action. Neither light, nor compound alone led to cell death. The key advantages of the new drug include a remarkably fast accumulation time (diffusion-controlled, minutes), and photostability. This study demonstrates a highly promising new agent for photodynamic therapy, and attracts attention to photostable metal complexes as viable alternatives to conventional chemotherapeutics, such as cisplatin
Kaon-Nucleon Scattering Amplitudes and Z-Enhancements from Quark Born Diagrams
We derive closed form kaon-nucleon scattering amplitudes using the ``quark
Born diagram" formalism, which describes the scattering as a single interaction
(here the OGE spin-spin term) followed by quark line rearrangement. The low
energy I=0 and I=1 S-wave KN phase shifts are in reasonably good agreement with
experiment given conventional quark model parameters. For Gev
however the I=1 elastic phase shift is larger than predicted by Gaussian
wavefunctions, and we suggest possible reasons for this discrepancy. Equivalent
low energy KN potentials for S-wave scattering are also derived. Finally we
consider OGE forces in the related channels K, KN and K,
and determine which have attractive interactions and might therefore exhibit
strong threshold enhancements or ``Z-molecule" meson-baryon bound states.
We find that the minimum-spin, minimum-isospin channels and two additional
K channels are most conducive to the formation of bound states.
Related interesting topics for future experimental and theoretical studies of
KN interactions are also discussed.Comment: 34 pages, figures available from the authors, revte
Trying to end the war on the world: the campaign to proscribe military ecocide
Military ecocide, the destruction of the natural environment in the course of fighting or preparing for war, has a long history and remains a regular feature of contemporary conflicts. Efforts to prohibit this in international law were initiated after the USâ notorious defoliation campaign in the Vietnam War in the 1960s and have advanced since then. Legal ambiguities and the defence of military necessity have limited the application of this body of law but the proscription of ecocide has, nonetheless, progressed and looks set to develop further. Normative change driven by scientists, environmentalists and legal experts has raised awareness of and stigmatised such practises to the extent that recourse to the worst excesses of ecocide now appears to have lessened and some recompense for past crimes has been made. Military activities, though, still inflict a heavy cost on the environment
Stein structures and holomorphic mappings
We prove that every continuous map from a Stein manifold X to a complex
manifold Y can be made holomorphic by a homotopic deformation of both the map
and the Stein structure on X. In the absence of topological obstructions the
holomorphic map may be chosen to have pointwise maximal rank. The analogous
result holds for any compact Hausdorff family of maps, but it fails in general
for a noncompact family. Our main results are actually proved for smooth almost
complex source manifolds (X,J) with the correct handlebody structure. The paper
contains another proof of Eliashberg's (Int J Math 1:29--46, 1990) homotopy
characterization of Stein manifolds and a slightly different explanation of the
construction of exotic Stein surfaces due to Gompf (Ann Math 148 (2):619--693,
1998; J Symplectic Geom 3:565--587, 2005). (See also the related preprint
math/0509419).Comment: The original publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co
Scaling ozone responses of forest trees to the ecosystem level in a changing climate
Many uncertainties remain regarding how climate change will alter the structure and function of forest ecosystems. At the Aspen FACE experiment in northern Wisconsin, we are attempting to understand how an aspen/birch/maple forest ecosystem responds to long-term exposure to elevated carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and ozone (O 3 ), alone and in combination, from establishment onward. We examine how O 3 affects the flow of carbon through the ecosystem from the leaf level through to the roots and into the soil micro-organisms in present and future atmospheric CO 2 conditions. We provide evidence of adverse effects of O 3 , with or without co-occurring elevated CO 2 , that cascade through the entire ecosystem impacting complex trophic interactions and food webs on all three species in the study: trembling aspen ( Populus tremuloides Michx . ), paper birch ( Betula papyrifera Marsh), and sugar maple ( Acer saccharum Marsh). Interestingly, the negative effect of O 3 on the growth of sugar maple did not become evident until 3 years into the study. The negative effect of O 3 effect was most noticeable on paper birch trees growing under elevated CO 2 . Our results demonstrate the importance of long-term studies to detect subtle effects of atmospheric change and of the need for studies of interacting stresses whose responses could not be predicted by studies of single factors. In biologically complex forest ecosystems, effects at one scale can be very different from those at another scale. For scaling purposes, then, linking process with canopy level models is essential if O 3 impacts are to be accurately predicted. Finally, we describe how outputs from our long-term multispecies Aspen FACE experiment are being used to develop simple, coupled models to estimate productivity gain/loss from changing O 3 .Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72464/1/j.1365-3040.2005.01362.x.pd
Two-Loop Corrections to the Fermionic Decay Rates of the Standard-Model Higgs Boson
Low- and intermediate mass Higgs bosons decay preferably into fermion pairs.
The one-loop electroweak corrections to the respective decay rates are
dominated by a flavour-independent term of . We calculate
the two-loop gluon correction to this term. It turns out that this correction
screens the leading high- behaviour of the one-loop result by roughly
10\%. We also present the two-loop QCD correction to the contribution induced
by a pair of fourth-generation quarks with arbitrary masses. As expected, the
inclusion of the QCD correction considerably reduces the renormalization-scheme
dependence of the prediction.Comment: 14 pages, latex, figures 2-5 appended, DESY 94-08
Recoil Polarization for Delta Excitation in Pion Electroproduction
We measured angular distributions of recoil-polarization response functions
for neutral pion electroproduction for W=1.23 GeV at Q^2=1.0 (GeV/c)^2,
obtaining 14 separated response functions plus 2 Rosenbluth combinations; of
these, 12 have been observed for the first time. Dynamical models do not
describe quantities governed by imaginary parts of interference products well,
indicating the need for adjusting magnitudes and phases for nonresonant
amplitudes. We performed a nearly model-independent multipole analysis and
obtained values for Re(S1+/M1+)=-(6.84+/-0.15)% and Re(E1+/M1+)=-(2.91+/-0.19)%
that are distinctly different from those from the traditional Legendre analysis
based upon M1+ dominance and sp truncation.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, for PR
Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events
The - oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of
23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II
asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B
mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the
flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference
distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives ps.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter
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