Insight into the nonlinear absorbance of two related series of two-photon absorbing chromophores

A comprehensive photophysical study of the linear and nonlinear absorption properties has been carried out on two series of two-photon absorbing dyes to gain insight into how structure-property relationships influence observed nonlinear absorption. The materials studied consist of an electron accepting benzothiazole group connected to an electron donating diphenylamine via a fluorene bridging group. Two series differ from each other by the addition of one phenyl group and for each series one-arm (dipolar, AF240 and AF270), two-arm (quadrupolar, AF287 and AF295), and three-arm (octupolar, AF350 and AF380) versions were studied. Overall the AF240 series exhibits higher intrinsic two-photon absorption (TPA) cross-sections than the AF270 series as well as enhanced nanosecond nonlinear absorption, with an increase with number of branches. The enhanced nanosecond nonlinearity is understood by taking into account the contribution from the singlet and triplet excited states and was verified by a two-photon assisted excited-state absorption model that satisfactorily predicts the nonlinear absorption of the chromophores.     

Oral aminolevulinic acid induces protoporphyrin IX fluorescence in psoriatic plaques and peripheral blood cells

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with topical aminolevulinic acid (ALA) has been shown in previous studies to improve psoriasis. However, topical ALA-PDT may not be practical for the treatment of extensive disease. In order to overcome this limitation we have explored the potential use of oral ALA administration in psoriatic patients. Twelve patients with plaque psoriasis received a single oral ALA dose of 10, 20 or 30 mg/kg followed by measurement of protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) fluorescence in the skin and circulating blood cells. Skin PpIX levels were determined over time after ALA administration by the quantification of the 635 nm PpIX emission peak with in vivo fluorescence spectroscopy under 442 nm laser excitation. Administration of ALA at 20 and 30 mg/kg induced preferential accumulation of PpIX in psoriatic as opposed to adjacent normal skin. Peak fluorescence intensity in psoriatic and normal skin occurred between 3 and 5 h after the administration of 20 and 30 mg/kg, respectively. Ratios of up to 10 for PpIX fluorescence between psoriatic versus normal skin were obtained at the 30 mg/kg dose of ALA. Visible PpIX fluorescence was also observed on normal facial skin, and nonspecific skin photosensitivity occurred only in patients who received the 20 or 30 mg/kg doses. PpIX fluorescence intensity was measured in circulating blood cells by flow cytometry. PpIX fluorescence was higher in monocytes and neutrophils as compared to CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. PpIX levels in these cells were higher in patients who received higher ALA doses and peaked between 4 and 8 h after administration of ALA. There was only a modest increase in PpIX levels in circulating CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In conclusion oral administration of ALA induced preferential accumulation of PpIX in psoriatic plaques as compared to adjacent normal skin suggesting that PDT with oral ALA should be further explored for the treatment of psoriasis.     

The reaction of iodine monochloride and monobromide with tetraorganotins

The reactions of iodine monochloride and iodine monobromide with a tetraalkyltin (butyl) and a tetraaryltin (phenyl) have been studied with a view to establishing their utility as routes to organotin chlorides and bromides respectively. Rapid high yield syntheses of the triorganotin bromides, diorganotin dichlorides and trialkyltin chloride were achieved. Some further suggestions are made on the mechanism of interhalogen fission of tincarbon bonds.     

Optimal double-configuration study of the lowest excited Π states of H2

Various levels of approximation (Hartree-Fock, configuration interaction and double-configuration Hartree-Fock method) are compared for extensive and limited exponent optimization of the atomic orbitals of the wavefunctions. The potential energy curves for the lowest-lying ¹ _u, ³ _u, ¹ _g, ³ _g states of the hydrogen molecule are presented. The shapes of the curves on the highest level of approximation, i.e. with the optimal double-configuration wavefunction, are basically in agreement with previous, more sophisticated and time-consuming work. The influence of the various approximations is also studied for several one-electron properties: charge distribution of the wavefunction along and perpendicular to the molecular axis, quadrupole moment and core attraction energy distribution. Differences arise to the work of Zemke et al. [1], who used a limited exponent optimization with a larger basis set, in the _g states where the orbitals are very diffuse. The differences concern magnitude and location of minima and maxima of potential curves, as well as considerable changes in one-electron properties which depend strongly on the spatial distribution of the orbitals.

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Zusammenfassung Verschiedene Approximationsstufen (Hartree-Fock, Konfigurationenwechselwirkung und Doppelkonfigurationen-Hartree-Fock-Methode) werden für ausgedehnte und begrenzte Exponentenoptimisierung von Atomorbitalen der Wellenfunktionen verglichen. Die Potentialkurven für die niedrigsten ¹ _u, ³ _u, ¹ _g, ³ _g Zustände des Wasserstoffmoleküls werden angegeben. Die Form der Kurven im Rahmen der besten Näherung, d. h. mit Doppelkonfiguration, stimmen im wesentlichen mit früheren aufwendigeren Rechnungen überein. Der Einfluß der verschiedenen Approximationen wird auch an einigen Einelektroneneigenschaften studiert: Ladungsverteilung der Wellenfunktion längs und senkrecht zur Molekülachse, Quadrupolmoment und Verteilung der Rumpfenergie. Unterschiede erscheinen zur Arbeit von Zemke et al. [1], die einen größeren Basissatz mit begrenzter Optimisierung verwandten, bei den _g Zuständen, wo die -Orbitale sehr diffus sind. Die Unterschiede betreffen Größe und Lage der Minima und Maxima der Potentialkurven sowie beträchtliche Änderungen in solchen Einelektroneneigenschaften, die stark von der räumlichen Verteilung der Orbitale abhängen.

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Résumé Comparaison de différents niveaux d'approximation (Hartree-Fock, interaction de configuration et Hartree-Fock à deux configurations) pour des optimisations étendues et limitées des orbitales atomiques de base. Calcul des courbes d'énergie potentielle pour les plus bas états ¹ _u, ³ _u, ¹ _g, ³ _g de la molécule d'hydrogène. Pour la fonction d'onde la plus raffinée: H.F. à deux configurations, la forme des courbes est en accord avec les résultats obtenus dans des travaux précédents plus complexes et plus coûteux. On étudie aussi l'influence des diverses approximations sur plusieurs propriétés monoélectroniques: distribution de charge le long de l'axe moléculaire et perpendiculairement à celui-ci, moment quadrupolaire et distribution de l'énergie d'attraction de coeur. On trouve des différences avec le travail de Zemke et al. (1), qui utilisent une plus grande base partiellement optimisée, pour les états _g où les orbitales sont très diffuses. Les différences concernent la grandeur et la position des extrema des courbes de potentiel, ainsi que des variations importantes des propriétés monoélectroniques qui dépendent fortement de la distribution spatiale des orbitales.

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On leave to: Institut für Theoretische Chemie, Universität Stuttgart.

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On leave to: Office of Computing Activities, National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.     

Monitoring photoproduct formation and photobleaching by fluorescence spectroscopy has the potential to improve PDT dosimetry with a verteporfin-like photosensitizer

In current clinical practice, photodynamic therapy (PDT) is carried out with prescribed drug doses and light doses as well as fixed drug-light intervals and illumination fluence rates. This approach can result in undesirable treatment outcomes of either overtreatment or undertreatment because of biological variations between different lesions and patients. In this study, we explore the possibility of improving PDT dosimetry by monitoring drug photobleaching and photoproduct formation. The study involved 60 mice receiving the same drug dose of a novel verteporfin-like photosensitizer, QLT0074, at 0.3 mg/kg body weight, followed by different light doses of 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 J/cm2 at 686 nm and a fluence rate of 70 mW/cm2. Photobleaching and photoproduct formation were measured simultaneously, using fluorescence spectroscopy. A ratio technique for data processing was introduced to reliably detect the photoproduct formed by PDT on mouse skin in vivo. The study showed that the QLT0074 photoproduct is stable and can be reliably quantified. Three new parameters, photoproduct score (PPS), photobleaching score (PBS) and percentage photobleaching score (PBS%), were introduced and tested together with the conventional dosimetry parameter, light dose, for performance on predicting PDT-induced outcome, skin necrosis. The statistical analysis of experimental results was performed with an ordinal logistic regression model. We demonstrated that both PPS and PBS improved the prediction of skin necrosis dramatically compared to light dose. PPS was identified as the best single parameter for predicting the PDT outcome.     

Functional Generalized Additive Models

We introduce the functional generalized additive model (FGAM), a novel regression model for association studies between a scalar response and a functional predictor. We model the link-transformed mean response as the integral with respect to t of F{X(t), t} where F( ·, ·) is an unknown regression function and X(t) is a functional covariate. Rather than having an additive model in a finite number of principal components as by Müller and Yao (2008 Müller, H.G., and Yao, F. (2008), “Functional Additive Models,” Journal of the American Statistical Association, 103, 1534–1544.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), our model incorporates the functional predictor directly and thus our model can be viewed as the natural functional extension of generalized additive models. We estimate F( ·, ·) using tensor-product B-splines with roughness penalties. A pointwise quantile transformation of the functional predictor is also considered to ensure each tensor-product B-spline has observed data on its support. The methods are evaluated using simulated data and their predictive performance is compared with other competing scalar-on-function regression alternatives. We illustrate the usefulness of our approach through an application to brain tractography, where X(t) is a signal from diffusion tensor imaging at position, t, along a tract in the brain. In one example, the response is disease-status (case or control) and in a second example, it is the score on a cognitive test. The FGAM is implemented in R in the refund package. There are additional supplementary materials available online.