Development of an LC‐MS/MS method for determining the pharmacokinetics of clonidine following oral administration of Zhenju antihypertensive compound

Zhenju antihypertensive compound (ZJAHC) is a combined Chinese–Western medicine formula including clonidine (CLO), hydrochlorothiazide (HCT), rutin, Chrysanthemum indicum extract and pearl powder. Compared with CLO preparations, ZJAHC shows improved activities and decreased adverse effects. It is believed that the side effects of CLO are caused by its high peak plasma concentration. Hence, study of the influence of ZJAHC on the pharmacokinetic behaviors of clonidine seems essential. In present study, the plasma concentrations of CLO were determined with a liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS) method. The MS/MS transitions monitored for clonidine and internal standard were 230.2 → 213.1 and 152.2 → 110.2, respectively. The analyte was quantified in a single run within 3 min. The pharmacokinetic study showed that the area under the plasma concentration–time curve of CLO in ZJAHC (60 µg/kg CLO) was similar to that of CLO‐HCT‐high (120 µg/kg CLO) but the peak concentration was much lower than that in CLO‐HCT‐high. ZJAHC could enhance the bioavailability without greatly increasing peak concentration of clonidine. This comprehensive effect of enhancing the bioavailability and avoiding the high peak plasma concentration for CLO might mainly result from the co‐contribution of Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), while the effect of TCM was stronger than that of Western medicine. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Studies on metabolism of total glucosides of paeony from Paeoniae Radix Alba in rats by UPLC‐Q‐TOF‐MS/MS

Total glucosides of paeony are the active constituents of Paeoniae Radix Alba. In this study, a novel strategy was proposed to find more metabolites and the differences between paeoniflorin, albiflorin and total glucosides of paeony (TGP). This strategy was characterized as follows: firstly, the animals were divided into three groups (paeoniflorin, albiflorin and TGP) to identify the source of TGP metabolites from paeoniflorin or albiflorin; secondly, a generic information‐dependent acquisition scan for the low‐level metabolites was triggered by the multiple mass defect filter and dynamic background subtraction; thirdly, the metabolites were identified with a combination of data‐processing methods including mass defect filtering, neutral loss filtering and product ion filtering; finally, a comparative study was used in the metabolism of paeoniflorin, albiflorin and TGP. Based on the strategy, 18 metabolites of TGP, 10 metabolites of paeoniflorin and 13 metabolites of albiflorin were identified respectively. The results indicated that the hydrolysis, conjugation reaction and oxidization were the major metabolic pathways, and the metabolic sites were the glycosidic linkage, the ester bond and the benzene ring. This study is first to explore the metabolism of TGP, and these findings enhance our understanding of the metabolism and the interactions of paeoniflrin and albiflorin in TGP. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Facile non‐lithographic route to highly aligned silica nanopatterns using unidirectionally aligned polystyrene‐block‐polydimethylsiloxane films

Thin films (monolayer and bilayer) of cylinder forming polystyrene‐block‐polydimethylsiloxane (PS‐b‐PDMS) were shear aligned by the swelling and deswelling of a crosslinked PDMS pad that was physically adhered to the film during solvent vapor annealing. The nanostructures formed by self‐assembly were exposed to ultraviolet‐ozone to partially oxidize the PDMS, followed by calcination in air at 500 °C. In this process, the PS segments were fully decomposed, while the PDMS yielded silica nanostructures. The highly aligned PDMS cylinders were thus deposited as silica nanolines on the silicon substrate. Using a bilayer film, the center‐to‐center distance of these features were effectively halved from 38 to 19 nm. Similarly, by sequential shear‐alignment of two distinct layers, a rhombic array of silica nanolines was fabricated. This methodology provides a facile route to fabricating complex topographically patterned nanostructures. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2015 , 53, 1058–1064     

Approximate inverse computation using Frobenius inner product

Parallel preconditioners are presented for the solution of general linear systems of equations. The computation of these preconditioners is achieved by orthogonal projections related to the Frobenius inner product. So, min_M∈??∥AM?I∥ _F and matrix M₀∈?? corresponding to this minimum (?? being any vectorial subspace of ??_n(?)) are explicitly computed using accumulative formulae in order to reduce computational cost when subspace ?? is extended to another one containing it. Every step, the computation is carried out taking advantage of the previous one, what considerably reduces the amount of work. These general results are illustrated with the subspace of matrices M such that AM is symmetric. The main application is developed for the subspace of matrices with a given sparsity pattern which may be constructed iteratively by augmenting the set of non‐zero entries in each column. Finally, the effectiveness of the sparse preconditioners is illustrated with some numerical experiments. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lagrangian for the t–J Model Constructed from the Generators of the Supersymmetric Hubbard Algebra

In order to describe the dynamics of the t–J model, two different families of first-order Lagrangians in terms of the generators of the Hubbard algebra are found. Such families correspond to different dynamical second-class constrained systems. The quantization is carried out by using the path-integral formalism. In this context the introduction of proper ghost fields is needed to render the model renormalizable. In each case the standard Feynman diagrammatics is obtained and the renormalized physical quantities are computed and analyzed. In the first case a nonperturbative large-N expansion is considered with the purpose of studying the generalized Hubbard model describing N-fold-degenerate correlated bands. In this case the 1/N correction to the renormalized boson propagator is computed. In the second case the perturbative Lagrangian formalism is developed and it is shown how propagators and vertices can be renormalized to each order. In particular, the renormalized ferromagnetic magnon propagator coming from our formalism is studied in details. As an example the thermal softening of the magnon frequency is computed. The antiferromagnetic case is also analyzed, and the results are confronted with previous one obtained by means of the spin-polaron theories.     

SPECTRUM-PRESERVING ELEMENTARY OPERATORS ON B（X）

1.IntroductionLetXbeaninfinitedimensionalcomplexBanachspaceandB(X)theBanachalgebraofallboundedlinearoperatorsonX.ForTEB(X),a(T),asusual,willdenotethespectrumofT.Let4bealinearmapfromB(X)intoitself.4isspectrum-preservingifa(di(T))=a(T)forallTEB(X);4isspectrum-compressingifa(4(T))ga(T)forallTEB(X).Itisclearthatif4isunital(i.e.,ac(I)=I),thenacisspectrum-preserving(spectrum-compressing)ifandonlyif4preservesinvertibilityinbothdirections(preservesinvertibility),i.e.,4(T)isinvertibleifando…