Effects of Curcumin Analogues DMC and EF24 in Combination with the Cytokine TRAIL against Kidney Cancer

The natural compound curcumin has been shown to have therapeutic potential against a wide range of diseases such as cancer. Curcumin reduces cell viability of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells when combined with TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), a cytokine that specifically targets cancer cells, by helping overcome TRAIL resistance. However, the therapeutic effects of curcumin are limited by its low bioavailability. Similar compounds to curcumin with higher bioavailability, such as demethoxycurcumin (DMC) and 3,5-bis(2-fluorobenzylidene)-4-piperidone (EF24), can potentially have similar anticancer effects and show a similar synergy with TRAIL, thus reducing RCC viability. This study aims to show the effects of DMC and EF24 in combination with TRAIL at reducing ACHN cell viability and ACHN cell migration. It also shows the changes in death receptor 4 (DR4) expression after treatment with these compounds individually and in combination with TRAIL, which can play a role in their mechanism of action.     

Fusion around the barrier for 7Li+12C

Fusion cross-sections for the ⁷Li + ¹²C reaction have been measured at energies above the Coulomb barrier by the direct detection of evaporation residues. The heavy evaporation residues with energies below 3 MeV could not be separated out from the α-particles in the spectrum and hence their contribution was estimated using statistical model calculations. The present work indicates that suppression of fusion cross-sections due to the breakup of ⁷Li may not be significant for ⁷Li + ¹²C reaction at energies around the barrier.     

Correlation Analysis of the Alternating Step Generator

The alternating step generator is a well-known keystream generator consisting of two stop/go clocked LFSRs, LFSR₁ and LFSR₂, whose clocks are controlled by another LFSR, LFSR₃, which is clocked regularly. A probabilistic analysis of this generator is conducted which shows that the posterior probabilites of individual bits of the first derivatives of the regularly clocked LFSR₁ and LFSR₂ sequences, when conditioned on a given segment of the first derivative of the keystream sequence, can be computed efficiently in a number of probabilistic models of interest. The expected values of these probabilities, for a random keystream sequence, are derived by an approximate theoretical analysis and are also verified by systematic computer experiments. It is pointed out that these posterior probabilities can be enhanced in a resynchronization scenario and thus used for a low-complexity fast correlation attack on the two LFSRs. More generally, it is argued that even without resynchronization these probabilities may be significantly different from one half for fast correlation attacks based on iterative decoding algorithms to be successful, although with incresead complexity. A related method for computing the posterior probabilities of individual bits of the LFSR₃ sequence, when conditioned on both the keystream sequence and the LFSR₁ and LFSR₂ sequences, is also developed. As these posterior probabilities are much more different from one half, they can be used for a low-complexity fast correlation attack on LFSR₃, provided that the initial states of LFSR₁ and LFSR₂ are previously reconstructed.     

On genus and embeddings of torsion-free nilpotent groups of class two

Summary We study embeddings between torsion-free nilpotent groups having isomorphic localizations. Firstly, we show that for finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent groups of nilpotency class 2, the property of having isomorphicP-localizations (whereP denotes any set of primes) is equivalent to the existence of mutual embeddings of finite index not divisible by any prime inP. We then focus on a certain family Γ of nilpotent groups whose Mislin genera can be identified with quotient sets of ideal class groups in quadratic fields. We show that the multiplication of equivalence classes of groups in Γ induced by the ideal class group structure can be described by means of certain pull-back diagrams reflecting the existence of enough embeddings between members of each Mislin genus. In this sense, the family Γ resembles the family N₀ of infinite, finitely generated nilpotent groups with finite commutator subgroup. We also show that, in further analogy with N₀, two groups in Γ with isomorphic localizations at every prime have isomorphic localizations at every finite set of primes. We supply counterexamples showing that this is not true in general, neither for finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent groups of class 2 nor for torsion-free abelian groups of finite rank. Supported by DGICYT grant PB94-0725 This article was processed by the author using the LAT_EX style filecljour1 from Springer-Verlag.     

Aromaticity in heterocyclic systems V. Bromination studies of certain purines,pyrrolo[3,2-d]pyrimidines and pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidines

The bromination of certain selected purines, pyrrolo[3,2-d]pyrimidines and pyrazolo[4,3-d]-pyrimidines has been studied and the reactivity of these systems compared. Displacement of a carboxyl group by bromine was noted in the case of 6-carboxypyrrolo[3,2-d]-2,4-pyrimidinedione. In contrast to xanthine, 2,6-diethoxypurine readily brominated at position 8. Pyrazolo-[4,3-d]-7-pyrimidone was readily brominated at position 3.     

Three-component interpenetrating polymer networks (IPN's) from polyurethanes,epoxies, and poly(methacrylates)

Three-component IPN systems made from polyurethanes, epoxies, and poly(methacrylates) containing charge groups in the backbones of the constituent networks have been prepared. Specific attractive forces that occurred among the various networks helped to compatibilize them and aided in the formation of true homogeneous topologically interpenetrating polymer networks. These three-component polymer alloys, including full-IPN's, pseudo-IPN's, and graft-IPN's, were characterized by means of mechanical spectroscopy, electron microscopy, and stress–strain properties. In addition, some adhesion studies were carried out (lap shear strength and peel strength). A comparison of the different types of three-component polymer alloys showed that better properties were generally exhibited by the graft-IPN's and full-IPN's containing opposite charge groups.