Study on reproductive endocrinology of human placenta (III)--Hormonal regulation of progesterone production by trophoblast tissue of first trimester.

The effect of hormones on progesterone secretion by 6-8 week human trophoblast tissue cultured in serum-free medium has been investigated. GnRH at low concentration (10(-10)-10(-8) mol/L) stimulated progesterone secretion, while high dose (10(-6)-10(-5) mol/L) produced inhibitory effect. The progesterone secretion could be significantly decreased by addition of anti-hCG antiserum or monoclonal anti-hCG IgG in a dose- and time-dependent manner. Various concentrations of TRH, PGE2, PGF2 alpha, testosterone and estradiol were found to be ineffective. These data indicate clearly that progesterone production by human trophoblast tissue at early gestation stage is under the modulation of GnRH and hCG.     

Interface analysis of the system Si/YBa2Cu3O7?x

Summary The influence of different preparation conditions and substrate surface orientations on the superconducting properties of thin YBa₂Cu₃O_7–x (YBCO) films on silicon was studied. Comparative electrical and surface spectroscopic measurements were performed. SAM and SIMS depth profile analysis show an enrichment of barium at the interface between the superconductor and silicon for samples with T_c<76 K. Comparison with XPS data obtained for thin silicon films on YBCO indicates the formation of barium and yttrium silicates at the interface under these conditions.     

Synthesis and thermal behaviour of salicylaldimine-based liquid crystalline symmetrical dimers

A series of symmetrical dimers consisting of salicylaldimine moieties connected by flexible alkylene central spacer via ether linkages has been synthesized. In order to validate the empirical rule suggested by Date et al. to account for the smectic behaviour of such dimers, the chain length of the terminal alkoxy chain has been kept constant (C₈) while the number of methylene units in the central spacer was varied from C₃ to C₁₁. Another aim of the present investigation was to understand structure-property relationship in these dimers in which the salicylaldimine mesogenic segment has been used for the first time in dimers. The mesomorphic behaviour of these dimers was evaluated using optical microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry and the structure of some of the mesophases has been further investigated with the help of X-ray diffraction. Our studies reveal that the dimers consisting of 3 to 8 methylene units in the flexible spacer show only smectic (smectic C and smectic A) phases. For the dimers containing 4, 6 and 8 methylene units in the central spacer, a unique filament growth pattern has been observed in the smectic A phase while cooling from the isotropic phase. The dimers containing of C₉ to C₁₁ methylene groups exhibit the nematic phase in addition to smectic modifications. This observation indicates that when the terminal chains are shorter than the spacer, the tendency to form smectic phases is not fully extinguished but is perhaps reduced.     

Superconductivity in the intermetallic compound YRhAl

The intermetallic compound, YRhAl, has been prepared and is found to be isomorphic with RRhAl (R=Pr, Nd, Gd, Ho and Tm) compounds crystallizing in the orthorhombic TiNiSi-type structure (space group Pnma). Heat capacity and electrical resistivity measurements in the He-3 temperature range reveal that this compound is superconducting with a transition temperature, T_c, of 0.9 K. The electronic specific heat coefficient, γ, and the Debye temperature are found to be 6.1 mJ/mol K and 197 K, respectively. The specific heat jump at the superconducting transition is found to be consistent with the BCS weak-coupling limit. This combined with the earlier observation of superconductivity in LaRhAl (T_c=2.4 K) having a different structure than that of YRhAl, suggests that the underlying structure is not very crucial for the occurrence of superconductivity in RRhAl series of compounds.     

Differentiation of species of the Baccharis genus by HPLC and chemometric methods.

Phytochemical investigation of the aerial parts of three Baccharis species (Asteraceae family) was performed using HPLC and chemometric methods, with the objective of distinguishing between three morphologically very similar species: Baccharis genistelloides Persoon var. trimera (Less.) DC, B. milleflora (Less.) DC and B. articulata (Lam.) Persoon. With the help of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and variance weights, it was possible to characterize the chromatographic profiles of the alcoholic extracts of the three species. Application of Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) methods on a training set of 74 extracts resulted in models that correctly classified all eight samples in an independent test set.     

Two observations about free graded hopf algebras

This paper records two results about graded Hopf algebras that do not appear to be stated explicitly in the literature. Let B be a graded set, graded by the positive integers. Let V be the graded vector space with basis B over a field K of characteristic zero and V^'=K⊕V, where K is in grading zero. Let L ne the free graded Lie algebra on B over K and let T be the free graded tensor algebra on B. The first result is the "graded Witt formula" giving the dimension of the subspace of L in each grading. The second result is the observation that any graded coassociative, co-commutative comultiplication Δ:V^'→V^'⊗V^', with co-unit the projection V¹→K. extends to a graded Hopf algebra structure on T that is in fact isomorphic to the natural graded Hopf algebra structure on T. In the ungraded case the statement analogous to the second result is false.