Dysregulation of chemo-cytokine production in schizophrenic patients versus healthy controls

Background  

The exact cause of schizophrenia is not known, although several aetiological theories have been proposed for the disease, including developmental or neurodegenerative processes, neurotransmitter abnormalities, viral infection and immune dysfunction or autoimmune mechanisms. Growing evidence suggests that specific cytokines and chemokines play a role in signalling the brain to produce neurochemical, neuroendocrine, neuroimmune and behavioural changes. A relationship between inflammation and schizophrenia was supported by abnormal cytokines production, abnormal concentrations of cytokines and cytokine receptors in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid in schizophrenia. Since the neuropathology of schizophrenia has recently been reported to be closely associated with microglial activation we aimed to determined whether spontaneous or LPS-induced peripheral blood mononuclear cell chemokines and cytokines production is dysregulated in schizophrenic patients compared to healthy subjects. We enrolled 51 untreated first-episode schizophrenics (SC) and 40 healthy subjects (HC) and the levels of MCP-1, MIP-1α, IL-8, IL-18, IFN-γ and RANTES were determined by Elisa method in cell-free supernatants of PBMC cultures.     

Synthesis of carbon black/polystyrene conductive nanocomposite. Pickering emulsion effect characterized by TEM

In this study, carbon black/polystyrene electrically conductive composites were obtained by suspension polymerization technique. The composite was characterized using transmission electron microscopy, which indicated two outstanding features concerning to the carbon black; first, that the carbon particles were adsorbed onto the surface of the polystyrene particles, similarly as in the Pickering emulsion phenomenon and second, that the primary aggregate structure of the carbon black was significantly affected by the dispersion process. On the other hand, the composite resistivity was in the order of 200 Ωcm, which was attributed to the direct contact of primary carbon black particles (percolation) and not to the tunneling effect. The obtained composite was evaluated as the electrically conductive element in SBR matrix.     

Linear First-Order Evolution Problems Without Initial Conditions

Direct and inverse problems for first-order in time linear evolution problems without initial conditions, i.e. related to the unbounded time-intervals (−∞, 0] and \mathbbR{\mathbb{R}}, are considered in the framework of Banach spaces. Some degenerate in time problems related to a bounded time-interval are also considered. The approach for solving the previous problems is related to both C ₀-and Analytic Semigroup Theory.     

Is the non-physical states conjecture valid?

The canonical quantization for N = 1 supergravity in the context of gravitational minisuperspace described by Gowdy T ³ and Bianchi class A cosmological models is analyzed in order to search for physical states. There are indeed physical states in the minisuperspace sector of the theory. This fact entails that the non-physical states conjecture has a restricted validity, and in consequence it cannot be considered a general result.     

Mn-doped ZnS quantum dots for the determination of acetone by phosphorescence attenuation

Quantum dot (QD) nanoparticles (NPs) are increasingly used as highly valuable fluorescent biomarkers and as sensitive (bio)chemical probes. Interestingly, if certain metal impurities are incorporated during the NPs synthesis, phosphorescent QDs with analytical potential can be obtained.     

Chaotic polynomials on Fréchet spaces

Contrary to the case of polynomials on Banach spaces, in which it is known that no hypercyclic homogeneous polynomial of degree exists on any Banach space, we construct for each a chaotic -homogeneous polynomial on the Fréchet space .

     

Drüsenfarbstoffe aus Labiaten: Die polaren Diterpenoide aus Plectranthus argentatus S. T. BLAKE

Polar Diterpenoids from Leaf-Glands of Plectranthus argentatus S. T. B_LAKE From the red leaf-glands of the Australian Plectranthus argentatus the following novel diterpenoids were isolated: coleon-U-quinone ( 1 ), 8α,9α-epoxycoleon-U-quinone ( 3 ), 6β-formyloxy-7α-hydroxyroyleanone ( 7 ), and 5,6-dihydrocoleon U ( 10 ), besides the already known compounds 6β, 7α-dihydroxyroyleanone ( 4 ), 7α-acetoxy-6β-hydroxyroyleanone ( 5 ), and 7α-formyloxy-6β-hydroxyroyleanone ( 6 ). Epoxydation of 1 by perborate led in 32% yield to the epoxyquinone 3 .     

Excitation of stable transverse wavepackets with quadratic and cubic susceptibilities

We have identified a family of (2+1)D spatial solitary waves which can stably propagate in bulk media in the presence of coexisting diffraction, self-focusing Kerr and quadratic nonlinearities. In a conspicuous range of excitation conditions close to the stationary solutions, the emerging wavepackets are immune to the detrimental occurrence of filamentation and collapse, typical of pure Kerr media. The presence of a second-order contribution to the cubic nonlinear response is, therefore, able to prevent optical damage in applications relying on self-guidance. We show that the cross-phase modulation plays an important effect on stability. Our estimate shows that the effects of the cubic susceptibility cannot be neglected below a certain beam size in realistic crystals (e.g. KTP or similar).     

Localized states in polymeric molecules III The electronic structure of polyacetylene

The Transfer Matrix approach is used to treat the relaxed defect problem in trans-polyacetylene. We use a particular choice of parametrization for the hopping integrals, which is related to the existence of solitons in this material, to discuss its electronic structure. We obtain closed expressions for the density of states and for the wavefunctions associated to the localized state at any site of the chain.