A low-voltage electrokinetic nanochannel drug delivery system

Recent work has elucidated the potential of important new therapeutic paradigms, including metronomic delivery and chronotherapy, in which the precise timing and location of therapeutic administration has a significant impact on efficacy and toxicity. New drug delivery architectures are needed to not only release drug continuously at precise rates, but also synchronize their release with circadian cycles. We present an actively controlled nanofluidic membrane that exploits electrophoresis to control the magnitude, duration, and timing of drug release. The membrane, produced using high precision silicon fabrication techniques, has platinum electrodes integrated at the inlet and outlet that allow both amplification and reversal of analyte delivery with low applied voltage (at or below 2 VDC). Device operation was demonstrated with solutions of both fluorescein isothiocyanate conjugated bovine serum albumin and lysozyme using fluorescence spectroscopy, fluorescence microscopy, and a lysozyme specific bio-assay and has been characterized for long-term molecular release and release reversibility. Through a combination of theoretical and experimental analysis, the relative contributions of electrophoresis and electroosmosis have been investigated. The membrane's clinically relevant electrophoretic release rate at 2 VDC exceeds the passive release by nearly one order of magnitude, demonstrating the potential to realize the therapeutic paradigm goal.     

Antimycotic effect of the essential oil of Aloysia triphylla against Candida species obtained from human pathologies

The research of alternative substances to treat infections caused by Candida species is a need. Aromatic plants have the ability to produce secondary metabolites, such as essential oils (EO). The antimicrobial properties of Aloysia triphylla (L'Her.) Britton (cedrón) EO has been previously described. The aims of this work were to determine the antimicrobial activity and the effect on the cell structure of the EO of A. triphylla against Candida sp isolated from human illnesses. The EO was obtained by hydrodistillation of A. triphylla leaves. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was performed with microdilution method and the minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) was determined. A. triphylla EO's showed antifungal activity against all yeast: C. albicans, C. dubliniensis, C. glabrata, C. krusei, C. guillermondii, C. parapsilosis and C. tropicalis which were resistant to fluconazol (150 mg/mL). The range of MIC values was from: 35 to 140 microg/mL and the MFC: 1842 to 2300 microg/mL. The time of killing at the MFC against C. albicans (3 x 10(5) UFC/mL) was 140 min. The dates of OD620 and OD260 suggest lysis and loss of absorbing material, respectively. The HROM shows distortion in morphology and shape of the cell, with large vacuoles in the cytoplasm. These studies clearly show that A. triphylla EO is a promising alternative for the treatment of candidiasis.     

Bi‐embeddability spectra and bases of spectra

We study degree spectra of structures with respect to the bi‐embeddability relation. The bi‐embeddability spectrum of a structure is the family of Turing degrees of its bi‐embeddable copies. To facilitate our study we introduce the notions of bi‐embeddable triviality and basis of a spectrum. Using bi‐embeddable triviality we show that several known families of degrees are bi‐embeddability spectra of structures. We then characterize the bi‐embeddability spectra of linear orderings and study bases of bi‐embeddability spectra of strongly locally finite graphs.     

Effect of 300 and 500 MPa pressure treatments on starch–water adsorption/desorption isotherms and hysteresis

Pressure treatments of 300 and 500?MPa during 15?min were found to change starch–water sorption (adsorption and desorption) isotherms and the hysteresis effect, particularly the 500?MPa. This last treatment shifted the adsorption/desorption isotherms downward, compared with non-treated starch and starch treated at 300?MPa. The observed hysteresis effect decreased with the increase in pressure level in the whole a_w range, indicating that adsorption and desorption isotherms became closer. Guggenheim–Anderson–De Boer and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller model parameters Cb, Cg, K and Mm also showed changes caused by pressure, the latter being lower in the pressure-processed samples, thus indicating possible changes on microbial and (bio)chemical stabilities of pressure-processed food products containing starch.     

A secondary semantics for Second Order Intuitionistic Propositional Logic

In this paper we propose a Kripke‐style semantics for second order intuitionistic propositional logic and we provide a semantical proof of the disjunction and the explicit definability property. Moreover, we provide a tableau calculus which is sound and complete with respect to such a semantics. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The structure of a collineation group preserving an oval in a projective plane of odd order

We investigate the structure of a collineation groupG preserving an oval in a finite projective plane of odd order and we obtain several results aboutG, whenG is a2-group. These results are then used to investigate the structure ofG/O(G) in the general case and, in particular, that ofF*(G/O(G)).This research was supported in part by a grant from the M.U.R.S.T.     

Conformational effects on circular dichroism in the photoelectron angular distribution.

The B-spline density-functional method has been applied to the conformers of the (1R, 2R)-1,2-dibromo-1,2-dichloro-1,2-difluoroethane molecule. The cross section, asymmetry, and dichroic parameters relative to core and valence orbitals, which do not change their nature along the conformational curve, have been systematically studied. While the cross section and the asymmetry parameter are weakly affected, the dichroic parameter appears to be rather sensitive to the particular conformer of the molecule, suggesting that this dynamical property could be a useful tool for conformational analysis. The computational method has also been applied to methyl rotation in methyloxirane. Unexpected and dramatic sensitivity of the dichroic-parameter profile to the methyl rotation, both in the core and valence states, has been found. Boltzmann averaging over the conformers reproduces quite closely the profiles previously obtained for the minimum-energy conformation, which is in good agreement with the experimental results.