Molecular addressing? Studies on light-induced reorientation in liquid-crystalline side chain polymers

Polarized light leads to an effective reorientation of the optic axis in the glassy state of liquid-crystalline side chain polymers containing azobenzene mesogenic groups, via a trans-cis and cis-trans isomerization. Using a combination of U V and IR dichroitic studies it is shown for copolymers consisting of chromophores (azobenzene) and non-chromophores (phenylbenzoate) that only the chromophores are reoriented by light as far as the glassy state is concerned. Individual chromophores are thus addressed by photoselection. Photoselection in the fluid nematic state, on the other hand, leads also to a reorientation of the non-chromophores.     

A high performance liquid chromatographic assay for AMP-deaminase activity in the erythrocytes of healthy subjects and patients with inherited purine disorders

A novel method for measuring AMP-deaminase activity in human erythrocytes is presented, based on the determination of the reaction product, IMP, using high performance liquid chromatography. IMP formation was found to be proportional both to the incubation time and the amount of haemolysate over a wide range. The minimal detectable AMP-deaminase activity was more than 1000 times lower than the mean activity found in healthy controls (1083 nmol/h/mg Hb). No marked difference of activity was found in the patients with the following inherited purine disorders: familial juvenile gouty nephropathy and deficiencies of adenosine deaminase, hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase or adenine phosphoribosyltransferase. The activity in the erythrocytes of patients with chronic renal failure was also similar to controls. The existence of subjects with low erythrocyte AMP-deaminase activity in the population has been confirmed.     

Random summation of independent identically distributed random vectors with zero means

Translated from:Problemy Ustoichivosti Stokhasticheskikh Modelei, Trudy Seminara, 1989, pp. 20–26.     

In vivo NMR in pharmaceutical research.

In vivo NMR techniques are currently well established in pharmaceutical research and will likely become increasingly important in the future, as they procure noninvasively morphological, physiological, and biochemical information. The status of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) in drug development is discussed on the basis of the characterization and evaluation of a rat model of ischemic stroke and the development and profiling of drugs for cerebral ischemia in this model. It can be concluded that MRI is well suited for drug screening (quantitative determination of lesion size), while dynamic MRI and MRS techniques provide relevant information on the mechanism of drug actions. The possibility to follow changes, pathological and therapeutic, in the same individual is important from two points of view. First, variations due to interindividual differences may be eliminated, increasing the statistical power of the results. Second, dose and/or time dependence of a drug can be explored in the same individual. As a result, the number of animals required for a study will be reduced, which from both ethical and economic aspects is highly desirable.     

Manifolds with invariant semi-Riemannian almost product structure

A manifold M with semi-Riemannian almost product structure invariant relative to a transformation group G is considered. A connection with special G-invariance property is constructed in the corresponding bundle of frames.Translated from Ukrainskii Matematicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 44, No. 7, pp. 926–931, July, 1992.     

Magnetic resonance findings in sarcoidosis of the thorax.

Fifteen patients with sarcoidosis underwent thoracic MRI examinations. The T2 signal intensity of lymphadenopathy varied, with no characteristic pattern noted. Three of four patients with bright lymph nodes on T2 images had stage I sarcoidosis, but low intensity nodes were also seen in stage I patients. Coronal images were complementary to axial images and better depicted subcarinal adenopathy. MRI does not distinguish the lymphadenopathy of sarcoidosis from other entities, but is useful for defining the anatomic extent of disease and differentiating pulmonary artery enlargement from adenopathy.     

Optical diagnostics of dispersing He plasma

An experimental study has been made of the characteristics of radiation from a dispersing helium plasma. From measurements of the space-time dependence of the line intensities of the helium 2³P — n³D series we obtained the distribution of the populations of the n³D levels for n=3–10. The study has shown that over a wide range of conditions the high-lying levels (n=5–10) are in equilibrium with electrons while a substantial deviation from equilibrium is observed for levels n=3, 4. From the energy distribution of the populations of the upper levels we determined the space-time dependence of the electron temperature, which reflects the process of effective electron cooling during dispersal of the plasma. The gas temperature was estimated from the populations of helium singlet and triplet levels with n=5. The time distribution of the electron density in the plasma was found from the Stark broadening of the spectral lines.Deceased.V. D. Kuznetsov Siberian Physicotechnical Institute, Tomsk State University. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 11, pp. 15–19, November, 1992.