Chemical investigation of a biologically active schinus molle L. leaf extract

The pepper tree Schinus molle L. is an evergreen ornamental plant belonging to the Anacardiaceae family, native to South America and widespread throughout the world. It has biological activities and is used in folk medicine. This paper aims to contribute to a deeper knowledge of its chemical composition and biological properties. S. molle leaf extracts were obtained by sequential extraction with solvents of different polarities and subsequently tested on the HL-60 human leukaemia cell line to define a possible cytotoxic activity. Among the investigated extracts, the petroleum ether extract revealed a high cytotoxic activity, and its chemical composition was further investigated. By a silica column chromatography, eight fractions were obtained, and their compositions were determined by GC-MS analysis. Compounds and relative abundance differed widely among the fractions; sesquiterpenes resulted the main component and alcoholic sesquiterpenes the most abundant

Stability change of Fourth-Order Resonance with application to Multi-Turn Extraction Schemes

Recently, a novel multi-turn extraction scheme was proposed, based on particle trapping inside stable resonances. Numerical simulations and experimental tests conirmed the feasibility of such a scheme for low order resonances. While the 3rd order resonance is generically unstable and those higher than 4th order are generically stable, the 4th order resonance can be either stable or unstable depending on the details of the system under consideration. By means of the normal form approach a general formula to control the stability of the 4th order resonance is derived. Numerical simulations confirm the analytical results and show that by crossing the unstable 4th order resonance the region around the centre of phase space is depleted and particles are trapped only in the four stable islands. This indicates that a four-turn extraction could be envisaged based on this technique

A systematic review of interventions to provide genetics education for primary care

Main themes and categories derived from the analysis. Table showing the main themes and all categories of data included in those themes. (PDF 26 kb

Italian family with two independent mutations:3358T/A in BRCA1 and 8756delA in BRCA2 genes.

Hereditary breast/ovarian cancer is a well-characterized clinical entity, largely attributed to the inheritance of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. Among general population, the mutation's frequency of these genes is very low; therefore, the identification of two independent mutations in the same family is a rare event. This study reports the presence of two mutations, one in the BRCA1 and the second in the BRCA2 gene in an Italian Caucasian kindred. This family is composed of more than 250 individuals, spanning through five generations, among which endogamy was a common phenomenon. Considering the tumor spectrum, this family is characterized by a high incidence of different types of cancer. In our study, we considered only three out of seven family units for BRCA1 and BRCA2 analysis. In one of the family units, we found independent mutations of both BRCA genes. The BRCA1 mutation on exon 11 (3358TA) was identified originally in the index case and subsequently in 18 members of this family, whereas the same mutation was not detected in a related family member with male breast cancer. The male breast cancer patient led to the identification, through mutational analysis, of a new BRCA2 mutation (8756delA). This BRCA2 mutation was also found in the male breast cancer patient's daughter. The discovery of the BRCA2 mutation allowed us to alert the patient's daughter who, otherwise, could be falsely reassured since she had a negative BRCA1 test

The languages of peace during the French religious wars

The desirability of peace was a common topos in sixteenth-century political rhetoric, and the duty of the king to uphold the peace for the benefit of his subjects was also a long-established tradition. However, the peculiar circumstances of the French religious wars, and the preferred royal policy of pacification, galvanized impassioned debate among both those who supported and those who opposed confessional coexistence. This article looks at the diverse ways in which peace was viewed during the religious wars through an exploration of language and context. It draws not only on the pronouncements of the crown and its officials, and of poets and jurists, but also on those of local communities and confessional groups. Opinion was not just divided along religious lines; political imperatives, philosophical positions and local conditions all came into play in the arguments deployed. The variegated languages of peace provide a social and cultural dimension for the contested nature of sixteenth-century French politics. However, they could not restore harmony to a war-torn and divided kingdom

Non-Hermitian matrix description of the PT symmetric anharmonic oscillators

Schroedinger equation H \psi=E \psi with PT - symmetric differential operator H=H(x) = p^2 + a x^4 + i \beta x^3 +c x^2+i \delta x = H^*(-x) on L_2(-\infty,\infty) is re-arranged as a linear algebraic diagonalization at a>0. The proof of this non-variational construction is given. Our Taylor series form of \psi complements and completes the recent terminating solutions as obtained for certain couplings \delta at the less common negative a.Comment: 18 pages, latex, no figures, thoroughly revised (incl. title), J. Phys. A: Math. Gen., to appea

An oncologist-based model of cancer genetic counselling for hereditary breast and ovarian cancer

Background: We describe a multistep model of cancer genetic counselling designed to promote awareness, and disease surveillance and preventive measures for hereditary and familial breast and ovarian cancer. Patients and methods: Step T0 of the model entails information giving; this is followed by pedigree analysis and risk estimation (T1), risk communication and genetic testing (T2), and genetic test result communication (T3). User consent was required to proceed from one step to the next. Surveillance and preventive measures are proposed to at-risk users. Of the 311 subjects who requested cancer genetic counselling, consent data to each counselling step were available for 295: 93 were disease-free, 187 had breast cancer, 12 had ovarian cancer and three had breast plus ovarian cancer. Results: Consent was high at T0 (98.39%), T1 (96.40%) and T2 (99.65%). Consent decreased at the crucial points of counselling: T2 (87.71%) and T3 [genetic test result communication (85.08%), and extension of counselling to and testing of relatives (65.36%)]. Conclusions: The model fosters the user's knowledge about cancer and favours identification of at-risk subjects. Furthermore, by promoting awareness about genetic testing and surveillance measures, the algorithm enables users to make a fully informed choice of action in case of predisposing or familial cancer risk

Multi-GeV Electron Spectrometer

The advance in laser plasma acceleration techniques pushes the regime of the resulting accelerated particles to higher energies and intensities. In particular the upcoming experiments with the FLAME laser at LNF will enter the GeV regime with almost 1pC of electrons. From the current status of understanding of the acceleration mechanism, relatively large angular and energy spreads are expected. There is therefore the need to develop a device capable to measure the energy of electrons over three orders of magnitude (few MeV to few GeV) under still unknown angular divergences. Within the PlasmonX experiment at LNF a spectrometer is being constructed to perform these measurements. It is made of an electro-magnet and a screen made of scintillating fibers for the measurement of the trajectories of the particles. The large range of operation, the huge number of particles and the need to focus the divergence present unprecedented challenges in the design and construction of such a device. We will present the design considerations for this spectrometer and the first results from a prototype.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to NIM

Comment on 'Cancer genetic counselling' by P. Mandich et al.

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Extreme value statistics for dynamical systems with noise

We study the distribution of maxima ( extreme value statistics ) for sequences of observables computed along orbits generated by random transformations. The underlying, deterministic, dynamical system can be regular or chaotic. In the former case, we show that, by perturbing rational or irrational rotations with additive noise, an extreme value law appears, regardless of the intensity of the noise, while unperturbed rotations do not admit such limiting distributions. In the case of deterministic chaotic dynamics, we will consider observables specially designed to study the recurrence properties in the neighbourhood of periodic points. Hence, the exponential limiting law for the distribution of maxima is modified by the presence of the extremal index , a positive parameter not larger than one, whose inverse gives the average size of the clusters of extreme events. The theory predicts that such a parameter is unitary when the system is perturbed randomly. We perform sophisticated numerical tests to assess how strong the impact of noise level is when finite time series are considered. We find agreement with the asymptotic theoretical results but also non-trivial behaviour in the finite range. In particular, our results suggest that, in many applications where finite datasets can be produced or analysed, one must be careful in assuming that the smoothing nature of noise prevails over the underlying deterministic dynamics