There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Secret History: Return of the Black Death Channel 4, 7-8pm In 1348 the Black Death swept through London, killing people within days of the appearance of their first symptoms. Exactly how many died, and why, has long been a mystery. This Secret History documentary follows experts as they pick through the evidence and reveal why the plague killed on such a scale. And they ask, what might be coming next?

Medscape

The ability to control cell volume is pivotal for cell function. Cell volume perturbation elicits a wide array of signaling events, leading to protective (e.g., cytoskeletal rearrangement) and adap...

Physiology of cell volume regulation in vertebrates.

of antibiotics, whether there was an explicit note in the medical chart in which the physician diagnosed a true bacteremia, and the Centers for Disease Control surveillance criteria for primary bloodstream infection. Agreement between same-strain bacteremia and each definition was examined, based on the assumption that most true infections should be the result of a single strain. The study sample consisted of 42 patients and 106 isolates. Nineteen of the 42 bacteremias (45%) were the same strain. Classification of bacteremias as same-strain correlated poorly with all three clinical assessments (range of percentage agreement, 50%-57%; range of kappa statistic, 0.01-0.15). There were both false-positive and false-negative errors. Patients with three or more positive blood cultures were more likely to have same-strain bacteremia than those with only two positive cultures (11/15 [73%] vs 8/27 [30%], P=.006). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis was more discriminating than AP PCR (percentage agreement, 83%; kappa, 0.67). The authors concluded that molecular typing correlated poorly with clinical criteria for true bacteremia, suggesting either that true bacteremias are frequently the result of multiple strains or that the commonly used clinical criteria are not accurate for distinguishing contamination from true bacteremia. Vancomycin treatment of clinically defined coagulase-negative staphylococcal bacteremia may frequently be unnecessary. FROM: Seo SK, Venkataraman L, DeGirolami PC, Samore MH. Molecular typing of coagulase-negative staphylococci from blood cultures does not correlate with clinical criteria for true bacteremia. Am J Med 2000;109:697-704.

/pdf/nasal-carriage-as-a-source-of-staphylococcus-aureus-40zkf0m446.pdf

Nasal Carriage as a Source of Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia

There has been considerable interest in the development of novel compounds with anticonvulsant, antidepressant, analgesic, antiinflammatory, antiplatelet, antimalarial, antimicrobial, antimycobacterial, antitumoral, vasodilator, antiviral and antischistosomiasis activities. Hydrazones possessing an azometine -NHN=CH- proton constitute an important class of compounds for new drug development. Therefore, many researchers have synthesized these compounds as target structures and evaluated their biological activities. These observations have been guiding for the development of new hydrazones that possess varied biological activities.

/pdf/biological-activities-of-hydrazone-derivatives-267j4w5bkl.pdf

Biological activities of hydrazone derivatives.

Some 5-arylalkylidene-2-thioxo-1,3-thiazolidine-4-one derivatives were prepared as potential antimicrobial compounds. General synthetic approach of all newly synthesized compounds is presented. All the discussed rhodanine derivatives were analyzed using the reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) method for the lipophilicity measurement. The procedure was performed under isocratic conditions with methanol as an organic modifier in the mobile phase using end-capped non-polar C18 stationary RP column. In the present study the correlation between RP-HPLC retention parameter log K (the logarithm of capacity factor K) and log P values calculated in various ways is discussed as well as the relationships between the lipophilicity and chemical structure of the studied compounds.

Preparation and Hydrophobic Properties of 5-Arylalkylidenerhodanines

The present solution relates to a method of manufacturing a pharmaceutical composition containing an active substance of the sartan type in the form of an adduct (complex) with a pectin, optionally in a mixture with a glucan. The resulting adduct is characterized by higher solubility in water as compared with the original pharmaceutically active substance. The adduct (complex) consisting of the active substance and pectin is then used for preparing a dosage form with targeted (controlled) release in the intestine.

Pectin complexes of sartans and pharmaceutical compositions based thereon

A series of variously methoxylated and methylated N-aryl-1-hydroxynaphthalene-2-carboxanilides was prepared and characterized as potential anti-invasive agents. As it is known that lipophilicity significantly influences the biological activity of compounds, the hydro-lipophilic properties of these mono-, di- and tri-substituted 1-hydroxynaphthalene-2-carboxanilides are investigated in the study. All the discussed hydroxynaphthalene derivatives were analyzed using the reversed-phase, high-performance liquid chromatography method, to measure lipophilicity. The procedure was performed under isocratic conditions with methanol as an organic modifier in the mobile phase, using an end-capped, non-polar C18 stationary reversed-phase column. The present study discusses the correlations between the logarithm of the capacity factor k and log P/Clog P values, calculated in various ways, as well as the relationships between the lipophilicity and the chemical structure of the studied compounds.

/pdf/preparation-and-hydro-lipophilic-properties-of-methoxylated-2kslsy8liz.pdf

Preparation and Hydro-Lipophilic Properties of Methoxylated and Methylated 1-Hydroxynaphthalene-2-Carboxanilides

Synthesis of diaryl sulfides via nucleophilic coupling of the 4-substituted aryl bromides with 4methoxybenzene-1-thiol is described. A radical-ionic mechanism of this coupling, carried out in the presence of heterogeneous copper catalysts, has been proposed. The reactivity of aryl bromides is correlated to the calculated values of electronic deficiency in position C-4 of the aromatic ring. The prepared compounds should be used as the leading building blocks of quinlukast higher homologues. This is a follow-up paper to the previous article [1] where the inhibiting conditions of bis(4methoxyphenyl)disulfide generation from 4-methoxybenzene-1-thiol by means of heterogeneous copper catalysts were discussed. This paper deals with the problem of the 4-substituted aryl bromides coupling with 4-methoxybenzene-1-thiol occurred during the preparation of higher homologues of quinlukast – VUFB 19363, which was patented for its multiple antileukotrienic activities [2]. Leukotrienes [3] are generated from arachidonic acid as a result of the 5lipoxygenase action and play an important role in the inflammatory processes accompanying allergic diseases [4—8] of respiratory, gastrointestinal, and dermatological systems. Our work aimed at preparing the leading building blocks of quinlukast higher homologues. Aryl thioethers could be synthesized from halides and inactivated halides by several methods: i )a romatic nucleophilic substitutions under vigorous heating in polar aprotic solvents at high temperatures [9— 12]; ii) photoinitiation in polar aprotic solvents [13]; iii) catalysis by copper in polar and polar aprotic solvents [14—19], respectively; iv) reactions in mild conditions in the presence of Pd(PPh3)4 or palladium dibenzylideneacetone complex (Pd2DBA3) and bis(2diphenylphosphinophenyl)ether (DPEphos) [20—27].

/pdf/4-substituted-aryl-bromides-coupling-with-4-methoxybenzene-1-2iy3lxllef.pdf

4-Substituted Aryl Bromides Coupling with 4-Methoxybenzene-1-thiol by Means of Copper Catalysts

Synthesis, Characterization and Physico-chemical Properties of New 2-(4- Arylpiperazine-1-yl)-1-(3-methylbenzofuran-2-yl)ethanoles as Potential Antihypertensive Agents

Josef Jampilek

Papers

Preparation and Hydrophobic Properties of 5-Arylalkylidenerhodanines

Pectin complexes of sartans and pharmaceutical compositions based thereon

Preparation and Hydro-Lipophilic Properties of Methoxylated and Methylated 1-Hydroxynaphthalene-2-Carboxanilides

4-Substituted Aryl Bromides Coupling with 4-Methoxybenzene-1-thiol by Means of Copper Catalysts

Synthesis, Characterization and Physico-chemical Properties of New 2-(4- Arylpiperazine-1-yl)-1-(3-methylbenzofuran-2-yl)ethanoles as Potential Antihypertensive Agents