Synergistic interactions of etoposide and interleukin-1 alpha are not due to DNA damage in human melanoma cells

Family nursing, always a component of nursing, has been recently receiving increased attention through publications, educational programs, clinical practice settings and family nursing research. Nurses are in the best position to assist families experiencing the illness of a loved one, but often lack the skills and confidence necessary to assist with the psychosocial needs. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and implementation of a family nursing program within a large, tertiary care facility. The program's evaluation is ongoing but early outcomes indicate that day-to-day nursing practice has been positively influenced and improved job satisfaction may result.     

Making polyurethane foams from microemulsions

A remarkable correlation exists between the degree of expansion of polyurethane foams and the structure of the reacting premixes. Polyurethane foams obtained from reacting premixes containing microemulsions are highly expanded. The expansion rate is proportional to the volume fraction of microemulsion in the premix. The stability of premixes with and without microemulsion is completely different suggesting distinct creaming mechanisms. We apply this idea to synthesize polyurethane foams from microemulsions successfully. This approach can be used to rationalize the design of polyurethane formulations leading to highly expanded foams.     

Stochastic molecular descriptors for polymers. 4. Study of complex mixtures with topological indices of mass spectra spiral and star networks: The blood proteome case

The Quantitative Structure-Property Relationships (QSPRs) based on Graph or Network Theory are important for predicting the properties of polymeric systems. In the three previous papers of this series (Polymer 45 (2004) 3845-3853; Polymer 46 (2005) 2791-2798; and Polymer 46 (2005) 6461-6473) we focused on the uses of molecular graph parameters called topological indices (TIs) to link the structure of polymers with their biological properties. However, there has been little effort to extend these TIs to the study of complex mixtures of artificial polymers or biopolymers such as nucleic acids and proteins. In this sense, Blood Proteome (BP) is one of the most important and complex mixtures containing protein polymers. For instance, outcomes obtained by Mass Spectrometry (MS) analysis of BP are very useful for the early detection of diseases and drug-induced toxicities. Here, we use two Spiral and Star Network representations of the MS outcomes and defined a new type of TIs. The new TIs introduced here are the spectral moments (π_k) of the stochastic matrix associated to the Spiral graph and describe non-linear relationships between the different regions of the MS characteristic of BP. We used the MARCH-INSIDE approach to calculate the π_k(SN) of different BP samples and S2SNet to determine several Star graph TIs. In the second step, we develop the corresponding Quantitative Proteome-Property Relationship (QPPR) models using the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). QPPRs are the analogues of QSPRs in the case of complex biopolymer mixtures. Specifically, the new QPPRs derived here may be used to detect drug-induced cardiac toxicities from BP samples. Different Machine Learning classification algorithms were used to fit the QPPRs based on π_k(SN), showing J48 decision tree classifier to have the best performance. These results suggest that the present approach captures important features of the complex biopolymers mixtures and opens new opportunities to the application of the idea supporting classic QSPRs in polymer sciences.     

Environmentally friendly, heterogeneous acid and base catalysis for the methylation of catechol: Chances for the control of chemo-selectivity

The properties of catalysts with (i) Brønsted-type acidity (H-mordenite and Al/P mixed oxide), (ii) Lewis-type acidity (Al trifluoride) or (iii) basic characteristics (Mg/Fe mixed oxide) were investigated in the gas-phase methylation of catechol. When methanol was used as the methylating agent, H-mordenite and AlF₃ gave high selectivities to guaiacol (the product of O-methylation) under mild reaction conditions, that is at very low catechol conversions. An increase in temperature led to the transformation of guaiacol to phenol and cresols, and to considerable catalyst deactivation. The basic catalyst Mg/Fe/O also favored an extensive degradation of guaiacol to phenol. On the mildly acidic catalyst Al/P mixed oxide a stable catalytic performance and a high selectivity to guaiacol at 40% catechol conversion were obtained. When methylformate, a more reactive methylating agent, was used with AlF₃ and Mg/Fe mixed oxide as catalysts, higher catechol conversions and slower deactivation rates could be achieved under mild reaction conditions, with a low extent of guaiacol degradation. However, methylformate rapidly decomposed when temperatures above 350 °C were used. Finally, tests were made by reacting catechol and diethoxymethane with acid catalysts, with the aim of synthesizing methylenedioxybenzene. The latter product was obtained with high selectivity, but with very low yield, due to both catalyst deactivation and decomposition of diethoxymethane.