The terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum spans the frequency range between the infrared and the microwave. Traditionally the exploitation of this spectral region has been difficult owing ...to the lack of suitable source and detector. Over the last ten years or so, terahertz technology has advanced considerably with both terahertz pulsed spectroscopy (TPS) and terahertz pulsed imaging (TPI) instruments now commercially available. This review outlines some of the recent pharmaceutical applications of terahertz pulsed spectroscopy and imaging. The following application areas are highlighted: (1) discrimination and quantification of polymorphs/hydrates, (2) analysis of solid form transformation dynamics, (3) quantitative characterisation of tablet coatings: off-line and on-line, (4) tablet coating and dissolution, (5) spectroscopic imaging and chemical mapping. This review does not attempt to offer an exhaustive assessment of all anticipated pharmaceutical applications; rather it is an attempt to raise the awareness of the emerging opportunities and usefulness offered by this exciting technology.
Parking in major cities, particularly with dense traffic, directly effects the traffic flow and people's life. In this paper, we introduce a new smart parking system that is based on intelligent ...resource allocation, reservation, and pricing. The proposed system solves the current parking problems by offering guaranteed parking reservations with the lowest possible cost and searching time for drivers and the highest revenue and resource utilization for parking managers. New fair pricing policies are also proposed that can be implemented in practice. The new system is based on mathematical modeling using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) with the objective of minimizing the total monetary cost for the drivers and maximizing the utilization of parking resources.
Ageing, an unanswered question in the medical field, is a multifactorial process that results in a progressive functional decline in cells, tissues and organisms. Although it is impossible to prevent ...ageing, slowing down the rate of ageing is entirely possible to achieve. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is characterized by the nourishing of life and its role in anti‐ageing is getting more and more attention. This article summarizes the work done on the natural products from TCM that are reported to have anti‐ageing effects, in the past two decades. The effective anti‐ageing ingredients identified can be generally divided into flavonoids, saponins, polysaccharides, alkaloids and others. Astragaloside, Cistanche tubulosa acteoside, icariin, tetrahydrocurcumin, quercetin, butein, berberine, catechin, curcumin, epigallocatechin gallate, gastrodin, 6‐Gingerol, glaucarubinone, ginsenoside Rg1, luteolin, icarisid II, naringenin, resveratrol, theaflavin, carnosic acid, catalpol, chrysophanol, cycloastragenol, emodin, galangin, echinacoside, ferulic acid, huperzine, honokiol, isoliensinine, phycocyanin, proanthocyanidins, rosmarinic acid, oxymatrine, piceid, puerarin and salvianolic acid B are specified in this review. Simultaneously, chemical structures of the monomers with anti‐ageing activities are listed, and their source, model, efficacy and mechanism are also described. The TCMs with anti‐ageing function are classified according to their action pathways, including the telomere and telomerase, the sirtuins, the mammalian target of rapamycin, AMP‐activated kinase and insulin/insulin‐like growth factor‐1 signalling pathway, free radicals scavenging and the resistance to DNA damage. Finally, Chinese compound prescription and extracts related to anti‐ageing are introduced, which provides the basis and the direction for the further development of novel and potential drugs.
Linked Articles
This article is part of a themed section on Principles of Pharmacological Research of Nutraceuticals. To view the other articles in this section visit http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bph.v174.11/issuetoc
Multi-particle correlation observables in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider small system scan are computed in a framework that contains both initial state momentum anisotropies from the Color Glass ...Condensate effective theory and final state hydrodynamic evolution. The initial state is computed using the IP-Glasma model and coupled to viscous relativistic hydrodynamic simulations, which are followed by microscopic hadronic transport. All parameters of the calculation were previously constrained using experimental data on Au+Au collisions at the same center of mass energy. We find that the qualitative features of the experimental data, such as the system and centrality dependence of the charged hadron momentum anisotropy, can only be reproduced when final state interactions are present. On the other hand, we also demonstrate that the details of the initial state are crucially important for the quantitative description of observables in the studied small systems, as neglecting the initial transverse flow profile or the initial shear stress tensor, which contain information on the momentum anisotropy from the Color Glass Condensate, has dramatic effects on the produced final state anisotropy. We further show that the initial state momentum anisotropy is correlated with the observed elliptic flow in all small systems, with the effect increasing with decreasing multiplicity. We identify the precise measurement of v2 in d+Au and Au+Au collisions at RHIC energy at the same multiplicity as a means to reveal effects of the initial state momentum anisotropy.
Display omitted
Depression is a widespread psychological disorder that affects up to 20% of the world's population. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), with its unique curative effect in depression ...treatment, is gaining increasing attention as the discovery of novel antidepressant drug has become the pursuit of pharmaceutical. This article summarizes the work done on the natural products from TCM that have been reported to conceive antidepressant effects in the past two decades, which can be classified according to various mechanisms including increasing synaptic concentrations of monoamines, alleviating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunctions, lightening the impairment of neuroplasticity, fighting towards immune and inflammatory dysregulation. The antidepressant active ingredients identified can be generally divided into saponins, flavonoids, alkaloids, polysaccharides and others. Albiflorin, Baicalein, Berberine chloride, beta-Asarone, cannabidiol, Curcumin, Daidzein, Echinocystic acid (EA), Emodin, Ferulic acid, Gastrodin, Genistein, Ginsenoside Rb1, Ginsenoside Rg1, Ginsenoside Rg3, Hederagenin, Hesperidin, Honokiol, Hyperoside, Icariin, Isoliquiritin, Kaempferol, Liquiritin, L-theanine, Magnolol, Paeoniflorin, Piperine, Proanthocyanidin, Puerarin, Quercetin, Resveratrol (trans), Rosmarinic acid, Saikosaponin A, Senegenin, Tetrahydroxystilbene glucoside and Vanillic acid are Specified in this review. Simultaneously, chemical structures of the active ingredients with antidepressant activities are listed and their sources, models, efficacy and mechanisms are described. Chinese compound prescription and extracts that exert antidepressant effects are also introduced, which may serve as a source of inspiration for further development. In the view of present study, the antidepressant effect of certain TCMs are affirmative and encouraging. However, there are a lot of work needs to be done to evaluate the exact therapeutic effects and mechanisms of those active ingredients, specifically, to establish a unified standard for diagnosis and evaluation of curative effect.
PDF
