Interplay between inter- and intraparticle interactions in bi-magnetic core/shell nanoparticles

The synthesis strategy and magnetic characterisation of two systems consisting of nanoparticles with core/shell morphology are presented: an assembly of hard/soft nanoparticles with cores consisting of magnetically hard cobalt ferrite covered by a magnetically soft nickel ferrite shell, and the inverse system of almost the same size and shape. We have successfully designed these nanoparticle systems by gradually varying the magnetic anisotropy resulting in this way in the modulation of the magnetic dipolar interactions between particles. Both nanoparticle systems exhibit high saturation magnetisation and display superparamagnetic behaviour at room temperature. We have shown strong exchange coupling at the core/shell interface of these nanoparticles systems which was also confirmed by mesoscopic modelling. Our results demonstrate the possibility of modulating magnetic anisotropy not only by chemical composition but also by adopting the proper nano-architecture.

Pebbles and PebbleJuggler: software for accurate, unbiased, and fast measurement and analysis of nanoparticle morphology from transmission electron microscopy (TEM) micrographs

Pebbles is a user-friendly software program which implements an accurate, unbiased, and fast method to measure the morphology of a population of nanoparticles (NPs) from TEM micrographs. The morphological parameters of the projected NP shape are obtained by fitting intensity models to the TEM micrograph. Pebbles can be used either in automatic mode, where both fitting and validation are reliably carried out with minimal human intervention, and in manual mode, where the user has full control on the fitting and validation steps. Accuracy in diameter measurement has been shown to be ≲1%. When operated in automatic mode, Pebbles can be very fast. The effective speed of 1 NP s⁻¹ has been achieved in favorable cases (packed monolayer of NPs). Since Pebbles is based on a local modeling procedure, it successfully treats cases such as low contrast NPs, NPs with significant diffraction scattering, and inhomogeneous background which often make conventional thresholding procedures fail. Pebbles is accompanied by PebbleJuggler, a software program for the statistical analysis of the sets of best-fit NP models created by Pebbles. Effort has been devoted to make Pebbles and PebbleJuggler the most user-friendly and the least user-tedious we could. Pebbles and PebbleJuggler are available at http://pebbles.istm.cnr.it.

[Hepatocarcinoma associated to fatty liver degeneration. Report of a clinical case]

We report a case of hepatocellular carcinoma associated with fatty degeneration of the liver, which presented as and surgical acute abdomen, and was operated on at "Victorino Santaella" Hospital, being the first case observed at own Institution, and the only one reported in the national and international literature from 1971 to 1995.

Influence of lidocaine and bupivacaine on isolated guinea pig atria in the presence of acidosis and hypoxia

In an isolated guinea pig atrial preparation, the bathing solution pH, PO2, and PCO2 were manipulated to mimic normal, acidotic, and hypoxic conditions. The effect of lidocaine and bupivacaine on spontaneous heart rate (HR) and contractile force (CF) was determined for 60 min under conditions of normal pH, PO2, and PCO2. Lidocaine (50 micrograms/ml) reduced HR by a maximum of 34.2 +/- 1.5% and CF by 38.9 +/- 8.1% (mean +/- SEM). Bupivacaine (5 micrograms/ml) reduced HR by a maximum of 30.1 +/- 1.9% and CF by 48.0 +/- 6.5%. Bupivacaine (10 micrograms/ml) caused a maximum HR reduction of 61.7 +/- 9.5% and CF reduction of 66.0 +/- 8.6%. Hypoxia or metabolic or respiratory acidosis did not further enhance the local anesthetic induced atrial depression. However, conditions of combined acidosis/hypoxia, while not significantly altering the HR and CF depression caused by lidocaine, did enhance bupivacaine-induced depression of HR and CF (93.6 +/- 6.3% and 95.2 +/- 4.8%, respectively). The effect of a protein-free bathing solution on the relative toxicities of lidocaine and bupivacaine is discussed.