Association of the hOCT1/ABCB1 genotype with efficacy and tolerability of imatinib in patients affected by chronic myeloid leukemia.

Purpose: The present study was aimed at investigating whether imatinib pharmacogenetics is related to its pharmacodynamics in patients affected by chronic myeloid leukemia.

Methods: Through a procedure based on a sequence of classical statistics methods, we investigated the possible relationships between treatment efficacy/tolerability and combinations of time-independent variables as gender and genetic covariates in the form of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) or combinations thereof. Moreover, since the drug tolerability has a strong incidence on the discontinuation of the therapy, we investigated whether the time of manifestation of the most frequent toxic effects can be related to time-independent patients' characteristics or not.

Charged state of a spherical plasma in vacuum.

The stationary state of a spherically symmetric plasma configuration is investigated in the limit of immobile ions and weak collisions. Configurations with small radii are positively charged as a significant fraction of the electron population evaporates during the equilibration process, leaving behind an electron distribution function with an energy cutoff. Such charged plasma configurations are of interest for the study of Coulomb explosions and ion acceleration from small clusters irradiated by ultraintense laser pulses and for the investigation of ion bunches propagation in a plasma.

Laser acceleration of ion bunches at the front surface of overdense plasmas.

The acceleration of ions in the interaction of high intensity laser pulses with overdense plasmas is investigated with particle-in-cell simulations. For circular polarization of the laser pulses, high-density ion bunches moving into the plasma are generated at the laser-plasma interaction surface. A simple analytical model accounts for the numerical observations and provides scaling laws for the ion bunch energy and generation time as a function of pulse intensity and plasma density.

Comment on "Model for transmission of ultrastrong laser pulses through thin foil targets".

By discussing the results of Yu et al. [Phys. Rev.

Surface oscillations in overdense plasmas irradiated by ultrashort laser pulses.

The generation of electron surface oscillations in overdense plasmas irradiated at normal incidence by an intense laser pulse is investigated. Two-dimensional (2D) particle-in-cell simulations show a transition from a planar, electrostatic oscillation at 2 omega, with omega the laser frequency, to a 2D electromagnetic oscillation at frequency omega and wave vector k > omega/c. A new electron parametric instability, involving the decay of a 1D electrostatic oscillation into two surface waves, is introduced to explain the basic features of the 2D oscillations.