purpose: deformability/rheologic behavior of erythrocytes are related to near-surface membrane fluidity. specific agents can increase erythrocyte membrane fluidity in order to adjust hemodynamics in cardiovascular diseases. grapefruit flavanone naringenin has been proposed for potential use in an alternative therapy of cardiovascular conditions. in respect to this, we assessed here effects o...

Monitoring volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from exhaled breath has been used to determine exposures of humans to chemicals. Prior to analysis of VOCs, breath samples are often collected with canisters or bags and concentrated. The Bio-VOC breath sampler, a commercial sampling device, has been recently introduced to the market with growing use. The main advantage for this sampler is to collect...

Objectives In an occupational environment, passive sampling could be an alternative to active sampling with pumps for sampling of dust. One passive sampler is the University of North Carolina passive aerosol sampler (UNC sampler). It is often analysed by microscopic imaging. Promising results have been shown for particles above 2.5 µm, but indicate large underestimations for PM2.5. The aim of t...

Passive samplers for moderately hydrophobic organic compounds (MHOCs) (i.e., log Kow ranging from 2 to 5) are under-developed compared to those that target polar or strongly hydrophobic compounds. The goal of this study was to identify a suitable polymer and develop a robust and sensitive film-based passive sampler for MHOCs in aquatic systems. Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) exhibited the hig...

In this paper we study the possibility of proving the existence of one-way functions based on average case hardness. It is well-known that if there exists a polynomial-time sampler that outputs instancesolution pairs such that the distribution on the instances is hard on average, then one-way functions exist. We study the possibility of constructing such a sampler based on the assumption that t...