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As the global telecommunications industry continues its transformation, we have been witnessing a steady stream of advances in all communications technologies from optical transport to access networks. However, worldwide attention to access network deployments with the entire global industry's concerted effort on standardscompliant product development has been most notable. Although we very recently, in February 2011, devoted a special OFC/NFOEC '11 supplement to passive optical network (PON) advances, we have selected PONs as our theme again in this Optical Communications Series (OCS) issue in recognition of this continuing worldwide focus on PON technologies. Two excellent examples of this global focus on PONs are the gigabit PON (GPON) optical network unit (ONU) certification timetable announced by Broadband Forum at their third quarter 2011 meetings held in Shanghai, China, during the week of September 19, 2011, and the high level of participation at the FTTH Council Conference & Expo held in Orlando, Florida, during the week of September 26, 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Morus, a plant genus from the family of Moraceae, most plants of which are used as traditional medicines in Asian counties. The root barks ofMorusplants are normally called as Sang-Bai-Pi (SBP) in Chinese and used for the treatment of inflammatory and respiratory diseases. Decades of research on phytochemistry of SBP have led to the identification of various compounds, such as Diels–Alder-type adducts, flavonoids, benzofurans, stilbenes, polyhydroxylated alkaloids, etc. These compounds have showed a wide range of bioactive features including anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, anti-microbic, etc. This review focus on the bioactive compounds and their pharmacological effects of SBP which will help us fully understand the effective substances of SBP, and pave our way to further explore medicinal uses of SBP and comprehensive utilization ofMorusspecies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Leprosy remains persistently endemic in several low- or middle income countries. Transmission is still ongoing as indicated by the unabated rate of leprosy new case detection, illustrating the insufficiency of current prevention methods. Therefore, low-complexity tools suitable for large scale screening efforts to specifically detect M. leprae infection and diagnose disease are required. Previously, we showed that combined detection of cellular and humoral markers, using field-friendly lateral flow assays (LFAs), increased diagnostic potential for detecting leprosy in Bangladesh compared to antibody serology alone. In the current study we assessed the diagnostic performance of similar LFAs in three other geographical settings in Asia, Africa and South-America with different leprosy endemicity. Levels of anti-PGL-I IgM antibody (humoral immunity), IP-10, CCL4 and CRP (cellular immunity) were measured in blood collected from leprosy patients, household contacts and healthy controls from each area. Combined detection of these biomarkers significantly improved the diagnostic potential, particularly for paucibacillary leprosy in all three regions, in line with data obtained in Bangladesh. These data hold promise for the use of low-complexity, multibiomarker LFAs as universal tools for more accurate detection of M. leprae infection and different phenotypes of clinical leprosy.

Near infrared (NIR) reflectance and laser Raman spectra for a set of 69 heparin powder samples obtained from several foreign and domestic suppliers were measured. Both the NIR and Raman spectra of individual heparin API powder samples were correlated with sample compositions determined from response corrected relative peak areas of the capillary electropherograms of the samples using a partial least squares (PLS) regression model. Twenty-eight sample spectra were used to develop PLS models for the three major sample components; heparin, oversulfated chondroitin sulfate (OSCS) and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). The PLS models were then used to successfully predict the compositions of 41 additional heparin samples. The success of these rapid, nondestructive technologies to identify contamination of heparin with OSCS demonstrates the potential of spectroscopy and chemometrics for screening of processed raw materials. These technologies are meant for screening purposes and not meant to replace either of the methods (capillary electrophoresis and NMR) currently required by USP and FDA.