The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and tolerability of the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor, sitagliptin, in patients with type 2 diabetes who have inadequate glycaemic control on diet and exercise. In a randomised, double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled study, 743 patients with type 2 diabetes and a mean baseline HbA(1c) of 7.9% were randomised to receive one of six treatments for 12 weeks: placebo, sitagliptin 5, 12.5, 25 or 50 mg b.i.d., or glipizide 5 mg/day (electively titrated up to 20 mg/day). At week 12, treatment with sitagliptin at all doses tested led to a significant (p < 0.001) reduction in HbA(1c) relative to placebo, with the largest reductions occurring in the 50-mg b.i.d. group. The placebo-subtracted differences in HbA(1c) for the sitagliptin dose groups ranged from -0.38% to -0.77% in a dose-dependent manner, and -1.00% in the glipizide group. Sitagliptin also produced significant reductions in fasting plasma glucose and mean daily glucose across the dose range studied. Sitagliptin treatment was well tolerated and resulted in no significant weight change relative to placebo. There was a modest weight gain observed with glipizide treatment relative to placebo. Hypoglycaemia adverse experiences were reported with the highest incidence in the glipizide group (17%) compared with the placebo (2%) or sitagliptin groups (0-4%, not dose-dependent). In summary, in this study sitagliptin improved glycaemic control, with 50 mg b.i.d. being the most effective dose, and was generally well-tolerated in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Most current models of research on emotion recognize valence (how pleasant a stimulus is) and arousal (the level of activation or intensity that a stimulus elicits) as important components in the classification of affective experiences (Barrett, 1998; Kuppens, Tuerlinckx, Russell, & Barrett, 2012). Here we present a set of norms for valence and arousal for a very large set of Spanish words, including items from a variety of frequencies, semantic categories, and parts of speech, including a subset of conjugated verbs. In this regard, we found that there were significant but very small differences between the ratings for conjugations of the same verb, validating the practice of applying the ratings for infinitives to all derived forms of the verb. Our norms show a high degree of reliability and are strongly correlated with those of Redondo, Fraga, Padron, and Comesana's (2007) Spanish version of the influential Affective Norms for English Words (Bradley & Lang, 1999), as well as those from Warriner, Kuperman, and Brysbaert (2013), the largest available set of emotional norms for English words. Additionally, we included measures of word prevalence-that is, the percentage of participants that knew a particular word-for each variable (Keuleers, Stevens, Mandera, & Brysbaert, 2015). Our large set of norms in Spanish not only will facilitate the creation of stimuli and the analysis of texts in that language, but also will be useful for cross-language comparisons and research on emotional aspects of bilingualism. The norms can be downloaded and available as a supplementary materials to this article

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We have investigated the low temperature phase of a Nd 0.5 Sr 0.5 MnO 3 single crystal by x-ray resonant scattering at the Mn K-edge of the (3 0 0

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The local structure of LaMnO3 across the Jahn-Teller (JT) transition at T(JT)=750 K was studied by means of x-ray absorption near edge structure and extended x-ray absorption fine structure at the Mn K-edge. Our results indicate a similar electronic local structure for Mn atoms above and below T(JT) and a dynamical tetragonal JT distortion of MnO6 octahedra above T(JT). The structural transition is originated by the ordering of tetragonally distorted octahedra. The entropy content of the transition is analyzed within the framework of the three-state Potts model with nearest neighbor antiferrodistortive coupling.

Resonant x-ray scattering was used to investigate electronic fluctuations of the octahedral iron atoms in magnetite. We measured the (002) and (006) "forbidden" x-ray diffraction reflections permitted by the anisotropy of the iron anomalous scattering factor. The energy and azimuthal angle dependencies of these reflections, and the polarization analysis, are shown and discussed. The results clearly show p and d iron empty states ordering in magnetite at room temperature. Moreover, the octahedral iron atoms are electronically equivalent in a time scale lower than 10(-16) sec. Therefore, magnetite should be considered as an itinerant magnet and not as a fluctuating mixed valence material.

We report a systematic study of manganese perovskites, RE1-xDxMnO3 (RE = rare earth; D = Ca, Sr), by means of x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy at the Mn K edge. High resolution has been achieved by recording the intensity of the Mn Kβ fluorescence spectrum. All the samples show a unique resonance at the Mn K edge. This common feature does not depend on small changes in the local structure around the Mn atom. The XANES spectra of mixed (0