Using a laser trap, we have studied the properties of erythrocytes from a sickle cell anemia patient (SCA) after receiving an intravenous blood transfusion, and a normal adult individual carrying normal adult hemoglobin. The hemoglobin type and quantitation assessment was carried out by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). We conducted an analysis of the size distributions of the cells. By targeting those erythrocytes in the overlapping regions of size distributions, we have investigated their properties when the cells are trapped and released. The efficacy of the transfusion treatment is also studied by comparing the relative changes in deformation and the relaxation-time of the cells in the two samples.

Quasars (QSOs) are extremely luminous active galactic nuclei currently observed up to redshift z = 7.642. As such, they have the potential to be the next rung of the cosmic distance ladder beyond Type Ia supernovae, if they can reliably be used as cosmological probes. The main issue in adopting QSOs as standard candles (similarly to gamma-ray bursts) is the large intrinsic scatter in the relations between their observed properties. This could be overcome by finding correlations among their observables that are intrinsic to the physics of QSOs and not artifacts of selection biases and/or redshift evolution. The reliability of these correlations should be verified through well-established statistical tests. The correlation between the ultraviolet and X-ray fluxes developed by Risaliti & Lusso is one of the most promising relations. We apply a statistical method to correct this relation for redshift evolution and selection biases. Remarkably, we recover the the same parameters of the slope and the normalization as Risaliti & Lusso. Our results establish the reliability of this relation, which is intrinsic to the QSO properties and not merely an effect of selection biases or redshift evolution. Hence, the possibility to standardize QSOs as cosmological candles, thereby extending the Hubble diagram up to z = 7.54.

Flat ΛCDM cosmology is specified by two constant fitting parameters in the late Universe, the Hubble constant H 0 and matter density (today) Ω m . Through fitting (H 0 , Ω m ) to mock ΛCDM simulations in redshift bins, we confirm that A := H 2 0 (1−Ω m ) and B := H 2 0 Ω m distributions spread and contract, respectively, with increasing bin redshift. Noting that A = H 2 0 − B, the spread in A and contraction in B corresponds to a spread in H 0 , and consequently in Ω m . Restricted to non-negative energy densities, A, B ≥ 0, the spread in A yields a 'pile up' around A = 0 or Ω m = 1. At even higher redshifts, further spreading flattens A and causes pile up near Ω m = 0. Thus, in generic higher redshift bins the Planck value Ω m ∼ 0.3 appears with low probability. We explore if observational Hubble data, Type Ia supernovae and standardisable quasars substantiate the features. We confirm that observed data exhibit an increasing Ω m (decreasing H 0 ) trend with increasing bin redshift and that such behaviour can arise randomly within the flat ΛCDM model with probability p = 0.0021 (3.1 σ).

We used laser trapping to study the effects of suffruticosol B on lung cancer cells. Physical and mechanical changes were found to be statistically significant, with a 63.97% increase over untreated cells and a 79.57% increase over untreated cells after treatment for 3 or 6 h, respectively. The treatment affected the internal structure of the cells, with changes in their elastic properties. The cellular responses showed that treatment with suffruticosol B resulted in the decreased proliferation and invasion of cancer cells. These results suggest that the treatment may be useful in preventing or treating lung cancer.

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A relation between the variational slope, sF , and the mean absolute magnitude, 〈M〉, in the light curves of 58 spectroscopically confirmed quasars is measured with a dispersion of 0.15dex. Assuming it holds for quasars in general, not only does this relation add to our working knowledge of quasar variability but it also shows great promise at accurately measuring luminosity distance to a quasar in a model independent way. An accurate, model independent measure of the luminosity distance would allow quasars to be added to the cosmic distance ladder, easily extending the ladder out far beyond the redshifts accessible to type Ia supernovae where cosmological parameters can be better constrained.