Acute intermittent porphyria in pregnancy: a common misdiagnosis.

Acute intermittent porphyria (AIP) is inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion. Only 10% to 15% of the gene carriers have the clinical syndrome. The prevalence of AIP in Europe is 1/20,000. Pregnancy represents an essential risk factor in patients suffering from AIP. The clinical syndrome in AIP presents mainly with acute attacks, especially during the first trimester. Misdiagnosis of AIP unfortunately is very common. Pregnancy in women with AIP is associated with higher rates of spontaneous abortion, hypertension, low birth weight infants and considerable mortality (2-42%). Pregnancy, despite the major hormonal alterations it causes, is seldom associated with porphyric symptoms. There are only limited reports supporting the use of hemin during pregnancy, but experience indicates that it can be safely administered in pregnant women. Until clinical improvement is achieved, symptomatic treatment is recommended. Despite the fact that pregnancy in women suffering from AIP is related to higher rates of morbidity and complications, close management throughout the pregnancy could ensure a good outcome.

All-inorganic lead halide perovskite nanohexagons for high performance air-stable lithium batteries.

All-inorganic Cs4PbBr6 perovskite nanohexagons, pre-synthesized by a room temperature co-precipitation method, have been electrochemically investigated in a conventional aqueous electrolyte for potential application as an anode material in Li-ion batteries. The nanohexagons were uniformly deposited on ITO precoated glass substrate and subsequently annealed at ambient air to form a mechanically stable perovskite layer. These perovskite layers showed excellent performance during continuous Li-ion intercalation/deintercalation scans in an aqueous electrolyte, exhibiting a diffusion coefficient of 7.34 × 10-8 cm2 s-1, a specific discharge capacity of 377 mA h g-1, a capacity retention of 75% and coulombic efficiency that deteriorated to 98% after 100 scans. A water-triggered transformation of the Cs4PbBr6 to the CsPb2Br5 was initially observed followed by a reversible Li intercalation/deintercalation in the CsPb2Br5 structure for 40 consecutive scans. Following this period, an irreversible conversion reaction of CsPb2Br5 to CsBr and PbBr2 took place. The excellent electrochemical performance observed is promising towards the potential application of all-inorganic perovskite nanocrystals for air-stable, lithium storage applications.

Ligand-free all-inorganic metal halide nanocubes for fast, ultra-sensitive and self-powered ozone sensors.

Ligand-free all-inorganic lead halide nanocubes have been investigated as ozone sensing materials operating at room temperature. It is found that the nanocubes, crystallined in the orthorhombic CsPbBr3 structure, can operate at room temperature, be self-powered and exhibit high sensitivity and remarkable repeatability. More importantly, they demonstrate higher sensitivity (54% in 187 ppb) and faster response and recovery times compared to hybrid lead mixed halide perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3-x Cl x ) layers, which is the only lead halide perovskite material tested for ozone sensing, to date. Following the exposure to an ozone environment, the stoichiometry and the morphology of the nanocubes remain unaltered. The facile and easy fabrication process together with the high responsivity and stability to the ozone environment makes the bare CsPbBr3 nanocubes a promising material for sensing applications. The sensing properties of the nanoparticulate metal halides presented here provide new exciting opportunities towards engineering reliable and cheap sensing elements for room-temperature operated and self-powered sensors.

Low-temperature benchtop-synthesis of all-inorganic perovskite nanowires.

A facile, low-temperature precipitation-based method is utilized for the synthesis of ultra-thin and highly uniform cesium lead bromide perovskite nanowires (NWs). The reactions facilitate the NWs' crystalline nature over micron-size lengths, while they impart tailored nanowire widths that range from the quantum confinement regime (∼7 nm) down to 2.6 nm. This colloidal synthesis approach is the first of its kind that is carried out on the work-bench, without demanding chemical synthesis equipment. Importantly, the NWs' photoluminescence is shown to improve over time, with no requirement for tedious post-synthesis surface treatment.

Ferrimagnetic nanocrystal assemblies as versatile magnetic particle hyperthermia mediators.

Colloidal nanocrystal assemblies (nanoclusters), consisting of 13 nm iron oxide nanocrystals, were synthesized in various sizes (45-98 nm), and were investigated as heating mediators for magnetic particle hyperthermia. The colloidal nanocrystal clusters show enhanced heating efficiency in comparison with their constituent primary iron oxide nanocrystals due to collective magnetic features. The fine tuning of intra-cluster magnetic interactions results to the domination of the hysteresis losses mechanism over the relaxation loss heating contributions and eventually to a versatile magnetic particle hyperthermia mediator.

Assembly-mediated interplay of dipolar interactions and surface spin disorder in colloidal maghemite nanoclusters.

Controlled assembly of single-crystal, colloidal maghemite nanoparticles is facilitated via a high-temperature polyol-based pathway. Structural characterization shows that size-tunable nanoclusters of 50 and 86 nm diameters (D), with high dispersibility in aqueous media, are composed of ∼13 nm (d) crystallographically oriented nanoparticles. The interaction effects are examined against the increasing volume fraction, φ, of the inorganic magnetic phase that goes from individual colloidal nanoparticles (φ = 0.47) to clusters (φ = 0.72). The frozen-liquid dispersions of the latter exhibit weak ferrimagnetic behaviour at 300 K. Comparative Mössbauer spectroscopic studies imply that intra-cluster interactions come into play. New insight emerges from the clusters' temperature-dependent ac susceptibility that displays two maxima in χ''(T), with strong frequency dispersion. Scaling-law analysis together with the observed memory effects suggests that a superspin-glass state settles-in at TB ∼ 160-200 K, while at lower-temperatures, surface spin-glass freezing is established at Tf ∼ 40-70 K. In such nanoparticle-assembled systems, with increased φ, Monte Carlo simulations corroborate the role of the inter-particle dipolar interactions and that of the constituent nanoparticles' surface spin disorder in the emerging spin-glass dynamics.