Ionic Silicon Protects Oxidative Damage and Promotes Skeletal Muscle Cell Regeneration

Volumetric muscle loss injuries overwhelm the endogenous regenerative capacity of skeletal muscle, and the associated oxidative damage can delay regeneration and prolong recovery. This study aimed to investigate the effect of silicon-ions on C2C12 skeletal muscle cells under normal and excessive oxidative stress conditions to gain insights into its role on myogenesis during the early stages of muscle regeneration. In vitro studies indicated that 0.1 mM Si-ions into cell culture media significantly increased cell viability, proliferation, migration, and myotube formation compared to control. Additionally, MyoG, MyoD, Neurturin, and GABA expression were significantly increased with addition of 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 mM of Si-ion for 1 and 5 days of C2C12 myoblast differentiation. Furthermore, 0.1–2.0 mM Si-ions attenuated the toxic effects of H₂O₂ within 24 h resulting in increased cell viability and differentiation. Addition of 1.0 mM of Si-ions significantly aid cell recovery and protected from the toxic effect of 0.4 mM H₂O₂ on cell migration. These results suggest that ionic silicon may have a potential effect in unfavorable situations where reactive oxygen species is predominant affecting cell viability, proliferation, migration, and differentiation. Furthermore, this study provides a guide for designing Si-containing biomaterials with desirable Si-ion release for skeletal muscle regeneration.     

Modeling of grinding of silicon carbide with diamond wheels

Advanced structural ceramics must possess high-dimensional accuracy and excellent surface finish to provide the required performance in machines and structures. Grinding of silicon carbide is difficult because of its low fracture toughness, making it very sensitive for cracking. Efficient grinding of high-performance ceramics requires selecting operating parameters to maximize removal rate while controlling surface integrity. In the present work, experimental studies have been conducted to find the effect of depth of cut, feed rate, and grit size during grinding of silicon carbide. The significance of these parameters on surface roughness and number of flaws has been established with analysis of variance. In this work, the mathematical models have been developed for surface roughness and number of flaws based on the analysis of experiments.     

Dy3+-doped nano-glass ceramics comprising NaAlSiO4 and NaY9Si6O26 nanocrystals for white light generation

The radiative emission properties of the Dy³⁺ ions in oxyfluoride glasses and glass ceramics have been investigated for the generation of white light. The X-ray diffraction pattern of the glass ceramics reveals the presence of NaAlSiO₄ nanocrystals along with secondary phase of NaY₉Si₆O₂₆ in the glass matrix after a suitable thermal treatment of the pristine glasses. Intense white light emission has been observed when the samples are excited with 350 nm light. Yellow to blue emission intensity ratios and chromaticity color coordinates have been determined from the visible luminescence spectra. All color coordinates are found to lie in the white region of the chromaticity color diagram proposing the suitability of the present studied materials for color display devices.     

Synthesis and characterization of tanninsulfonic acid doped polyaniline–metal oxide nanocomposites

Composites of conducting polymers and metal oxides have a potential role in electronic devices because of their enhanced physical and electronic properties. An in situ synthesis of metal oxide nanocomposites of polyaniline (PANI) and tanninsulfonic acid doped PANI was carried out at ?10°C with two different ratios of aniline to sodium persulfate (oxidant) and the simultaneous incorporation of TiO₂, Al₂O₃, and ZnO nanopowders. The products were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), thermal analysis, spectroscopy, and electrical conductivity measurements. XRD and thermogravimetric analysis confirmed the presence of the metal oxide in the final product, whereas the spectroscopic characterization revealed interactions among the tannin, metal oxides, and PANI. The electrical properties were determined by four‐point‐probe bulk conductivity measurements. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

Impacts of high-speed waterjets on web structures

Hydroentangling, where a fabric is formed by striking of fine, closely spaced, high speed waterjets, is one of the fastest growing bonding methods in the nonwoven industry. Softness, drape, conformability, and relatively high strength are the major characteristics that make this bonding technology unique. Despite the method appeal, few understand the impact of waterjet on fabric structures. The primary function of waterjet is to produce fiber entangling, which induces web integrity. In this paper, we have analyzed the interaction of waterjets on web structures to provide a better understanding of the hydroentangling mechanism. We have successfully visualized and analyzed structures of entangled regions through 2D and 3D imaging techniques. The influence of water-jet pressure, jet diameter, and number of jets on hydroentangled web structures is reported.     

Efficient Palladium‐Catalyzed Double Arylation of Phosphonoalkynes and Diarylalkynes in Water: Use of a Dinuclear Palladium(I) Catalyst

A novel use of the dinuclear palladium(I) catalyst [(OCH₂CMe₂CH₂O)P‐S‐Pd(PPh₃)]₂ in aqueous medium for the double arylation of phosphonoalkynes as well as diarylalkynes is reported. This double arylation requires both the iodoarene and arylboronic acid along with the catalyst. The structures of some key products have been proven by X‐ray crystallography.     

Structure, growth and magnetic property of hard magnetic CoPtP nanowires synthesized by electrochemical deposition

This paper reports the electrochemical synthesis and characterization of one dimensional hard magnetic CoPtP nanowires. Three electrode potentiostatic electrochemical technique was used to deposit nanowires into a nanoporous track-etched polycarbonate membrane with a nominal pore diameter 50 nm and thickness around 6-9 μm. The room temperature electrolyte used for the deposition of nanowires consists of 60 g/lt CoSO₄7H₂O, 4.1 g/lt H₂PtCl₆, 4.5 g/lt NaHPO₂ and 25 g/lt B(OH)₃. The structural morphology was observed by scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope. The magnetic property of the nanowires was measured by vibrating sample magnetometer before removing the template. The coercive fields were measured to be 143 kA m^− 1 and 103 kA m^− 1 for parallel (H_║) and perpendicular to the nanowire axis, respectively. The higher coercivity value for H_║ indicating nanowires' easy magnetization direction lies along the nanowires' axis. The average composition of the CoPtP nanowires was determined by electron dispersive spectroscopy and the crystallinity was measured by X-ray diffractometer.     

Sputter-deposition of silver nanoparticles into ionic liquid as a sacrificial reservoir in antimicrobial organosilicate nanocomposite coatings

We present a new approach for fabricating robust, regenerable antimicrobial coatings containing an ionic liquid (IL) phase incorporating silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) as a reservoir for Ag(0)/Ag(+) species within sol-gel-derived nanocomposite films integrating organosilicate nanoparticles. The IL serves as an ultralow volatility (vacuum-compatible) liquid target, allowing for the direct deposition and dispersion of a high-density AgNP "ionosol" following conventional sputtering techniques. Two like-anion ILs were investigated in this work: methyltrioctylammonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [N(8881)][Tf(2)N], and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [emim][Tf(2)N]. Silver ionosols derived from these two ILs were incorporated into silica-based sol-gel films and the resultant antimicrobial activity evaluated against Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. Imaging of the surface morphologies of the as-prepared films established a link between an open macroporous film architecture and the observation of high activity. Nanocomposites based on [N(8881)][Tf(2)N] displayed excellent antimicrobial activity against P. aeruginosa over multiple cycles, reducing cell viability by 6 log units within 4 h of contact. Surprisingly, similar films prepared from [emim][Tf(2)N] presented negligible antimicrobial activity, an observation we attribute to the differing abilities of these IL cations to infiltrate the cell wall, regulating the influx of silver ions to the bacterium's interior.     

A minutia-based partial fingerprint recognition system

Matching incomplete or partial fingerprints continues to be an important challenge today, despite the advances made in fingerprint identification techniques. While the introduction of compact silicon chip-based sensors that capture only part of the fingerprint has made this problem important from a commercial perspective, there is also considerable interest in processing partial and latent fingerprints obtained at crime scenes. When the partial print does not include structures such as core and delta, common matching methods based on alignment of singular structures fail. We present an approach that uses localized secondary features derived from relative minutiae information. A flow network-based matching technique is introduced to obtain one-to-one correspondence of secondary features. Our method balances the tradeoffs between maximizing the number of matches and minimizing total feature distance between query and reference fingerprints. A two-hidden-layer fully connected neural network is trained to generate the final similarity score based on minutiae matched in the overlapping areas. Since the minutia-based fingerprint representation is an ANSI-NIST standard [American National Standards Institute, New York, 1993], our approach has the advantage of being directly applicable to existing databases. We present results of testing on FVC2002's DB1 and DB2 databases.     

Local reference lines for handwritten phrase recognition

Reference line information has been used for diverse purposes in handwriting research, including word case classification, OCR, and holistic word recognition. In this paper, we argue that the commonly used global reference lines are inadequate for many handwritten phrase recognition applications. Individual words may be written at different orientations or vertically displaced with respect to one another. A function used to approximate the implicit baseline will not be differentiable or even continuous at some points. We have presented the case for local reference lines and illustrate its successful use in a system that verifies street name phrases in a postal application.