Small Molecule-Gold Nanorod Conjugates Selectively Target and Induce Macrophage Cytotoxicity towards Breast Cancer Cells

Gold nanoparticles are known to activate anti-tumor potential in macrophage immune cells; however, the subsequent effects of these cells on others nearby are poorly understood. A novel gold-nanoparticle conjugate that selectively targets and induces cytotoxic activity of tumor-associated macrophages towards breast cancer cells in co-culture is synthesized. These constructs are promising new tools for studying fundamental biological interactions with nanoscale materials and candidates for emerging macrophage-mediated delivery applications.     

Enhanced analyte detection using in-source fragmentation of field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry-selected ions in combination with time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Miniaturized ultra high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) is used for the selective transmission of differential mobility-selected ions prior to in-source collision-induced dissociation (CID) and time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOFMS) analysis. The FAIMS-in-source collision induced dissociation-TOFMS (FISCID-MS) method requires only minor modification of the ion source region of the mass spectrometer and is shown to significantly enhance analyte detection in complex mixtures. Improved mass measurement accuracy and simplified product ion mass spectra were observed following FAIMS preselection and subsequent in-source CID of ions derived from pharmaceutical excipients, sufficiently close in m/z (17.7 ppm mass difference) that they could not be resolved by TOFMS alone. The FISCID-MS approach is also demonstrated for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of mixtures of peptides with FAIMS used to filter out unrelated precursor ions thereby simplifying the resulting product ion mass spectra. Liquid chromatography combined with FISCID-MS was applied to the analysis of coeluting model peptides and tryptic peptides derived from human plasma proteins, allowing precursor ion selection and CID to yield product ion data suitable for peptide identification via database searching. The potential of FISCID-MS for the quantitative determination of a model peptide spiked into human plasma in the range of 0.45-9.0 μg/mL is demonstrated, showing good reproducibility (%RSD < 14.6%) and linearity (R(2) > 0.99).     

Diversity in Addressing Reaction Mechanisms of Nano‐Thermite Composites with a Layer by Layer Structure

The reaction mechanisms and microstructures of various layered nano‐thermite composites are investigated through characterization of their energetic properties. Migration of reactive components across the reaction zone is analyzed, which plays an important role in determining the process initiation, reaction propagation, and chemical stability at low temperatures. Distinct types of nanoparticles are deposited onto filter paper in a sequence, using the vacuum filtration method, which promotes intimate contact between neighboring reactive layers. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images demonstrate a well‐defined contact region between the two layers in the Al/CuO or Al/NiO composites. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) data shows that the thermite reaction occurs below the melting temperature of Al, resulting in rapid heat release, and improves reaction initiation. Elemental mapping results reveal the migration of Al, Ni/Cu, and oxygen before and after the thermite reaction, which is arranged during thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). This analysis indicates the dominant pathway of the thermite reaction in each composite, through either decomposition of the CuO nanoparticles in the Al/CuO composite or through direct migration of reactive components across the conducting surface within the Al/NiO composite.

     

Theory‐Guided Synthesis of a Metastable Lead‐Free Piezoelectric Polymorph

Many technologically critical materials are metastable under ambient conditions, yet the understanding of how to rationally design and guide the synthesis of these materials is limited. This work presents an integrated approach that targets a metastable lead‐free piezoelectric polymorph of SrHfO₃. First‐principles calculations predict that the previous experimentally unrealized, metastable P4mm phase of SrHfO₃ should exhibit a direct piezoelectric response (d₃₃) of 36.9 pC N^?1 (compared to d₃₃ = 0 for the ground state). Combining computationally optimized substrate selection and synthesis conditions lead to the epitaxial stabilization of the polar P4mm phase of SrHfO₃ on SrTiO₃. The films are structurally consistent with the theory predictions. A ferroelectric‐induced large signal effective converse piezoelectric response of 5.2 pm V^?1 for a 35 nm film is observed, indicating the ability to predict and target multifunctionality. This illustrates a coupled theory‐experimental approach to the discovery and realization of new multifunctional polymorphs.     

Abstractions of data types

The use of abstraction in the context of abstract data types, is investigated. Properties to be checked are formulas in a first order logic under Kleene's 3-valued interpretation. Abstractions are defined as pairs consisting of a congruence and a predicate interpretation. Three types of abstractions are considered,∀∀, ∀∃ and ∃^0,1∀, and for each of them corresponding property preservation results are established. An abstraction refinement property is also obtained. It shows how one can pass from an existing abstraction to a (less) finer one. Finally, equationally specified abstractions in the context of equationally specified abstract data types are discussed and exemplified.On leave from the Department of Computer Science, “Al. I. Cuza” University, Iaşi 740083, RomaniaThe research reported in this paper was partially supported by the program ECO-NET 08112WJ/2004-2005 and by the National University Research Council of Romania, grants CNCSIS 632(28)/2004 and CNCSIS 632(50)/2005.     

Indoor robot gardening: design and implementation

This paper describes the architecture and implementation of a distributed autonomous gardening system with applications in urban/indoor precision agriculture. The garden is a mesh network of robots and plants. The gardening robots are mobile manipulators with an eye-in-hand camera. They are capable of locating plants in the garden, watering them, and locating and grasping fruit. The plants are potted cherry tomatoes enhanced with sensors and computation to monitor their well-being (e.g. soil humidity, state of fruits) and with networking to communicate servicing requests to the robots. By embedding sensing, computation, and communication into the pots, task allocation in the system is de-centrally coordinated, which makes the system scalable and robust against the failure of a centralized agent. We describe the architecture of this system and present experimental results for navigation, object recognition, and manipulation as well as challenges that lie ahead toward autonomous precision agriculture with multi-robot teams.     

How does Bennett Woods Elementary School produce such high reading and writing achievement?

The authors developed a grounded theory about how a school serving relatively advantaged children produces high reading and writing achievement compared with schools serving similar populations of students. The school's faculty is reading and writing focused, and students experience many books as they receive explicit, demanding instruction (i.e., about how to read words, comprehend, write) connected to content learning. The school offers a positive, motivating environment. In sum, many elements that potentially supported achievement were identified, including explicit teaching of skills in the context of much reading, writing, and content learning, which is consistent with balanced perspectives on reading and writing development. A major hypothesis in the grounded theory is that even with relatively advantaged populations, great efforts may be required to produce high reading and writing achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of sad mood on cognition.

Neuroimaging has identified an overlapping network of brain regions whose activity is modulated by mood and cognition. Studies of depressed individuals have shown changes in perception, attention, memory, and executive functions. This suggests that mood has a pervasive effect on cognition. Direct evidence of the effect of sad mood on cognition is surprisingly limited, however. Published studies have generally addressed a single cognitive ability per study because the fleeting nature of laboratory-induced mood precludes extended testing, and robust findings are limited to mood effects on memory for emotional stimuli. In this study, sad mood was induced and prolonged, enabling the effects of mood to be assessed for an array of abilities, including those that share neural substrates with sad mood and those affected by depression. Sad mood affected memory for emotional words and facial emotion recognition, but not the other processes measured, with a significant nonuniformity of effect over tasks. These results are consistent with circumscribed effects of sad mood on certain emotion-related cognitive processes, but not on cognition more generally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Narrow privacy and desynchronization in Vaudenay’s RFID model

Forward privacy of RFID systems and its relaxed version, narrow forward privacy, are generally considered satisfactory for practical needs. Unfortunately, the attempt to get forward privacy by symmetric-key cryptography failed. Also, all symmetric-key cryptography-based RFID systems proposed so far that are strictly narrow forward private (that is, narrow forward private but not forward private) suffer from desynchronization. Under these circumstances, the question whether the attempt to exceed these limits is doomed to failure or not was frequently asked. The paper we are proposing wants to clarify this matter. Thus, we show that forward privacy in Vaudenay’s RFID model cannot be achieved with symmetric-key cryptography. Then, we show that strictly narrow forward privacy can be achieved with symmetric-key cryptography only by RFID systems with unbounded desynchronization. This last result holds for strictly narrow destructive privacy and strictly narrow strong privacy too, if one wants to achieve them with symmetric-key cryptography.

     

Managing rivers under changing environmental and societal boundary conditions,Part 1: National trends and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs

Most major rivers in the United States are managed by a system of reservoirs; many of which were built more than a half century ago. These reservoirs were designed based on environmental, societal, and regulatory assumptions at the time of construction. Since then, we have learned that climate is not stationary, population growth is being decoupled from energy needs and water demand, and new regulations (such as the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act) affect how river systems are managed. This study explores changing environmental, societal, and regulatory conditions relevant to the design and operation of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs across the conterminous United States. Results demonstrate large geographic variability in how these conditions have changed over time. In the south‐western United States, there is an amplified trend towards drier conditions and less reservoir flexibility with warmer temperatures, less precipitation, high sedimentation rates, and large population growth. In the north‐eastern United States, the impacts of increased temperature on reservoirs may be masked by greater precipitation and lower water demand. Environmental, societal, and regulatory changes can reduce the flexibility of reservoir operations and, in some instances, make it challenging for the reservoir to meet its intended purpose as designed decades ago. This study is the first step towards formalizing a process for monitoring broad trends relevant to water resources management for the purpose of moving towards adaptation of infrastructure. An interactive tool was developed for each condition: https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/reservoir‐national‐trends/ .