Controlled release of prednisolone acetate from molecularly imprinted hydrogel contact lenses

The aim of this work was to study the influence of methacrylic acid (MAA) as a comonomer and the application of a molecular imprinting technique on the loading and release properties of weakly crosslinked 2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) hydrogels, with a view toward their use as reloadable soft contact lenses for the administration of prednisolone acetate (PA). The hydrogels were prepared with HEMA (95.90–98.30 mol %) as a backbone monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (140 mM) as a crosslinker, and MAA (0, 50, 100, or 200 mM) as a functional monomer. Different PA/MAA molar ratios (0, 1 : 8, 1 : 6, and 1 : 4) in the feed composition of the hydrogels were also applied to study the influence of the molecular imprinting technique on their binding properties. The hydrogels (0.4 mm thick) were synthesized by thermal polymerization at 60°C for 24 h in a polypropylene mold. The hydrogels were then characterized by the determination of their swelling and binding properties in water. Their loading and release properties were also studied in 0.9% NaCl and artificial lachrymal fluid. Increasing the MAA content of the hydrogel and applying the molecular imprinting technique led to an increase in the loading capacity of the hydrogel. The optimized imprinted hydrogel showed the highest affinity for PA and the greatest ability to control the release process, sustaining it for 48 h. The results obtained clearly indicate that the incorporation of MAA as a comonomer increased the PA loading capacity of hydrogel. Our data showed that the molecular imprinting technique also had a significant effect on the loading and release properties of the hydrogels. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

Studying the Thermal Properties of a Cotton/Epoxy Composite Inhibitor

The inhibitory effect of double‐base solid propellants is used to control and prevent the burning degree of exposed areas, induced by longer burning time. In recent years, inhibition with cellulose derivatives including cellulose acetate and ethyl cellulose has become popular, but these monolithic systems usually suffer from the drawback of a high erosion rate and demand high thickness and low burning time. A composite inhibitor based on cotton fibers/epoxy resin containing some chlorinated flame retardants (CFR), which were added in inhibitor composition to control its burning process, is described in this article. The thermal properties of the composite inhibitor were studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermomechanical analysis (TMA), and flame retardancy. Finally, the inhibited propellant charge, statically fired at ambient temperature, was found to display a smooth and flat pressure‐time profile, confirming the successful performance of the composite inhibition system without the application of any barrier coat.     

Mangrove-mediated synthesis of silver nanoparticles using native Avicennia marina plant extract from southern Iran

The development of eco-friendly and nontoxic processes for the synthesis of nanoparticles is one of the most important discussed issues in nanotechnology science. This study reports the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using aqueous extract of leaf, stem, and root of Avicennia marina, the native and dominant mangrove plant in southern Iran. Among the different plant parts, the extract of leaves yielded the maximum synthesis of AgNPs. Synthesized AgNPs were investigated using UV–visible spectrophotometry, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Absorption spectrum in 420?nm confirmed the synthesis of AgNPs. TEM images revealed that the synthesized AgNPs had the same spherical morphology with a size range between 0 and 75?nm. The distribution size histogram indicated that the most frequent particles were in the range of 10–15?nm and the mean size of nanoparticles was 17.30?nm. The results of SEM image showed nanoparticles with a size range between 15 and 43?nm. XRD pattern indicated the crystalline nature of synthesized nanoparticles. EDS results confirmed the presence of elements like silver, carbon, chlorine, nitrogen, and oxygen in the nanoparticles produced from leaf extract. Silver had the maximum percentage of formation, 51.6%. FTIR indicated the presence of different functional groups such as amines, alcohol, alkanes, phenol, alkyl halides, and aromatic loops in the synthesis process. Green biosynthesis of AgNPs using aqueous extract of native A. marina appears rapid, reliable, nontoxic, and eco-friendly.     

Double‐frequency buck converter as a candidate topology for integrated envelope elimination and restoration applications in power supply of RFPAs

This paper proposes the use of double‐frequency (DF) buck converter architecture consisting of a merged structure of high and low frequency buck cells as a candidate topology for envelope elimination and restoration (EER) applications and integrated power supply of RF power amplifiers (RFPA) to obtain favorable tradeoffs in terms of efficiency, switching ripple, bandwidth, and tracking capability. It is shown that having two degrees of freedom in designing the DF buck helps to achieve high efficiency, low output ripples, and tracking capability with low ripples, simultaneously. A comparison analysis is done with regards to the mentioned performance indexes with the standard and three‐level buck converters; in addition, the results are validated in HSPICE in BSIM3V3 0.35‐µm CMOS process. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multi-criteria Decision-making Approach for Environmental Impact Assessment to Reduce the Adverse Effects Of Dams

Water Resources Management - Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) of development projects are necessary to minimize negative impacts and maximize benefits. The objective of this paper is to...     

Fingerprinting Based Indoor Localization Considering the Dynamic Nature of Wi-Fi Signals

Current localization techniques in outdoors cannot work well in indoors. Wi-Fi fingerprinting technique is an emerging localization technique for indoor environments. However in this technique, the dynamic nature of WiFi signals affects the accuracy of the measurements. In this paper, we use affinity propagation clustering method to decrease the computation complexity in location estimation. Then, we use the least variance of Received Signal Strength (RSS) measured among Access Points (APs) in each cluster. Also we assign lower weights to altering APs for each point in a cluster, to represent the level of similarity to Test Point (TP) by considering the dynamic nature of signals in indoor environments. A method for updating the radio map and improving the results is then proposed to decrease the cost of constructing the radio map. Simulation results show that the proposed method has 22.5% improvement in average in localization results, considering one altering AP in the layout, compared to the case when only RSS subset sampling is considered for localization because of altering APs.

     

Throughput analysis of STS-based CDMA system with variable spreading factor in non-frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel

The throughput enhancement of space-time spreading (STS)-based code division multiple access (CDMA) system is investigated in this paper. Variable spreading factor (VSF) is utilized to improve the data throughput of the system in non-frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel. In this contribution, an analytical approach is proposed to compute a new expression for the bit error rate (BER) performance of the STS-based CDMA system against pre-despreading signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) for different values of spreading factor. The other contribution of the paper is deriving a new analytical expression for the throughput enhancement of the VSF STS-based CDMA system in non-frequency selective Rayleigh fading channel. Simulation and analytical results demonstrate that using VSF method in STS-based CDMA system improves the throughput of the system by keeping the BER performance at a target level.     

Swallow: Resource and Tag Recommender System Based on Heat Diffusion Algorithm in Social Annotation Systems

Social annotation systems (SAS) allow users to annotate different online resources with keywords (tags). These systems help users in finding, organizing, and retrieving online resources to significantly provide collaborative semantic data to be potentially applied by recommender systems. Previous studies on SAS had been worked on tag recommendation. Recently, SAS‐based resource recommendation has received more attention by scholars. In the most of such systems, with respect to annotated tags, searched resources are recommended to user, and their recent behavior and click‐through is not taken into account. In the current study, to be able to design and implement a more precise recommender system, because of previous users' tagging data and users' current click‐through, it was attempted to work on the both resource (such as web pages, research papers, etc.) and tag recommendation problem. Moreover, by applying heat diffusion algorithm during the recommendation process, more diverse options would present to the user. After extracting data, such as users, tags, resources, and relations between them, the recommender system so called “Swallow” creates a graph‐based pattern from system log files. Eventually, following the active user path and observing heat conduction on the created pattern, user further goals are anticipated and recommended to him. Test results on SAS data set demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has improved the accuracy of former recommendation algorithms.