Dipyridamole recognition and controlled release by uniformly sized molecularly imprinted nanospheres

We used novel synthetic conditions of precipitation polymerization to obtain uniformly sized molecularly imprinted nanospheres of dipyridamole for application in the design of new drug delivery systems. In addition, the morphology, drug release, and binding properties of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were studied, and the effects of morphology on other properties were investigated. The MIPs prepared by acetonitrile/chloroform (19:1, v/v) were uniformly sized nanospheres with an average mean diameter of approximately 88 nm at a wetted state, 50 nm at a dry state, and a polydispersity index of 0.062. The imprinted nanospheres showed excellent binding properties and had 62.7% of template binding compared with 17.1% of its blank polymer. The imprinted nanospheres with 67.5 (mg template/of polymer) of binding capacity had better imprinting efficiency than the 50.5% of binding capacity shown by irregularly shaped MIP particles that were prepared by chloroform. The molecular binding abilities of imprinted nanospheres in human serum were evaluated by HPLC analysis (binding about 77% of dipyridamole). Results from release experiments of MIPs showed a very slow, controlled, and satisfactory release of dipyridamole. The loaded drug was released up to 99% in 17 days for nanospheres and 22 days for irregularly shaped particles.     

Quality Evaluation of Groundwater Resources using Geostatistical Methods (Case Study: Central Lorestan Plain,Iran)

In this research, based on the qualitative data of 40 wells, variations of water quality parameters of the Central Plain Aquifer were evaluated using kriging and IDW (Inverse Distance Weighting) methods. Owing to the normal distribution of the studied parameters (except Na⁺, SO₄^2?, and TH: total hardness), ordinary kriging was used for modeling. The analysis of the data trends indicated that all the variables were influenced by in two general trends, i.e., NW–SE and NE–SW. In fact, these trends were a result of the effect of the structural conditions on aquifer properties such as transmissivity and flow direction. Variogram analysis (based on C₀ near zero and C₀/σ² ratio between 0.0–0.5) showed that the Na⁺, TDS (total dissolved solids), Ca²⁺, and TH variables have a good spatial structure and the BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), COD (chemical oxygen demand), NO₃^?, and EC variables have poor spatial structure. The BOD, COD, NO₃^?, and EC (electrical conductivity) variables have the smallest range and isotropic distribution. On the other hand, the Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺, SO₄^2?, Cl^?, HCO₃^?, pH, TDS, TH and Alk (alkalinity) parameters are characterized by anisotropic distributions. The Na⁺, TDS, Ca²⁺, and TH variables have the largest range. The results showed that both the IDW and kriging methods have close estimates to one another. The pH variable decreases toward the outlet whereas the EC and TDS variables increase along the direction of water flow and toward the outlet. The distributions of the BOD and COD variables do not perfectly match with the aggregation of industrial activities in the central part as well as the agricultural activities in the southeastern and central parts of the aquifer. The distributions of the Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, and Alk variables completely follow the geology condition and regional spread of carbonate formations. The Na⁺ concentration increases from the center toward the outlet. The concentration of the Cl^? variable is the highest in the central part of the plain due to the concentration of agricultural and industrial activities. The distribution of the SO₄^2? variable is influenced by a natural factor (lithology), especially in the southeastern parts and the outlet as well as artificial factors (agricultural and industrial activities) in the central and southeastern parts of the aquifer. The NO₃^? variable, which is directly influenced by agricultural and livestock-farming activities, has its maximum concentration in the southeastern areas.     

Defensive role ofAllium sulfur compounds for leek mothAcrolepiopsis assectella Z. (Lepidoptera) against generalist predators

It has been shown previously that sulfur volatiles produced byAllium plants affect the behavior of their specialist phytophages and of their specialist entomophages. The action of these compounds in protecting the leek mothAcrolepiopsis assectella against generalist entomophages was studied in comparison to the proposed original defensive role of these compounds against generalist herbivorous insects. Two ants species,Formica selysi andF. fusca, were used as generalist predators. Six behavioral criteria of the predatory behavior of the ants were studied in presence of the last-instar caterpillars (C₅). C₅ reared on artificial diets with or without leek components were tested, as well as C₅ soaked in frass of leek-reared caterpillars or disulfide solutions. In addition, the response of the ants to pure chemicals found in leek was studied using honey solutions with or without sulfur compounds. The sulfur allelochemicals ofAllium plants have a negative action on predatory ants. Interestingly, the nonvolatile precursors of sulfur volatiles ofAllium plants seem to have a protective role for their phytophagous insects against generalist entomophages.     

Modulation Based Combination of High Level Features Generated from SCCF & Contourlet Transforms for CBIR Applications

The need for suitable and cost-effective technologies rise with the growth of the internet of things (IoT) applications. These aim at handling voluminous data transmission in addition to minimum energy and latency cost constraints. LoRa networks are recommended for applications in confined spaces, long ranges, and less battery consumption requirements. However, the end devices in these networks communicate to all gateways in their ranges, thereby expediting energy unproductively in redundant transmissions. In our article, we explore the possibilities of whether LoRa networks could employ the advantages of clustering and propose two algorithms, path-based and data-centric, for such networks. We suggest that LoRaWAN technology with clustering can be apt for long-range, low power consumption IoT applications in the future. We study the impact of network density, node range, and cluster range on the energy consumption in data transmissions. The algorithms are compared with the inherent star-based communication of LoRa networks based on energy consumed, and our results show that, for dense deployments, clustering becomes advantageous.

     

Opportunistic Relaying for MIMO Amplify-and-Forward Cooperative Networks

We consider a wireless relay network with multiple antenna terminals over Rayleigh fading channels, and apply distributed space-time coding (DSTC) in amplify-and-forward (A&F) mode. The A&F scheme is used in a way that each relay transmits a scaled version of the linear combination of the received symbols. It turns out that, combined with power allocation in the relays, A&F DSTC results in an opportunistic relaying scheme, in which only the best relay is selected to retransmit the source’s space-time coded signal. Furthermore, assuming the knowledge of source-relay CSI at the source node, we design an efficient power allocation which outperforms uniform power allocation across the source antennas. Next, assuming M-PSK or M-QAM modulations, we analyze the performance of the proposed cooperative diversity transmission schemes in a wireless relay networks with the multiple-antenna source and destination. We derive the probability density function (PDF) of the received SNR at the destination. Then, the PDF is used to determine the symbol error rate (SER) in Rayleigh fading channels. We derived closed-form approximations of the average SER in the high SNR scenario, from which we find the diversity order of system R min{N _s , N _d }, where R, N _s , and N _d are the number of the relays, source antennas, and destination antennas, respectively. Simulation results show that the proposed system obtain more than 6 dB gain in SNR over A&F MIMO DSTC for BER 10^?4, when R = 2, N _s  = 2, and N _d  = 1.     

Iterative design of nonlinear memoryless systems

This paper considers the problem of designing nonlinear multiport memoryless systems with prescribed driving point and transfer characteristics. It is shown that if the structure of the multiport system is given the input-output characteristics of the nonlinear elements can be obtained iteratively. This is achieved by implementation of a generalized steepest descent criterion.