Sustainable Conjunctive Water Use Modeling Using Dual Fitness Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

Water Resources Management - In any meta-heuristic algorithm, each search agent must move to the high-fitness areas in the search space while preserving its diversity. At first glance, there is no...     

A Multifunctional Polymeric Periodontal Membrane with Osteogenic and Antibacterial Characteristics

Periodontitis is a prevalent chronic, destructive inflammatory disease affecting tooth‐supporting tissues in humans. Guided tissue regeneration strategies are widely utilized for periodontal tissue regeneration generally by using a periodontal membrane. The main role of these membranes is to establish a mechanical barrier that prevents the apical migration of the gingival epithelium and hence allowing the growth of periodontal ligament and bone tissue to selectively repopulate the root surface. Currently available membranes have limited bioactivity and regeneration potential. To address such challenges, an osteoconductive, antibacterial, and flexible poly(caprolactone) (PCL) composite membrane containing zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles is developed. The membranes are fabricated through electrospinning of PCL and ZnO particles. The physical properties, mechanical characteristics, and in vitro degradation of the engineered membrane are studied in detail. Also, the osteoconductivity and antibacterial properties of the developed membrane are analyzed in vitro. Moreover, the functionality of the membrane is evaluated with a rat periodontal defect model. The results confirmed that the engineered membrane exerts both osteoconductive and antibacterial properties, demonstrating its great potential for periodontal tissue engineering.     

In vitro and in vivo evaluation of paclitaxel–lapatinib-loaded F127 pluronic micelles

The aim of this study was to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo efficacy of paclitaxel–lapatinib-loaded Pluronic micelles. Lapatinib and pluronic sensitize the cancerous cells to paclitaxel via efflux pump inhibition. In addition, pluronic polymers can trigger intrinsic apoptosis pathways. Furthermore, micellar system can passively target the chemotherapeutic agents by enhanced permeability and retention effect. The paclitaxel–lapatinib-loaded micelles were characterized in means of encapsulation efficacy and size. The in vitro analyses were performed by MTT assay and uptake studies. Real-time imaging and in vivo anti-tumor efficacy studies were also performed. The prepared micelles have acceptable encapsulation ratio and size. Hemolysis assay confirmed that the micelles are hemo-compatible. MTT assay demonstrated that drug-loaded micelles have superior cytotoxicity compared with the naked drugs. The confocal microscopy and flowcytometry analyses showed that micelles are mainly internalized by endocytosis. According to the results of the in vivo imaging, the micelles are accumulated within liver. In vivo anti-tumor efficacy studies confirmed that tumor inhibition of drug-loaded micelles was significant compared to Intaxel^®.     

Highly sensitive and simultaneous electrochemical determination of lead and cadmium ions by poly(thionine)/MWCNTs-modified glassy carbon electrode in the presence of bismuth ions

Journal of Applied Electrochemistry - A novel low-cost method for simultaneous measurement of Cd2+ and Pb2+ is proposed. In this method, the surface of the glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was...     

Feasibility analysis of specialized PEEC solvers in comparison to SPICE-like solvers

The Partial Element Equivalent Circuit (PEEC) method provides an electric equivalent circuit for a physical geometry. This circuit can be combined with external passive/active lumped elements, enabling the simulation and co-design of combined circuit and electromagnetic (EM) structures. The resulted circuit can be solved in a dedicated solver, or equivalently can be exported to a SPICE-like solver. In this paper, the inclusion of passive and active lumped circuit elements in PEEC method has been studied and a combined solver has been developed. To demonstrate the capability of the solver, three structures are examined. All examples include a transmission line-PEEC model and active components. Results are compared with those from OrCAD, where an analytical model for the transmission line is used. Good agreement between the results shows the feasibility of using PEEC to solve this type of mixed problems. Also, comparison has been made in terms of implementation and feasibility for the aim of developing the optimal EM solver with active elements support. It is shown that SPICE is not a suitable choice to solve the PEEC models and, a specialized solver can solve the system in a much faster way. On the other hand, all the definitions and models of circuit devices e.g. transistors, MOSFETs, etc. should be implemented in the specialized solver, which raises a trade-off between the solution time and the implementation time.     

On CDMA with space-time codes over multipath fading channels

We explore code-division multiple-access systems with multiple transmitter and receiver antennas combined with algebraic constellations over a quasi-static multipath fading channel. We first propose a technique to obtain transmit diversity for a single user over quasi-static fading channels by combining algebraic constellations with full spatial diversity and spreading sequences with good cross-correlation properties. The proposed scheme is then generalized to a multiuser system using the same algebraic constellation and different spreading sequences. We also propose a linear multiuser detector based on the combination of linear decorrelation with respect to all users, and the application of the sphere decoder to decode each user separately. Finally, we consider the generalization to multipath fading channels where the additional diversity advantage due to multipath is exploited by the sphere decoder, and a method of blind channel estimation based on subspace decomposition is examined.     

Directly silica bonded analytical reagents: synthesis of 2-mercaptobenzothiazole–silica gel and its application as a new sorbent for preconcentration and determination of silver ion using solid-phase extraction method

A new and efficient method is described for the easy synthesis of directly bonded 2-mercaptobenzothiazole–silica gel. This new bonded analytical reagent is used as an effective sorbent for the solid-phase extraction of silver ion from aqueous solutions. Conditions for effective adsorption of trace levels of silver ion concentration are optimized with respect to different experimental parameters in column process. Sodium thiosulfate solution could efficiently elute the adsorbed silver ion from the surface of the sorbent which then was determined by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). Common coexisting ions did not interfere with the separation and determination. The preconcentration factor is 300 (1 ml elution volume) for a 300 ml sample volume. The sorbent exhibited excellent stability and its sorption capacity under optimum conditions has been found to be 343 μg of silver per gram of sorbent. The relative standard deviation under optimum conditions is 2.04% (n=7). Accuracy of the method was estimated by using test samples of natural water spiked with different amounts of silver ion. The method is simple and inexpensive.