Curcumin Loaded PEGylated Nanoemulsions Designed for Maintained Antioxidant Effects and Improved Bioavailability: A Pilot Study on Rats

The current study describes the experimental design guided development of PEGylated nanoemulsions as parenteral delivery systems for curcumin, a powerful antioxidant, as well as the evaluation of their physicochemical characteristics and antioxidant activity during the two years of storage. Experimental design setup helped development of nanoemulsion templates with critical quality attributes in line with parenteral application route. Curcumin-loaded nanoemulsions showed mean droplet size about 105 nm, polydispersity index <0.15, zeta potential of −40 mV, and acceptable osmolality of about 550 mOsm/kg. After two years of storage at room temperature, all formulations remained stable. Moreover, antioxidant activity remained intact, as demonstrated by DPPH (IC50 values 0.078–0.075 mg/mL after two years) and FRAPS assays. In vitro release testing proved that PEGylated phospholipids slowed down the curcumin release from nanoemulsions. The nanoemulsion carrier has been proven safe by the MTT test conducted with MRC-5 cell line, and effective on LS cell line. Results from the pharmacokinetic pilot study implied the PEGylated nanoemulsions improved plasma residence of curcumin 20 min after intravenous administration, compared to the non-PEGylated nanoemulsion (two-fold higher) or curcumin solution (three-fold higher). Overall, conclusion suggests that developed PEGylated nanoemulsions present an acceptable delivery system for parenteral administration of curcumin, being effective in preserving its stability and antioxidant capacity at the level highly comparable to the initial findings.     

Importance of solubility phenomena during the separation of the ethylene–polyethylene mixture in the industrial low density polyethylene process

The solubility values of ethylene in polyethylene and vice versa have been evaluated for the process conditions. These results could be used in solving real problems of PE-LD process. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Cost optimization of the underground gas storage

The paper presents the cost optimization of an underground gas storage (UGS), designed from lined rock caverns (LRC). The optimization is performed by the non-linear programming (NLP) approach. For this purpose, the NLP optimization model OPTUGS was developed. The model comprises the cost objective function, which is subjected to geomechanical and design constraints. The geotechnical problem is proposed to be solved simultaneously. Geomechanical rock mass parameters are determined from geological conditions of a selected suitable UGS location and a special FE model is generated. The rock mass strength stability and safety of the system are then analyzed for various combinations between different design parameters like inner gas pressures, cavern depths, cavern diameters and cavern wall thickness. As a result, geomechanical constraints are approximated and put into the optimization model OPTUGS. This way, the optimization enables not only the obtaining of an optimal solution but also that the rock mass achieves sufficient strength stability and safety. The optimization is proposed to be performed for the phase of preliminary design. The numerical example at the end of the paper demonstrates the efficiency of the introduced optimization approach.     

Border gateway function performance requirements for the lawful intercept of voice at IMS architecture

Lawful intercept is a mandatory regulatory service that must be available when delivering voice services over packet-based networks. The carrier should be capable of providing the law-enforcement authorities with logged information about calls originated and terminated by a particular subscriber. Moreover, the carrier should also be able to intercept subscribers’ call-content (e.g., voice conversations). In both cases, the interception should be undetectable by the intercepted subscriber or other callers. Despite the importance of the topic, little effort has been made so far to analyze the performance aspects of lawful intercept in a packet-based network.This paper presents an overall analysis of the performance requirements of the border gateway function at the IMS architecture for lawful call-content interception on an end-to-end packet-based network with only voice packets. In particular, various performance characteristics of the VoIP transmission, like VoIP traffic and VoIP signaling traffic, with an emphasis on the SIP, were investigated in order to determine the margins of the border gateway function's performance requirements where an efficient and undetectable transfer of lawful call-content interception over packet-based networks can be expected.     

Chemical Ecology of Cave-Dwelling Millipedes: Defensive Secretions of the Typhloiulini (Diplopoda,Julida, Julidae)

Cave animals live under highly constant ecological conditions and in permanent darkness, and many evolutionary adaptations of cave-dwellers have been triggered by their specific environment. A similar “cave effect” leading to pronounced chemical interactions under such conditions may be assumed, but the chemoecology of troglobionts is mostly unknown. We investigated the defensive chemistry of a largely cave-dwelling julid group, the controversial tribe “Typhloiulini”, and we included some cave-dwelling and some endogean representatives. While chemical defense in juliform diplopods is known to be highly uniform, and mainly based on methyl- and methoxy-substituted benzoquinones, the defensive secretions of typhloiulines contained ethyl-benzoquinones and related compounds. Interestingly, ethyl-benzoquinones were found in some, but not all cave-dwelling typhloiulines, and some non-cave dwellers also contained these compounds. On the other hand, ethyl-benzoquinones were not detected in troglobiont nor in endogean typhloiuline outgroups. In order to explain the taxonomic pattern of ethyl-benzoquinone occurrence, and to unravel whether a cave-effect triggered ethyl-benzoquinone evolution, we classed the “Typhloiulini” investigated here within a phylogenetic framework of julid taxa, and traced the evolutionary history of ethyl-benzoquinones in typhloiulines in relation to cave-dwelling. The results indicated a cave-independent evolution of ethyl-substituted benzoquinones, indicating the absence of a “cave effect” on the secretions of troglobiont Typhloiulini. Ethyl-benzoquinones probably evolved early in an epi- or endogean ancestor of a clade including several, but not all Typhloiulus (basically comprising a taxonomic entity known as “Typhloiulus sensu stricto”) and Serboiulus. Ethyl-benzoquinones are proposed as novel and valuable chemical characters for julid systematics.     

Review

Abstract

The article analyses the creativity in a particular category of interactive products—personal portfolio websites. Most of the designers embraced the advantages of a digital portfolio which include the ability to make an unlimited number of copies at a very low price, availability through email and presence on the global job market. In trying to impress possible employers, designers often got more concerned with following advices offered by web design agencies on the web today rather than focusing on the quality of user experience. The question is can the rules of good web portfolio design be defined and/or can they be perceived as a process of creating new choices out of a prevailing set of options? The goal of this article is to provide an overview of work in this area and analyses it to speculate on what makes web portfolio creative as a narrative interactive product.     

Near‐Zero Thermal Expansion in In(HfMg)0.5Mo3O12

In(HfMg)_0.5Mo₃O₁₂, which can be considered as a 1:1 mole ratio solid solution of the low‐positive thermal expansion material HfMgMo₃O₁₂ and the low‐negative thermal expansion (NTE) material In₂Mo₃O₁₂ was prepared. From DSC and XRPD results, we show that In(HfMg)_0.5Mo₃O₁₂ exists in a monoclinic (P2₁/a) structure at low temperature and undergoes a phase transition at ~425 K to an orthorhombic phase (Pnma), with an associated enthalpy change of 0.89 kJ mol^?1. Thermal expansion is large and positive in the low‐temperature monoclinic phase (average α_? = 16 × 10^?6 K^?1 and 20 × 10^?6 K^?1, from dilatometry and XRPD, respectively). Remarkably, this material has a near‐zero thermal expansion (ZTE) coefficient over the temperature range ~500 to ~900 K in the high‐temperature orthorhombic phase, both intrinsically and for the bulk sample. The average linear intrinsic (XRPD) value is α_? = ?0.4 × 10^?6 K^?1, and the average bulk (dilatometric) value is α_? = 0.4 × 10^?6 K^?1 with an uncertainty of ± 0.2 × 10^?6 K^?1. The slight difference between intrinsic and bulk thermal expansion is attributed to microstructural effects. XRPD results show that the thermal expansion is more isotropic than for the parent compounds HfMgMo₃O₁₂ and In₂Mo₃O₁₂.     

A novel nutrient control method to deprive green algae of sulphur and initiate spontaneous hydrogen production

The green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii has the ability to produce clean and renewable molecular hydrogen through the biophotolysis of water. Hydrogen production takes place under anaerobic conditions, which may be imposed metabolically by depriving the algae of sulphur. Sulphur-deprivation typically requires the spatial and temporal separation of the algal growth and hydrogen production stages. This would typically require separate photobioreactors for each stage as well as a costly and energy intensive medium exchange technique such as centrifugation, making the process difficult to scale up.     

Calculation of excess molar volumes with different cubic equations of state and different mixing rules

The effects of the simple composition-dependent combining rules (conventional, Adachi-Sugie and van Laar-Stryjek-Vera-type) and Huron-Vidal-NRTL mixing rules and different cubic equations of state (Redlich-Kwong, Soave-Redlich-Kwong, Peng-Robinson and Peng-Robinson-Stryjek-Vera) on excess molar volume correlation are examined. The results obtained for some asymmetric non-ideal mixtures indicate very good agreement between correlated and experimental data in all cases when Huron-Vidal-NRTL mixing rules are coupled with the Peng-Robinson-Stryjek-Vera equation of state.