Polycaprolactone/alendronate systems intended for production of biomaterials

Sodium alendronate (ALD) is a bisphosphonate used to treat osteoporosis. However, its oral administration has been associated with side effects as gastroesophageal reflux. Moreover, there are some particularities for the intake of the medicine, which also hinder the patient's compliance, for example, the instruction that it has to be taken with an empty stomach, 30 to 60 min before breakfast and avoid the decubitus position after using the drug. Therefore, biomaterials for applications in osteoporotic bones are a good alternative. Thus, this work aimed to produce a Polycaprolactone (PCL) and ALD-based powder as a supply to build biomaterials by selective laser sintering, compression molding (CM), solvent casting (SC), among others. The powder was produced by coating the ALD particles with PCL and films were produced by SC and CM techniques. The samples were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy, Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry and thermal analysis. Furthermore, the drug release was evaluated by UV–Vis spectroscopy. Results showed that ALD particles were successfully coated by PCL and applied to the production of biomaterials, highlighting its potential in the treatment of osteoporosis.     

Multitarget Compounds for Bipolar Disorder: From Rational Design to Preliminary Pharmacokinetic Evaluation

Due to the complex and multifactorial nature of bipolar disorder (BD), single-target drugs have traditionally provided limited relief with no disease-modifying effects. In line with the polypharmacology paradigm, we attempted to overcome these limitations by devising two series of multitarget-directed ligands endowed with both a partial agonist profile at dopamine receptor D3 (D3R) and inhibitory activity against glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK-3β). These are two structurally unrelated targets that play independent, yet connected, roles in cognition and mood regulation. Two compounds ( 7 and 10 ) emerged as promising D3R/GSK-3β multitarget-directed ligands with nanomolar activity at D3R and low-micromolar inhibition of GSK-3β, thereby confirming, albeit preliminarily, the feasibility of our strategy. Furthermore, 7 showed promising drug-like properties in stability and pharmacokinetic studies.     

Effects of age and naturally occurring experience on spatial visualization performance.

A questionnaire designed to assess experience with activities presumed to require spatial visualization abilities, and psychometric tests of these abilities, were administered to 383 adults ranging from 20 to 83 years of age. Although research participants varied considerably in the amount of self-reported experience, statistical control of experience resulted in relatively modest attenuations of the relations between age and spatial visualization performance. These findings seem inconsistent with a strong disuse interpretation of cognitive aging phenomena and suggest that at least some age-related differences in cognitive functioning are independent of the amount of experience with relevant activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structure-preserving smoothing of biomedical images

Smoothing of biomedical images should preserve gray-level transitions between adjacent tissues, while restoring contours consistent with anatomical structures. Anisotropic diffusion operators are based on image appearance discontinuities (either local or contextual) and might fail at weak inter-tissue transitions. Meanwhile, the output of block-wise and morphological operations is prone to present a block structure due to the shape and size of the considered pixel neighborhood.In this contribution, we use differential geometry concepts to define a diffusion operator that restricts to image consistent level-sets. In this manner, the final state is a non-uniform intensity image presenting homogeneous inter-tissue transitions along anatomical structures, while smoothing intra-structure texture. Experiments on different types of medical images (magnetic resonance, computerized tomography) illustrate its benefit on a further process (such as segmentation) of images.     

Role of Curvature-Sensing Proteins in the Uptake of Nanoparticles with Different Mechanical Properties

Nanoparticles of different properties, such as size, charge, and rigidity, are used for drug delivery. Upon interaction with the cell membrane, because of their curvature, nanoparticles can bend the lipid bilayer. Recent results show that cellular proteins capable of sensing membrane curvature are involved in nanoparticle uptake; however, no information is yet available on whether nanoparticle mechanical properties also affect their activity. Here liposomes and liposome-coated silica are used as a model system to compare uptake and cell behavior of two nanoparticles of similar size and charge, but different mechanical properties. High-sensitivity flow cytometry, cryo-TEM, and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy confirm lipid deposition on the silica. Atomic force microscopy is used to quantify the deformation of individual nanoparticles at increasing imaging forces, confirming that the two nanoparticles display distinct mechanical properties. Uptake studies in HeLa and A549 cells indicate that liposome uptake is higher than for the liposome-coated silica. RNA interference studies to silence their expression show that different curvature-sensing proteins are involved in the uptake of both nanoparticles in both cell types. These results confirm that curvature-sensing proteins have a role in nanoparticle uptake, which is not restricted to harder nanoparticles, but includes softer nanomaterials commonly used for nanomedicine applications.     

Influence of Clay Modification on the Properties of Resol Nanocomposites

Two organically modified (Cloisite® 30B and 10A) and one unmodified clay (Cloisite® Na) were added to a resol‐type phenolic prepolymer. The modified montmorillonites showed a better dispersion in the prepolymer. The dispersion of the clay, the chemical structure as well as the thermal degradation behavior of the cured polymer and nanocomposites were studied. It was observed that the addition of Cloisite® Na leads to enhanced crosslinking of the cured polymer, leading to a higher activation energy for thermal degradation. The resol with Cloisite® 10A contained a higher percentage of voids, which seems to be one of the major factors that reduce hardness and adhesive strength when the nanocomposite was applied to a metal substrate.

     

Parallel Implementation of a Lagrangian Stochastic Model for Pollutant Dispersion

Lagrangian dispersion models have shown to be effective and reliable tools for simulating the airborne pollutant dispersion. However, the main drawback for their use as regulatory models is the associated high computational costs. Consequently, in this paper a parallel version of a Lagrangian particle model—LAMBDA—is developed using the MPI message passing communication library. Performance tests were executed in a distributed memory parallel machine, a multicomputer based on IA-32 architecture. Portions of the pollutant in the air emitted from its source are simulated as fictitious particles whose trajectories evolve under stochastic forcing. This yields independent evolution equations for each particle of the model that can be computed by a different processor in a parallel implementation. Speed-up results show that the parallel implementation is suitable for the used architecture.     

Preparation and characterization of polybutylene‐succinate/poly(ethylene‐glycol)/cellulose nanocrystals ternary composites

Ternary composites were prepared by twin screw extrusion from polybutylene‐succinate (PBS), poly(ethylene‐glycol) (PEG), and cellulose nanocrystals (CNC). The aim of the work is to improve the physical–mechanical properties of PBS by the addition of CNC. A PEG/CNC masterbatch was prepared in order to achieve a good dispersion of hydrophilic CNC in the hydrophobic PBS. The influence of the nanoparticle content on the polymer properties was studied. Regarding the thermal properties fractioned crystallization phenomena of PEG was observed during cooling from the melt. No significant nucleating effect of the nanocellulose was observed. The material containing 4 wt % of CNC showed the best mechanical performance among the nanocomposites studied due to the combination of high modulus and elongation at break with a low detrimental in strength compared with the PBS/PEG blend. Moreover, no nanocellulose agglomerations were observed in its FESEM micrograph. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43302.