Facilitating GL13K Peptide Grafting on Polyetheretherketone via 1-Ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide: Surface Properties and Antibacterial Activity

In the present work, the antimicrobial peptide (AMP) of GL13K was successfully coated onto a polyetheretherketone (PEEK) substrate to investigate its antibacterial activities against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria. To improve the coating efficiency, 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (EDC) was mixed with a GL13K solution and coated on the PEEK surface for comparison. Both energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) data confirmed 30% greater peptide coating on PEEK/GL13K-EDC than PEEK without EDC treatment. The GL13K graft levels are depicted in the micrograms per square centimeter range. The PEEK/GL13K-EDC sample showed a smoother and lower roughness (Rq of 0.530 µm) than the PEEK/GL13K (0.634 µm) and PEEK (0.697 µm) samples. The surface of the PEEK/GL13K-EDC was more hydrophilic (with a water contact angle of 24°) than the PEEK/GL13K (40°) and pure PEEK (89°) samples. The pure PEEK disc did not exhibit any inhibition zone against S. aureus. After peptide coating, the samples demonstrated significant zones of inhibition: 28 mm and 25 mm for the PEEK/GL13K-EDC and PEEK/GL13K samples, respectively. The bacteria-challenged PEEK sample showed numerous bacteria clusters, whereas PEEK/GL13K contained a little bacteria and PEEK/GL13K-EDC had no bacterial attachment. The results confirm that the GL13K peptide coating was able to induce antibacterial and biofilm-inhibitory effects. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of successful GL13K peptide grafting on a PEEK substrate via EDC coupling. The present work illustrates a facile and promising coating technique for a polymeric surface to provide bactericidal activity and biofilm resistance to medical implantable devices.     

CRITICAL SELF-ASSEMBLY CONCENTRATION OF AN IONIC-COMPLEMENTARY PEPTIDE EAK16-I

Understanding the process of self-assembly of peptides has been important in various biomedical engineering applications. This work focuses on the effect of peptide concentration on the molecular self-assembly of an ionic-complementary peptide, EAK16-I (AEAKAEAKAEAKAEAK), in aqueous solution. The surface tension and self-assembled nanostructures were determined for a wide range of peptide concentrations using axisymmetric drop shape analysis-profile (ADSA-P) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. Surface tension measurements revealed a critical self-assembly concentration of 0.3 mg peptide/ml water, below which the surface tension decreased rapidly with increasing peptide concentration, and above which the surface tension remained at a constant, plateau value. There were two structural transitions observed with increasing peptide concentration: the first was from globular nanostructures to fibrils, and the second from the fibrils to relatively thick fibers. The second structural transition occurred at the critical self-assembly concentration as determined by the surface tension measurements. The nanostructural behavior of EAK16-I was compared with that of EAK16-II, which has the same amino acid composition but a different charge distribution. Salt effects were also examined by adding NaCl to the peptide solution. The salt addition facilitated the formation of peptide fibrils at low peptide concentrations but increased the critical self-assembly concentration, which occurred at 0.8 mg peptide/ml water in the presence of 20 mM NaCl. The structural transitions involved in the self-assembly of EAK16-I resemble those from protofibrils to fibrils observed with numerous naturally occurring peptides. An understanding of this structural transition may have relevance in the analysis and treatment of peptide/protein conformational diseases and have application in the production of self-assembled protein nanostructures.     

Precipitation of asphaltenes from solvent-diluted heavy oil and thermodynamic properties of solvent-diluted heavy oil solutions

Ratios of n-heptane (hep) to toluene (tol) affect the solubility of the asphaltenes in heavy oil extraction processes. Consequently phase changes and time after mixing n-heptane and heavy oil in toluene are important for understanding produced emulsions. The kinetics of phase change when n-heptane is added to toluene-diluted heavy oils, and the thermodynamic properties of partially deasphalted heavy oils were studied. The methods used were monitoring precipitation in time using light microscopy, quantitative asphaltenes analysis by near infrared spectroscopy, refractive index and densities measurements, and calculated solubility parameters of mixtures. At critical mass ratios of hep/tol from 1.37 to 2.0 in diluted heavy oil the precipitated asphaltene particles were observed under the microscope after lag times from 2 h to instantly. Lag times were longer at low initial oil concentration. The floc growth time decreased as heavy oil concentration in toluene increased. The growth patterns in time appeared as dots to beads (strings) to clusters (fractal-like flocs). Final wt% precipitated asphaltenes vs. mass fraction (hep+tol)/heavy oil followed sigmoidal relationships. Curves showing wt% soluble asphaltenes vs. mass fraction hep/tol after 24 h initially followed the same shape as time zero curves and diverged at the onset ratios of hep/tol. Slope for precipitated asphaltenes vs. solubility parameters curve showed a break at 16.4 MPa^1/2. Linear correlations were established for concentrations of soluble asphaltenes in residual oils and density, for refractive index and density and for refractive index and solubility parameter. The latter correlation was in accordance with Lorenz-Lorentz theory. These equations provided a means by which oil density, refractive index and solubility parameter can be predicted when these measurements are difficult to measure practically.     

Functional acrylic acid as stabilizer for synthesis of smart hydrogel particles containing a magnetic Fe3O4 core

This paper reports a novel method to synthesize magnetic, stimuli-sensitive latex nanoparticles made with magnetite/poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylic acid) (Fe₃O₄/P(NIPAAm-co-AAc)). To form a stabilized suspended core, iron oxide (Fe₃O₄) was functionalized with AAc such that further polymerization with NIPAAm and AAc monomers could occur. The P(NIPAAm-co-AAc) shell layer exhibited thermosensitive properties. The inclusion of Fe₃O₄ into the latex nanoparticles was confirmed using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA), and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometer. The NIP–(AAc2.6–Fe) latex nanoparticles contained 2.25% Fe₃O₄ (by weight), as determined by TGA analysis. The particle diameters measured approximately 160–240 nm with a lower critical solution temperature of 35 °C. These novel magnetic stimuli-responsive latex nanoparticles have potential applications in numerous fields, such as catalyst supports, protein immobilization, cancer therapy, target drug delivery systems, and other biomedical applications.     

空空导弹末端非线性修正技术研究

针对红外空空导弹瞄准点与理想命中点不重合的矛盾,本文提出一种末端修正导引方法,修正导弹对目标的碰撞航线.导出了空间飞行时实现超前偏置的导引律,并提出简化导引律方案,对引入超前偏置的末端制导控制系统进行了分析,探讨了控制系统实现的方法.仿真表明对导引精度和脱靶量有显著提高,能达到理想的修正效果.     

战车火控系统射击诸元解算工程模型误差的动态评估

分析了当前战车火控系统中射击诸元工程解算模型的缺点,进行了精确解算模型的研究,包括解弹道模型和解命中模型,通过比较在相同输入条件下工程模型和精确模型的解算结果,可实现射击诸元工程模型解算误差的动态仿真评估。     

A Novel Character Segmentation Method for Text Images Captured by Cameras

Due to the rapid development of mobile devices equipped with cameras, instant translation of any text seen in any context is possible. Mobile devices can serve as a translation tool by recognizing the texts presented in the captured scenes. Images captured by cameras will embed more external or unwanted effects which need not to be considered in traditional optical character recognition (OCR). In this paper, we segment a text image captured by mobile devices into individual single characters to facilitate OCR kernel processing. Before proceeding with character segmentation, text detection and text line construction need to be performed in advance. A novel character segmentation method which integrates touched character filters is employed on text images captured by cameras. In addition, periphery features are extracted from the segmented images of touched characters and fed as inputs to support vector machines to calculate the confident values. In our experiment, the accuracy rate of the proposed character segmentation system is 94.90%, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

An automatic thin-film thickness indicator implemented with a Z-80 microcomputer

An automatic display of thin-film thickness during vacuum deposition based on Z-80 microcomputer is demonstrated. The film thickness can be displayed directly in nm during deposition whenever a key is touched. The maximum deposition thickness and the measuring accuracy can be easily adjusted by loading a proper time constant to channels 0 and I of the counter-timer-circuit.     

Extending an internally cooled superconducting magnet to higher fields

An internally cooled superconducting (ICS) magnet was built and tested earlier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and its stability margin as a function of operating fields was measured at an ambient helium temperature of 4.2 K. In the experiment reported here, we retested this magnet with lower bulk helium temperatures. The stability margins of the magnet as a function of temperature were measured. The results demonstrate clearly the flexibility offered by an ICS magnet: The stability margin can be improved substantially or the field output can be extended without sacrificing the stability margin simply by feeding the magnet with lower temperature helium. The analysis made in a previous paper on extended field operation of an ICS magnet is thus confirmed.     

The barrier height change and current transport phenomena with the presence of interfacial layer in MIS Schottky barrier solar cells

In this comprehensive study, several interesting results which are different from those previous are reported. We find the barrier height decreases for n-type and increases for p-type when positive ions are introduced into the insulating layer. The increase of open circuit voltage can be traced to the suppression of the dark saturation current by the depletion field induced by the positive charge, and to the diminution of the majority tunneling current by the oxide potential barrier. The tunneling probabilities for majority and minority carriers are different; there are only a finite amount of majority carriers with thermionic energy greater than q(V_bi ? V_s) which can surmount the depletion potential and tunnel into the metal, whereas the photogenerated minority carriers derive kinetic energy in the depletion layer making tunneling easier. Transport coefficients for electrons to transmit from metal to semiconductor and from semiconductor to metal are different for the departure of built in potentials during illumination.