Combating Biofilm Associated Infection In Vivo: Integration of Quorum Sensing Inhibition and Photodynamic Treatment based on Multidrug Delivered Hollow Carbon Nitride Sphere

Recently, quorum sensing (QS) inhibitors (QSIs) have been combined with antibiotics to enhance antibiofilm efficacy in vitro and in vivo. However, targeting QS signals alone is not enough to prevent bacterial infections. Drug resistance and recurrence of biofilms makes it difficult to eradicate. Herein, photodynamic therapy (PDT) is selected to unite QSIs and antibiotics. A synergistically antibiofilm system, which combines QSIs, antibiotics, and PDT based on hollow carbon nitride spheres (HCNSs) is envisaged. First, HCNS provides the multidrug delivering ability, enabling QSIs and antibiotics to be released in sequence. Subsequently, multistage releases sensitize bacteria effectively, potentiating the chemotherapeutic effects of the antibiotics. Finally, the integration of QSIs and PDT not only minimizes the possibility of drug resistance, but also overcomes the problem of limited mass and extension of PDT. Even after 48 h of incubation, the bacterial biofilm is obviously inhibited. And its biofilm disperse efficiency exceeds 48% (compared with QSI‐potentiated chemotherapy group) and 40% (compared with PDT group). Besides, the inhibition of the QS system influences phenotypes related to virulence factor production and surface hydrophobicity, which weaken biofilm invasion and formation. Eventually, this system is applied to disperse bacterial biofilm in vivo. Overall, PDT and QS modulation are devoted to eradicate drug resistance and recurrence of the biofilm.     

Design of Trehalose-Based Amide/Sulfonamide C-type Lectin Receptor Signaling Compounds

Mincle agonists have been shown to induce inflammatory cytokine production, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) and promote the development of a Th1/Th17 immune response that might be crucial to development of effective vaccination against pathogens such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. As an expansion of our previous work, a library of 6,6′-amide and sulfonamide α,α-d -trehalose compounds with various substituents on the aromatic ring was synthesized efficiently in good to excellent yields. These compounds were evaluated for their ability to activate the human C-type lectin receptor Mincle by the induction of cytokines from human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. A preliminary structure–activity relationship (SAR) of these novel trehalose diamides and sulfonamides revealed that aryl amide-linked trehalose compounds demonstrated improved activity and relatively high potency cytokine production compared to the Mincle ligand trehalose dibehenate adjuvant (TDB) and the natural ligand trehalose dimycolate (TDM) inducing dose-dependent and human-Mincle-specific stimulation in a HEK reporter cell line.     

Effects of structural parameters on water film properties of transpiring wall reactor

Corrosion and salt deposition problems severely restrict the industrialization of supercritical water oxidation. Transpiring wall reactor can effectively weaken these two problems by a protective water film. In this work, methanol was selected as organic matter, and the influences of vital structural parameters on water film properties and organic matter removal were studied via numerical simulation. The results indicate that higher than 99% of methanol conversion could be obtained and hardly affected by transpiration water layer, transpiring wall porosity and inner diameter. Increasing layer and porosity reduced reactor center temperature, but inner diameter's influence was lower relatively. Water film temperature reduced but coverage rate raised as layer, porosity, and inner diameter increased. Notably, the whole reactor was in supercritical state and coverage rate was only approximately 85% in the case of one layer. Increasing reactor length affected slightly the volume of the upper supercritical zone but enlarged the subcritical zone.     

An automated treatment planning strategy for highly noncoplanar radiotherapy arc trajectories

Radiation therapy is a technology-driven cancer treatment modality that has experienced significant advances over the last decades, due to multidisciplinary contributions that include engineering and computing. Recent technological developments allow the use of noncoplanar volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), one of the most recent photon treatment techniques, in clinical practice. In this work, an automated noncoplanar arc trajectory optimization framework designed in two modular phases is presented. First, a noncoplanar beam angle optimization algorithm is used to obtain a set of noncoplanar irradiation directions. Then, anchored in these directions, an optimization strategy is proposed to compute an optimal arc trajectory. The computational experiments considered a pool of twelve difficult head-and-neck tumor cases. It was possible to observe that, for some of these cases, the optimized noncoplanar arc trajectories led to significant treatment planning quality improvements, when compared with coplanar VMAT treatment plans. Although these experiments were done in a research environment treatment planning software (matRad), the conclusions can be of interest for a clinical setting: automated procedures can simplify the current treatment workflow, produce high-quality treatment plans, making better use of human resources and allowing for unbiased comparisons between different treatment techniques.     

Concerning the Data of Numerical and Physical Experiments in Studying the Adsorption of Gas and Vapors in Micropores of Active Carbons

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - The conditions for carrying out molecular dynamics calculations of adsorption isotherms of gases and vapors in micropores of active carbons...     

Evaluation of Intellectual Property Objects in the Nanoindustry Field

Russian Microelectronics - The recently developed nanomaterials and their production technologies as intellectual property objects (IPOs) are considered. The role of the informational-analytical...     

A Light Weight Secure Communication Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Personal Communications - The majority of security systems for wireless sensor networks are based on symmetric encryption. The main open issue for these approaches concerns the...     

Wear mechanism of a novel AlSiMgAl2O4Al2O3 composite used in the low vessel of an RH secondary refining furnace

A novel AlSiMgAl₂O₄Al₂O₃ composite brick was prepared and evaluated in the low vessel of an RH (the initials of Ruhrstahl and Hereaeus) secondary refining furnace; it was characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive spectroscopy. The results show that after use, the AlSiMgAl₂O₄Al₂O₃ composite has a functional gradient with an erosion zone–reinforced zone–original zone phase distribution, in which the phases in the erosion zone (0–1.8?cm) are a Mg-hercynite spinel solid solution, α-Al₂O₃, and minor amount of Al₃Fe₅O₁₂. Furthermore, the phases in the reinforced zone (1.8–5.0?cm) are γ-AlON, 21RSiAlON, SiC, Mg_0.388Al_2.408O₄, and α-Al₂O₃; i.e., the Al and Si in the composite are completely converted into non-oxide reinforced phases. Finally, the phases in the original zone (>5.0?cm) show no change. The reaction mechanism is as follows. During operation, a Mg-hercynite spinel solid solution is formed in the erosion zone due to a reaction between MgAl₂O₄ and FeO from a refinery operation. Therefore, the slag erosion of the material is improved. The Al and Si metals undergo active oxidation, and 21RSiAlON flakes are subsequently formed from the products of the metastable Al₂O(g), SiO(g), and N₂(g) in the ambient. The γ-AlON is formed by a carbothermal reduction nitridation of the α-Al₂O₃ and residual active carbon from the resin binder. The 21RSiAlON and γ-AlON reinforce the composite brick and improve its high temperature performance accordingly. Its service life is 110% that of the magnesia-chrome bricks used in the same period. The reaction model was also established.