Innovative Diagnostic Peptide-Based Technologies for Cancer Diagnosis: Focus on EGFR-Targeting Peptides

Active targeting using biological ligands has emerged as a novel strategy for the targeted delivery of diagnostic agents to tumor cells. Conjugating functional targeting moieties with diagnostic probes can increase their accumulation in tumor cells and tissues, enhancing signal detection and, thus, the sensitivity of diagnosis. Due to their small size, ease of chemical synthesis and site-specific modification, high tissue penetration, low immunogenicity, rapid blood clearance, low cost, and biosafety, peptides offer several advantages over antibodies and proteins in diagnostic applications. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is one of the most promising cancer biomarkers for actively targeting diagnostic and therapeutic agents to tumor cells due to its active involvement and overexpression in various cancers. Several peptides for EGFR-targeting have been identified in the last decades, which have been obtained by multiple means including derivation from natural proteins, phage display screening, positional scanning synthetic combinatorial library, and in silico screening. Many studies have used these peptides as a targeting moiety for diagnosing different cancers in vitro, in vivo, and in clinical trials. This review summarizes the progress of EGFR-targeting peptide-based assays in the molecular diagnosis of cancer.     

Microneedle Technologies for Food and Crop Health: Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

The global food supply constantly faces the threats of emerging crop diseases initiated by pathogens such as bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Plant diseases can cause significant economic and production losses in the agriculture industry, and early disease detection significantly mitigates losses. Monitoring the food quality and detecting pathogens during the food supply chain is essential in confirming the food's safety and reducing crop loss. This results in lowering production costs and increasing average yield in the agriculture industry. Considering the significant development of nanotechnology in biomedicine for human health monitoring, diagnostics, and treatment, there is an increasing interest in using nanotechnology in crop production, health, and plant science. This technology can allow continuous monitoring of plant health and on-site diagnostics of plant diseases. While many microneedle-based devices are previously reported for human health monitoring, diagnostics, and treatment, the application of this technology to agriculture started relatively recently. This review investigates the recent development of microneedle technology in food and crop health, where the most state-of-the-art microneedle-based devices are utilized for plant drug delivery, disease monitoring, and diagnosis. Finally, the current challenges and future directions in developing microneedle technology for food and crop health are discussed.     

Preventing Cloud Network from Spamming Attacks Using Cloudflare and KNN

Cloud computing is one of the most attractive and cost-saving models, which provides online services to end-users. Cloud computing allows the user to access data directly from any node. But nowadays, cloud security is one of the biggest issues that arise. Different types of malware are wreaking havoc on the clouds. Attacks on the cloud server are happening from both internal and external sides. This paper has developed a tool to prevent the cloud server from spamming attacks. When an attacker attempts to use different spamming techniques on a cloud server, the attacker will be intercepted through two effective techniques: Cloudflare and K-nearest neighbors (KNN) classification. Cloudflare will block those IP addresses that the attacker will use and prevent spamming attacks. However, the KNN classifiers will determine which area the spammer belongs to. At the end of the article, various prevention techniques for securing cloud servers will be discussed, a comparison will be made with different papers, a conclusion will be drawn based on different results.     

Embedding Two P+ Pockets in the Buried Oxide of Nano Silicon on Insulator MOSFETs: Controlled Short Channel Effects and Electric Field

Silicon - This paper proposes an efficient structure for nanoscale silicon on insulator (SOI) MOSFETs. Two P+ pockets are considered in buried oxide, a pocket under source region and another under...     

A Highly Emissive Surface Layer in Mixed‐Halide Multication Perovskites

Mixed‐halide lead perovskites have attracted significant attention in the field of photovoltaics and other optoelectronic applications due to their promising bandgap tunability and device performance. Here, the changes in photoluminescence and photoconductance of solution‐processed triple‐cation mixed‐halide (Cs_0.06MA_0.15FA_0.79)Pb(Br_0.4I_0.6)₃ perovskite films (MA: methylammonium, FA: formamidinium) are studied under solar‐equivalent illumination. It is found that the illumination leads to localized surface sites of iodide‐rich perovskite intermixed with passivating PbI₂ material. Time‐ and spectrally resolved photoluminescence measurements reveal that photoexcited charges efficiently transfer to the passivated iodide‐rich perovskite surface layer, leading to high local carrier densities on these sites. The carriers on this surface layer therefore recombine with a high radiative efficiency, with the photoluminescence quantum efficiency of the film under solar excitation densities increasing from 3% to over 45%. At higher excitation densities, nonradiative Auger recombination starts to dominate due to the extremely high concentration of charges on the surface layer. This work reveals new insight into phase segregation of mixed‐halide mixed‐cation perovskites, as well as routes to highly luminescent films by controlling charge density and transfer in novel device structures.     

Effect of apple cider vinegar agent on the microstructure,phase evolution,and magnetic properties of CoFe2O4 magnetic nanoparticles

In the present study, spinel structure CoFe₂O₄ nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by the sol-gel auto-combustion technique. The effect of apple cider vinegar (ACV) addition as an organic biocompatible agent on the size, morphology, and magnetic properties of CoFe₂O₄ nanoparticles was investigated in detail. The phase evolution, particle size, and lattice parameter changes of the synthesized phase have been estimated by using Rietveld structure refinement analysis of X-ray powder diffraction data. Also, Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR) of the samples verified the presence of two expected bands correspond to tetrahedral and octahedral metal-oxygen complexes within the spinel structure. Furthermore, microstructural observations revealed that ultrafine particles have a semi-spherical morphology. It was shown that the particles size decreased from ~45 to ~17 nm with an increase in the amount of ACV. Magnetic properties were carried out by vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) at room temperature. Both the saturation magnetization (M_s) and coercivity (H_c) were found to be significantly dependent on the crystallite size and the amount of ACV.     

Electro-conductivity,bioactivity and UV protection of graphene oxide-treated cellulosic/polyamide fabric using inorganic and organic reducing agents

Here, graphene oxide (GO) was treated on the cellulosic/polyamide fabric reduced with various inorganic and organic compounds and compared the color changes, field emission scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, electrical resistivity, antibacterial/antifungal and ultraviolet protection properties. The graphite oxide was first synthesized using graphite and sonicated to obtain GO. It was then dissolved in distilled water along with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) to prepare a stable solution for long-time adsorbing more and uniform GO on cellulosic/polyamide fabric through exhaustion method. The GO-treated fabric was reduced to reduced graphene oxide (rGO) with inorganic and organic reducing agents including sodium dithionite with and without sodium hydroxide and dopamine hydrochloride at various temperatures. More fabricated GO reduced to rGO at higher temperature using dopamine produced lower electrical resistance. The antimicrobial activities of various samples were tested against two Gram-negative bacteria, E. coli and P. aeruginosa, two Gram-positive bacteria, S. aureus and E. faecalis and one eukaryotic fungus C. albicans. Ultraviolet protection was examined through reflectance spectra showed no UV transmittance from most of the treated fabrics. Further, CTAB was effective to load more GO on the fabric improved electrical resistance and higher antibacterial properties using both reducing agents.     

Inverse emulsion polymerization of triple monomers of acrylamide,maleic anhydride,and styrene to achieve highly hydrophilic–hydrophobic modified polyacrylamide

The purpose of this study was the production of copolymers and terpolymers with highly hydrophilic–hydrophobic properties, using inexpensive and available monomers as potential enhancing oil recovery (EOR) and water production control agents for high-temperature and high-salinity (HTHS) oil reservoirs. For this purpose, several copolymers and terpolymers with different molar percentage of acrylamide/styrene, acrylamide/maleic anhydride, and acrylamide/styrene/maleic anhydride were synthesized by the inverse emulsion polymerization technique. The presence of hydrophobic styrene and hydrophilic maleic anhydride monomers in the copolymer and terpolymer structure, provided some unique properties compared to polyacrylamide, was confirmed by several analyses including HNMR, elemental analysis, FTIR, SEM, TGA, and DSC. Simulating HTHS oil reservoir condition under high salinity, temperature, and shear rate, the rheological studies suggested unlike traditional EOR agents such as polyacrylamide, the viscosity of the copolymer, and terpolymer aqueous solutions showed a considerable increase after a critical polymer concentration and less reduction with the salt increment at both ambient and elevated temperatures. Furthermore, the swelling ratio of the insoluble terpolymers measured versus the time and temperature in salt water increased with the maleic anhydride mole fraction, decreased with the salt concentration, and showed a maximum value at around 57 °C. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47753.     

Preparation of shish‐kebab and nanofiber polyethylene with chromium/Santa Barbara amorphous silica‐15 catalysts

Cr/SBA‐15 catalysts were prepared by the grafting of chromium nitrate nonahydrate [Cr(NO₃)₃·9H₂O] complexes onto SBA‐15 mesoporous materials. Shish‐kebab and nanofiber polyethylenes (PEs) were prepared under different temperatures via ethylene extrusion polymerization with the Cr(NO₃)₃·9H₂O catalytic system. The diameter of a single nanofiber was 100–250 nm. Scanning electron microscopy images showed that the polymer obtained from the SBA‐15‐supported catalyst under different polymerization temperatures produced nanofiber and/or shish‐kebab morphologies. X‐ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry were used to characterize microstructures of the materials. Polymers obtained with all of the catalysts showed a melting temperature, bulk density, and high load melt index; this indicated the formation of linear high‐density PE. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010