Modulating the burst drug release effect of waterborne polyurethane matrix by modifying with polymethylmethacrylate

To reduce cost and increase environmental friendliness, waterborne polyurethane (WPU) is a tempting choice in the field of green chemistry. Biodegradable WPU was synthesized using lysine as an internal emulsifier. WPU was further modified using methylate methacrylate (MMA) as an acrylic monomer. Unsaturated pre-PU was synthesized by using unsaturated end-capping agent 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and further extended by MMA to form acrylate modified WPU. A permanent covalent linkage was established between WPU and PMMA as confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy. The focus of this research work was to study the dependence of drug delivery, mechanical, thermal, surface, and structural properties of WPU, on the MMA repeating unit content (10%–40%). For drug release studies mitomycin c was taken as a model anticancer drug. Furthermore, these materials were subjected to in vitro and in vivo cytotoxicity evaluation, which shows that synthesized acrylate modified WPU are biocompatible. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47253.     

Enhanced gas separation performance of PSF membrane after modification to PSF/PDMS composite membrane in CO2/CH4 separation

Asymmetric polysulfone (PSF) membrane was developed and modified to PSF/polydimethylsiloxane (PSF/PDMS) composite membrane by dip coating technique. Effect of PDMS coating time on membrane properties was examined by scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, attenuated total reflectance‐Fourier transform infrared, and water contact angle. The increase in PDMS coating time resulted in a decrement in the thermal strength of PSF membrane. Surface contact angle values revealed that increase in PDMS coating time had increased the surface hydrophobicity in membranes. CO₂/CH₄ separation performance of membranes was evaluated, and an increase in CO₂/CH₄ ideal selectivity was observed with the increase of PDMS coating time. At feed pressure of 10 bar, the selectivity of PSF has increased up to 65% after dip coating with PDMS for 30 min. Modification of polymeric membrane into composite membrane provided a way forward towards the enhancement of gas separation performance in polymeric membranes. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 45650.     

An efficient computerized decision support system for the analysis and 3D visualization of brain tumor

The quality of health services provided by medical centers varies widely, and there is often a large gap between the optimal standard of services when judged based on the locality of patients (rural or urban environments). This quality gap can have serious health consequences and major implications for patient’s timely and correct treatment. These deficiencies can manifest, for example, as a lack of quality services, misdiagnosis, medication errors, and unavailability of trained professionals. In medical imaging, MRI analysis assists radiologists and surgeons in developing patient treatment plans. Accurate segmentation of anomalous tissues and its correct 3D visualization plays an important role inappropriate treatment. In this context, we aim to develop an intelligent computer-aided diagnostic system focusing on human brain MRI analysis. We present brain tumor detection, segmentation, and its 3D visualization system, providing quality clinical services, regardless of geographical location, and level of expertise of medical specialists. In this research, brain magnetic resonance (MR) images are segmented using a semi-automatic and adaptive threshold selection method. After segmentation, the tumor is classified into malignant and benign based on a bag of words (BoW) driven robust support vector machine (SVM) classification model. The BoW feature extraction method is further amplified via speeded up robust features (SURF) incorporating its procedure of interest point selection. Finally, 3D visualization of the brain and tumor is achieved using volume marching cube algorithm which is used for rendering medical data. The effectiveness of the proposed system is verified over a dataset collected from 30 patients and achieved 99% accuracy. A subjective comparative analysis is also carried out between the proposed method and two state-of-the-art tools ITK-SNAP and 3D-Doctor. Experimental results indicate that the proposed system performed better than existing systems and assists radiologist determining the size, shape, and location of the tumor in the human brain.

     

Investigation of natural convection heat transfer in a unique scaled‐down dual‐channel facility

Multiphase Reactors Engineering and Applications Laboratory (mReal) has designed and constructed a scaled‐down dual‐channel facility to investigate plenum‐to‐plenum natural circulation heat transfer through two channels for coolant flow that would be encountered during a loss of flow accident in the prismatic modular reactor (PMR). Heat transfer characterization of the current facility has been investigated under different upper plenum and cooled channel outer surface temperatures using sophisticated flush mounted heat transfer sensors. Results show a reduction in the values of local heat‐transfer coefficient and Nusselt number along the heated channel with increasing outer surface temperatures. One significant observation was the heat transfer reversal close to heated channel exit, where the heat flows from gas to the channel wall. This flow reversal is attributed to recirculation at the heated channel exit to the upper plenum. The average heat transfer results, when compared with previous literature, showed a similar qualitative trend. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 387–396, 2017     

The Influence of pH on the Morphology and Electrochemical Behavior of Pd–Pt thin Films Prepared by Electro-less Deposition

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - Pd–Pt thin films over titanium substrates were coated through electro-less deposition method as a function of pH values. It is...     

Partially oxidized cobalt species in nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes: Enhanced catalytic performance to water-splitting

It's still an ongoing research challenge to explore non-precious metal-based catalysts for substituting precious metal catalysts during full water electrocatalysis. Herein, we reported the partially oxidized cobalt species in nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes hierarchical structures to produce dual-functionality towards oxygen/hydrogen evolution reactions. The in situ transformation of carbon nanotubes and well-exposed metal-oxide contributes to mass diffusion and greater electrolyte-accessible surface area. The as-synthesized catalyst displays low overpotentials of 287 mV and 171 mV for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions at 10 mA cm^?2 of current density with remarkable performance during long-term stability. Furthermore, when employed as cathode and anode, a respectable performance of 1.68 V demonstrated our catalyst as an efficient bifunctional material for conducting water-splitting operation.     

Communication Requirements and Interconnect Optimization for High-End Scientific Applications

The path toward realizing next-generation petascale and exascale computing is increasingly dependent on building supercomputers with unprecedented numbers of processors. To prevent the interconnect from dominating the overall cost of these ultrascale systems, there is a critical need for scalable interconnects that capture the communication requirements of ultrascale applications. It is, therefore, essential to understand high-end application communication characteristics across a broad spectrum of computational methods, and utilize that insight to tailor interconnect designs to the specific requirements of the underlying codes. This work makes several unique contributions toward attaining that goal. First, we conduct one of the broadest studies to date of high-end application communication requirements, whose computational methods include: finite difference, lattice Boltzmann, particle-in-cell, sparse linear algebra, particle-mesh ewald, and FFT-based solvers. Using derived communication characteristics, we next present the fit-tree approach for designing network infrastructure that is tailored to application requirements. The fit-tree minimizes the component count of an interconnect without impacting application performance compared to a fully connected network. Finally, we propose a methodology for reconfigurable networks to implement fit-tree solutions. Our Hybrid Flexibly Assignable Switch Topology (HFAST) infrastructure, uses both passive (circuit) and active (packet) commodity switch components to dynamically reconfigure interconnects to suit the topological requirements of scientific applications. Overall, our exploration points to several promising directions for practically addressing the interconnect requirements of future ultrascale systems.