Reversibility with sodium bicarbonate of styrene maleic anhydride, an intravasal injectable contraceptive, in male rats

PURPOSE: Patients who use topical ophthalmic medications and wear soft contact lenses must remove their lenses before drop instillation to prevent absorption of the medication into the lenses. No previous study has examined how long such a patient should wait before reinserting their lenses. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that waiting 5 minutes before reinsertion of lenses would be sufficient to reduce absorption to a level below what is needed to produce a physiological response. METHODS: Naphcon-A was used as the test solution and pupillary dilation was the physiological response measured. The amount of benzalkonium chloride (BAC) extracted from the lenses was also measured. Twenty-three subjects, none of whom had any significant ocular or systemic abnormalities nor showed pupillary dilation to directly applied Naphcon-A, completed this 3-week study. The study used a 2-period crossover design with a 1-week screening phase. Results were analyzed with a repeated-measure analysis of variance. RESULTS: The pupils averaged 0.316 mm larger when subjects instilled Naphcon-A with lenses in place as compared to when dosing with lenses removed for 5 minutes (P = 0.0008). Nine of 23 subjects showed pupillary dilation greater than 0.5 mm when dosing with lenses in place as compared to none when lenses were removed for 5 minutes. Significantly (P < 0.01) more BAC was extracted from lenses that had been worn during dosing than from lenses removed for 5 minutes (0.9 microgram/lens as compared to no detectible amount). CONCLUSION: Removing soft contact lenses for 5 minutes was sufficient to prevent absorption of clinically significant amounts of Naphcon-A into the lenses.     

Megha-Tropiques: mission planning,analysis, and operations

Climate in the tropics is primarily influenced by variations in energy and water budget exchanges in the land/ocean/atmosphere systems. The interaction of these systems with the general atmospheric circulation is still not fully understood – one of the reasons why weather forecasts and predictions of climatic events are less accurate. The Megha-Tropiques mission, an ISRO-CNES (Indian Space Research Organisation–Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) collaborative programme, aims to study water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics, and use the data in climate and meteorology models. Megha-Tropiques is part of the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission, which is an international network of satellites. Of the four payloads on board, MADRAS is jointly developed by ISRO and the French space agency, CNES; SAPHIR and SCARAB completely by CNES; and GPS-ROSA is obtained from TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space Italia, Milan, Italy). GPS-ROSA supplements the geophysical parameters of the other payloads for atmosphere modelling. Mission planning involved integrating and interrelating the efforts of space and ground systems in realizing the operational system that provides the satellite-based science data meeting the turnaround time (TAT). Pre-launch simulations involved usage of a software simulator as a tool for network tests, training of spacecraft operation personnel, and validating the spacecraft health-monitoring software. The required operations were performed to characterize the payloads as well as to calibrate the various attitude sensors of the spacecraft. This paper summarizes mission planning and analysis aiding spacecraft configuration, pre-launch mission simulations, launch and early-orbit operations, and the on-orbit operational guidelines for Megha-Tropiques.     

Defining recrystallization in pilgered Zircaloy-4: From preferred nucleation to growth inhibition

Pilgered Zircaloy-4 was subjected to recrystallization annealing at 650 °C: temperature sufficient for primary recrystallization but inadequate for noticeable competitive grain coarsening. Associated microstructural developments were monitored through bulk and microtexture measurements. The deformed microstructure had two, generalized, types of grains: fragmenting/deforming and non-fragmenting/non-deforming. The former had higher stored energy of cold work and defined the early recrystallization stages through preferred nucleation. Non-fragmenting grains, on the other hand, did not contribute directly to recrystallization; but provided significant growth inhibition or pinning to the recrystallized grains. A combination of these two mechanisms defined the recrystallization behavior of pilgered Zircaloy-4.     

A Role for TGFβ Signaling in Preclinical Osteolytic Estrogen Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer Bone Metastases Progression

While tumoral Smad-mediated transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) signaling drives osteolytic estrogen receptor α-negative (ER-) breast cancer bone metastases (BMETs) in preclinical models, its role in ER+ BMETs, representing the majority of clinical BMETs, has not been documented. Experiments were undertaken to examine Smad-mediated TGFβ signaling in human ER+ cells and bone-tropic behavior following intracardiac inoculation of estrogen (E₂)-supplemented female nude mice. While all ER+ tumor cells tested (ZR-75-1, T47D, and MCF-7-derived) expressed TGFβ receptors II and I, only cells with TGFβ-inducible Smad signaling (MCF-7) formed osteolytic BMETs in vivo. Regulated secretion of PTHrP, an osteolytic factor expressed in >90% of clinical BMETs, also tracked with osteolytic potential; TGFβ and E₂ each induced PTHrP in bone-tropic or BMET-derived MCF-7 cells, with the combination yielding additive effects, while in cells not forming BMETs, PTHrP was not induced. In vivo treatment with 1D11, a pan-TGFβ neutralizing antibody, significantly decreased osteolytic ER+ BMETs in association with a decrease in bone-resorbing osteoclasts at the tumor-bone interface. Thus, TGFβ may also be a driver of ER+ BMET osteolysis. Moreover, additive pro-osteolytic effects of tumoral E₂ and TGFβ signaling could at least partially explain the greater propensity for ER+ tumors to form BMETs, which are primarily osteolytic.     

Discrete Modeling of Growth of Hairy Roots in a Mist Bioreactor

Hairy root culture is a promising route for large‐scale secondary metabolite production. A discrete model is developed to study the kinetic growth of these valuable roots in a reactor. The growth process is defined to occur in three sequential phases. The elongation rate is modeled as exponential growth with the growth coefficient being dependent on mass transfer coefficient, nutrient concentration difference, and distribution of nutrients in growth and sustenance requirements. Results indicate that the primary root growth is reduced by one‐fifth of its initial growth rate due to the branching process, and the growth of new branches is significantly faster than its primary root growth due to internal transport of nutrients. The model is successfully validated against experimental findings. Its integration with spatio‐temporal variation of nutrients in a reactor will be a crucial input to large‐scale production of hairy roots.     

Triple-Networked Hybrid Hydrogels Reinforced with Montmorillonite Clay and Graphene Nanoplatelets for Soft and Hard Tissue Regeneration

Hydrogel is a three-dimensional (3D) soft and highly hydrophilic, polymeric network that can swell in water and imbibe a high amount of water or biological fluids. Hydrogels have been used widely in various biomedical applications. Hydrogel may provide a fluidic tissue-like 3D microenvironment by maintaining the original network for tissue engineering. However, their low mechanical performances limit their broad applicability in various functional tissues. This property causes substantial challenges in designing and preparing strong hydrogel networks. Therefore, we report the triple-networked hybrid hydrogel network with enhanced mechanical properties by incorporating dual-crosslinking and nanofillers (e.g., montmorillonite (MMT), graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs)). In this study, we prepared hybrid hydrogels composed of polyacrylamide, poly (vinyl alcohol), sodium alginate, MMT, and MMT/GNPs through dynamic crosslinking. The freeze-dried hybrid hydrogels showed good 3D porous architecture. The results exhibited a magnificent porous structure, interconnected pore-network surface morphology, enhanced mechanical properties, and cellular activity of hybrid hydrogels.     

Synthesis and electroluminescence characterization of a new aluminium complex, [8- Hydroxyquinoline] Bis [2,2’Bipyridine] Aluminium Al(Bpy)2q

We have synthesized and characterized a new electroluminescent material, [8-Hydroxyquinoline] Bis [2,2’Bipyridine] aluminium. Solution of this material Al(Bpy)₂q in toluene showed absorption maxima at 380nm which was attributed to the moderate energy (π – π*) transitions of the aromatic rings. The photoluminescence spectrum of Al(Bpy)₂q in toluene solution showed peak at 518 nm.This material shows thermal stability up to 300₀C. The structure of the device is ITO/F4-TCNQ(1nm)/α-NPD(35nm)/Al(Bpy)₂q(35nm)/ BCP(6nm)/Alq₃(28nm)/LiF(1nm)/Al(150nm). This device exhibited a luminescence peak at 515 nm (CIE coordinates, x=0.32,y=0.49). The maximum luminescence of the device was 214 Cd/m₂ at 21V. The maximum current efficiency of OLED was 0.12 Cd/A at 13V and maximum power efficiency was 0.03 lm/W at 10 volt.     

Outcoupling efficiency enhancement in organic light emitting diodes via nano-structured indium tin oxide and nano-phosphors

Nanostructures of indium tin oxide (NSITO) deposited using glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique are used to enhance the outcoupling efficiency of blue and green OLEDs. The enhancement was found to be angle independent. The efficiency of device has increased by about 2.1 times by the use of NSITO at glass/air interface and ITO/glass interface. Similarly nano-phosphor particles were used to recover the glass modes by depositing them on the backside of the substrates. Both these methods were found to be effective for outcoupling efficiency enhancement.     

A low cost optical hydrogen sensing device using nanocrystalline Pd grating

A Pd grating of periodicity of 1.5 μm comprising of 1 μm wide nanocrystalline Pd lines has been obtained by a direct micromolding method to serve as Hydrogen sensor element in an optical diffraction set up. The device uses a low power diode laser and a photodetector and works with sensitivity of ∼20%. The hydrogen sensing action is based on monitoring the changes in the diffraction efficiency (DE) which is defined as the ratio of the first and the zeroth order diffracted beam intensities. The diffraction efficiency undergoes large and sudden changes as the nanocrystalline grating becomes disordered due to PdH_x formation, as monitored using in-situ microscopy and optical profilometric measurements. This is truly a low cost, portable hydrogen sensor meant for large installations.     

Effect of dispersion on thermally stable stratified power-law fluids over the vertical frustum of a cone in a non-Darcy porous medium: Flow separation

The present problem shares out the influences of convective heating and thermal dispersion on thermally stable stratified power-law fluid flow over the vertical frustum of a cone situated in a non-Darcy porous medium. For the first time, it is considered in both aiding and opposing flow cases as it is readily applicable in realistic, practical situations. The local nonsimilarity approach, along with the spectral local linearization method, is used to analyze the fluid behavior and heat transfer within the boundary layer region. In addition, error analysis and comparison with the existing results are also included to validate the obtained results wherever feasible. It is significant to perceive the existence of flow separation in this study as more gain of the velocity of a power-law fluid is seen for aiding flow case in comparison with the opposing flow case. Also, it is evident from these results that the separation of flow is less in the presence of thermal stratification, but it is more in the absence of thermal stratification. Finally, thermal stratification significantly affects the heat transfer rate of power-law fluids besides delaying the boundary layer separation.