Fabrication of GaN nanowires and nanoribbons by a catalyst assisted vapor-liquid-solid process

Wurtzite GaN nanowires and nanoribbons were produced directly from Ga metal by an Au catalyst assisted thermal evaporation process in a flowing ammonia atmosphere. We have investigated the effect of different experimental parameters on the morphology of the nanoforms. The diameters of the nanowires were varied between 20 and 40 nm while the widths of the nanoribbons were within 100-250 nm. Microstructural studies by TEM reveals the role of vapor-liquid-solid process in the nucleation of GaN nanoforms. The evolution of the ribbon like morphology was attributed to the vapor-solid process. Photoluminescence study showed UV-blue emission from the GaN nanostructures. Field emission studies indicated the possibility of these materials to be used as the cathode materials in field emission based devices.     

A uniform representation of multi-variant data in intensive-query databases

In this paper a new approach for the representation of multi-variant data is introduced. Current approaches consist on either hard-core coding techniques or conceptual / logical models to integrate structured and semi-structured data in customized, application-specific ways. The representation introduced here relies instead on unfolding technique to represent multi-variant data uniformly. This leads to a framework with core functionalities for organizing structured and semi-structured data. The paper presents also an efficient methodology towards retrieval of data from the proposed storage along with comparative performance analysis against existing practices. Accuracy, precision, and recall of the proposed technique are quantitatively evaluated and carefully reported.     

Interactions Between Tumor Biology and Targeted Nanoplatforms for Imaging Applications

Although considerable efforts have been conducted to diagnose, improve, and treat cancer in the past few decades, existing therapeutic options are insufficient, as mortality and morbidity rates remain high. Perhaps the best hope for substantial improvement lies in early detection. Recent advances in nanotechnology are expected to increase the current understanding of tumor biology, and will allow nanomaterials to be used for targeting and imaging both in vitro and in vivo experimental models. Owing to their intrinsic physicochemical characteristics, nanostructures (NSs) are valuable tools that have received much attention in nanoimaging. Consequently, rationally designed NSs have been successfully employed in cancer imaging for targeting cancer‐specific or cancer‐associated molecules and pathways. This review categorizes imaging and targeting approaches according to cancer type, and also highlights some new safe approaches involving membrane‐coated nanoparticles, tumor cell‐derived extracellular vesicles, circulating tumor cells, cell‐free DNAs, and cancer stem cells in the hope of developing more precise targeting and multifunctional nanotechnology‐based imaging probes in the future.     

Correction to: A smart intuitionistic fuzzy‑based framework for round‑robin short‑term scheduler

The Journal of Supercomputing -     

New results on stability and L∞‐gain analysis for positive linear differential‐algebraic equations with unbounded time‐varying delays

This article addresses the problems of stability and L_∞‐gain analysis for positive linear differential‐algebraic equations with unbounded time‐varying delays for the first time. First, we consider the stability problem of a class of positive linear differential‐algebraic equations with unbounded time‐varying delays. A new method, which is based on the upper bounding of the state vector by a decreasing function, is presented to analyze the stability of the system. Then, by investigating the monotonicity of state trajectory, the L_∞‐gain for differential‐algebraic systems with unbounded time‐varying delay is characterized. It is shown that the L_∞‐gain for differential‐algebraic systems with unbounded time‐varying delay is also independent of the delays and fully determined by the system matrices. Two numerical examples are given to illustrate the obtained results.     

Model-based probabilistic frequent itemset mining

Data uncertainty is inherent in emerging applications such as location-based services, sensor monitoring systems, and data integration. To handle a large amount of imprecise information, uncertain databases have been recently developed. In this paper, we study how to efficiently discover frequent itemsets from large uncertain databases, interpreted under the Possible World Semantics. This is technically challenging, since an uncertain database induces an exponential number of possible worlds. To tackle this problem, we propose a novel methods to capture the itemset mining process as a probability distribution function taking two models into account: the Poisson distribution and the normal distribution. These model-based approaches extract frequent itemsets with a high degree of accuracy and support large databases. We apply our techniques to improve the performance of the algorithms for (1) finding itemsets whose frequentness probabilities are larger than some threshold and (2) mining itemsets with the $k$ highest frequentness probabilities. Our approaches support both tuple and attribute uncertainty models, which are commonly used to represent uncertain databases. Extensive evaluation on real and synthetic datasets shows that our methods are highly accurate and four orders of magnitudes faster than previous approaches. In further theoretical and experimental studies, we give an intuition which model-based approach fits best to different types of data sets.     

Structural Insights into Conformation Differences between DNA/TNA and RNA/TNA Chimeric Duplexes

Threose nucleic acid (TNA) is an artificial genetic polymer capable of heredity and evolution, and is studied in the context of RNA chemical etiology. It has a four‐carbon threose backbone in place of the five‐carbon ribose of natural nucleic acids, yet forms stable antiparallel complementary Watson–Crick homoduplexes and heteroduplexes with DNA and RNA. TNA base‐pairs more favorably with RNA than with DNA but the reason is unknown. Here, we employed NMR, ITC, UV, and CD to probe the structural and dynamic properties of heteroduplexes of RNA/TNA and DNA/TNA. The results indicate that TNA templates the structure of heteroduplexes, thereby forcing an A‐like helical geometry. NMR measurement of kinetic and thermodynamic parameters for individual base pair opening events reveal unexpected asymmetric “breathing” fluctuations of the DNA/TNA helix. The results suggest that DNA is unable to fully adapt to the conformational constraints of the rigid TNA backbone and that nucleic acid breathing dynamics are determined from both backbone and base contributions.     

Synthesis and characterization of Ni-Mo catalyst using pea pod (Pisum sativum L) as carbon support and its hydrotreating potential for gas oil,Jatropha oil,and their blends

Ni-Mo catalyst was prepared directly on pea pod using boric acid as a surface modifying agent. The BET surface area of the pea pod derived carbon based catalyst was found to be 380 m²/g. The activity of the inventive catalyst was tested in micro down flow reactor for hydrotreating of gas oil, 20% Jatropha oil in gas oil at the temperature range of 330–370°C, 90 bar H₂ pressure and space velocity of 1 h^?1 followed by Jatropha oil at 370°C, and keeping the other process parameters constant. The gas oil hydrotreating activity of the catalyst studied at temperatures below 370°C was found to be lower than that of the commercial alumina- and carbon-supported Ni-Mo catalysts; however, the activity was found to be comparable at 370°C.     

Sustained release of iodine from a polymeric hydrogel device for water disinfection

2‐Hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) based polymeric hydrogels were synthesized by free‐radical redox bulk polymerization technique using 1% ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as crosslinking monomer and ammonium persulfate (APS) and N,N,N′,N′‐tetramethyl ethylenediamine (TEMED) as redox initiator. Polymeric hydrogel samples were loaded with solid elemental iodine. Thermal and physical characteristics of polymer before loading and after 3 months release of iodine were evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). On immersing in water, different forms of iodine were released from the hydrogel device. The amount and rate of release of I^? and I were measured by analytical techniques. Released iodine species showed broad spectrum antimicrobial properties and release was sustained for about 120 days. Polymeric hydrogel iodine‐based system developed can be used as a device for controlled release of iodine species at concentration levels sufficient for disinfection to get potable water. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 3334–3340, 2007