Visual Detection of Adenosine Triphosphate by Taylor Rising: A Simple Point-of-Care Testing Method Based on Rolling Circle Amplification

Rapid and sensitive point-of-care testing (POCT) is an extremely critical mission in practical applications, especially for rigorous military medicine, home health care, and in the third world. Here, we report a visual POCT method for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) detection based on Taylor rising in the corner of quadratic geometries between two rod surfaces. We discuss the principle of Taylor rising, demonstrating that it is significantly influenced by contact angle, surface tension, and density of the sample, which are controlled by ATP-dependent rolling circle amplification (RCA). In the presence of ATP, RCA reaction effectively suppresses Taylor-rising behavior, due to the increased contact angle, density, and decreased surface tension. Without addition of ATP, untriggered RCA reaction is favorable for Taylor rising, resulting in a significant height. With this proposed method, visual sensitive detection of ATP without the aid of other instruments is realized with only a 5 μL droplet, which has good selectivity and a low detection limit (17 nM). Importantly, this visual method provides a promising POCT tool for user-friendly molecular diagnostics.     

Multicellular Tumor Spheroids (MCTS) as a 3D In Vitro Evaluation Tool of Nanoparticles

Multicellular tumor spheroid models (MCTS) are often coined as 3D in vitro models that can mimic the microenvironment of tissues. MCTS have gained increasing interest in the nano‐biotechnology field as they can provide easily accessible information on the performance of nanoparticles without using animal models. Considering that many countries have put restrictions on animals testing, which will only tighten in the future as seen by the recent developments in the Netherlands, 3D models will become an even more valuable tool. Here, an overview on MCTS is provided, focusing on their use in cancer research as most nanoparticles are tested in MCTS for treatment of primary tumors. Thereafter, various types of nanoparticles—from self‐assembled block copolymers to inorganic nanoparticles, are discussed. A range of physicochemical parameters including the size, shape, surface chemistry, ligands attachment, stability, and stiffness are found to influence nanoparticles in MCTS. Some of these studies are complemented by animal studies confirming that lessons from MCTS can in part predict the behaviour in vivo. In summary, MCTS are suitable models to gain additional information on nanoparticles. While not being able to replace in vivo studies, they can bridge the gap between traditional 2D in vitro studies and in vivo models.     

Finite element piezothermoelasticity analysis and the active control of FGM plates with integrated piezoelectric sensors and actuators

 An efficient finite element model is presented for the static and dynamic piezothermoelastic analysis and control of FGM plates under temperature gradient environments using integrated piezoelectric sensor/actuator layers. The properties of an FGM plate are functionally graded in the thickness direction according to a volume fraction power law distribution. A constant displacement-cum-velocity feedback control algorithm that couples the direct and inverse piezoelectric effects is applied to provide active feedback control of the integrated FGM plate in a closed loop system. Numerical results for the static and dynamic control are presented for the FGM plate, which consists of zirconia and aluminum. The effects of the constituent volume fractions and the influence of feedback control gain on the static and dynamic responses of the FGM plates are examined. Received: 13 March 2002 / Accepted: 5 March 2003 The work described in this paper was supported by a grant awarded by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. CityU 1024/01E).     

一种新颖的表面等离子谐振效应光波导水质传感技术

光学表面等离子谐振（ＳＰＲ）效应是一种很有效的水质检测技术，经过详细的理论推导，同了ＳＰＲ反射光强的普遍适用公式。在纯水与受污染水两种情况下，根据一些已知参数计算出结果。由计算结果数据一出的曲线比较表明，ＳＰＲ效应在两种情况下有明显差别，这也正是ＳＰＲ效应用于水质检测的理论根据。     

氢电弧等离子体法制备的纳米镍铈粒子的催化特性

利用氢电弧等离子法制备具有储氢特性纳米镍铈粒子，并在气相苯加氢反应中研究了其催化特性，发现其催化活性与储氢特性及表面层中ＮｉＣｅ合金存在有关，且具有高的选择性和热稳定性，这与纳米粒子独特的结构及铈的加入有关。     

ZnGa2O4纳米晶的制备和结构表征

采用喷射共沉淀法制备了ZnGa2O4 纳米晶，XRD、SEM和TEM结构分析结果表明，喷射共沉淀法制备的ZnGa2O4的纳米晶颗粒细小均匀，形状完整，与化学共沉淀法相比，粒子尺寸明显减小，小于10nm，同时ZnO杂相峰消失，分析了喷射共沉淀法的机理，并对实验结果进行了解释。