Synthesis of amino-cosubstituted polyorganophosphazenes and fabrication of their nanoparticles for anticancer drug delivery

The development of safe drug carriers is cardinal in cancer therapy, which can target the cancer cells and release the loaded drug on-demand without damaging the healthy cells of the body. In our work, we synthesized three different biodegradable polymers, poly[(ethyl aminobezoate) (ethyl glycinato) phosphazenes] (PABGPs), in different mole ratio of side groups. The successful synthesis of these PABGPs was confirmed by ¹H NMR, ³¹P NMR, FT-IR, and gel permeation chromatography. These PABGPs were fabricated into drug (camptothecin, CPT, a hydrophobic anticancer drug) loaded nanoparticles. These drug-loaded nanoparticles showed good drug release behaviors under normal physiological conditions (pH 7.4 and temperature 37°C). These PABGPs-based nanoparticles may find their application as effective drug carriers for cancer therapy.     

Off-Site Exposure to Respirable Aerosols Produced during the Disk-Incorporation of Class B Biosolids

Field experiments were conducted at a Class B biosolids land application site in central Arizona to measure, model, and source-track the off-site transport of aerosols emitted when biosolids were disk-incorporated into soils. Real-time PM10 monitoring provided time-resolved aerosol information sufficient for verifying both off-site concentration and off-site exposure time model results. Under the conditions considered and at a distance of 165?m from the aerosol source, biosolids disk-incorporation resulted in an intermittent exposure to biosolids-derived aerosol concentration between 15 and 40?μg/m3 and an inhalable biosolids dose between 2 and 8?μg. Transport modeling predicted that these doses will decrease with increasing wind speed. In addition, three DNA sequence-based biosolids source tracking methods were applied to aerosol samples and confirmed the presence of biosolids in aerosols at 5, 65, and 165?m from the aerosol source. Field measurements and modeling indicate that the nature of biosolids-derived aerosol exposure is a series of intermittent high concentration puffs, rather than a continuous low concentration.     

The Influence of the Amount of Fluoride Catalyst on the Morphological Properties of the Anilinepropylsilica Xerogel Prepared in Basic Medium

Anilinepropylsilica hybrid powder was synthesized by a sol-gel route in basic medium using HF as catalyst. The effect of the amount of HF catalyst on the morphologies and on organic content was studied. The xerogels were characterized using FTIR, SEM and N₂ adsorption-desorption isotherms. The increase in the HF quantity results in an slight increase in organic content and changes in the particle size, surface area and pore structure.     

Influence of the silicon surface treatment by plasma etching and scratching on the nucleation of diamond grown in HFCVD - a comparative study

A comparative study for the nucleation of diamond was carried out using surface treatment like (i) surface scratching with 1 μm diamond paste and (ii) surface etching using chlorine plasma at different RF powers (50, 100 and 150 W). Atomic force microscopic study shows variation in roughness from 31 nm to 110 nm. Scratching results in random scratches, whereas plasma etches a surface uniformly. Scanning electron microscopic observations show well faceted crystallites with a predominance of angular shaped grains corresponding to 〈100〉 and 〈110〉 crystallite surfaces for the scratched as well as plasma etched substrate. Surface etching at 150 W plasma power results in a better growth in comparison with 50 and 100 W plasma powers. Chlorine-radical is found responsible for the changes in the growth morphology. Raman spectroscopy shows a sharp peak at 1,332 cm⁻¹ and a peak at ∼1,580 cm⁻¹ for both samples.     

Data decomposition using independent component analysis with prior constraints

In many data analysis problems, it is useful to consider the data as generated from a set of unknown (latent) generators or sources. The observations we make of a system are then taken to be related to these sources through some unknown function. Furthermore, the (unknown) number of underlying latent sources may be less than the number of observations. Recent developments in independent component analysis (ICA) have shown that, in the case where the unknown function linking sources to observations is linear, such data decomposition may be achieved in a mathematically elegant manner. In this paper, we extend the general ICA paradigm to include a very flexible source model, prior constraints and conditioning on sets of intermediate variables so that ICA forms one part of a hierarchical system. We show that such an approach allows for efficient discovery of hidden representation in data and for unsupervised data partitioning.     

Leakage mitigation in NW FET using negative Schottky junction drain and its process variation analysis

Journal of Computational Electronics - In this work, a Schottky junction on the drain side employing low workfunction (WF) metal is proposed as a method to suppress the OFF-state leakage in...     

Sky Based Light Metering for High Dynamic Range Images

Image calibration requires both linearization of pixel values and scaling so that values in the image correspond to real‐world luminances. In this paper we focus on the latter and rather than rely on camera characterization, we calibrate images by analysing their content and metadata, obviating the need for expensive measuring devices or modeling of lens and camera combinations. Our analysis correlates sky pixel values to luminances that would be expected based on geographical metadata. Combined with high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, which gives us linear pixel data, our algorithm allows us to find absolute luminance values for each pixel—effectively turning digital cameras into absolute light meters. To validate our algorithm we have collected and annotated a calibrated set of HDR images and compared our estimation with several other approaches, showing that our approach is able to more accurately recover absolute luminance. We discuss various applications and demonstrate the utility of our method in the context of calibrated color appearance reproduction and lighting design.     

Initial Deposition of Colloidal Particles on a Rough Nanofiltration Membrane

The initial rate of colloid deposition onto semi‐permeable membranes is largely controlled by the coupled influence of permeation drag and particle‐membrane colloidal interactions. Recent studies show that the particle‐membrane interactions are subject to immense local variations due to the inherent morphological heterogeneity (roughness) of reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes. This experimental investigation reports the effect of membrane roughness on the initial deposition of polystyrene latex particles on a rough NF membrane during cross flow membrane filtration under different operating pressures and solution chemistries. Atomic force microscopy was used to characterize the roughness of the membrane and observe the structure of particle deposits. At the initial stages of fouling, the AFM images show that more particles preferentially accumulate near the “peaks” than in the “valleys” of the rough NF membrane surface.     

Eco-friendly electronics,based on nanocomposites of biopolyester reinforced with carbon nanotubes: a review

ABSTRACT

Fabrication of electronic materials from nanocomposite of biopolyesters reinforced with carbon nanotubes can be regarded as the effective alternative for conventional nanocomposites consisting of non-biodegradable polymers. Commercial availability of biopolyester-based nanocomposites is limited because of their high cost compared to other polymers, but the factor of their compostable nature is worthless for environmental protection. Such nanocomposites have potential applications in biodegradable sensors, EMI materials, etc. In this review, the current progress of biopolyester/CNTs nanocomposites in the field of biodegradable electronics is reviewed and also the impact of CNTs dispersion on electrical, thermal and mechanical properties of eco composites is stipulated.     

Ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene with improved crosslink density,oxidation stability,and microbial inhibition by chemical crosslinking and tea polyphenols for total joint replacements

Highly crosslinked ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) stabilized by vitamin E (VE) is widely applied in artificial joints as the bearings. Despite the approval, there is a discord that VE lowers the crosslinking efficiency, limiting its use at high concentration. In this work, we aim to obtain highly crosslinked and oxidation resistant UHMWPE through the conjunction of tea polyphenol and chemical crosslinking. We hypothesized that highly incorporated tea polyphenol with multiple reactive sites can ameliorate crosslinking efficiency of chemical crosslinked UHMWPE in comparison to VE. Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) as representative tea polyphenol was incorporated into UHMWPE at high concentration (2–8 wt%), followed by chemical crosslinking with 2 wt% organic peroxide. Unlike VE/UHMWPE blends as the control, chemical crosslinking achieved an increasing trend in crosslink density of EGCG/UHMWPE blends with increasing antioxidant concentration. High concentration of EGCG also enhanced the oxidation stability of UHMWPE. Intriguingly, EGCG endowed UHMWPE with an excellent antimicrobial property, which was inefficient in VE/UHMWPE. Cell viability was hardly affected by the high loaded antioxidant and peroxide. The chemically crosslinked UHMWPE blended with EGCG is proved to be a reasonable, cost effective and realistic alternative for use in artificial joints.