Ir(III) and Ru(II) Complexes in Photoredox Catalysis and Photodynamic Therapy: A New Paradigm towards Anticancer Applications

Individually, photoredox catalysis (PC) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) are well-established concepts that have experienced a remarkable resurgence in recent years, leading to significant progress in organic synthesis for PC and clinical approval of anticancer drugs for PDT. But, very recently, new photoredox catalyst systems based on Ir(III) and Ru(II) complexes have garnered significant interest because they can simultaneously be used as PDT agents apart from their demonstrated PC activity. This highlight discusses the unique PC behavior of emerging Ir(III)- and Ru(II)-based systems while also examining their potential PDT activity in cancer treatment.     

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.     

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...     

Prediction of human breast and colon cancers from imbalanced data using nearest neighbor and support vector machines

This study proposes a novel prediction approach for human breast and colon cancers using different feature spaces. The proposed scheme consists of two stages: the preprocessor and the predictor. In the preprocessor stage, the mega-trend diffusion (MTD) technique is employed to increase the samples of the minority class, thereby balancing the dataset. In the predictor stage, machine-learning approaches of K-nearest neighbor (KNN) and support vector machines (SVM) are used to develop hybrid MTD-SVM and MTD-KNN prediction models. MTD-SVM model has provided the best values of accuracy, G-mean and Matthew's correlation coefficient of 96.71%, 96.70% and 71.98% for cancer/non-cancer dataset, breast/non-breast cancer dataset and colon/non-colon cancer dataset, respectively. We found that hybrid MTD-SVM is the best with respect to prediction performance and computational cost. MTD-KNN model has achieved moderately better prediction as compared to hybrid MTD-NB (Naïve Bayes) but at the expense of higher computing cost. MTD-KNN model is faster than MTD-RF (random forest) but its prediction is not better than MTD-RF. To the best of our knowledge, the reported results are the best results, so far, for these datasets. The proposed scheme indicates that the developed models can be used as a tool for the prediction of cancer. This scheme may be useful for study of any sequential information such as protein sequence or any nucleic acid sequence.     

Polymer and nanobelt derived nanomaterials: opening doors to revolutionary stadia

ABSTRACT

The state-of-the-art article presents concepts of nanobelt nanofiller, inimitable properties of derived polymeric nanocomposite, applications, and outlook on challenges to gain next generation high-performance materials. Nanobelt is a one-dimensional nanostructured nanomaterial. Owing to minuscule size and high surface area, nanobelt possesses unique structural, optical, electronic, mechanical, and thermal characteristics. Nanobelt exists in various forms such as carbon nanobelt, polymer nanobelt, and inorganic. These nanobelts have been used to develop polymer/nanobelt nanocomposites. Homogeneous dispersion of nanobelt in polymer matrices is desirable to enhance the characteristics of polymer/nanobelt nanocomposite. Consequently, innovations in design, fabrication, and properties of various polymer/nanobelt nanocomposite are summarized. Applications of polymer/nanobelt nanocomposite are reviewed for Li-ion battery, supercapacitor, sensor, membrane, and biomedical arenas.     

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.     

Raman spectroscopy studies of concentrated vanadium redox battery positive electrolytes

Spectroscopic changes in highly concentrated vanadium(V)-sulfate solutions to be used in the vanadium redox battery are consistent with the presence of more than one V(V)-sulfate species. The results of Raman spectroscopy indicate that the major species in highly acidic conditions are VO₂SO₄ ^–, VO₂(SO₄)₂ ^3–, VO₂(HSO₄)₂ ^–, VO₃ ^–, V(V) dimers with V₂O₃ ⁴⁺ and V₂O₄ ²⁺ central units. The nature and amount of these species depends upon the V(V) and total sulfate concentrations as well as on S to V and H⁺ to V ratios in the positive half-cell electrolyte. V(V) forms V₂O₃ ⁴⁺, VO₂(SO₄)₂ ^3– and their copolymer species at higher total sulfate concentrations, which tends to stabilize the vanadium (V) positive electrolyte in the vanadium redox battery. The V(V) and V(IV) species show the least interaction with each other. Ageing of concentrated V(V) solutions at elevated temperature (50 °C) produces decomposition of species causing formation of V₂O₅ precipitates with a decrease in the amount of vanadium polymer.