Insight into the Impact of Oxidative Stress on the Barrier Properties of Lipid Bilayer Models

As a new field of oxidative stress-based therapy, cold physical plasma is a promising tool for several biomedical applications due to its potential to create a broad diversity of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS). Although proposed, the impact of plasma-derived RONS on the cell membrane lipids and properties is not fully understood. For this purpose, the changes in the lipid bilayer functionality under oxidative stress generated by an argon plasma jet (kINPen) were investigated by electrochemical techniques. In addition, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was employed to analyze the plasma-induced modifications on the model lipids. Various asymmetric bilayers mimicking the structure and properties of the erythrocyte cell membrane were transferred onto a gold electrode surface by Langmuir-Blodgett/Langmuir-Schaefer deposition techniques. A strong impact of cholesterol on membrane permeabilization by plasma-derived species was revealed. Moreover, the maintenance of the barrier properties is influenced by the chemical composition of the head group. Mainly the head group size and its hydrogen bonding capacities are relevant, and phosphatidylcholines are significantly more susceptible than phosphatidylserines and other lipid classes, underlining the high relevance of this lipid class in membrane dynamics and cell physiology.     

Topical Capsaicin in Poly(lactic-co-glycolic)acid (PLGA) Nanoparticles Decreases Acute Itch and Heat Pain

Background: Capsaicin, the hot pepper agent, produces burning followed by desensitization. To treat localized itch or pain with minimal burning, low capsaicin concentrations can be repeatedly applied. We hypothesized that alternatively controlled release of capsaicin from poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles desensitizes superficially terminating nociceptors, reducing burning. Methods: Capsaicin-loaded PLGA nanoparticles were prepared (single-emulsion solvent evaporation) and characterized (size, morphology, capsaicin loading, encapsulation efficiency, in vitro release profile). Capsaicin-PLGA nanoparticles were applied to murine skin and evaluated in healthy human participants (n = 21) for 4 days under blinded conditions, and itch and nociceptive sensations evoked by mechanical, heat stimuli and pruritogens cowhage, β-alanine, BAM8-22 and histamine were evaluated. Results: Nanoparticles (loading: 58 µg capsaicin/mg) released in vitro 23% capsaicin within the first hour and had complete release at 72 h. In mice, 24 h post-application Capsaicin-PLGA nanoparticles penetrated the dermis and led to decreased nociceptive behavioral responses to heat and mechanical stimulation (desensitization). Application in humans produced a weak to moderate burning, dissipating after 3 h. A loss of heat pain up to 2 weeks was observed. After capsaicin nanoparticles, itch and nociceptive sensations were reduced in response to pruritogens cowhage, β-alanine or BAM8-22, but were normal to histamine. Conclusions: Capsaicin nanoparticles could be useful in reducing pain and itch associated with pruritic diseases that are histamine-independent.     

Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of heart sound reduction from lung sound recordings

Recursive least squares (RLS) adaptive noise cancellation (ANC) and wavelet transform (WT) ANC have been applied and compared for heart sound (HS) reduction from lung sounds (LS) recordings. Novel processes for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of any method for HS reduction from LS have also been proposed.     

Dielectric–Semiconductor Interface Limits Charge Carrier Motion at Elevated Temperatures and Large Carrier Densities in a High‐Mobility Organic Semiconductor

The fundamental nature of charge transport in highly ordered organic semiconductors is under constant debate. At cryogenic temperatures, effects within the semiconductor such as traps or the interaction of charge carriers with the insulating substrate (dipolar disorder or Fröhlich polarons) are known to limit carrier motion. In comparison, at elevated temperatures, where charge carrier mobility often also decreases as function of temperature, phonon scattering or dynamic disorder are frequently discussed mechanisms, but the exact microscopic cause that limits carrier motion is debated. Here, the mobility in the temperature range between 200 and 420 K as function of carrier density is explored in highly ordered perylene‐diimide from 3 to 9 nm thin films. It is observed that above room temperature increasing the gate electric field or decreasing the semiconducting film thickness leads to a suppression of the charge carrier mobility. Via X‐ray diffraction measurements at various temperatures and electric fields, changes of the thin film structure are excluded as cause for the observed mobility decrease. The experimental findings point toward scattering sites or traps at the semiconductor–dielectric interface, or in the dielectric as limiting factor for carrier mobility, whose role is usually neglected at elevated temperatures.     

Comparative studies on protein fractions and amino acid composition from sorghum and pearl millet

A defatted flour sample of sorghum and pearl millet were separated into three fractions. These procedures involve extracting the defatted flour with aqueous sodium hydroxide (pH 11.9) followed by precipitation with diluted HCl acid (pH 4.8). The two protein fractions I (soluble at pH 4.8) and II (insoluble at pH 4.8) along with the remaining residues (fraction III) were lyophilized separately. The amino acid composition of the original flour and the three fractions were determined. Lysine seems to be the most deficient amino acid in the original flour and the remaining residues. Fraction I and II, in which the lysine accumulated, have essentially better amino acid profile and consequently nutritionally better quality than the protein of the original defatted flour. The recovered protein-rich fractions I and II should be useful as a protein ingredient in foods. The remaining residues can be extruded into convenience foods.     

Tuning Thermal Transport Through Atomically Thin Ti3C2Tz MXene by Current Annealing in Vacuum

Heat transport across vertical interfaces of heterogeneous 2D materials is usually governed by the weak Van der Waals interactions of the surface‐terminating atoms. Such interactions play a significant role in thermal transport across transition metal carbide and nitride (MXene) atomic layers due to their hydrophilic nature and variations in surface terminations. Here, the metallicity of atomically thin Ti₃C₂T_z MXene, which is also verified by scanning tunneling spectroscopy for the first time, is exploited to develop a self‐heating/self‐sensing platform to carry out direct‐current annealing experiments in high (<10^?8 bar) vacuum, while simultaneously evaluating the interfacial heat transport across a Ti₃C₂T_z/SiO₂ interface. At room temperature, the thermal boundary conductance (TBC) of this interface is found, on average, to increase from 10 to 27 MW m^?2 K^?1 upon current annealing up to the breakdown limit. In situ heating X‐ray diffraction and X‐ray photo‐electron spectroscopy reveal that the TBC values are mainly affected by interlayer and interface spacing due to the removal of absorbents, while the effect of surface termination is negligible. This study provides key insights into understanding energy transport in MXene nanostructures and other 2D material systems.     

GOP-SDN: an enhanced load balancing method based on genetic and optimized particle swarm optimization algorithm in distributed SDNs

Wireless Networks - One of the biggest challenges of distributed software defined networks (SDNs) is to create load balancing on controllers to reduce response time. Although recent studies have...     

Improved impossible differential and biclique cryptanalysis of HIGHT

HIGHT is a lightweight block cipher introduced in CHES 2006 by Hong et al as a block cipher suitable for low‐resource applications. In this paper, we propose improved impossible differential and biclique attacks on HIGHT block cipher both exploiting the permutation‐based property of the cipher's key schedule algorithm as well as its low diffusion. For impossible differential attack, we found a new 17‐round impossible differential characteristic that enables us to propose a new 27‐round impossible differential attack. The total time complexity of the attack is 2^120.4 where an amount of 2^59.3 chosen plaintext‐ciphertext pairs and 2^107.4 memory are required. We also instantiate a new biclique cryptanalysis of HIGHT, which is based on the new idea of splitting each of the forward and backward keys into 2 parts where the computations associated to each one are performed independently. The time complexity and data complexity of this attack are 2^125.7 and 2⁴², respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the fastest biclique attack on full‐round HIGHT.     

Experimental investigation into Fe3O4/SiO2 nanoparticle performance and comparison with other nanofluids in enhanced oil recovery

Nanofluids because of their surface characteristics improve the oil production from reservoirs by enabling different enhanced recovery mechanisms such as wettability alteration, interfacial tension (IFT) reduction, oil viscosity reduction, formation and stabilization of colloidal systems and the decrease in the asphaltene precipitation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the synthesis of a new nanocomposite has been studied in this paper for the first time. It consists of nanoparticles of both SiO₂ and Fe₃O₄. Each nanoparticle has its individual surface property and has its distinct effect on the oil production of reservoirs. According to the previous studies, Fe₃O₄ has been used in the prevention or reduction of asphaltene precipitation and SiO₂ has been considered for wettability alteration and/or reducing IFTs in enhanced oil recovery. According to the experimental results, the novel synthesized nanoparticles have increased the oil recovery by the synergistic effects of the formed particles markedly by activating the various mechanisms relative to the use of each of the nanoparticles in the micromodel individually. According to the results obtained for the use of this nanocomposite, understanding reservoir conditions plays an important role in the ultimate goal of enhancing oil recovery and the formation of stable emulsions plays an important role in oil recovery using this method.