Coating nanodiamonds with biocompatible shells for applications in biology and medicine

Use of nanodiamonds (NDs) as nontoxic nanoparticles for biological imaging, sensing, and drug delivery is expanding rapidly. The interest in NDs is triggered by their unique combination of optical properties. ND can accommodate nitrogen-vacancy color centers which provide stable fluorescence without photobleaching or photoblinking and their electronic structure is very sensitive to magnetic and electric fields. The limited options to control ND properties during synthesis or by direct surface functionalization leave room to be improved upon by employing surface coatings engineered precisely for a particular application. The major disadvantages of unmodified NDs are their limited colloidal stability and tendency to non-specifically adsorb biomolecules. This review aims to summarize recent advances in coating NDs (namely with silica and polymer shells), which addresses these disadvantages and enables the use of NDs in biological applications such as targeting of specific cells, drug delivery, and biological imaging.     

Using Landscape Characteristics for Targeting Habitat Conservation and Restoration: A case study of ancient semi-natural woodland in the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty,UK

Ancient semi-natural deciduous woodland is a rare and threatened habitat cited by the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC). Current protection of this endangered habitat in the UK takes the form of site-specific reserve designations but, if the habitat is to be conserved and enhanced, a landscape-scale selective targeting system is required. In the absence of suitable species data, physical attributes of habitat patches are used as surrogate indicators of biodiversity. Using a land-use database held on a geographical information system, values of four abiotic criteria (patch area, patch shape, nearest-neighbour distance and surrounding land use) of 48 ancient semi-natural woodland patches in part of the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty were calculated. In order to validate the findings, three lists of floral and faunal species, indicative of ancient semi-natural woodland, were compiled, and the patches ranked according to their alpha diversity using each list. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were calculated for patch alpha diversity and patch area (0.322 to 0.482), patch shape (0.275 to 0.465) and nearest-neighbour distance ( - 0.092 to - 0.223). Multiple regression indicated that between 15 and 22% of the variation in alpha patch diversity was explained by the abiotic factors. It is suggested that spatial targeting at the landscape scale is a valuable approach to habitat conservation.     

Targeting for cogeneration potential through total site integration

Total site integration offers energy conservation opportunities across different individual processes and also to design as well as to optimize the central utility system. In total site integration of the overall process, indirect integration with intermediate fluids or through a central utility system are preferred as it offers greater advantages of flexibility and process control but with reduced energy conservation opportunities. To achieve the maximum possible indirect integration between processes assisted heat transfer, i.e., heat transfer outside the region between process pinch points, plays a significant role. A new concept is proposed in this paper for total site integration by generating a site level grand composite curve (SGCC). Proposed SGCC targets the maximum possible indirect integration as it incorporates assisted heat transfer. In this paper, a methodology is proposed to estimate the cogeneration potential at the total site level, utilizing the concept of multiple utility targeting on the SGCC. The proposed methodology to estimate the cogeneration potential is simple and linear as well as utilizes the rigorous energy balance at each steam header.     

Automated targeting for inter-plant water integration

Apart from in-plant water recovery, inter-plant water integration (IPWI) offers another promising mean for the reduction of fresh water and wastewater flowrates for process plants. This paper extends the automated targeting technique that was developed for single water network into IPWI. This optimisation-based technique is based on the concept of pinch analysis, which enables the setting of various network targets prior to detailed design. The automated targeting technique is formulated as a linear programming model for which global optimum is guaranteed. The proposed technique is demonstrated using several industrial and literature examples.     

Native Mass Spectrometry for the Study of PROTAC GNE-987-Containing Ternary Complexes

PRO teolysis TA rgeting C himeras (PROTACs) promote the degradation, rather than inhibition, of a drug target as a mechanism for therapeutic treatment. Bifunctional PROTAC molecules allow simultaneous binding of both the target protein and an E3-Ubiquitin ligase, bringing the two proteins into close spatial proximity to allow ubiquitinylation and degradation of the target protein via the cell's endogenous protein degradation pathway. We utilized native mass spectrometry (MS) to study the ternary complexes promoted by the previously reported PROTAC GNE-987 between Brd4 bromodomains 1 and 2, and Von Hippel Lindeau E3-Ubiquitin Ligase. Native MS at high resolution allowed us to measure ternary complex formation as a function of PROTAC concentration to provide a measure of complex affinity and stability, whilst simultaneously measuring other intermediate protein species. Native MS provides a high-throughput, low sample consumption, direct screening method to measure ternary complexes for PROTAC development.     

Planning of carbon capture and storage with pinch analysis techniques

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a means for reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fossil fuel combustion in power generation and industrial processes. It involves the capture of CO₂ for subsequent storage in various geological formations. The selection and matching of the power plants and storage sites are often an issue of optimisation due to various constraints, i.e., time of availability, injection rate, and storage capacity limits. In this work, a novel graphical targeting tool based on pinch analysis is proposed to address the planning problem of the storage of captured CO₂ from power generating plants into corresponding reservoirs. The main consideration for the problem is the time of availability of the latter, since reservoirs need to be developed prior to CO₂ storage. The time limitation is addressed by the graphical technique where time is taken as the governing element in solving the problem. Hypothetical examples are used to elucidate the proposed approach.     

特异性杀伤肝癌细胞的噬菌体药物载体的构建

目的以T4噬菌体为载体,构建特异性杀伤肝癌细胞的噬菌体药物载体,并对其选择性细胞毒活性进行初步评价。方法通过噬菌体文库筛选肝癌细胞特异性结合肽(tumor specific peptide,TSP),利用分子克隆技术和噬菌体体外展示技术,将其与噬菌体小衣壳蛋白Soc重组,并展示在T4噬菌体表面。同时通过1-乙基(-3-二甲基氨基丙级基)碳酰二亚胺[1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide hydrochloride,EDC]化学法,将表阿霉素(epido-xorubicin,Epi)偶联在噬菌体衣壳表面,采用MTT法在细胞水平上检测噬菌体药物载体对人肝癌细胞Bel-7402和正常肝细胞HL-7702的选择性杀伤作用。结果 Soc-TSP融合蛋白以846拷贝/噬菌体颗粒的密度展示在T4噬菌体表面,Epi载药率达每个噬菌体颗粒表面近2 000个药物分子。与游离的Epi相比,构建的T4噬菌体药物载体对肝癌Bel-7402细胞的杀伤作用提高了4⁶倍,而对正常肝细胞HL-7702的影响不大。结论肿瘤特异噬菌体药物载体可提高药物对肿瘤细胞的靶向性以及肿瘤细胞对药物分子的摄入,从而实现对肿瘤细胞的特异性杀伤。     

New Particle Swarm Optimisation Algorithm with H′enon Chaotic Map Structure

A new Particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm based on the H′enon chaotic map (hereafter HCPSO algorithm) is presented in this paper to deal with the premature convergence problem of the traditional PSO algorithm. The HCPSO algorithm changes the structure of the traditional PSO algorithm and deviates from the structures of conventional hybrid algorithms that merely introduce chaotic searching into PSO. Based on the con-vergence condition of PSO, the HCPSO algorithm can im-prove solution precision and increase the convergence rate by combing using the targeting technique of chaotic map-ping. For validation, fourteen benchmark functions were used to compare the proposed algorithm with six other hy-brid PSO algorithms. The experimental results indicated that the HCPSO algorithm is superior to the other algo-rithms in terms of convergence speed and solution accu-racy.     

肿瘤导向光敏药物研究现状及发展构想

单克隆抗体偶联光敏药物介导的光动力靶向治疗肿瘤是继手术、放疗和化疗而来的肿瘤治疗方法。本文综述了抗体导向光敏药物的研究进展，并提出构建靶向光敏药物的新设想。     

Floating pinch method for utility targeting in heat exchanger network (HEN)

Most of the established methods for utility targeting in a heat exchanger network (HEN) are mainly focusing on fixed stream conditions, where the flow rate, heat capacity, supply and target temperatures are fixed. However, in the process industries, the stream conditions (flow rates and temperatures) are not fixed. Therefore, the established HEN targeting methods cannot be directly applied to locate the hot and cold utility targets for HEN problem with varying flow rates and temperatures. To address this issue, a revised floating pinch method which uses binary variables to parameterise the stream locations on the composite curves, is presented in this work to identify the minimum utilities targets. The revised method simplify the earlier version of floating pinch method presented by Duran and Grossmann (1986) by avoiding the non-differentiability in the mathematical program. Two cases, one with fixed parameters while another with temperature-dependent properties and varying operating parameters are solved to illustrate the revised model.