bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Directional Self‐Assembly and Photoinduced Polymerization of Diacetylene‐Containing Platinum(II) Terpyridine Complexes
Authors: Fang Shishi , Leung Sammual Yu‐Lut , Li Yongguang , Yam Vivian Wing‐Wah 
Published: September 2018

AbstractA series of newly designed and synthesized diacetylene‐containing platinum(II) terpyridine complexes exhibited intriguing self‐assembly properties. Facilitated by Pt⋅⋅⋅Pt, π–π stacking, hydrogen‐bonding and hydrophobic–hydrophobic interactions, these complexes are preorganized to readily undergo topochemical polymerization reactions upon photoirradiation. The in situ polymerization of the diacetylene units to form polydiacetylene, indicated by the UV/Vis spectral changes, gel permeation chromatography and dynamic light scattering, was found to alter their assembly behaviours, as revealed by TEM images.
Metallacarboranes on the Road to Anticancer Therapies: Cellular Uptake, DNA Interaction, and Biological Evaluation of Cobaltabisdicarbollide [COSAN]−
Authors: Fuentes Isabel , García‐Mendiola Tania , Sato Shinichi , Pita Marcos , Nakamura Hiroyuki , Lorenzo Encarnación , Teixidor Francesc , Marques Fernanda , Viñas Clara 
Published: September 2018

AbstractAfter uptake by U87 MG and A375 cancer cells, cobaltabisdicarbollide [COSAN]− distributes between membrane and nucleus and presents no relevant cytotoxicity against both cell lines even for long incubation times. The cytotoxicity of Na[COSAN] was also tested towards one normal cell line, the V79 fibroblasts, in order to ascertain the noncytotoxic profile of the compound. As the cell's nucleus contains DNA, the interaction between [COSAN]− and double‐stranded calf thymus DNA (CT‐dsDNA) has been investigated. There is a strong interaction between both molecules forming a nanohybrid CT‐dsDNA‐[COSAN] biomaterial, which was fully characterized. Moreover, Na[COSAN] shows characteristic redox peaks ascribed to the oxidation/reduction of Co3+/2+ at a formal potential of −1.444 V and it can be accumulated at a surface‐immobilized DNA layer of glassy carbon electrodes. The equilibrium surface‐binding constants (Kox/Kred), which confirm that [COSAN]− interacts with DNA by an intercalative or electrostatic mode, depending on the ionic strength of the solution, were estimated. In addition, high binding affinity of Na[COSAN] to proteins was observed by 11B{1H} NMR and confirmed in vivo. Finally, biodistribution studies of [COSAN]− in normal mice were run. After administration, Na[COSAN] was distributed into many organs but mainly accumulated in the reticuloendothelial system (RES), including liver and spleen. After 1 h, the formation of aggregates by plasma protein interaction plays a role in the biodistribution profile; the aggregates accumulate mostly in the lungs. Na[COSAN], which displays low toxicity and high uptake by relevant cancer cells accumulating boron within the nucleus, could act as a suitable compound for further developments as boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) agents.
Low‐Temperature Cross‐Linkable Small Molecules for Fully Solution‐Processed OLEDs
Authors: Lee Sungkoo , Seo Min Hye 
Published: September 2018

AbstractCross‐linkable hole‐transporting, host, and electron‐transporting materials with a new cross‐linking group, uracil, are designed and synthesized. These compounds exhibited good solubility in common organic solvents and excellent solvent resistance after cross‐linking at a low temperature of 120 °C. The OLED was fabricated by all‐solution processing using cross‐linkable synthetic compounds, except for the electrodes. This device exhibited a current efficiency of 39.2 cd A−1 and a power efficiency of 15.3 lm W−1.
Bifunctional Molecular Probes for Activity‐Based Visualization of Quinone‐Dependent Amine Oxidases
Authors: Burke Ashley A. , Barrows Luke , Solares Maria J. , Wall Alexander D. , Jakobsche Charles E. 
Published: September 2018

AbstractThe design, synthesis, and evaluation of two bifunctional molecular probes that can be used to visualize quinone‐dependent amine oxidase enzymes in an activity‐dependent manner are described. These probes use alkylhydrazines to irreversibly bind the target enzymes, which can then be visualized with either Western blotting or in‐gel fluorescence. The results show that the Western blotting readout, which utilizes commercially available anti‐nitrophenyl antibodies to detect a simple dinitrophenyl antigen, provides a stronger readout than the fluorescein‐based fluorescence readout. This visualization strategy can be used to measure the potency of enzyme inhibitors by selectively visualizing the active enzyme that remains after treatment with an inhibitor. Looking forward, this probe molecule and visualization strategy will enable activity‐based protein‐profiling experiments, such as determining inhibitor selectivity values within full proteome mixtures, for this family of amine oxidase enzymes.
Tuning Ion Complexing To Rapidly Prepare Hollow Ag–Pt Nanowires with High Activity toward the Methanol Oxidization Reaction
Authors: Liu Fangyan , Qi Peimei , Liang Xiaoli , Chen Wei , Li Benxia , Zhang Lijie , Yang Yun , Huang Shaoming 
Published: September 2018

AbstractHollow Pt‐based nanowires (NWs) have important applications in catalysis. Their preparation often involves a two‐step process in which M (M=Ag, Pd, Co, Ni) NWs are prepared and subsequently subjected to galvanic reaction in solution containing a Pt precursor. It is challenging to achieve a simple one‐step preparation, because the redox potential of PtIV/Pt or PtII/Pt to Pt is high, and therefore, Pt atoms always form first. This work demonstrates that an appropriate pH can decrease the redox potential of PtIV/Pt and allows the one‐step preparation of high‐quality hollow Pt–Ag NWs rapidly (10 min). Moreover, it is easy to realize large‐scale preparation with this method. The NW composition can be adjusted readily to optimize their performance in the electrocatalytic methanol oxidization reaction (MOR). Compared with commercial Pt/C, NWs with appropriate Ag/Pt ratios exhibit high stability, activity, and CO tolerance ability.
Resolution of isoborneol and its isomers by GC/MS to identify “synthetic” and “semi‐synthetic” borneol products
Authors: Yang Ming‐Yeh , Khine Aye Aye , Liu Jen‐Wei , Cheng Hui‐Chen , Hu Anren , Chen Hao‐Ping , Shih Tzenge‐Lien 
Published: September 2018

AbstractBorneol is a plant terpene commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. Optically pure (+)‐borneol and (−)‐borneol can be obtained by extraction from the plants Dipterocarpaceae and Blumea balsamifera, respectively. “Synthetic borneol” is obtained from the reduction of (±)‐camphor to lead to four different stereoisomers: (+)‐isoborneol, (−)‐isoborneol, (+)‐borneol, and (−)‐borneol. In contrast, “semi‐synthetic borneol” is produced from the reduction of natural camphor, (+)‐camphor, to afford two isomers: (−)‐isoborneol and (+)‐borneol. We established a convenient method to identify them by treating the four stereoisomers with two chiral reagents, (R)‐(+)‐α‐methoxy‐α‐trifluoromethylphenylacetyl chloride ((R)‐(+)‐MTPA‐Cl) and (1S)‐(−)‐ camphanic chloride. The resulting derivatives from the above mentioned method were analyzed by gas chromatography. The enantiomers of (+)‐ and (−)‐isoborneol were successfully separated from (+)‐ and (−)‐borneol isomers in this study to make this a useful method in the identification of “synthetic” and “semi‐synthetic” borneols. Furthermore, we also examined five different commercial borneols. During this course, a novel and unprecedented partial epimerization from isoborneol‐camphanic ester to borneol‐camphanic ester was observed. However, this phenomenon did not occur in isoborneol‐MTPA esters epimerization to borneol‐MTPA case under the same conditions. The DFT calculation of activation energies for both reactions was in a good agreement with the results obtained from GC analysis.
L1, Lp, L2, and elastic net penalties for regularization of Gaussian component distributions in magnetic resonance relaxometry
Authors: Sabett Christiana , Hafftka Ariel , Sexton Kyle , Spencer Richard G. 
Published: September 2018

AbstractDetermination of the distribution of magnetic resonance (MR) transverse relaxation times is emerging as an important method for materials characterization, including assessment of tissue pathology in biomedicine. These distributions are obtained from the inverse Laplace transform (ILT) of multiexponential decay data. Stabilization of this classically ill‐posed problem is most commonly attempted using Tikhonov regularization with an L2penalty term. However, with the availability of convex optimization algorithms and recognition of the importance of sparsity in model reconstruction, there has been increasing interest in alternative penalties. The L1penalty enforces a greater degree of sparsity than L2, and so may be suitable for highly localized relaxation time distributions. In addition, Lppenalties, 1 < p < 2, and the elastic net (EN) penalty, defined as a linear combination of L1and L2penalties, may be appropriate for distributions consisting of both narrow and broad components. We evaluate the L1, L2, Lp, andENpenalties for model relaxation time distributions consisting of two Gaussian peaks. For distributions with narrow Gaussian peaks, the L1penalty works well to maintain sparsity and promote resolution, while the conventional L2penalty performs best for distributions with broader peaks. Finally, the LpandENpenalties do in fact outperform the L1and L2penalties for distributions with components of unequal widths. These findings serve as indicators of appropriate regularization in the typical situation in which the experimentalist has a priori knowledge of the general characteristics of the underlying relaxation time distribution. Our findings can be applied to both the recovery of T2distributions from spin echo decay data as well as distributions of otherMRparameters, such as apparent diffusion constant, from their multiexponential decay signals.
Variational Bayesian analysis of nonuniformly sampled NMR data
Authors: Worley Bradley 
Published: September 2018

AbstractNonuniform sampling (NUS) offers NMR spectroscopists a means of accelerating data collection and increasing spectral quality in multidimensional (nD) experiments. The data from NUS experiments are incomplete by design, and must be reconstructed prior to use. While most existing reconstruction techniques compute point estimates of the true signal, Bayesian statistics offers a means of estimating posterior distributions over the signal, which enable more rigorous quantitation and uncertainty estimation. In this article, we describe the variational approach to approximating Bayesian posterior distributions, and illustrate how it can be applied to extend existing results from Bayesian spectrum analysis and compressed sensing. The new NUS reconstruction algorithms resulting from variational Bayes are computationally efficient, and offer new insights into the concepts of spectral sparsity and optimal sampling in NMR experiments.
Probing the Interfaces in Nanosilica‐Supported TiO2 Photocatalysts by Solid‐State NMR and In Situ FTIR
Authors: Singh Rustam , Bayal Nisha , Maity Ayan , Pradeep D. Jeiyendira , Trébosc Julien , Madhu P. K. , Lafon Olivier , Polshettiwar Vivek 
Published: September 2018

AbstractAlthough the range of photocatalysts with controllable size, shape and morphology has developed in recent years with a large number of silica‐supported TiO2 catalysts, the details of photocatalytic interfaces between nanosilica and TiO2 them and the mechanisms of TiO2 functionalization of silica surfaces are not yet well understood. It is worth mentioning that the understanding of a mechanism from a molecular point of view has always been a challenge in the field of materials science. Here, we probe interfaces in (dendritic fibrous nano‐silica (DFNS) supported TiO2 photocatalysts as well as propose and prove the formation mechanism of the photocatalyst, DFNS/TiO2, by ammonia‐assisted functionalization of DFNS by titanium butoxide (TBOT). The proposed formation mechanism includes the following steps: i) the deprotonation of silica surface (silanols) by ammonia and the hydrolysis of TBOT to titanium hydroxide [Ti(OH)4], ii) the donation of electron lone pair from ammonia to the Ti4+ ion of Ti(OH)4, iii) the release of hydroxide ions, followed by hetero‐condensation of dehydroxylated titanium ions with the deprotonated silanols, generating Si−O−Ti oxobridges, iv) the formation of oxy‐anion of titanols and its reaction with another molecule of ammonia‐activated titanium hydroxide to generate Ti−O−Ti oxobridges, and v) the continuation of the above cycle of steps until the titanium hydroxide precursor is consumed to produce silica supported titanium hydroxide. During thermal treatment, the titanols condense, yielding DFNS/TiO2 photocatalysts. To prove this mechanism, detailed solid‐state 1H, 29Si, 47,49Ti NMR and in situ FTIR studies were carried out, based on which different surface species formed during TiO2 growth on DFNS were identified. This has led to fundamental insights into the reaction of TBOT with DFNS silica surface and interfaces between DFNS and TiO2.
Multienzyme‐Mimicking Nanocomposite for Tumor Phototheranostics and Normal Cell Protection
Authors: Zhen Wenyao , Wang Wei , Ma Zhifang , Bai Jing , Jia Xiaodan , Ruan Yudi , Wang Chao , Zhang Mengchao , Jiang Xiue 
Published: September 2018

AbstractSelectively regulating the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level in cells by redox modulation with nanoparticles mimicking multiple enzymes holds great promise for protecting normal cells against ROS threats and surpassing the current limitations of ROS‐dependent cancer therapy. Herein, we develop a new indocyanine green (ICG)‐bovine serum albumin (BSA)‐cerium‐manganese oxide nanocomposites (IBCM NCs) via facile one‐step biomineralization to functionally mimic superoxide dismutase and catalase. IBCM NCs can synergistically regulate superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, oxygen and glutathione levels in cancer cells as well as provide contrast for magnetic resonance imaging. Consequently, cancer hypoxia can be relieved, and the phototherapy efficiency can be dramatically enhanced, leading to a complete ablation of tumor under NIR laser irradiation. On the other hand, IBCM NCs can consume the superoxide and hydrogen peroxide in the normal cells to protect them against ROS threats. Our results demonstrate IBCM NCs can effectively resist ROS threats in normal cells and kill cancer cells through breaking the intracellular redox balance.
Exploration of the dialogue components in Avatar Therapy for schizophrenia patients with refractory auditory hallucinations: A content analysis
Authors: Dellazizzo Laura , Percie du Sert Olivier , Phraxayavong Kingsada , Potvin Stéphane , O'Connor Kieron , Dumais Alexandre 
Published: September 2018

AbstractAuditory verbal hallucinations are hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia and are amongst the most disturbing symptoms of the disorder. Although not entirely understood, the relationship between the voice hearer and their voices has been shown to be an important treatment target. Understanding voice hearers' standpoints through qualitative analysis is central to apprehend a deeper comprehension of their experience and further explore the relevance of interpersonal interventions. Compared with other dialogical intervention, virtual reality‐assisted therapy (Avatar Therapy) enables patients to be in a tangible relation with a representation of their persecutory voice. This novel therapy has shown favourable results, though the therapeutic processes remain equivocal. We consequently sought to begin by characterizing the main themes emerging during the therapy by exploring the hearer's discussion with their avatar. The therapy sessions of 12 of our referrals were transcribed, and the patients' responses were analysed using content analysis methods. Five themes emerged from data saturation: emotional responses to the voices, beliefs about voices and schizophrenia, self‐perceptions, coping mechanisms, and aspirations. All patients had at least one element within each of these themes. Our analyses also enabled us to identify changes that were either verbalized by the patients or noted by the raters throughout therapy sessions. These findings are relevant as they allowed to identify key themes that are hypothesized to be related to therapeutic targets in a novel relational therapy using virtual reality. Future studies to further explore the processes implicated within Avatar Therapy are necessary.
Rifampicin Alters Metformin Plasma Exposure but Not Blood Glucose Levels in Diabetic Tuberculosis Patients
Authors: te Brake Lindsey H.M. , Yunivita Vycke , Livia Resvi , Soetedjo Nanny , van Ewijk‐Beneken Kolmer Eleonora , Koenderink Jan B. , Burger David M. , Santoso Prayudi , van Crevel Reinout , Alisjahbana Bachti , Aarnoutse Rob E. , Ruslami Rovina ,   on behalf of the TANDEM Consortium
Published: September 2018

The pharmacokinetic (PK) and clinical implications of combining metformin with rifampicin are relevant to increasing numbers of patients with diabetic tuberculosis (TB) across the world and are yet unclear. We assessed the impact of rifampicin on metformin PKs and its glucose‐lowering effect in patients with diabeticTBby measuring plasma metformin and blood glucose during and afterTBtreatment. Rifampicin increased metformin exposure: plasma area under the plasma concentration‐time curve from time point 0 to the end of the dosing interval (AUC0–τ) and peak plasma concentration (Cmax) geometric mean ratio (GMR; during vs. afterTBtreatment) were 1.28 (90% confidence interval (CI) 1.13–1.44) and 1.19 (90%CI1.02–1.38;n = 22). The metformin glucose‐lowering efficacy did not change (Δglucose − Cmax;P = 0.890;n = 18). Thus, we conclude that additional glucose monitoring in this population is not warranted. Finally, 57% of patients on metformin and rifampicin, and 38% of patients on metformin alone experienced gastrointestinal adverse effects. Considering this observation, we advise patients to take metformin and rifampicin with food and preferably separated in time. Clinicians could consider metoclopramide if gastrointestinal adverse effects occur.
Joint low‐complexity equalization and carrier frequency offset compensation for underwater acoustic OFDM communication systems with banded‐matrix approximation at different channel conditions
Authors: Ramadan Khaled , Dessouky Moawad I. , Elkordy Mohamad , Elagooz Salah , Abd El‐Samie Fathi E. 
Published: September 2018

SummaryUnderwater acoustic wireless communication is considered as one of the most challenging communication technologies due to low propagation speed, water salinity, water depth, PH degree, and water temperature. Equalization is one of the means to improve the system performance. Matched filter (MF), zero forcing (ZF), and minimum mean square error (MMSE) equalizers can be used for channel equalization. Unfortunately, the performance of the matched filter is destroyed in the Multiple‐Input Multiple‐Output (MIMO) configurations. In addition, the ZF equalizer suffers from noise enhancement and high complexity because of the direct matrix inversion. On the other hand, the MMSE equalizer requires estimating the operating signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR) to work properly. In this paper, we present a joint low‐complexity regularized ZF equalizer and carrier frequency offset (CFO) compensation scheme to deal with these problems. The proposed equalization algorithm mitigates the noise enhancement problem using a constant regularization parameter, and it can be implemented with low complexity using the banded‐matrix approximation. Also, we test the performance of the proposed system at different channel conditions. Simulation results show that the proposed equalizer has the ability to enhance the system performance with lower complexity than those of the other equalization algorithms at different channel conditions.
Energy efficient scalability of three level hexagonal heterogeneous broad transmission distance protocol (3L‐HEXA‐HTBTDP) for WSN‐IoT networks
Authors: Shrivastav Khyati , Kulat Kishore D. 
Published: September 2018

SummaryMultilevel heterogeneity is the present demand of wireless sensor networks as well as internet‐of‐things for balanced energy consumption of the network systems. In this paper, three level hexagonal heterogeneous broad transmission distance protocol (3L‐HEXA‐HTBTDP) is introduced for increasing the energy efficiency of the network. Normal, advanced, and superadvanced sensor nodes in a hexagonal field represent three level heterogeneity. These nodes are elected as cluster heads (CHs) on the basis of new thresholds, thus transferring the collected data to the base station. The protocol is beneficial in cellular communication and web‐of‐things applications to fulfill the high energy requirements of the wireless systems. The scalability is done here for perceiving the differences in the application of proposed algorithm 3L‐HEXA‐HTBTDP on different number of sensor nodes with variable values of initial energies. This is a promising approach to achieve reliable communication, coverage, and connectivity among sensor nodes of the hexagonal field. The scheme is evaluated through exhaustive simulation using Matlab. It is compared with the previous approaches of clustering implemented on the hexagonal field. Different performance parameters like alive node metrics, stability period, network lifetime, residual energy, and variance of energy are used for benchmarking the results of 3L‐HEXA‐HTBTDP with three level hexagonal stable election protocol (3L‐HEXA‐SEP) and three level hexagonal energy efficient heterogeneous clustered scheme (3L‐HEXA‐EEHC). In general, it is observed that the proposed 3L‐HEXA‐HTBTDP outperforms other existing protocols.
Actinomycin‐D and dimethylamino‐parthenolide synergism in treating human pancreatic cancer cells
Authors: Lamture Gauri , Crooks Peter A. , Borrelli Michael J. 
Published: September 2018

Abstract

Preclinical Research & Development

Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of death in the US with a poor 5‐year survival rate of 8.5%. A novel anti‐cancer drug, dimethylamino parthenolide (DMAPT), is the water‐soluble analog of the natural sesquiterpene lactone, parthenolide. The putative modes of action of DMAPT are inhibition of the Nuclear chain factor kappa‐light‐chain enhancer of activated B cells (NFκB) pathway and depletion of glutathione levels; the latter causing cancer cells to be more susceptible to oxidative stress‐induced cell death. Actinomycin‐D (ActD) is a polypeptide antibiotic that binds to DNA, and inhibits RNA and protein synthesis by inhibiting RNA polymerase II. A phase 2 clinical trial indicated that ActD could be a potent drug against pancreatic cancer; however, it was not a favored drug due to toxicity issues. New drug entities and methods of drug delivery, used alone or in combination, are needed to treat pancreatic cancer more effectively. Thus, it was postulated that combining DMAPT and ActD would result in synergistic inhibition of Panc‐1 pancreatic cancer cell growth because DMAPT's inhibition of NFκB would enhance induction of apoptosis by ActD, via phosphorylation of c‐Jun, by minimizing NFκB inhibition of c‐Jun phosphorylation. Combining these two drugs induced a higher level of cell death than each drug alone. A fixed drug ratio of DMAPT: ActD (1,200:1) was used. Data from metabolic (MTT) and colony formation assays were analyzed for synergism with CompuSyn software, which utilizes the Chou‐Talalay equation. The analyses indicated synergism and moderate synergism at combination concentrations of DMAPT/ActD of 12/0.01 and 18/0.015 μM, respectively.