Tropoelastin-Inspired, Non-Ionic, Self-Coacervating Polyesters as Strong Underwater Adhesives

Inspired from the one-component self-coacervation of tropoelastin and mussel foot protein-3s, we created the first non-ionic, single component coacervates that can coacervate in a all ranges of pH (acidic to basic) and wide range of ionic strengths with degradability, rapid curing and strong underwater adhesion. In contrast to the complex coacervates, these ‘charge-free’ coacervates are potential candidates as tissue adhesives and sealants, adhesives for sensor attachment to wet skin, and as sprayable adhesives. Their potential use in the clinic arises from their enhanced stability to changes in external conditions, cytocompatibility, biodegradability and modular nature in incorporating various functional groups and crosslinkers.

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Role of Cardiac MRI in Detecting Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Review

Journal of Clinical and Health Sciences ◽

10.24191/jchs.v1i1.5846 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 4

Author(s):

Marymol Koshy ◽

Bushra Johari ◽

Mohd Farhan Hamdan ◽

Mohammad Hanafiah

Keyword(s):

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy ◽

Magnetic Resonance ◽

Genetic Disorder ◽

Familial Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy ◽

Non Invasive ◽

Wide Range ◽

Proper Diagnosis ◽

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽

Potential Use

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a global disease affecting people of various ethnic origins and both genders. HCM is a genetic disorder with a wide range of symptoms, including the catastrophic presentation of sudden cardiac death. Proper diagnosis and treatment of this disorder can relieve symptoms and prolong life. Non-invasive imaging is essential in diagnosing HCM. We present a review to deliberate the potential use of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging in HCM assessment and also identify the risk factors entailed with risk stratification of HCM based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

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General Trend of Negative Transference Number in Li Salt/Ionic Liquid Mixtures

10.26434/chemrxiv.7728545 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nicola Molinari ◽

Jonathan P. Mailoa ◽

Boris Kozinsky

Keyword(s):

Ionic Liquid ◽

Transference Number ◽

Liquid Mixtures ◽

Single Linkage ◽

Self Diffusion ◽

Wide Range ◽

Single Linkage Cluster ◽

Concentrated Solution ◽

The One ◽

Dynamics Simulations

We show that strong cation-anion interactions in a wide range of lithium-salt/ionic liquid mixtures result in a negative lithium transference number, using molecular dynamics simulations and rigorous concentrated solution theory. This behavior fundamentally deviates from the one obtained using self-diffusion coefficient analysis and agrees well with experimental electrophoretic NMR measurements, which accounts for ion correlations. We extend these findings to several ionic liquid compositions. We investigate the degree of spatial ionic coordination employing single-linkage cluster analysis, unveiling asymmetrical anion-cation clusters. Additionally, we formulate a way to compute the effective lithium charge that corresponds to and agrees well with electrophoretic measurements and show that lithium effectively carries a negative charge in a remarkably wide range of chemistries and concentrations. The generality of our observation has significant implications for the energy storage community, emphasizing the need to reconsider the potential of these systems as next generation battery electrolytes.<br>

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1,4-Diazepines: A Review on Synthesis, Reactions and Biological Significance

Current Organic Synthesis ◽

10.2174/1570179416666190703113807 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (5) ◽

pp. 709-729 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Muhammad A. Rashid ◽

Aisha Ashraf ◽

Sahibzada S. Rehman ◽

Shaukat A. Shahid ◽

Adeel Mahmood ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Biological Activities ◽

Biological Significance ◽

Biological Evaluation ◽

Wide Range ◽

Pharmaceutical Industries ◽

Biological Aspects ◽

Synthetic Routes ◽

Biological Attributes ◽

Synthesis Reactions ◽

Potential Use

Background:1,4-Diazepines are two nitrogen containing seven membered heterocyclic compounds and associated with a wide range of biological activities. Due to its medicinal importance, scientists are actively involved in the synthesis, reactions and biological evaluation of 1,4-diazepines since number of decades.Objective:The primary purpose of this review is to discuss the synthetic schemes and reactivity of 1,4- diazepines. This article also describes biological aspects of 1,4-diazepine derivatives, that can be usefully exploited for the pharmaceutical sector.Conclusion:This review summarizes the abundant literature on synthetic routes, chemical reactions and biological attributes of 1,4-diazepine derivatives. We concluded that 1,4-diazepines have significant importance due to their biological activities like antipsychotic, anxiolytic, anthelmintic, anticonvulsant, antibacterial, antifungal and anticancer. 1,4-diazepine derivatives with significant biological activities could be explored for potential use in the pharmaceutical industries.

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Assessment of Commercial Off-the-Shelf Tissue Adhesives for Sealing Military-Relevant Corneal Perforation Injuries

Military Medicine ◽

10.1093/milmed/usab184 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Eric J Snider ◽

Lauren E Cornell ◽

Brandon M Gross ◽

David O Zamora ◽

Emily N Boice

Keyword(s):

Intraocular Pressure ◽

High Speed ◽

Anterior Segment ◽

Ocular Tissue ◽

Corneal Tissue ◽

Corneal Perforation ◽

Tissue Adhesives ◽

Open Globe ◽

Wide Range ◽

Commercial Off The Shelf

ABSTRACT Introduction Open-globe ocular injuries have increased in frequency in recent combat operations due to increased use of explosive weaponry. Unfortunately, open-globe injuries have one of the worst visual outcomes for the injured warfighter, often resulting in permanent loss of vision. To improve visual recovery, injuries need to be stabilized quickly following trauma, in order to restore intraocular pressure and create a watertight seal. Here, we assess four off-the-shelf (OTS), commercially available tissue adhesives for their ability to seal military-relevant corneal perforation injuries (CPIs). Materials and Methods Adhesives were assessed using an anterior segment inflation platform and a previously developed high-speed benchtop corneal puncture model, to create injuries in porcine eyes. After injury, adhesives were applied and injury stabilization was assessed by measuring outflow rate, ocular compliance, and burst pressure, followed by histological analysis. Results Tegaderm dressings and Dermabond skin adhesive most successfully sealed injuries in preliminary testing. Across a range of injury sizes and shapes, Tegaderm performed well in smaller injury sizes, less than 2 mm in diameter, but inadequately sealed large or complex injuries. Dermabond created a watertight seal capable of maintaining ocular tissue at physiological intraocular pressure for almost all injury shapes and sizes. However, application of the adhesive was inconsistent. Histologically, after removal of the Dermabond skin adhesive, the corneal epithelium was removed and oftentimes the epithelium surface penetrated into the wound and was adhered to inner stromal tissue. Conclusions Dermabond can stabilize a wide range of CPIs; however, application is variable, which may adversely impact the corneal tissue. Without addressing these limitations, no OTS adhesive tested herein can be directly translated to CPIs. This highlights the need for development of a biomaterial product to stabilize these injuries without causing ocular damage upon removal, thus improving the poor vision prognosis for the injured warfighter.

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Modes of Interaction in Naturally Occurring Medical Encounters With General Practitioners: The “One in a Million” Study

Qualitative Health Research ◽

10.1177/1049732321993790 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 104973232199379

Author(s):

Olaug S. Lian ◽

Sarah Nettleton ◽

Åge Wifstad ◽

Christopher Dowrick

Keyword(s):

General Practitioners ◽

Narrative Analysis ◽

Mode Competition ◽

General Applicability ◽

Naturally Occurring ◽

Wide Range ◽

The One ◽

Narrative Mode ◽

Modes Of Interaction

In this article, we qualitatively explore the manner and style in which medical encounters between patients and general practitioners (GPs) are mutually conducted, as exhibited in situ in 10 consultations sourced from the One in a Million: Primary Care Consultations Archive in England. Our main objectives are to identify interactional modes, to develop a classification of these modes, and to uncover how modes emerge and shift both within and between consultations. Deploying an interactional perspective and a thematic and narrative analysis of consultation transcripts, we identified five distinctive interactional modes: question and answer (Q&A) mode, lecture mode, probabilistic mode, competition mode, and narrative mode. Most modes are GP-led. Mode shifts within consultations generally map on to the chronology of the medical encounter. Patient-led narrative modes are initiated by patients themselves, which demonstrates agency. Our classification of modes derives from complete naturally occurring consultations, covering a wide range of symptoms, and may have general applicability.

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The OsERF115/AP2EREBP110 Transcription Factor Is Involved in the Multiple Stress Tolerance to Heat and Drought in Rice Plants

International Journal of Molecular Sciences ◽

10.3390/ijms22137181 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (13) ◽

pp. 7181

Author(s):

Seong-Im Park ◽

Hyeok Jin Kwon ◽

Mi Hyeon Cho ◽

Ji Sun Song ◽

Beom-Gi Kim ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Stress Tolerance ◽

Transcriptional Activation ◽

Individual Plant ◽

Hormone Signaling ◽

Combined Stress ◽

Drought Treatment ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Individual ◽

Potential Use ◽

Multiple Stress Tolerance

The AP2/EREBP family transcription factors play important roles in a wide range of stress tolerance and hormone signaling. In this study, a heat-inducible rice ERF gene was isolated and functionally characterized. The OsERF115/AP2EREBP110 was categorized to Group-IIIc of the rice AP2/EREBP family and strongly induced by heat and drought treatment. The OsERF115/AP2EREBP110 protein targeted to nuclei and suppressed the ABA-induced transcriptional activation of Rab16A promoter in rice protoplasts. Overexpression of OsERF115/AP2EREBP110 enhanced thermotolerance of seeds and vegetative growth stage plants. The OsERF115/AP2EREBP110 overexpressing (OE) plants exhibited higher proline level and increased expression of a proline biosynthesis P5CS1 gene. Phenotyping of water use dynamics of the individual plant indicates that the OsERF115/AP2EREBP110-OE plant exhibited better water saving traits under heat and drought combined stress. Our combined results suggest the potential use of OsERF115/AP2EREBP110 as a candidate gene for genetic engineering approaches to develop heat and drought stress-tolerant crops.

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Entangling Lattice-Trapped Bosons with a Free Impurity: Impact on Stationary and Dynamical Properties

Entropy ◽

10.3390/e23030290 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 290

Author(s):

Maxim Pyzh ◽

Kevin Keiler ◽

Simeon I. Mistakidis ◽

Peter Schmelcher

Keyword(s):

Structural Changes ◽

Many Body ◽

Wide Range ◽

Entropy Measures ◽

Particle Level ◽

The Many ◽

The One ◽

Tunneling Dynamics ◽

The Individual ◽

Trapped Bosons

We address the interplay of few lattice trapped bosons interacting with an impurity atom in a box potential. For the ground state, a classification is performed based on the fidelity allowing to quantify the susceptibility of the composite system to structural changes due to the intercomponent coupling. We analyze the overall response at the many-body level and contrast it to the single-particle level. By inspecting different entropy measures we capture the degree of entanglement and intraspecies correlations for a wide range of intra- and intercomponent interactions and lattice depths. We also spatially resolve the imprint of the entanglement on the one- and two-body density distributions showcasing that it accelerates the phase separation process or acts against spatial localization for repulsive and attractive intercomponent interactions, respectively. The many-body effects on the tunneling dynamics of the individual components, resulting from their counterflow, are also discussed. The tunneling period of the impurity is very sensitive to the value of the impurity-medium coupling due to its effective dressing by the few-body medium. Our work provides implications for engineering localized structures in correlated impurity settings using species selective optical potentials.

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Bio-Inspired Modality Fusion for Active Speaker Detection

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11083397 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 3397

Author(s):

Gustavo Assunção ◽

Nuno Gonçalves ◽

Paulo Menezes

Keyword(s):

Superior Colliculus ◽

Visual Information ◽

Human Beings ◽

Validation Process ◽

Detection Approach ◽

Wide Range ◽

Speaker Detection ◽

The One ◽

The Brain ◽

Fusion Ability

Human beings have developed fantastic abilities to integrate information from various sensory sources exploring their inherent complementarity. Perceptual capabilities are therefore heightened, enabling, for instance, the well-known "cocktail party" and McGurk effects, i.e., speech disambiguation from a panoply of sound signals. This fusion ability is also key in refining the perception of sound source location, as in distinguishing whose voice is being heard in a group conversation. Furthermore, neuroscience has successfully identified the superior colliculus region in the brain as the one responsible for this modality fusion, with a handful of biological models having been proposed to approach its underlying neurophysiological process. Deriving inspiration from one of these models, this paper presents a methodology for effectively fusing correlated auditory and visual information for active speaker detection. Such an ability can have a wide range of applications, from teleconferencing systems to social robotics. The detection approach initially routes auditory and visual information through two specialized neural network structures. The resulting embeddings are fused via a novel layer based on the superior colliculus, whose topological structure emulates spatial neuron cross-mapping of unimodal perceptual fields. The validation process employed two publicly available datasets, with achieved results confirming and greatly surpassing initial expectations.

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Applicability of Cork as Novel Modifiers to Develop Electrochemical Sensor for Caffeine Determination

Materials ◽

10.3390/ma14010037 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 37

Author(s):

Mayra K. S. Monteiro ◽

Djalma R. Da Silva ◽

Marco A. Quiroz ◽

Vítor J. P. Vilar ◽

Carlos A. Martínez-Huitle ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Electrochemical Sensor ◽

Linear Response ◽

High Performance ◽

Low Cost ◽

Pharmaceutical Formulations ◽

Caffeine Concentration ◽

Real Samples ◽

Wide Range ◽

Potential Use

This study aims to investigate the applicability of a hybrid electrochemical sensor composed of cork and graphite (Gr) for detecting caffeine in aqueous solutions. Raw cork (RAC) and regranulated cork (RGC, obtained by thermal treatment of RAC with steam at 380 °C) were tested as modifiers. The results clearly showed that the cork-graphite sensors, GrRAC and GrRGC, exhibited a linear response over a wide range of caffeine concentration (5–1000 µM), with R2 of 0.99 and 0.98, respectively. The limits of detection (LOD), estimated at 2.9 and 6.1 µM for GrRAC and GrRGC, suggest greater sensitivity and reproducibility than the unmodified conventional graphite sensor. The low-cost cork-graphite sensors were successfully applied in the determination of caffeine in soft drinks and pharmaceutical formulations, presenting well-defined current signals when analyzing real samples. When comparing electrochemical determinations and high performance liquid chromatography measurements, no significant differences were observed (mean accuracy 3.0%), highlighting the potential use of these sensors to determine caffeine in different samples.

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