Proton MR spectroscopy features of normal appearing white matter in neurofibromatosis type 1

To determine whether differences exist between neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) patients with or without focal lesions and healthy normal volunteers in the metabolite ratios of normal appearing white matter, 27 patients with NF1 (with parenchymal lesion, MR positive, n: 17; without parenchymal lesions, MR negative, n: 10) and 20 healthy volunteers underwent MRI and short TE (31 ms) proton MR spectroscopy (MRS). In 17 patients with parenchymal lesions, 61 focal lesions were detected by MRI. MRS was performed from normal appearing frontal and posterior parietal white matter (FWM and PWM) in NF1 and from control groups. NAA/Cr, Cho/Cr and MI/Cr ratios were calculated. Significant increase in Cho/Cr and MI/Cr ratios were found in FWM and PWM in MR negative and positive groups when compared to control group. NAA/Cr ratio in MR positive group was significantly decreased in FWM compared to control group. There were no significant differences between FWM and PWM in all metabolite ratios of MR negative group. MI/Cr ratio in MR positive group was significantly elevated in PWM compared to FWM. Metabolite changes detected by MRS could indicate demyelination and gliosis in normal appearing white matter in all NF1 patients, and additionally neuroaxonal damage in the FWM of NF1 patients with focal lesions. For that reason, in the clinical evaluation and follow-up of these patients MRS features of normal appearing white matter should be considered in addition to focal lesions.     

Soliton perturbation theory of Biswas–Milovic equation

This paper studies the perturbed Biswas–Milovic equation by the aid of soliton perturbation theory. The adiabatic variation of the soliton parameters is derived from the modified integrals of motion. The velocity of the soliton is also obtained when these perturbation terms are turned on. There are four types of nonlinear media that are taken into consideration.     

Exact Solutions of the Morse-like Potential,Step-Up and Step-Down Operators via Laplace Transform Approach

We intend to realize the step-up and step-down operators of the potential V (x) = V1 e 2βx+V2 e βx. It is found that these operators satisfy the commutation relations for the SU(2) group. We find the eigenfunctions and the eigenvalues of the potential by using the Laplace transform approach to study the Lie algebra satisfied the ladder operators of the potential under consideration. Our results are similar to the ones obtained for the Morse potential (β→β).     

Exact solutions of the Schr?dinger equation via Laplace transform approach: pseudoharmonic potential and Mie-type potentials

Exact bound state solutions and corresponding normalized eigenfunctions of the radial Schr?dinger equation are studied for the pseudoharmonic and Mie-type potentials by using the Laplace transform approach. The analytical results are obtained and seen that they are the same with the ones obtained before. The energy eigenvalues of the inverse square plus square potential and three-dimensional harmonic oscillator are given as special cases. It is shown the variation of the first six normalized wavefunctions of the above potentials. It is also given numerical results for the bound states of two diatomic molecular potentials, and compared the results with the ones obtained in literature.     

Marine system dynamical response to a changing climate in frame of power law,exponential decay,and Mittag-Leffler kernel

The increase of sea surface temperature in ocean changes the photosynthetic production rate of phytoplankton. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the relation between temperature and phytoplanktons photosynthesis to deal the extinction caused by excessive increase in temperature. It is worth observing that temperature is one of the most principal limiting factors for phytoplanktons production due to photosynthetic enzymes work at their optimum temperature levels. In this study, the fractional oxygen-phytoplankton-zooplankton model is considered by singular and nonsingular fractional operators within Caputo, Caputo-Fabrizio, and Atangana-Baleanu in Caputo sense. The rate of oxygen production is considered by a function of temperature account for the sea surface warming. At first, the temperature function is constant and then it starts to increase, after a certain time of increase, before the oxygen depletion begins, the temperature is set to a higher secure value. With this temperature function choice, detailed numerical simulations are carried out to provide details of the internal structure of the system. We observe that the species are more sustainable in Caputo model than its corresponding integer-order model.     

Antenna gain enhancement by using metamaterial radome at THz band with reconfigurable characteristics based on graphene load

The reconfigurable concept of a graphene loaded patch antenna with increasing gain is proposed in this paper. We have developed the patch antenna with inset feed for THz band application for which graphene load is used to obtain the reconfigurable characteristic. It has been shown that by increasing the graphene chemical potential, the antenna resonant frequency shifted and the gain increased drastically up to 4 dBi. Additionally, we have shown that antenna efficiency is improved up to 78% which shows more than 100% of enhancement in comparison to basic antenna by increasing the graphene chemical potential. Finally, considering the antenna gain improvement, we have implemented the metamaterial layer over the antenna. In this case, the gain is increased more than 5–6 dBi. In addition, when we put the metamaterial layer over the antenna, the graphene layer shows more linear characteristics. By using parametric studies, we have defined the best point for metamaterial layer around 0.58λ. The final antenna gain is more than 11 dBi, which is useful for THz communication and THz medical imaging systems.     

New ciprofloxacin–dithiocarbamate–benzyl hybrids: design,synthesis, antibacterial evaluation,and molecular modeling studies

Research on Chemical Intermediates - We designed and synthesized a series of new ciprofloxacin–dithiocarbamate–benzyl hybrids 5a–n as potential antibacterial agents. All of the...     

Fast removal of methylene blue (MB) with functionalized resin

Herein, a new adsorbent was developed in order to fast and effective removal of MB from aqueous solution. For this, crosslinked maleic anhydride polymer was synthesized by copolymerization of maleic anydride (MA) with divinyl benzene (DVB) in DMF at 75?°C using a radical initiator AIBN. A new functionalized resin containing carboxylic acid groups was prepared with modification of crosslinked maleic anydride resin with 5-aminoisophthalic acid. Prepared resin was characterized with FTIR, TGA/DTA and SEM. Parameters affecting adsorption such as pH, initial dye concentration and adsorption time, and also, different isotherm and kinetic models were studied. It was observed that synthesized resin could be used to MB fast removal wide pH and concentration range very high efficiency. It was also found to be that Freundlich isotherm model (R² = 0.9993) and second order kinetic models are much more suitable for adsorption of MB. Moreover, it was also observed that synthesized resin could be used at least five times without losing its original activity.     

The Detailed Comparison of Cell Death Detected by Annexin V-PI Counterstain Using Fluorescence Microscope,Flow Cytometry and Automated Cell Counter in Mammalian and Microalgae Cells

The evaluation of cell wellness is an important task for molecular biology research. This mainly comprises the assessment for morphology and viability of culturing cells. Annexin V-Propidium iodide counterstaining has been currently one of the common and easy methods to discriminate apoptotic and necrotic cell profiles. The method is operated by fluorescence-based detection of counterstain via laser beam-employed instruments including flow cytometer, fluorescence microscope and automated cell counter. The detection is primarily conducted based on the same principle; however the efficiency of instruments may vary. Here we evaluated the efficiency of those instruments for the clear-cut detection of cell death through various mammalian and microalgae cell lines. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study revealing comparative analyses of apoptotic and necrotic cells in mammalian and microalgae cells using Annexin V-PI counterstain detected by flow cytometer, fluorescence microscope and automated cell counter. Fluorescence microscope and cell counter instruments were also tested and compared for the traditional trypan blue-based cell viability detection performance. For these, cell death was induced by UV-irradiation and/or bee venom for mammalian (pancreatic cancer, metastatic breast cancer and mouse fibroblasts) and microalgae cells (Chlorella vulgaris), respectfully. Findings postulated that automated cell counter and fluorescence microscopy revealed similar patterns for the detection by both counterstain and trypan blue in mammalian cells. Interestingly, flow cytometry did provide an accurate and significant detection for only one mammalian cell line when UV-treatment was followed by routine Annexin V-Propidium iodide counterstaining. Unlike, only flow cytometry revealed a significant change in the detection of death of microalgae cells by Annexin V-Propidium iodide method, but both Annexin and conventional trypan blue methods were not applicable for the automated cell counter and microscopic detections for microalgae cells. The related outputs propose that the obtaining reliable quantitation strongly depends on cell type and instruments used. These suggest the necessity of optimization and validation endeavors before any cell death detection initiative. The analytical outcomes present insights into detailed assessment of cell death detection of eukaryotic cells and provide a direction to researchers to consider.     

Dependence of film thickness on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films

ZnO thin films are prepared on glass substrates by pulsed filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition (PFCVAD) at room temperature. Optical parameters such as optical transmittance, reflectance, band tail, dielectric coefficient, refractive index, energy band gap have been studied, discussed and correlated to the changes with film thickness. Kramers-Kronig and dispersion relations were employed to determine the complex refractive index and dielectric constants using reflection data in the ultraviolet-visible-near infrared regions. Films with optical transmittance above 90% in the visible range were prepared at pressure of 6.5 × 10⁻⁴ Torr. XRD analysis revealed that all films had a strong ZnO (0 0 2) peak, indicating c-axis orientation. The crystal grain size increased from 14.97 nm to 22.53 nm as the film thickness increased from 139 nm to 427 nm, however no significant change was observed in interplanar distance and crystal lattice constant. Optical energy gap decreased from 3.21 eV to 3.19 eV with increasing the thickness. The transmission in UV region decreased with the increase of film thickness. The refractive index, Urbach tail and real part of complex dielectric constant decreased as the film thickness increased. Oscillator energy of as-deposited films increased from 3.49 eV to 4.78 eV as the thickness increased.