Numerical study of dielectrophoresis-modified inertial migration for overlapping sized cell separation

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been proven to have significant prognostic, diagnostic, and clinical values in early-stage cancer detection and treatment. The efficient separation of CTCs from peripheral blood can ensure intact and viable CTCs and can, thus, give proper genetic characterization and drug innovation. In this study, continuous and high-throughput separation of MDA-231 CTCs from overlapping sized white blood cells (WBCs) is achieved by modifying inertial cell focusing with dielectrophoresis (DEP) in a single-stage microfluidic platform by numeric simulation. The DEP is enabled by embedding interdigitated electrodes with alternating field control on a serpentine microchannel to avoid creating two-stage separation. Rather than using the electrokinetic migration of cells which slows down the throughput, the system leverages the inertial microfluidic flow to achieve high-speed continuous separation. The cell migration and cell positioning characteristics are quantified through coupled physics analyses to evaluate the effects of the applied voltages and Reynolds numbers (Re) on the separation performance. The results indicate that the introduction of DEP successfully migrates WBCs away from CTCs and that separation of MDA-231 CTCs from similar sized WBCs at a high Re of 100 can be achieved with a low voltage of magnitude 4 ×10⁶ V/m. Additionally, the viability of MDA-231 CTCs is expected to be sustained after separation due to the short-term DEP exposure. The developed technique could be exploited to design active microchips for high-throughput separation of mixed cell beads despite their significant size overlap, using DEP-modified inertial focusing controlled simply by adjusting the applied external field.     

Naphthalene Exchange in [Re(η6-napht)2]+ with Pharmaceuticals Leads to Highly Functionalized Sandwich Complexes [M(η6-pharm)2]+ (M=Re/99mTc)

Bis-arene sandwich complexes are generally prepared by the Fischer-Hafner reaction, which conditions are incompatible with most O- and N- functional groups. We report a new way for the synthesis of sandwich type complexes [Re(η⁶-arene)₂]⁺ and [Re(η⁶-arene)(η⁶-benzene)]⁺ from [Re(η⁶-napht)₂]⁺ and [Re(η⁶-napht)(η⁶-benzene)]⁺, with functionalized arenes and pharmaceuticals. N-methylpyrrolidine (NMP) facilitates the substitution of naphthalene with the incoming arene. A series of fully characterized rhenium sandwich complexes with simple arenes, such as aniline, as well as with active compounds like lidocaine and melatonin are presented. With these rhenium compounds in hand, the radioactive sandwich complexes [^99mTc(η⁶-pharm)₂]⁺ (pharm=pharmaceutical) can be unambiguously confirmed. The direct labelling of pharmaceuticals with ^99mTc through η⁶-coordination to phenyl rings and the confirmation of the structures with the rhenium homologues opens a path into molecular theranostics.     

三维还原氧化石墨烯/β-环糊精复合物的合成及其电化学检测水中左氧氟沙星北大核心CSCD

成功构筑了β-环糊精修饰的三维还原氧化石墨烯复合材料(3D-rGO/β-CD),并对该复合材料进行扫描电子显微镜、傅里叶红外光谱、热重分析和拉曼光谱分析等一系列的表征,分析了其形貌和结构的特征。进一步将其修饰到玻碳电极(GCE)表面,构建了一种新型电化学传感器(3D-rGO/β-CD/GCE)。利用3D-rGO/β-CD/GCE电化学传感器,通过微分脉冲伏安法(DPV)对左氧氟沙星(LEV)进行了检测。其中,具有多孔结构的三维还原氧化石墨烯具有优异的导电性能、比表面积大、化学稳定性好等优良的性质,而修饰的β-环糊精能在其环形腔内与客体分子结合形成超分子包合物,进而可以对LEV进行有效识别。研究结果显示,在最优实验条件下,3D-rGO/β-CD/GCE对左氧氟沙星的检测具有较宽的线性范围(1~150μmol/L),且检测限可达0.33μmol/L,同时该修饰电极还表现出良好的选择性和稳定性。此外,成功将其应用于实际水样中LEV的检测,表明该传感器具有一定的应用潜力。     

Low Velocity Response Characteristics of Composite Plate with Embedded Shape Memory Alloy

I. INTRODUCTION Composite materials have been used extensively in aerospace and other industries owing to the factthat they have high speci?c modulus, high speci?c strength, and the capability to be designed andfabricated with greater ?exibility, and ha…     

Shock and traveling wave phenomena on an externally damped, non-linear string

We examine the propagation of shocks and traveling wave phenomena on a one-dimensional string that is executing finite-amplitude, transverse vibrations in a resisting medium. As part of our study, we develop an approach that allows us to describe, albeit approximately, the evolution and propagation of a shock front using analytical methods. In addition, exact traveling wave solutions, one of which involves the Lambert W-function, of the string's equation of motion are determined and analyzed. Lastly, a possible new form of the solution to the linearized problem is presented and extensions and other applications of the present work are briefly discussed.     

The mechanical problems in tumor and tumor microenvironment

肿瘤微环境包括肿瘤细胞、间质细胞、细胞外基质等.其在肿瘤的生长和发展过程中起着关键作用.肿瘤的微环境与正常组织的微环境有着显著的不同.肿瘤中的压应力对微环境有着多方面的影响, 例如, 可调控血管与淋巴管的功能, 造成代谢异常和间质高压, 压缩间隙基质, 增大药物输运的困难, 促进间质细胞变异并诱导肿瘤细胞转移. 因此, 肿瘤中的力学因素引起了广泛关注.本文总结了肿瘤及其微环境力学问题的研究进展, 讨论了肿瘤微环境中应力产生、药物输运、肿瘤转移等问题, 介绍了肿瘤微环境正常化的策略及其对肿瘤治疗的意义.     

Noether-Type Symmetries and Conservation Laws Via Partial Lagrangians

We show how one can construct conservation laws of Euler-Lagrange-type equations via Noether-type symmetry operators associated with what we term partial Lagrangians. This is even in the case when a system does not directly have a usual Lagrangian, e.g. scalar evolution equations. These Noether-type symmetry operators do not form a Lie algebra in general. We specify the conditions under which they do form an algebra. Furthermore, the conditions under which they are symmetries of the Euler-Lagrange-type equations are derived. Examples are given including those that admit a standard Lagrangian such as the Maxwellian tail equation, and equations that do not such as the heat and nonlinear heat equations. We also obtain new conservation laws from Noether-type symmetry operators for a class of nonlinear heat equations in more than two independent variables.     

Fluorinated Porous Poly(spirobifluorene) Via Direct C‒H Arylation: Characterization,Porosity, and Gas Uptake

Considering intrinsic properties of conjugated polyfluorenes and special functions of porous polymers, synthesis of fluorinated porous poly(spirobifluorene) via direct C?H arylation polycondensation is explored. Owing to the contorted structure and cross-linking nature, the obtained polymer FPSBF shows permanent porosities with Brunauer–Emmett–Teller specific surface area up to 700 m² g^?1 and exhibits a narrow pore size distribution with the dominant pore size at about 0.63 nm, which is more suitable for adsorption of small gas molecules. Based on the measured gas physisorption isotherms with pressure up to 1.13 bar, the obtained polymer shows good uptaking capacities for hydrogen (1.30 wt% at 1.0 bar and 77 K) and methane (4.80 wt% 1.0 bar and 273 K). Moreover, FPSBF has significant adsorption selectivity for CH₄ against N₂ and the estimated ideal adsorption selectivity ratio is up to 30/1 at 1.0 bar and 273 K, which makes the material possess potential application in gas separation.     

Synthesis of Stimuli-responsive Nanoparticles by Solution Polymerization

In this study, stimuli-responsive nanoparticles were prepared by solution polymerization. Two synthesis routes are proposed to synthesize the particles, the monomer route and the polymer/monomer route. For the monomer route, pH and thermal sensitive nanoparticles were synthesized from acrylic acid and N-isopropylacrylamide. For the polymer/monomer route, the pH sensitive nanoparticles were synthesized from chitosan and acrylic acid. The effect of reaction time, initiator concentration and agitation rate on the particle size and the size distribution were investigated. The stimuli-responsive nanoparticles could be directly blended with other polymers to prepare stimuli-responsive functional membranes.     

基于Faster-RCNN和Level-Set的桥小脑角区肿瘤自动精准分割

桥小脑角区（CPA）肿瘤的精准分割在手术治疗、放疗中有重要影响,本文结合更快速区域卷积神经网络（Faster-RCNN）和水平集（Level-Set）方法对CPA肿瘤的自动分割进行了研究.首先,采集317名CPA肿瘤患者的T₁WI-SE序列磁共振图像,使用基于Faster-RCNN主干网络VGG16提取特征,结合区域建议网络（RPN）进行学习训练,建立带有CPA肿瘤位置信息的定位模型,再应用Level-Set对肿瘤进行精准分割.本文对比了不同CPA肿瘤区域勾画范围对分割结果产生的影响,并以精确率、召回率、均值平均精度值（mAP）和戴斯系数（Dice系数）等指标评估了模型定位和分割的性能.实验结果表明,结合Faster-RCNN和Level-Set建立的模型能更有效对CPA肿瘤进行精准分割,减轻临床医生的负担,并提升治疗效果.