Phytochemical and Biological Evaluation of a Newly Designed Nutraceutical Self-Nanoemulsifying Self-Nanosuspension for Protection and Treatment of Cisplatin Induced Testicular Toxicity in Male Rats

The incorporation of cisplatin (CP) as a cytotoxic antineoplastic agent in most chemotherapeutic protocols is a challenge due to its toxic effect on testicular tissues. Natural compounds present a promising trend in research, so a new nutraceutical formulation (NCF) was designed to diminish CP spermatotoxicity. A combination of three nutraceutical materials, 250 mg Spirulina platensis powder (SP), 25 mg Tribulus terrestris L. extract (TT), and 100 mg fish oil (FO) were formulated in self-nanoemulsifying self-nanosuspension (SNESNS). SP was loaded into the optimized self-nanoemulsifying system (30% FO, 50% span 80/cremophor EL and 20% isopropanol) and mixed with TT aqueous solution to form SNESNS. For the SP, phytochemical profiling revealed the presence of valuable amounts of fatty acids (FAs), amino acids, flavonoids, polyphenols, vitamins, and minerals. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and particle size analysis confirmed the formation of nanoemulsion-based nanosuspension upon dilution. Method validation of the phytochemical constituents in NCF has been developed. Furthermore, NCF was biologically evaluated on male Wistar rats and revealed the improvement of spermatozoa, histopathological features, and biochemical markers over the CP and each ingredient group. Our findings suggest the potential of NCF with SNESNS as a delivery system against CP-induced testicular toxicity in male rats.     

Lemon Oils Attenuate the Pathogenicity of Pseudomonas aeruginosa by Quorum Sensing Inhibition

The chemical composition of three Citrus limon oils: lemon essential oil (LEO), lemon terpenes (LT) and lemon essence (LE), and their influence in the virulence factors production and motility (swarming and swimming) of two Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains (ATCC 27853 and a multidrug-resistant HT5) were investigated. The main compound, limonene, was also tested in biological assays. Eighty-four compounds, accounting for a relative peak area of 99.23%, 98.58% and 99.64%, were identified by GC/MS. Limonene (59–60%), γ-terpinene (10–11%) and β-pinene (7–15%) were the main compounds. All lemon oils inhibited specific biofilm production and bacterial metabolic activities into biofilm in a dose-dependent manner (20–65%, in the range of 0.1–4 mg mL⁻¹) of both strains. Besides, all samples inhibited about 50% of the elastase activity at 0.1 mg mL⁻¹. Pyocyanin biosynthesis decreases until 64% (0.1–4 mg mL⁻¹) for both strains. Swarming motility of P. aeruginosa ATCC 27853 was completely inhibited by 2 mg mL⁻¹ of lemon oils. Furthermore, a decrease (29–55%, 0.1–4 mg mL⁻¹) in the synthesis of Quorum sensing (QS) signals was observed. The oils showed higher biological activities than limonene. Hence, their ability to control the biofilm of P. aeruginosa and reduce the production of virulence factors regulated by QS makes lemon oils good candidates to be applied as preservatives in the food processing industry.     

微纳电化学传感界面的构建及其用于单细胞实时监测

细胞是生物体形态结构和生命活动的基本单位.常规检测群体细胞的方法往往会掩盖细胞间的个体差异,因此亟需发展高效的单细胞分析策略,深入研究细胞生命活动过程,揭示疾病发生发展机制,推动个体化诊疗.超微电化学传感器具有尺寸小、灵敏度高、时空分辨率高等特点,在单细胞实时动态监测方面发挥了非常重要的作用.目前,微纳电化学传感器在电极制备、高性能传感界面构建、理论分析等方面已取得重要进展,且在单细胞实时监测及相关细胞机制研究方面取得突破.然而,单细胞内环境复杂、活性分子浓度低且随时空高度动态变化,这对微纳电化学传感器的灵敏度和选择性等综合性能提出了更高要求.我们课题组长期从事基于微纳电化学传感的单细胞与亚细胞实时动态监测研究,本文主要介绍了我们近10年来在该领域的研究进展,并对未来的挑战与机遇进行了探讨.     

Characterization of Food Packaging Films with Blackcurrant Fruit Waste as a Source of Antioxidant and Color Sensing Intelligent Material

Chitosan and pectin films were enriched with blackcurrant pomace powder (10 and 20% (w/w)), as bio-based material, to minimize food production losses and to increase the functional properties of produced films aimed at food coatings and wrappers. Water vapor permeability of active films increased up to 25%, moisture content for 27% in pectin-based ones, but water solubility was not significantly modified. Mechanical properties (tensile strength, elongation at break and Young’s modulus) were mainly decreased due to the residual insoluble particles present in blackcurrant waste. FTIR analysis showed no significant changes between the film samples. The degradation temperatures, determined by DSC, were reduced by 18 °C for chitosan-based samples and of 32 °C lower for the pectin-based samples with blackcurrant powder, indicating a disturbance in polymer stability. The antioxidant activity of active films was increased up to 30-fold. Lightness and redness of dry films significantly changed depending on the polymer type. Significant color changes, especially in chitosan film formulations, were observed after exposure to different pH buffers. This effect is further explored in formulations that were used as color change indicators for intelligent biopackaging.     

柔性电子学中的表界面化学

柔性电子作为新兴的研究热点, 涉及材料、 化学、 物理等多个基础学科的交叉, 以及在生物医用、 可穿戴设备及人工智能等多个领域的应用. 柔性电子设备的制造加工过程中会用到弹性基底、 导电层、 功能层等多种性质各异的材料, 其互相之间的整合受到它们表面性质和界面结合力的限制; 器件的功能、 可靠性、 对环境的敏感性等也受到了器件表界面性质的影响; 因此, 对材料和器件表界面的处理在柔性电子学中具有重要作用. 本文对柔性电子学中常用的表界面化学过程分为3大类进行介绍: 表面电化学过程, 基于特定化合物反应产生的电流制备电化学传感器, 利用电流/电压控制表面负载化合物; 表面修饰, 通过表面改性提高材料的加工性能, 共价修饰分子层或其它材料赋予器件特殊功能性质或保护层; 不同材料之间的界面连接, 通过共价连接或化学反应辅助的物理交联实现不同材料的结合, 提高柔性器件的稳定性, 实现柔性设备的整合. 对各应用进行总结和举例后, 讨论了存在的问题, 并对未来的发展方向及前景进行了展望.     

基于三苯胺的荧光探针设计、合成与应用研究进展

螺旋桨结构的三苯胺荧光团既能作为强的电子供体,又能作为潜在的聚集诱导发光(AIE)骨架.同时,三苯胺衍生物很容易通过简单的反应进行结构修饰,如醛基、氨基、硼酸基、卤素、乙炔基等取代的三苯胺能够发生缩合反应或偶联反应等,进一步功能化.因此,功能性三苯胺类化合物被广泛用于太阳能电池、荧光染料、固态发光材料和荧光探针的分子设计中.根据三苯胺基荧光探针的检测对象,将其分为阳离子、阴离子和中性小分子荧光探针三类,并从分子的结构和性能出发,重点综述了近五年来国内外三苯胺基荧光探针在分子设计、合成与检测应用方面的最新进展.展望未来,构建近红外发光和高量子效率的AIE荧光探针值得关注.     

Reconstruction of Sparse Polynomials via Quasi-Orthogonal Matching Pursuit Method

In this paper, we propose a Quasi-Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (QOMP) algorithm for constructing a sparse approximation of functions in terms of expansion by orthonormal polynomials. For the two kinds of sampled data, data with noises and without noises, we apply the mutual coherence of measurement matrix to establish the convergence of the QOMP algorithm which can reconstruct $s$-sparse Legendre polynomials, Chebyshev polynomials and trigonometric polynomials in $s$ step iterations. The results are also extended to general bounded orthogonal system including tensor product of these three univariate orthogonal polynomials. Finally, numerical experiments will be presented to verify the effectiveness of the QOMP method.     

Quantum Bayesian computation

Quantum Bayesian computation is an emerging field that levers the computational gains available from quantum computers. They promise to provide an exponential speed-up in Bayesian computation. Our article adds to the literature in three ways. First, we describe how quantum von Neumann measurement provides quantum versions of popular machine learning algorithms such as Markov chain Monte Carlo and deep learning that are fundamental to Bayesian learning. Second, we describe quantum data encoding methods needed to implement quantum machine learning including the counterparts to traditional feature extraction and kernel embeddings methods. Third, we show how quantum algorithms naturally calculate Bayesian quantities of interest such as posterior distributions and marginal likelihoods. Our goal then is to show how quantum algorithms solve statistical machine learning problems. On the theoretical side, we provide quantum versions of high dimensional regression, Gaussian processes and stochastic gradient descent. On the empirical side, we apply a quantum FFT algorithm to Chicago house price data. Finally, we conclude with directions for future research.     

深海远程正交频分复用水声通信簇约束的分布式 压缩感知信道估计*

在深海远程正交频分复用(Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing,OFDM)水声通信中,信道时延较长,导致信道频率选择性衰落严重,传统的压缩感知信道估计算法性能大幅下降。为此,本文利用深海远程信道在一定时间内具有相关性并呈较稳定簇状分布的特点,在分布式压缩感知信道估计中引入簇区域信息,进行簇约束的多数据块联合稀疏信道估计,提出一种簇约束的分布式压缩感知信道估计方法,并在深海开展了定点远程水声通信实验进行验证,实验结果表明,与传统的分布式压缩感知信道估计算法相比,本方法的能够降低50%左右的误码率。     

超声全矩阵数据联合稀疏重构的多测量向量模型应用

针对单测量向量模型(Single Measurement Vector,SMV)等传统压缩感知方法处理超声全矩阵数据时,存在重构精度低和重构耗时长等问题,本文研究了多测量向量模型(Multiple Measurement Vectors,MMV)应用的可行性。针对铝合金试块中不同深度的φ2 mm横通孔,分别使用MMV模型中的多测量稀疏贝叶斯(Multiple Sparse Bayesian Learning,MSBL)算法和SMV模型中的稀疏贝叶斯(Sparse Bayesian Learning,SBL)算法进行超声全矩阵数据重构,并实施全聚焦成像。随后,引入归一化均方误差和阵列性能因子评价图像和信号的重构效果。实验结果表明,SBL算法在25%采样率时的归一化均方误差为1.9%,而MSBL算法仅需15%采样率即可达到相似效果且耗时更少。