Caleosin-based nanoscale oil bodies for targeted delivery of hydrophobic anticancer drugs

Nanoscale artificial oil bodies (NOBs) could be assembled from plant oil, phospholipids (PLs), and oleosin (Ole) as previously reported. NOBs have a lipid-based structure that contains a central oil space enclosed by a monolayer of Ole-bound PLs. As an oil structural protein, Ole functions to maintain the integrity of NOBs. Like Ole, caleosin (Cal) is a plant oil-associated protein. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of NOBs assembled by Cal for targeted delivery of drugs. Cal was first fused with anti-HER2/neu affibody (ZH2), and the resulting fusion gene (Cal–ZH2) was then expressed in Escherichia coli. Consequently, NOBs assembled with the fusion protein were selectively internalized by HER2/neu-positive tumor cells. The internalization efficiency could reach as high as 90%. Furthermore, a hydrophobic anticancer drug, Camptothecin (CPT), was encapsulated into Cal-based NOBs. These CPT-loaded NOBs had a size around 200 nm and were resistant to hemolysis. Release of CPT from NOBs at the non-permissive condition followed a sustained and prolonged profile. After administration of the CPT formulation, Cal–ZH2-displayed NOBs exhibited a strong antitumor activity toward HER2/neu-positive cells both in vitro and in vivo. The result indicates the potential of Cal-based NOBs for targeted delivery of hydrophobic drugs.     

Supercapacitive performance of porous graphene nanosheets in bis(trifluoromethylsulfony)imide and bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide ionic liquid electrolytes

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - A method of high-heating-rate thermal reduction is used to produce porous graphene nanosheets (PGNSs). This material is characterized by a unique holey...     

An improvement of tilted AlN for shear and longitudinal acoustic wave

This study investigates c-axis tilted aluminum nitride (AlN) piezoelectric films for the improvement of both shear and longitudinal acoustic wave resonances. Solidly-mounted resonator (SMR) structure is adopted for the applications of high frequency wireless communications and high sensitivity sensors. As to the piezoelectric layer, c-axis tilted AlN has the capability to excite the dual-mode resonances, namely, the longitudinal and shear mode resonances. In this study, SMR devices made with a seven-layer molybdenum/silicon dioxide (Mo/SiO₂) Bragg reflector and the c-axis tilted AlN are carried out. A conventional off-axis sputtering technique is applied to grow the tilted AlN. The outcome frequency responses show dual resonant characteristics. However, the longitudinal resonance fades away with the AlN c-axis tilted angle, and the quality factor of the longitudinal resonance decreases. Consequently, we make an improvement by tilting the off-center substrates toward the sputtering source and successfully enhance the longitudinal resonance while preserving the shear resonance at the same time. Not only the shear resonance for the liquid-based sensing application, but also an outstanding longitudinal resonance could be obtained. The practicability of the dual-mode resonator is extended.     

Nonspherical LED packaging lens for uniformity improvement

Light emitting diode (LED) has more advantages compared with a traditional incandescent light bulb and a fluorescent lamp, such as small size, low quantity of heat, long life, low power consumption, fast response, plain packaging and ease of develop ment of a frivolous short product. A methodology is proposed to improve the uniformity of the LED illumination system. As a light source in a backlight unit (BLU), the requirement for optical characteristics of a LED is different from highly directional conventional ones. New diffused-type LEDs need to be developed to fulfill the requirement of the BLU industry. A non-spherical lens is designed to optimize uniformity, and a great improvement in uniformity from 28.4 to 64% is demonstrated. In the future, it may used in an LED display to improve the unevenness of illumination.     

Non-imaging ray-tracing for sputtering simulation with apodization

Although apodization patterns have been adopted for the analysis of sputtering sources, the analytical solutions for the film thickness equations are yet limited to only simple conditions. Empirical formulations for thin film sputtering lacking the flexibility in dealing with multi-substrate conditions, a suitable cost-effective procedure is required to estimate the film thickness distribution. This study reports a cross-discipline simulation program, which is based on discrete particle Monte-Carlo methods and has been successfully applied to a non-imaging design to solve problems associated with sputtering uniformity. Robustness of the present method is first proved by comparing it with a typical analytical solution. Further, this report also investigates the overall all effects cause by the sizes of the deposited substrate, such that the determination of the distance between the target surface and the apodization index can be complete. This verifies the capability of the proposed method for solving the sputtering film thickness problems. The benefit is that an optical thin film engineer can, using the same optical software, design a specific optical component and consider the possible coating qualities with thickness tolerance, during the design stage.     

Microstructure and lubricating property of ultra-fast laser pulse textured silicon carbide seals

Most previous studies have employed surface patterning to improve the performance of lubrication systems. However, few have experimentally analyzed improved effects on friction reduction in SiC mechanical seals by ultra-fast laser pulse texturing. This work applies surface texturing on a non-contact mechanical seal and analyzes the characteristics of the resultant surface morphology. A femtosecond laser system is employed to fabricate micro/nanostructures on the SiC mechanical seal, and generates microscale-depth stripes and induces nanostructures on the seal surface. This work examines the morphology and cross section of the SiC nanostructures that correspond to the different scanning speeds of the laser pulse. Results show that varying the scanning speed enables the application of nanostructures of different amplitudes and widths on the surface of the seal. The friction coefficient of the introduced SiC full-textured seal is about 20% smaller than that of a conventional SiC mechanical seal. Hence, femtosecond laser texturing is effective and enables direct fabrication of the surface micro/nanostructures of SiC seals. This technique also serves as a potential approach to lubricating applications.     

A kinetic study on grafting of maleic anhydride onto a thermoplastic elastomer

Maleation of a thermoplastic elastomer, styrene-[ethylene-butylene]-styrene (SEBS) triblock copolymer, was carried out by a solution grafting reaction with maleic anhydride initiated by dicumyl peroxide. The reaction products from the graft reaction in xylene, commonly chosen as the solvent for maleation graft reactions, were identified using liquid chromatograph (LC), IR, and ¹³C-NMR. Side products from the graft reaction were identified by the LC analysis and, it was concluded that xylene affected the graft reaction through its active methyl groups. Reaction mechanisms were investigated by performing free radical kinetics analysis. The reaction orders and the apparent rate constant were estimated. It was concluded that a proper choice of the solvent might favor better graft efficiency. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

A modified incremental harmonic balance method for rotary periodic motions

The determination of periodic solutions is an essential step in the study of dynamic systems. If some of the generalized coordinates describing the configuration of a system are angular positions relative to certain reference axes, the associated periodic motions divide into two types: oscillatory and rotary periodic motions. For an oscillatory periodic motion, all the generalized coordinates are periodic in time. On the other hand, for a rotary periodic motion, some angular coordinates may have unbounded magnitude due to the persistent circulation about their pivots. In this case, although the behaviour of the system is periodic physically, those angular coordinates are not periodic in time. Although various effective methods have been developed for the determination of oscillatory periodic motion, the rotary periodic motion can only be determined by brute force integration. In this paper, the incremental harmonic balance (IHB) method is modified so that rotary periodic motions can be determined as well as oscillatory periodic motions in a unified formulation. This modified IHB method is applied to a practical device, a rotating disk equipped with a ball-type balancer, to show its effectiveness.     

Cell culture device using spatial light modulator

Spatial light modulator is introduced for cell culturing and related illumination experiment. Two kinds of designs were used. The first type put the cell along with the bio-medium directly on top of the analyzer of the microdisplay and set a cover glass on it to retain the medium environment, which turned the microdisplay into a bio-container. The second type introduced an optical lens system placed below the spatial light modulator to focus the light spots on specific position. Details of the advantages and drawbacks for the two different approaches are discussed, and the human melanocyte cell (HMC) is introduced to prove the feasibility of the concept. Results indicate that the second type is much more suitable than the first for precision required application.     

Transient degenerate four-wave mixing in molecular systems

The dependence of the degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) signal on laser intensity, molecular transition moment and molecular concentration were examined experimentally by taking the iodine molecule (l₂) as a testing example. The experimental results will be interpreted by a non-steady-state DFWM theory, an extension of the non-degenerate two-level system previously proposed. The distinctive physical feature of this mechanism is that the present observation is the result of non-stationary evolution of the excited-state population, in contrast to the conventional theory based on the steady-state treatment. In this study, we have also taken into account the magnetic sub-levels of molecular rovibronic quantum states. The non-steady-state model we developed in this paper is applicable to fast pump and slow relaxation conditions, thus being more suitable for gas-phase systems than the condensed-phase where fast relaxations usually take place.