Elemental analysis of particulate matter in a metal workshop and of biological samples from exposed workers

During metal welding and cutting, large amounts of particulate matter (PM) are produced that might represent a significant health risk for the exposed workers. In the present pilot study, we performed an elemental analysis of fine PM collected in a metal workshop. Also, elemental analysis of the hair and nail samples collected from workers exposed to the workshop dust and control group was done. Concentrations of 15 elements in PM were measured with X‐Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Particle Induced X‐ray Emission (PIXE), whereas inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) was used to determine 12 elements in hair and nail samples. Mean 8‐hr concentrations of PM_2.5, Fe, and Mn in the vicinity of welders were up to 1803, 860, and 30 μg/m³, respectively, whereas in the nearby city, daily PM_2.5 concentrations are on average 11 μg/m³. We found that several elements, especially Fe and Mn, had substantially higher concentrations in hair and nail samples of exposed workers than in the control group, which indicates the accumulation of metals in workers' tissues, although limit values were not exceeded.     

Development of an improved divergence‐free‐condition compensated coupled framework to solve flow problems with time‐varying geometries

In this article a coupled version of the improved divergence‐free‐condition compensated method will be proposed to simulate time‐varying geometries by direct forcing immersed boundary method. The proposed method can be seen as a quasi‐multi‐moment framework due to the fact that the momentum equations are discretized by both cell‐centered and cell‐face velocity. For simulating time‐varying geometries, a semi‐implicit iterative method is proposed for calculating the direct forcing terms. Treatments for suppressing spurious force oscillations, calculating drag/lift forces, and evaluating velocity and pressure for freshly cells will also be addressed. In order to show the applicability and accuracy, analytical as well as benchmark problems will be investigated by the present framework and compared with other numerical and experimental results.     

Evolutionary Development and Structural Diversity of Natural Antimicrobial Peptides,Peptidometics, and Cationic Amphiphiles Based on Amino Acids

Russian Journal of General Chemistry - The review article traces the main trends of the synthetic approach to the solution of the problem of overcoming the resistance of pathogenic bacterial...     

Optimization of Transducer Location for Novel Non-Intrusive Methodologies of Diagnosis in Diesel Engines

The health monitoring has been studied to ensure integrity of design of engine structure by detection, quantification, and prediction of damages. Early detection of faults may allow the downtime of maintenance to be rescheduled, thus preventing sudden shutdown of machines. In cylinder pressure developed, vibrations and noise emissions data provide a rich source of information about condition of engines. Monitoring of vibrations and noise emissions are novel non-intrusive methodologies for which positioning of various transducers are important issue. The presented work shows applicability of these diagnosis methodologies adopted in case of diesel engines. The effects of changing various fuel injection parameters was analyzed. Scope of using non-intrusive technique has been analyzed by changing locations of microphone. Novelty of this worklies in exploring signal processing methods for various locations around the engine test set up. Various frequency ranges of contributing noise and vibration sources were identified. Time-Frequency analysis showed the onset of various cyclic. Based on the identification of various frequency bands, it is possible to device suitable filters in order to extract more information.     

Inverse Problem of Determining an Unknown Coefficient in the Beam Vibration Equation

Differential Equations - We consider the direct initial–boundary value problem for the equation of transverse vibrations of a homogeneous beam freely supported at the ends and study the...     

Enantioselective C−H Activation with Earth‐Abundant 3d Transition Metals

Molecular syntheses largely rely on time‐ and labour‐intensive prefunctionalization strategies. In contrast, C?H activation represents an increasingly powerful approach that avoids lengthy syntheses of prefunctionalized substrates, with great potential for drug discovery, the pharmaceutical industry, material sciences, and crop protection, among others. The enantioselective functionalization of omnipresent C?H bonds has emerged as a transformative tool for the step‐ and atom‐economical generation of chiral molecular complexity. However, this rapidly growing research area remains dominated by noble transition metals, prominently featuring toxic palladium, iridium and rhodium catalysts. Indeed, despite significant achievements, the use of inexpensive and sustainable 3d metals in asymmetric C?H activations is still clearly in its infancy. Herein, we discuss the remarkable recent progress in enantioselective transformations via organometallic C?H activation by 3d base metals up to April 2019.     

Selective Decrosslinking in Liquid Crystal Polymer Actuators for Optical Reconfiguration of Origami and Light‐Fueled Locomotion

The ability to optically reconfigure an existing actuator of a liquid crystal polymer network (LCN) so that it can display a new actuation behavior or function is highly desired in developing materials for soft robotics applications. Demonstrated here is a powerful approach relying on selective polymer chain decrosslinking in a LCN actuator with uniaxial LC alignment. Using an anthracene‐containing LCN, spatially controlled optical decrosslinking can be realized through photocleavage of anthracene dimers under 254 nm UV light, which alters the distribution of actuation (crosslinked) and non‐actuation (decrosslinked) domains and thus determines the actuation behavior upon order‐disorder phase transitions. Based on this mechanism, a single actuator having a flat shape can be reconfigured in an on‐demand manner to exhibit reversible shape transformation such as self‐folding into origami three‐dimensional structures. Moreover, using a dye‐doped LCN actuator, a light‐fueled microwalker can be optically reconfigured to adopt different locomotion behaviors, changing from moving in the laser scanning direction to moving in the opposite direction.     

Recent advances and challenges in the recovery and purification of cellular exosomes

Exosomes are nanovesicles secreted by most cellular types that carry important biochemical compounds throughout the body with different purposes, playing a preponderant role in cellular communication. Because of their structure, physicochemical properties and stability, recent studies are focusing in their use as nanocarriers for different therapeutic compounds for the treatment of different diseases ranging from cancer to Parkinson's disease. However, current bioseparation protocols and methodologies are selected based on the final exosome application or intended use and present both advantages and disadvantages when compared among them. In this context, this review aims to present the most important technologies available for exosome isolation while discussing their advantages and disadvantages and the possibilities of being combined with other strategies. This is critical since the development of novel exosome‐based therapeutic strategies will be constrained to the effectiveness and yield of the selected downstream purification methodologies for which a thorough understanding of the available technological resources is needed.