Amino acid functionalisation of water soluble carbon nanotubes

High solubility of SWNTs and MWNTs in water is obtained by organic functionalisation; derivatisation with N-protected glycine is also easily achieved.     

Solid-phase synthesis and characterization of a novel fullerene-peptide derived from histone H3

A peptide analogue from a histone H3 protein containing the L-fulleropyrrolidino-glutamic acid has been prepared by a solid-phase approach and has been fully characterized. By molecular modelling it was verified that this peptide derivative is able to retain a binding capacity to the MHC (major histocompatibility complex) molecule similar to that of the cognate epitope.     

SUBPOL: a novel SUcrose-Based Polymer support for solid-phase peptide synthesis and affinity chromatography applications

A novel SUcrose-Based Polymer support (SUBPOL) with tailored morphology suitable for the use in solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) is described, and its application as a hydrophilic affinity matrix for the specific removal of fibrinogen from human plasma is demonstrated. After suspension polymerization of partly methacrylated 2,1':4,6-di-O-isopropylidene sucrose and subsequent removal of the protecting groups, hydrophilic spherical polymer beads were obtained. The morphology of the resulting resin was controlled by variation of the porogen as well as the average degree of substitution with respect to the methacryloyl groups of the monomer mixture. After introduction of amino groups for a permanent attachment of immobilized peptide ligands, prevention of unintended esterification during SPPS was achieved by silylation of remaining hydroxy groups. Alternatively, a Rink amide linker was introduced prior to SPPS to allow cleavage and subsequent analysis of the peptide assembled on the SUBPOL resins. Two hexapeptides of sequence kwiivw and hffflw, consisting of d-amino acids, as well as a 19-mer peptide corresponding to the sequence GSGVRGDFGSLAPRVARQL of the VP1 protein from the foot-and-mouse disease virus (FMDV) were successfully prepared both manually or in a semi-automated process on SUBPOL resins according to the Fmoc/tBu strategy. Yields and purities were comparable to peptides prepared on commercially available polystyrene resins. A specific affinity adsorbent containing the fibrinogen-binding pentapeptide GPRPK was prepared by SPPS on SUBPOL resins of different morphology, and the strong impact of the affinity matrix on adsorption performance was demonstrated.     

Effect of low-temperature processing on dry film photoresist properties for flexible electronics

This study presents the mechanical characterization of the dry film photoresist PerMX and its adhesion properties when laminated onto Kapton® E (PI) and Melinex® ST506 (PET). Additionally, the processing temperature, the adhesion strength, and the neutral plane position are investigated and optimized. A relatively low-temperature (85 °C) process is developed to protect the integrity of the polymers with low glass transition temperature and reduce the thermal mismatch stress. Reduction in processing temperature led to a decrement in the adhesion strength. To counteract this unwanted effect, surface treatments (oxygen plasma) are performed on the polymer surface before lamination. Using the latter techniques, adhesion of PerMX to PET (hard bake: 1 h at 85 °C) is increased from 0.07 to 0.26 N mm⁻¹ (variation of 270%). Finally, the mechanical robustness is investigated and increased by tuning the position of the neutral plane, after 50,000 bending cycles and a radius of curvature of 2.5 mm. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2013     

Selective oxidation of methanol on a system of V2O5 O2 catalysts. Influence of operating variables

The partial oxidation of methanol on a system of van-dium-titanium catalysts has been studied. Results demonstrated that the conversio degree of reactant and the selectivity tointermediate oxidation products depend markedly on temperature and residence time.     

Porous 3-D honeycomb architecture by self-assembly of helical H-bonded molecular tapes

Enantiopure dipeptide-derived 1,3,5-triazepan-2,6-diones and form H-bonded 3(1) helical molecular tapes with P chirality in the solid state; in the case of , these columnar tapes self-assemble through aromatic-aromatic interactions to give hollow tubular structures.     

Double functionalization of carbon nanotubes for multimodal drug delivery

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes have been covalently functionalized via 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides with orthogonally protected amino functions that can be selectively deprotected and subsequently modified with drugs and fluorescent probes.     

Modeling of MIG/MAG welding with experimental validation using an active contour algorithm applied on high speed movies

This paper investigates some issues in physical modeling of metal inert gas/metal active gas (MIG/MAG) welding process in the short arc mode. In this mode, a metal supply is molten in the arc state and then transferred to the weld pool during the short-circuit state. A hybrid model having two distinct continuous states whose switchings are controlled by two guard conditions is proposed. Due to the complexity of the physical phenomena involved in the welding process, simplifications are used to obtain a model accounting for the main physical contributions but simple enough to yield an efficient, fast and numerically tractable simulator which can be used intensively for evaluating different control strategies. In an attempt to validate the proposed model, different measurements have been made including supply voltage and current sampled synchronously with high speed digital video. In order to extract some relevant quantities representative of the metal transfer from image sequences, an active contour algorithm is developed and tested. The effectiveness of the proposed model in the prediction of major tendencies of a welding process, especially in the arc state, is shown using experimental data. Some limitations of the model during the metal transfer are also stressed and possible remedies are then proposed.     

A simple constructive approach to quadratic BSDEs with or without delay

This paper provides a simple approach for the consideration of quadratic BSDEs with bounded terminal conditions. Using solely probabilistic arguments, we retrieve the existence and uniqueness result derived via PDE-based methods by Kobylanski (2000) [14]. This approach is related to the study of quadratic BSDEs presented by Tevzadze (2008) [19]. Our argumentation, as in Tevzadze (2008) [19], highly relies on the theory of BMO martingales which was used for the first time for BSDEs by Hu et al. (2005) [12]. However, we avoid in our method any fixed point argument and use Malliavin calculus to overcome the difficulty. Our new scheme of proof allows also to extend the class of quadratic BSDEs, for which there exists a unique solution: we incorporate delayed quadratic BSDEs, whose driver depends on the recent past of the Y$Y$ component of the solution. When the delay vanishes, we verify that the solution of a delayed quadratic BSDE converges to the solution of the corresponding classical non-delayed quadratic BSDE.