Luminescent PtII and PtIV Platinacycles with Anticancer Activity Against Multiplatinum-Resistant Metastatic CRC and CRPC Cell Models

Platinum-based chemotherapy persists to be the only effective therapeutic option against a wide variety of tumours. Nevertheless, the acquisition of platinum resistance is utterly common, ultimately cornering conventional platinum drugs to only palliative in many patients. Thus, encountering alternatives that are both effective and non-cross-resistant is urgent. In this work, we report the synthesis, reduction studies, and luminescent properties of a series of cyclometallated (C,N,N′)Pt^IV compounds derived from amine–imine ligands, and their remarkable efficacy at the high nanomolar range and complete lack of cross-resistance, as an intrinsic property of the platinacycle, against multiplatinum-resistant colorectal cancer (CRC) and castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) metastatic cell lines generated for this work. We have also determined that the compounds are effective and selective for a broader cancer panel, including breast and lung cancer. Additionally, selected compounds have been further evaluated, finding a shift in their antiproliferative mechanism towards more cytotoxic and less cytostatic than cisplatin against cancer cells, being also able to oxidize cysteine residues and inhibit topoisomerase II, thereby holding great promise as future improved alternatives to conventional platinum drugs.     

Optimization of 1D photonic crystals to minimize the reflectance of silicon solar cells

This paper presents a process to easily fabricate photonic crystals (PCs) on silicon to increase the efficiency of solar cells by reducing the sunlight reflection in the front surface of the cell. The process, based on laser interference lithography (LIL) and reactive ion etching (RIE), allows creating nanostructures over large areas with different shapes and dimensions. The reflectance of the resulting surface depends on the height, pitch, width and shape of the created PC. In this work, these parameters have been optimized by computer simulation and the best PC so far found has been fabricated on silicon. We obtain a normal reflectance under 10% in the spectral region between 500 and 900 nm without any other material employed as antireflecting coating.     

Synthesis and structural study of ethylmethylsilanediol by quantum chemical calculations and IR and Raman spectroscopies

The intrinsic instability of small alkylsilanediols and their propensity toward self-condensation have been the main determiners of the scarce number of experimental works dealing with their synthesis and vibrational characterization. This is the case of the title compound, ethylmethylsilanediol (EMSD), which preparation and purification is, to the best of our knowledge, firstly reported in the present work. Hence, we also report the first records of the IR and Raman spectra of the molecule that have been thoroughly analyzed and completely assigned with the support of DFT calculations. Further, as a previous step of the vibrational assignment, we accomplished a thorough conformational analysis that allowed indentifying five conformations that represent minima on the potential energy surface (PES) of the molecule, depending on the different arrangement that both, the alkyl side chain and the –OH groups, can adopt. Finally, natural bond orbital (NBO) calculations were implemented to justify the stability order and the calculated geometries for the set of conformers in terms of the stabilization derived from the anomeric effect.     

On the True Nature of Renormalizability in Horava-Lifshitz Gravity

We argue that the true nature of the renormalizability of Horava-Lifshitz gravity lies in the presence of higher order spatial derivatives and not in the anisotropic Lifshitz scaling of space and time. We discuss the possibility of constructing a higher order spatial derivatives model that has the same renormalization properties of Horava-Lifshitz gravity but that does not make use of the Lifshitz scaling. In addition, the state-of-the-art of the Lorentz symmetry restoration in Horava-Lifshitz-type theories of gravitation is reviewed.     

An easy route to pentacyclic terpenylquinones

Cyclisation of terpenylnaphthohydroquinone derivatives or terpenylquinone cycloadducts, obtained from methyl myrcecommunate, was performed in the presence of HI, I₂ or BF₃·OEt₂ and provides efficient synthetic strategies for the preparation of pentacyclic terpenylquinones.     

Optimising the Termofluids CFD code for petascale simulations

ABSTRACT

This paper presents some recent efforts carried out on the expansion of the scalability of TermoFluids multi-physics Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code, aiming to achieve petascale capacity for a single simulation. We describe different aspects that we have improved in our code in order to efficiently run it on 131,072 CPU-cores. This work has been developed using the BlueGene/Q Mira supercomputer of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, where we have obtained feedback at the targeted scale. In summary, this is a practical paper showing our experience at reaching the petascale paradigm for a single simulation with TermoFluids.     

Titanium dioxide doped with transition metals (MxTi1?xO2, M: Ni, Co): synthesis and characterization for its potential application as photoanode

This study presents the synthesis of TiO₂ doped with different amounts of Co and Ni, starting from a simple metallic titanium powder. A successful electrophoretic deposition of these materials on ITO electrodes was achieved for its potential application as photoanodes. EDX, diffuse reflectance UV–Vis spectroscopy, and XRD measurements gave information on the chemical composition of the material and the location of the Ni or Co within the crystal structure of TiO₂. Raman spectroscopy suggests that for a higher content of doping metal above a defined percentage, the formation of metal oxide is promoted. A preliminary study of photoelectrocatalytic orange dye degradation shows higher color removal efficiency as compared to the commercial TiO₂ material.     

Denitrosation of N-Nitrososulfonamide as Chemical Probe for Determination of Binding Constants to Cyclodextrins

The influence of β-CD concentration on the acid hydrolysis of N-methyl-N-nitroso-p-toluenesulfonamide (MNTS) has been studied in the presence and absence of different alcohol concentrations. The rate of the denitrosation reaction in bulk water decrease as the β-CD concentration increases due to MNTS complexation in the CD cavity and the reaction taking place exclusively outside the cyclodextrin. Changes in this inhibition due to the presence of β-CD allow us to obtain the binding constants of different alcohols to the cyclodextrin. These binding constants are in very good agreement with those determined in the bibliography by other methods.