Nano/Biomimetic Tissue Adhesives Development: From Research to Clinical Application

Wound closure and healing have been a problem that humans have faced since the ancient eras. An appropriate tissue connector must hold the edges of injured tissues close together to support healing and also prevent the leakage of biological fluids when resisting against the tensile forces. Even though clinical usage of mechanical methods is convenient for wound closure, their application has some limitations and drawbacks such as being painful for patients and hard to apply for surgeons when the injured site is not in touch. Furthermore, they do not have desirable cosmetic results. To solve these problems, closing the wounds with sticky materials has been introduced to prevent bleeding and induce the wound healing process. To this regard, many types of surgical adhesives including tissue adhesives have been developed to be a suitable alternative for sutures and staples. There is also a new approach which aims at producing bioadhesives by mimicking the nature along with applying nanotechnology methods. Today, many studies have been done to develop new adhesives inspired by nature. We have attempted to introduce the fundamentals of wound healing along with the different types of bioadhesives, their properties, and clinical applications in a simple and illustrated comprehensive way.     

Dielectrophoretic manipulation and separation of microparticles using curved microelectrodes

This paper presents the development and experimental analysis of a dielectrophoresis (DEP) system, which is used for the manipulation and separation of microparticles in liquid flow. The system is composed of arrays of microelectrodes integrated to a microchannel. Novel curved microelectrodes are symmetrically placed with respect to the centre of the microchannel with a minimum gap of 40 μm. Computational fluid dynamics method is utilised to characterise the DEP field and predict the dynamics of particles. The performance of the system is assessed with microspheres of 1, 5 and 12 μm diameters. When a high‐frequency potential is applied to microelectrodes a spatially varying electric field is induced in the microchannel, which creates the DEP force. Negative‐DEP behaviour is observed with particles being repelled from the microelectrodes. The particles of different dimensions experience different DEP forces and thus settle to separate equilibrium zones across the microchannel. Experiments demonstrate the capability of the system as a field flow fraction tool for sorting microparticles according to their dimensions and dielectric properties.     

Synthesis of 3-substituted bicyclic imidazo[1,2-d][1,2,4]thiadiazoles and tricyclic benzo[4,5]imidazo[1,2-d][1,2,4]thiadiazoles

A versatile synthetic route to potentially useful fused-ring [1,2,4]thiadiazole scaffolds (e.g., 7a and 10b) via exchange reactions of the precursor [1,2,4]thiadiazol-3-(2H)one derivatives (e.g., 6 and 9) with appropriately substituted nitriles (e.g., cyanogen bromide or p-toluenesulfonyl cyanide) under mild conditions is described. For example, the tricyclic 3-bromo [1,2,4]THD derivative (7a) underwent S(N)Ar substitution with a variety of nucleophiles, which included amines, malonate esters and alcohols. Likewise, the bicyclic 3-p-tosyl [1,2,4]THD (10b) was employed as a template in reaction with diamines, and the resulting substituted diamines (e.g., 12a or 12e) were further selectively derivatized at the N1 and/or N2 positions in a linear fashion. The X-ray crystal structure of the 3-methyl bicyclic [1,2,4]THD (21) was obtained, and selective methylation at the N1 position via a protection-alkylation-deprotection protocol, as illustrated in Scheme 6, was confirmed. Alternatively, a short convergent synthesis of N1-functionalized derivatives from the reaction of 10b with appropriately substituted secondary amines was also developed. Hence, these synthetic strategies were advantageously exploited to provide access to a variety of diversely derivatized 3-substituted fused-ring [1,2,4]thiadiazole derivatives.     

A review of III-nitride research at the Center for Quantum Devices

In this paper, we review the history of the Center for Quantum Devices’ (CQD) III-nitride research covering the past 15 years. We review early work developing III-nitride material growth. We then present a review of laser and light-emitting diode (LED) results covering everything from blue lasers to deep UV LEDs emitting at 250 nm. This is followed by a discussion of our UV photodetector research from early photoconductors all the way to current state of the art Geiger-mode UV single photon detectors.     

A reproducible test to characterise the triboelectric charging of powders during their pneumatic transport

Although several investigations had been carried out to explore the triboelectrification of powders, only few data are available on the experimental procedures and set-ups required to obtain reliable data. The present study deals with the development of a pneumatic test to characterise the tribocharging of fine powders. An experimental device was set up allowing on-line monitoring of the charge of both particles and transport pipes. Experiments were carried out using two types of powder (fine sugar and PVC) coupled with two types of pipe materials (Teflon and nylon). Results showed the extreme importance of the control of the relative humidity, the initial charge of particles and the charge dissipation of the walls to obtain pertinent data. Furthermore, the results showed that solids loadings higher than 1 (kg of solids/kg of air) are not proper to achieve reliable measurements. However, at very dilute solids loading (～0.001) the time evolutions of the electrostatic charge and the mass of the powder follow similar trends so that the tribocharging becomes independent of the solids mass flowrate. This allows accurate assessment of the tribocharging of cohesive powders for which a regular flow cannot be guaranteed.     

Nonlinear Triple Product $$A^{*}B + B^{*}A$$ for Derivations on $$\ast$$ -Algebras

Mathematical Notes - Let $$\mathcal{A}$$ be a prime $$\ast$$ -algebra. In this paper, assuming that $$\Phi:\mathcal{A}\to\mathcal{A}$$ satisfies $$\Phi(A\diamond B \diamond C)=\Phi(A)\diamond B...     

Particle trapping using dielectrophoretically patterned carbon nanotubes

This study presents the dielectrophoretic (DEP) assembly of multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) between curved microelectrodes for the purpose of trapping polystyrene microparticles within a microfluidic system. Under normal conditions, polystyrene particles exhibit negative DEP behaviour and are repelled from microelectrodes. Interestingly, the addition of MWCNTs to the system alters this situation in two ways: first, they coat the surface of particles and change their dielectric properties to exhibit positive DEP behaviour; second, the assembled MWCNTs are highly conductive and after the deposition serve as extensions to the microelectrodes. They establish an array of nanoelectrodes that initiates from the edge of microelectrodes and grow along the electric field lines. These nanoelectrodes can effectively trap the MWCNT‐coated particles, since they cover a large portion of the microchannel bottom surface and also create a much stronger electric field than the primary microelectrodes as confirmed by our numerical simulations. We will show that the presence of MWCNT significantly changes performance of the system, which is investigated by trapping sample polystyrene particles with plain, COOH and goat anti‐mouse IgG surfaces.     

Materials characterization of n - ZnO / p - GaN : Mg / c - Al2O3 UV LEDs grown by pulsed laser deposition and metal–organic chemical vapor deposition

n-ZnO/p-GaN:Mg hybrid heterojunctions grown on c-Al₂O₃ substrates showed 375 nm room temperature electroluminescence. It was suggested that the high materials and interface quality obtained using pulsed laser deposition for the n-ZnO growth and metal–organic chemical vapor deposition for the p-GaN:Mg were key factors enabling the injection of holes and the radiative near band edge recombination in the ZnO. In this paper we present the materials characterization of this structure using x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy.     

W/O Emulsion Destabilization and Release of a Polysaccharide Entrapped in the Droplets

This study was conducted as part of European project VEGEPHY to develop a product for the crop protection purposes. It concerns first the destabilization of a W/O emulsion containing water droplets in which the polysaccharide carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) is trapped, the droplets being dispersed in a vegetable oil made of rapeseed methyl ester. Polyglycerolpolyricinoleate (PGPR) is used as surfactant and glycerol is added to enhance the dispersion of the CMC. The second part is dealing with the study of the release and dilution of the CMC obtained by dilution of the destabilized emulsion in water in order to obtain the required final amount of CMC for practical purposes. The destabilization of the emulsion by the demulsifier (cynthiorex PMH 1125) has been followed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) that permits by studying the freezing of the dispersed water to detect the presence of bulk water. The release and dilution in water of the CMC versus time was followed and quantified by measuring the conductivity of the sample. The release kinetic was modeled using a first-order empirical model. The results showed that the release process of the W/O emulsion depends on the concentration of the demulsifier, on the stirring rate, and on the temperature. The optimum amount of the non-ionic surfactant was found to be 10% and the full release of the CMC has been obtained in 600 seconds.