Rotaxanated conjugated sensory polymers

Two highly emissive conjugated polymers with tethered rotaxane repeat units are reported. Hydrogen bonding between acidic alcohols and the N-heteroaromatic groups in the rotaxanes attenuates polymer fluorescence. In addition, the rotaxane groups create precise three-dimensional pockets for metal binding, which results in fluorescence quenching. Exposing thin films of Zn-doped polymers to alcohol vapors reverses the quenching by up to 25%.     

Growth promotion of HepG2 hepatoma cells by antisense-mediated knockdown of glypican-3 is independent of insulin-like growth factor 2 signaling

Glypican-3 (GPC3) encodes a cell-surface heparan- sulfate proteoglycan and its expression is frequently silenced in ovarian cancer, mesotheliomas, and breast cancer cell lines and ectopic expression of GPC3 inhibited the growth of these cells, suggesting that GPC3 plays a negative role in cell proliferation. In contrast, up-regulation of GPC3 is often observed in hepatoma, neuroblastoma, and Wilms' tumor. Whether GPC3 plays the same growth inhibitory role in these tumors remains to be studied. Here we report that antisense-mediated knockdown of GPC3 in the HepG2 hepatoma cells significantly promotes the growth of hepatoma cells. In addition, we show that this growth promotion is independent of insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) signaling. Our data suggest that GPC3 plays a growth-suppressing role in hepatoma and provide cell biological evidence inconsistent with the hypothesis that GPC3 acts as a growth suppressor by downregulating IGF2.     

Force acting on a dielectric particle in a concentration gradient by ionic concentration polarization under an externally applied DC electric field

There is a concentration-polarization (CP) force acting on a particle submerged in an electrolyte solution with a concentration (conductivity) gradient under an externally applied DC electric field. This force originates from the two mechanisms: (i) gradient of electrohydrodynamic pressure around the particle developed by the Coulombic force acting on induced free charges by the concentration polarization, and (ii) dielectric force due to nonuniform electric field induced by the conductivity gradient. A perturbation analysis is performed for the electric field, the concentration field, and the hydrodynamic field, under the assumptions of creeping flow and small concentration gradient. The leading order component of this force acting on a dielectric spherical particle is obtained by integrating the Maxwell and the hydrodynamic stress tensors. The analytical results are validated by comparing the surface pressure and the skin friction to those of a numerical analysis. The CP force is proportional to square of the applied electric field, effective for electrically neutral particles, and always directs towards the region of higher ionic concentration. The magnitude of the CP force is compared to that of the electrophoretic and the conventional dielectrophoretic forces.     

Linear scaling computation of the Fock matrix. VII. Parallel computation of the Coulomb matrix

We present parallelization of a quantum-chemical tree-code for linear scaling computation of the Coulomb matrix. Equal time partition is used to load balance computation of the Coulomb matrix. Equal time partition is a measurement based algorithm for domain decomposition that exploits small variation of the density between self-consistent-field cycles to achieve load balance. Efficiency of the equal time partition is illustrated by several tests involving both finite and periodic systems. It is found that equal time partition is able to deliver 91%-98% efficiency with 128 processors in the most time consuming part of the Coulomb matrix calculation. The current parallel quantum chemical tree code is able to deliver 63%-81% overall efficiency on 128 processors with fine grained parallelism (less than two heavy atoms per processor).     

Chemical lithography by Ag-nanoparticle-mediated photoreduction of aromatic nitro monolayers on Au

Patterned, amine-terminated monolayers can be fabricated from 4-nitrobenzenethiol (4-NBT) monolayers simply by irradiating under ambient conditions with visible laser after spreading Ag nanoparticles onto selected regions of the 4-NBT monolayers on Au. Au nanoparticles were adsorbed selectively onto the amine groups produced by photoreaction, and polyaniline was found to grow exclusively at the amine groups when electrochemical polymerization was conducted using the patterned substrate as the working electrode. These observations clearly support our previous contention that Ag nanoparticles can act as moderate photoelectron emitters.