Polymeric coating of surface modified nitinol stent with POSS-nanocomposite polymer

Stent angioplasty is a successful treatment for arterial occlusion, particularly in coronary artery disease. The clinical communities were enthusiastic about the use of drug-eluting stents; however, these stents have a tendency to be a contributory factor towards late stage thrombosis, leading to mortality in a significant number of patients per year. This work presents an innovative approach in self-expanding coronary stents preparation. We developed a new nanocomposite polymer based on polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS) and poly(carbonate-urea)urethane (PCU), which is an antithrombogenic and a non-biodegradable polymer with in situ endothelialization properties. The aim of this work is to coat a NiTi stent alloy with POSS-PCU. In prolonged applications in the human body, the corrosion of the NiTi alloy can result in the release of deleterious ions which leads to unwanted biological reactions. Coating the nitinol (NiTi) surface with POSS-PCU can enhance surface resistance and improve biocompatibility. Electrohydrodynamic spraying was used as the polymer deposition process and thus a few experiments were carried out to compare this process with casting. Prior to deposition the NiTi has been surface modified. The peel strength of the deposit was studied before and after degradation of the coating. It is shown that the surface modification enhances the peel strength by 300%. It is also indicated how the adhesion strength of the POSS-PCU coating changes post-exposure to physiological solutions comprised of hydrolytic, oxidative, peroxidative and biological media. This part of the study shows that the modified NiTi presents far greater resistance to decay in peel strength compared to the non-modified NiTi.     

Novel cationic surfactant ion pair based solid phase microextraction fiber for nano-level analysis of BTEX

Ion pair of cationic surfactant (cetytrimethylammonium bromide) and tungestosilicic acid incorporated in PVC matrix, was used for coating a piece of copper wire as a new high sensitive SPME fiber in extraction and determination of BTEX compounds from the headspace of water samples prior to GC/FID analysis. Under optimum extraction conditions, limits of detection for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, m-xylene and o-xylene were found to be 1.18, 5.61, 0.87, 0.29, 0.22 and 0.33 ng L(-1) respectively. Low detection limits, wide linear dynamic ranges, good reproducibility (RSD% 1.48-4.27), high fiber capacity and high mechanical durability are some of the most important advantages of the new fiber.     

Type and conductor of simplicial affine semigroups

We provide a generalization of pseudo-Frobenius numbers of numerical semigroups to the context of the simplicial affine semigroups. In this way, we characterize the Cohen-Macaulay type of the simplicial affine semigroup ring $\mathbb{K}[S]$. We define the type of S, $\mathrm{type}(S)$, in terms of some Apéry sets of S and show that it coincides with the Cohen-Macaulay type of the semigroup ring, when $\mathbb{K}[S]$ is Cohen-Macaulay. If $\mathbb{K}[S]$ is a d-dimensional Cohen-Macaulay ring of embedding dimension at most $d+2$, then $\mathrm{type}(S)\le 2$. Otherwise, $\mathrm{type}(S)$ might be arbitrary large and it has no upper bound in terms of the embedding dimension. Finally, we present a generating set for the conductor of S as an ideal of its normalization.     

Associated radical ideals of monomial ideals

Algebraic and combinatorial properties of a monomial ideal are studied in terms of its associated radical ideals. In particular, we present some applications to the symbolic powers of square-free monomial ideals.     

Functionalized single-walled carbon nanotube for ketamine sensing: DFT and MD studies

Structural Chemistry - The detection methods used to analyze abused drugs should be sensitive sufficiently. Here in, we propose carbon nanotube (CNT) functionalized with COOH and CONHCH3 groups as...     

Synthesis of pyrazolo[4,3-<Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis>][1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-<Emphasis Type="Italic">c</Emphasis>]pyrimidines

Starting from 1,5-dihydro-4H-pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidin-4-ones, a synthesis pathway to the tricyclic pyrazolo[4,3-e][1,2,4]triazolo[4,3-c]pyrimidines is described. Reaction of 1,5-dihydro-4H-pyrazolo[3,4-d] pyrimidin-4-ones with phosphoryl chloride afforded the corresponding 4-chloro-1H-pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidines. Treatment of these compounds with hydrazine hydrate at reflux temperature gave the hydrazino derivatives, which were subsequently cyclized to the titled compounds on heating with orthoesters in ethanol. Correspondence: Abolghasem Davoodnia, Department of Chemistry, School of Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad Branch, Mashhad 91735-413, Iran.     

The effect of additives on naltrexone hydrochloride release and solvent removal rate from an injectable in situ forming PLGA implant

Biodegradable in situ forming drug delivery systems for naltrexone release are promising for post‐treatment of drug addicts. The effect of two different additives, glycerol and ethyl heptanoate, on the naltrexone hydrochloride release and solvent removal from a poly(DL ‐lactide‐co‐glycolide) (PLGA) injectable implant is presented in this article. The experimental results showed that the in vitro initial release of the drug was decreased in the presence of these additives. Ethyl heptanoate was, however, more effective than glycerol and increasing the amount of additives in PLGA solution up to 5% (w/w) resulted in a decrease of initial naltrexone release rate up to 50%. The morphological evaluation of implants using scanning electron microscopy indicated that the additives generated a less porous structure together with a finger‐like to sponge‐like transition. The solvent removal profiles of injectable implants, which can be well described by thermogravimetric and morphological analysis, were in good agreement with drug release profiles. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sonosynthesis of spiroindolines using functionalized SBA-15

Functionalized SBA-15 (immobilization of Pd on the modified SBA-15) has been used as an efficient catalyst for the preparation of spiroindolines by multi-component reactions of isatins, cyclic-1,3-diketones, and 6-amino-1,3-dimethyluracil under ultrasonic irradiation in water. The catalyst has been characterized by X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), N₂ adsorption analysis, temperature-programmed desorption (TPD), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The advantages of this method include the reusability of the catalyst, low catalyst loading, excellent yields in short reaction times and easy separation of products, and use of ultrasonic irradiation as a valuable and powerful technology.