Dynamic contrast with reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent labels for imaging living cells

Interrogating living cells requires sensitive imaging of a large number of components in real time. The state-of-the-art of multiplexed imaging is usually limited to a few components. This review reports on the promise and the challenges of dynamic contrast to overcome this limitation.

Interrogating living cells requires sensitive imaging of a large number of components in real time.     

Engineering biodegradable polymeric network for the efficient removal of organo‐amphiphilic toxicants

Motivated with the continued demand for developing quality material showing better response for the efficient removal of organo‐amphiphilic toxicants, we have demonstrated the growth of three‐dimensional polymer organic framework—a covalent crosslinked polymer C2B derived via photon triggered thiol‐alkene click reaction. Instrumentation techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance, thermogravimetric analysis, and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were used for the characterization. FESEM and Cryo‐SEM analysis were done to analyze the morphology of the resin. The adsorption and release experiments were done with ultraviolet‐visible spectroscopic technique. The polymer C2B derived from polyolefin and tetrathiol via thiol‐alkene photoclick reaction showed efficiency toward adsorption of organo‐amphiphilic contaminants such as dioxane, dimethylformamide, fluorescein, and rhodamine B (RH). Even the material selectively showed the efficient release of toxicant—RH. Moreover, it can be reused over cycles. This makes the polymer C2B as potential candidate to be commercially viable for textile industries.     

Experimental study of heat transfer coefficients on red clay brick wall

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Energy utilization in building sector constitutes 40% of the total energy consumption of the world, and in this, the wall alone consumes 50% of the...     

Effective viscosity of a concentrated suspension of composite porous spherical particles

Meccanica - We present an analytical study of the effective viscosity of concentrated suspension of porous spherical particles with a rigid core, under the creeping flow conditions. It is assumed...     

Fractional-order algorithms for tracking Rayleigh fading channels

Nonlinear Dynamics - This paper presents the tracking behavior of fractional-order (FO) variants of the normalized least mean square (NLMS) algorithm in a nonstationary environment modeled as...     

Ruthenium(II) complexes containing 4‐methoxybenzhydrazone ligands: synthesis,characterization, DNA binding,DNA cleavage,radical scavenging and in vitro cytotoxic activity

Three ruthenium(II) hydrazone complexes of composition [RuCl(CO)(PPh₃)₂L] were synthesized from the reactions of [RuHCl(CO)(PPh₃)₃] with hydrazones derived from 4‐methoxybenzhydrazide and 4‐formylbenzoic acid (HL¹), 4‐methylbenzaldehyde (HL²) and 2‐bromobenzaldehyde (HL³). The synthesized hydrazone ligands and their metal complexes were characterized using elemental analysis and infrared, UV–visible, NMR (¹H, ¹³C and ³¹P) and mass spectral techniques. The hydrazone ligands act as bidentate ones, with O and N as the donor sites, and are predominantly found in the enol form in all the complexes studied. The molecular structures of the ligands HL¹, HL² and HL³ were determined using single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction. The interactions of the ligands and the complexes with calf thymus DNA were studied using absorption spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry which revealed that the compounds could interact with calf thymus DNA through intercalation. The DNA cleavage activity of the complexes was evaluated using a gel electrophoresis assay which revealed that the complexes act as good DNA cleavage agents. In addition, all the complexes were subjected to antioxidant assay, which showed that they all possess significant scavenging activity against 2,2‐diphenyl‐2‐picrylhydrazyl, OH and NO radicals. The in vitro cytotoxic effect of the complexes examined on cancerous cell lines (HeLa and MCF‐7) showed that the complexes exhibit substantial anticancer activity. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Electrode reactions during electrolytic preparation of nickel hydroxide

We investigate the electrode reactions involved in the electrolytic precipitation of nickel hydroxide from nickel nitrate through quantitative assessment of the reaction products using stainless steel cathode with Ti and Ni anodes. The nitrate ion is reduced at the cathode to form nitrite and ammonium ion, the later being the major product. The production of ammonium ion followed either directly via reduction of nitrate to ammonium ion or in steps via nitrate reduction to nitrite which further reduced to ammonium ion. Finally, we report XRD measurements, tap density, and the discharge capacity performed on the electrolytically precipitated Ni(OH)₂.     

Synthesis of diversely functionalized pyrrolizidines and indolizidines using olefin ring-closing metathesis

Various nitrogen-fused tricyclic compounds, having benzoindolizidine and benzopyrrolizidines ring systems were synthesized via ene-ene metathesis using the first and second-generation Grubbs catalyst. The ene-ene metathesis proceeded smoothly in refluxing CH₂Cl₂ with 3.0 mol % of G₁, giving good yields (78-86%) of the benzoindolizidine products 12a,b. The benzopyrrolizidine 6 was prepared after optimization in 64% yield by using 5.0+5.0 mol % of G₂. The resulting olefin moiety of the indolizidine framework is a suitable precursor for polyhydroxy structures via the Sharpless process. The structures of the polyhydroxylated adducts were determined by ¹H NMR spectra and single-crystal X-ray analysis.     

Beneficial effect of boron on the structural and magnetostrictive behavior of Fe77Ga23 alloy

Alloys of Fe₇₇Ga₂₃B_x (x=0, 0.025, 0.050, 0.075 and 0.1) were heat treated at 1000 °C/10 h and characterized for microstructural features and magnetostriction. The study indicates that the parent alloy consists of three phases viz. A2 as the major phase and L1₂ and DO₃ as minor phases. However, the volume fraction of L1₂ and DO₃ decreases with B addition and as a result magnetostriction improves. The decrease in volume fraction of these phases is attributed to B-segregation to the grain boundary, which seems to prevent the formation of these phases. The alloy with x=0.1, however, exhibits an additional Fe₂B phase and consequently its presence leads to the re-emergence of the DO₃ phase, affecting the magnetostriction.     

Stability of widely tuneable,continuous wave external-cavity quantum cascade laser for absorption spectroscopy

The performance of widely tuneable, continuous wave (cw) external-cavity quantum cascade laser (EC-QCL) has been evaluated for direct absorption spectroscopy measurements of nitric oxide (NO) in the wavenumber range 1872–1958 cm^?1 and with a 13.5 cm long optical cell. In order to reduce the absorption measurement errors due to the large variations of laser intensity, normalisation with a reference channel was used. Wavelength stability within the scans was analysed using the Allan plot technique for the reduced wavenumber range of 1892.4–1914.5 cm^?1. The Allan variances of the NO absorption peak centres and areas were observed to increase with successive scan averaging for all absorption peaks across the wavelength scan, thus revealing short- and long-term drifts of the cw EC-QCL wavelength between successive scans. As an example application, the cw EC-QCL was used for NO measurements in the exhaust of an atmospheric pressure packed-bed plasma reactor applied to the decomposition of dichloromethane in waste gas streams. Etalon noise was reduced by subtracting a reference spectrum recorded when the plasma was off. The NO limit of detection (SNR = 1) was estimated to be ～2 ppm at atmospheric pressure in a 20.5 cm long optical cell with a double pass and a single 7 s scan over 1892.4–1914.5 cm^?1.