Polysaccharide-Based Drug Delivery Systems for the Treatment of Periodontitis

Periodontal diseases are worldwide health problems that negatively affect the lifestyle of many people. The long-term effect of the classical treatments, including the mechanical removal of bacterial plaque, is not effective enough, causing the scientific world to find other alternatives. Polymer–drug systems, which have different forms of presentation, chosen depending on the nature of the disease, the mode of administration, the type of polymer used, etc., have become very promising. Hydrogels, for example (in the form of films, micro-/nanoparticles, implants, inserts, etc.), contain the drug included, encapsulated, or adsorbed on the surface. Biologically active compounds can also be associated directly with the polymer chains by covalent or ionic binding (polymer–drug conjugates). Not just any polymer can be used as a support for drug combination due to the constraints imposed by the fact that the system works inside the body. Biopolymers, especially polysaccharides and their derivatives and to a lesser extent proteins, are preferred for this purpose. This paper aims to review in detail the biopolymer–drug systems that have emerged in the last decade as alternatives to the classical treatment of periodontal disease.     

Infrared technique for simultaneous determination of temperature and emissivity

This paper presents, in the context of materials dynamic behaviour study, a method for simultaneous measurement of the temperature and emissivity of a solid’s surface, by the use of infrared radiation. In contrast to existing methods, this method has no need for a pre-measurement of the surface emissivity. The emissivity and the temperature are measured simultaneously, by detecting the variations of emitted radiation and infrared radiation reflecting on the surface, at two different spectral zones. In this way, the accuracy of the measured temperature is greatly improved in cases were the surface optical properties vary during the measurement. Several experiments were carried out in order to complete the theoretical foundation of the method and to outline its accuracy and some of its limitations. There are various industrial applications of this method, for example the control of the temperature of the mechanical parts during work machining. One of them may be the measurement of the temperature of a sample during mechanical testing. An application of the method is proposed, that is easy to employ with non-sophisticated infrared and optical components. The results confirm the accuracy of the proposed method with an order of 3% of precision for temperature determination.     

Water-free neodymium 2,6-naphthalenedicarboxylates coordination complexes and their application as catalysts for isoprene polymerization

A series of four coordination polymers based on neodymium have been hydrothermally synthesized with different carboxylic acids as a linker. The structures of the compounds Nd(2)(2,6-ndc)(3)(H(2)O)(3)·H(2)O (1), Nd(2)(2,6-ndc)(2)(ox)(H(2)O)(2) (2), and Nd(2,6-ndc)(form) (3) (2,6-ndc = 2,6-naphthalenedicarboxylate; ox = oxalate; and form = formate) have been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. They exhibit rather dense networks built up from infinite chains of NdO polyhedra connected to each other through the 2,6-ndc ligand. Terminal and bridging aquo species are present in the coordination sphere of Nd for 1, whereas some of them are partially replaced by oxalate groups in 2 and fully substituted by formate groups in 3. The water-free phase 3 as well as the compound Nd(form)(3) (4) were considered for catalytic reaction for polymerization of isoprene in the presence of Al-based cocatalyst, affording cis-polyisoprene with good conversions. Residual Nd material with unchanged structure was found in the polymeric material. The neodymium luminescence of compounds 3 and 4 was also measured.     

Polymer-assisted crystallization of low-dimensional lead sulfide particles

PbS micro- and nanoparticles were synthesized by a simple precipitation reaction of lead nitrate with thioacetamide in hydrosoluble polymer water solutions. The effects of four water soluble polymers: polyacrylamide (PAM), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyethylene glycol (PEG) and poly-N-vinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) on the PbS crystallites morphology and structural properties were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found that for the PbS particles obtained in the PVA, PEG and PVP, the (2 0 0) diffraction peak of the nanocrystals becomes dominant. The highest texture in the [2 0 0] direction was observed for the crystallites obtained in the presence of PVP. Polydisperse PbS particles with cubic morphology and size ranging from 100 nm to several microns are obtained in the case of PAM and PEG. Monodisperse cubic PbS crystallites with an average size of 200 nm are formed in the presence of PVA and PVP.     

Micropatterned ZnO rod arrays prepared by Au‐catalyzed electroless deposition

Micropatterned ZnO was synthesized by an electroless deposition process using Au stripes as catalytic surfaces. The Au‐patterned electrodes were prepared on SiO₂/Si wafers using photolithography. The site‐selective deposition of patterned ZnO hexagonal rod arrays is confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. The ZnO micropatterned surface revealed a conversion of wettability from hydrophilic to superhydrophobic depending on the deposition reaction param‐ eters. The electrical measurements carried out at room temperature before and after exposure to ammonia vapors of the patterned ZnO arrays show a resistance variation with exposure time. Highly reproducible, easy scalable and low‐cost, photolithography and electroless deposition techniques could provide a facile approach to fabricate functionalized micropatterns, for a wide range of applications. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Photoelectrochemical Scanning Droplet Cell Microscopy (PE‐SDCM)

Principles of localised photoelectrochemistry are summarised and an experimental approach is described that allows the performance of the most important photoelectrochemical experiments within a diameter of 100 μm. Various light sources, such as a continuum emitter with a monochromator, LEDs, and lasers are coupled into a multi‐mode fibre to illuminate a small spot that is wetted by the electrolyte from a capillary. Reference electrode, counter electrode, and optical fibre are installed in the capillary system. The performance of this system is demonstrated by photocurrent measurements on n‐doped Si and p‐doped Si as model substrates. A thickness‐graded aluminium thin film for partial shadowing on Si proves the applicability for material library investigations in combinatorial materials science. Further experiments demonstrate the possibility of electrical light chopping as well as impedance spectroscopy with subsequent Mott–Schottky analysis for the determination of charge‐carrier concentration and type, flat‐band potential, and inversion layer formation. Photoelectrochemical scanning droplet cell microscopy (PE‐SDCM) is an extremely versatile tool for the screening of water splitting photoelectrodes, the characterisation of photocatalysts, and high throughput characterisation of microgram amounts of new solar cell materials.     

Influence of Plasma Treatments on the Hemocompatibility of PET and PET + TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> Films

A dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in helium was used to ameliorate the interface between the blood and the surface of polymeric implants: polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and PET with titanium oxide (PET + TiO₂). A higher crystallinity degree was found for the DBD treated samples. The wettability of polymers was improved after the treatment. The chemical composition, analyzed by infrared spectroscopy was preserved during the DBD treatment. The surface modifications have been correlated with polymers hemocompatibility. Concerning the polymer surface–blood interaction, the treatment induced a decrease of the interfacial tension between the blood components and the treated surfaces. The in vitro tests of hemocompatibility showed no perturbation in the blood composition when the polymer samples are present in the blood volume. An interesting result is related to the whole blood clotting time that shows a dramatic increase on the treated surfaces. Moreover, the coagulation kinetics on the treated surfaces is modified.     

A finite element method with mesh adaptivity for computing vortex states in fast-rotating Bose–Einstein condensates

Numerical computations of stationary states of fast-rotating Bose–Einstein condensates require high spatial resolution due to the presence of a large number of quantized vortices. In this paper we propose a low-order finite element method with mesh adaptivity by metric control, as an alternative approach to the commonly used high-order (finite difference or spectral) approximation methods. The mesh adaptivity is used with two different numerical algorithms to compute stationary vortex states: an imaginary time propagation method and a Sobolev gradient descent method. We first address the basic issue of the choice of the variable used to compute new metrics for the mesh adaptivity and show that refinement using simultaneously the real and imaginary part of the solution is successful. Mesh refinement using only the modulus of the solution as adaptivity variable fails for complicated test cases. Then we suggest an optimized algorithm for adapting the mesh during the evolution of the solution towards the equilibrium state. Considerable computational time saving is obtained compared to uniform mesh computations. The new method is applied to compute difficult cases relevant for physical experiments (large nonlinear interaction constant and high rotation rates).