In situ green synthesis of biocompatible ginseng capped gold nanoparticles with remarkable stability

We report herein an unprecedented one-step green synthesis of gold nanoparticles (G-AuNps), using naturally occurring Korean red ginseng root (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) without any special reducing/capping agents. The AuNps generated through this ginseng-mediated process did not aggregate suggesting that the phytochemicals present in them serve as excellent coatings on the nanoparticles and thus, provide robust shielding from aggregations. The ginseng-generated AuNps exhibit remarkable in vitro stability in various buffers including: cysteine, histidine, saline, sodium chloride and a host of pH ranges. Furthermore, the phytochemical coatings on the G-AuNps rendered them nontoxic as demonstrated through detailed cytotoxicity assays using WST-8 counting kit, performed on normal cervical cells lines. The present study opens up a new possibility of conveniently synthesizing AuNps using natural products which will be useful in optoelectronic and biomedical applications.     

Simple zeropotent paramedial groupoids are balanced

This short note is a continuation of [1] and [2] and its purpose is to show that every simple zeropotent paramedial groupoid containing at least three elements is strongly balanced in the sense of [4].     

Electrical detection of germination of viable model Bacillus anthracis spores in microfluidic biochips

In this paper, we present a new impedance-based method to detect viable spores by electrically detecting their germination in real time within microfluidic biochips. We used Bacillus anthracis Sterne spores as the model organism. During germination, the spores release polar and ionic chemicals, such as dipicolinic acid (DPA), calcium ions, phosphate ions, and amino acids, which correspondingly increase the electrical conductivity of the medium in which the spores are suspended. We first present macro-scale measurements demonstrating that the germination of spores can be electrically detected at a concentration of 10(9) spores ml(-1) in sample volumes of 5 ml, by monitoring changes in the solution conductivity. Germination was induced by introducing an optimized germinant solution consisting of 10 mM L-alanine and 2 mM inosine. We then translated these results to a micro-fluidic biochip, which was a three-layer device: one layer of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with valves, a second layer of PDMS with micro-fluidic channels and chambers, and the third layer with metal electrodes deposited on a pyrex substrate. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) was used to trap and concentrate the spores at the electrodes with greater than 90% efficiency, at a solution flow rate of 0.2 microl min(-1) with concentration factors between 107-109 spores ml(-1), from sample volumes of 1-5 microl. The spores were captured by DEP in deionized water within 1 min (total volume used ranged from 0.02 microl to 0.2 microl), and then germinant solution was introduced to the flow stream. The detection sensitivity was demonstrated to be as low as about a hundred spores in 0.1 nl, which is equivalent to a macroscale detection limit of approximately 10(9) spores ml(-1). We believe that this is the first demonstration of this application in microfluidic and BioMEMS devices.     

Synthesis of electro‐active membranes by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process

In the past two decades, many research is being carried out on coating of textile membranes with conductive polymers. In order to functionalize the textile membranes, coating of different intrinsically conductive polymers can be applied on these membranes through appropriate coating techniques like electrochemical polymerization, wet chemical oxidation and chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Noticeably, CVD process is one of the most suitable and environment friendly technique. In this research, microporous polyester and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membranes were coated with conductive poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) by CVD process in the presence of ferric(III)chloride (FeCl₃) used as an oxidant. Polymerization of PEDOT on the surface of membranes and pore size was examined by optical microscope and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Structural analysis investigated with ATR‐FTIR, which revealed the successful deposition of PEDOT on membranes without damaging their parent structures. The amount of PEDOT in PEDOT‐coated polyester and PTFE membranes was explored with the help of thermogravimeteric analysis. Electrical resistance values of PEDOT‐coated membranes were measured by two probe method. The effect of different electrolyte solutions such as, distilled H₂O, Na₂SO₄, HCl, and H₂SO₄ on electrical properties of produced conductive membranes was investigated after dipping for certain period of time. It was found that membranes dipped in H₂SO₄ show very low electrical resistance values, i.e. 0.85 kΩ for polyester membrane and 1.17 kΩ for PTFE membrane. The obtained PEDOT‐coated electro‐active membranes may find their possible utility in fuel cells, enzymatic fuel cells, and antistatic air filter applications. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Onset of local ordering in some copper-based alloys: critical solute concentration vis-a-vis various solutionhardening parameters

The mode of planar distribution of solute atoms in Cu single crystals alloyed with 0.5 to 8.0 at.%Ge has been investigated via the temperature dependence of the critical resolved shear stress of these alloys. It is found that there exists a critical solute concentration c _m ≈ 5 at.%Ge below which the distribution of solute atoms in the crystal is random, and above which some local ordering occurs. This together with such data available in the literature for Cu-Zn, Cu-Al and Cu-Mn alloys, i.e. c _m ≈7 at. %Zn, 7 at.%Al and 1 at.%Mn, when examined as a function of the size-misfit factor δ = (1/b)(db/dc)of a given binary alloy system, shows that the value of c _m strongly depends on δ; the smaller the magnitude of δ, the greater the value of c _m and vice versa. Also, the value of c _m is found to correlate well with the electron-to-atom ratio (e/a)of the Cu-Zn, Cu-Al, Cu-Ge and Cu-Mn alloys with the solute concentration c = c _m . However, no systematic correlation exists between the critical solute concentration c _m for the onset of local ordering and the modulus-mismatch parameter η = (1/G)(dG/dc).      

Dynamics and stability of impulsive hybrid setvalued integro-differential equations with delay

We study the dynamics and stability theory for impulsive hybrid set integro-differential equations with delay. Sufficient conditions for the stability of the null solution of impulsive hybrid set integro-differential equations with delay are presented.     

A comparison of iterative methods to solve complex valued linear algebraic systems

Complex valued linear algebraic systems arise in many important applications. We present analytical and extensive numerical comparisons of some available numerical solution methods. It is advocated, in particular for large scale ill-conditioned problems, to rewrite the complex-valued system in real valued form leading to a two-by-two block system of particular form, for which it is shown that a very efficient and robust preconditioned iterative solution method can be constructed. Alternatively, in many cases it turns out that a simple preconditioner in the form of the sum of the real and the imaginary part of the matrix also works well but involves complex arithmetic.     

Drift effects on geodesic acoustic modes

We present a fluid model for geodesic acoustic modes including diamagnetic effects due to inhomogeneous plasma density and temperature. Effects of ion parallel viscosity (pressure anisotropy), which allows to recover exactly the adiabatic index obtained in kinetic theory are considered. We show that diamagnetic effects lead to the positive up-shift of the GAM frequency and appearance of the second (lower frequency) branch related to the drift frequency. The latter is a result of modification of the degenerate (zero frequency) zonal flow branch which acquires a finite frequency or becomes unstable in regions of high temperature gradients.