Cationic Biphotonic Lanthanide Luminescent Bioprobes Based on Functionalized Cross-Bridged Cyclam Macrocycles

Cationic lanthanide complexes are generally able to spontaneously internalize into living cells. Following our previous works based on a diMe-cyclen framework, a second generation of cationic water-soluble lanthanide complexes based on a constrained cross-bridged cyclam macrocycle functionalized with donor-π-conjugated picolinate antennas was prepared with europium(III) and ytterbium(III). Their spectroscopic properties were thoroughly investigated in various solvents and rationalized with the help of DFT calculations. A significant improvement was observed in the case of the Eu³⁺ complex, while the Yb³⁺ analogue conserved photophysical properties in aqueous solvent. Two-photon (2P) microscopy imaging experiments on living T24 human cancer cells confirmed the spontaneous internalization of the probes and images with good signal-to-noise ratio were obtained in the classic NIR-to-visible configuration with the Eu³⁺ luminescent bioprobe and in the NIR-to-NIR with the Yb³⁺ one.     

Determination of 210Po content of vietnamese tobacco samples

Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death. In recent years, numerous countries have initiated the prohibition of smoking in restaurants, workplaces and public spaces. The Vietnamese government intends to follow the precautions against public smoking as well. Over and above the number of some hazardous chemical components found in tobacco, ²¹⁰Po isotope content could enhance the probability of the development of lung cancer. In this study 14 Vietnamese tobacco products (commercial cigarettes and pipe tobacco) ²¹⁰Po activity concentration were determined using PIPS semiconductor alpha spectrometry. The results showed that the 210Po activity concentration of the investigated samples varied between 7.40 ± 1.09–128.64 ± 11.22 mBq g^?1. The average ²¹⁰Po content of commercial cigarettes was 15.5 mBq g^?1, whilst the average of pipe tobacco was 20.4 mBq g^?1. To estimate the risk of inhalation of ²¹⁰Po isotopes originating as a result of smoking, dose estimations were carried out.     

Solutions exactes de fissure d'interface sous contact frottant avec un milieu indéformableExact solutions of the interface crack between elastic and rigid bodies under contact with friction

One considers an interface crack between an elastic half-plane and a rigid half-plane, in the presence of Coulomb's friction. There exists two singular solutions at the semi-infinite crack tip, which correspond physically to the push-in and the pull-out of a rigid fiber in an elastic matrix. The exact solutions show that only the mode II is present and there is no oscillatory behavior of the stress and the displacement near the crack tip, but an oscillatory behavior is observed at the transition point with the stress free zone. There exists four types of singular solutions for finite crack in bounded medium, but only one in an infinite medium. To cite this article: H.D. Bui, A. Oueslati, C. R. Mecanique 332 (2004).     

A numerical evaluation of very oscillatory infinite integrals by asymptotics

Recently, Levin and Sidi have given some nonlinear methods for the accurate evaluation of slowly converging infinite integrals. But, one needs to solve some very instable linear systems, when, for example, the integrand have an increasingly rapid oscillatory behavior at infinity. In this work, we present a direct method, which avoids the instable linear systems.     

Comparing the contractivity properties of semi-implicit methods

Contractivity is a desirable property of numerical integration methods for stiff systems of ordinary differential equations. In this paper, numerical parameters are used to allow a direct and quantitative comparison of the contractivity properties of various methods for non-linear stiff problems. Results are provided for popular Rosenbrock methods and some more recently developed semi-implicit methods.     

Atmospheric cosmic rays in the South Atlantic anomaly region

Summary To study the production and propagation of fast secondaries particles in the atmosphere, data collected during eleven quiet-time balloon flights are analysed. Comparisons of these data with those obtained in different geomagnetic rigidity regions permit to estimate the contributions of the proton and electron components in the measured intensities. Derivations of this last component in the ?upward? and ?downward? moving electrons fluxes indicate that in the anomaly region a fraction of these particles, produced by the primary protons, are leaving the atmosphere and will not return to the Earth.     

On the behavior of the solution of the Burgers equation as the viscosity goes to zero

The solution of the initial boundary-value problem u_?′ ? ?D²u_? + u_?Du_? = f on (a, b) x(0, T), u_?(a, t) = u_?(b, t) = 0 and u_?(x, 0) = 0 on (a, b), is shown to converge to the solution of the limiting equation as the viscosity tends to zero. Estimates on the rate of convergence are given.     

Ring‐chain interactions in solutions of cyclic and linear poly(methylene) ester oligomers in p‐dioxan and chloroform

The thermodynamic behavior of ternary solutions containing one cyclic (CYC10 and CYC20) and one linear (LIN10 and LIN20) poly(methylene) ester oligomer, respectively, in p‐dioxan and chloroform were investigated through vapor‐pressure measurements. Experiments were carried out at 25, 30, 35, and 40 °C. The ring‐chain interaction parameters χ″ were evaluated using the Leonard's equation for a ternary polymer solution containing one ring polymer. Results indicated that the values of χ″ are concentration and solvent dependent, and they vary with molecular size and slightly with temperature. All χ″ values were positive for both CYC10/LIN10 and CYC20/LIN20 blends, with the higher values for the former system, indicating that both ring‐chain oligomer blends are nearly immiscible, and the difference between cyclic and linear oligomers decreases as molecular size increases. The positive χ″ agrees with differential scanning calorimetric measurements performed on ring‐chain oligomer blends that show two distinct endotherms for the blends. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 40: 1425–1433, 2002     

On the computational aspects of Rosenbrock procedures with built-in error estimates for stiff systems

A third orderA-stable Rosenbrock method with built-in error estimate is developed by modifying an idea of J. R. Cash. Comparative tests are presented.     

Free energies of solvation in the context of protein folding: Implications for implicit and explicit solvent models

Implicit solvent models for biomolecular simulations have been developed to use in place of more expensive explicit models; however, these models make many assumptions and approximations that are likely to affect accuracy. Here, the changes in free energies of solvation upon folding of several fast folding proteins are calculated from previously run μs–ms simulations with a number of implicit solvent models and compared to the values needed to be consistent with the explicit solvent model used in the simulations. In the majority of cases, there is a significant and substantial difference between the values calculated from the two approaches that is robust to the details of the calculations. These differences could only be remedied by selecting values for the model parameters—the internal dielectric constant for the polar term and the surface tension coefficient for the nonpolar term—that were system‐specific or physically unrealistic. We discuss the potential implications of our findings for both implicit and explicit solvent simulations. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.