Rotation rate measurement of a microfluidic biodisk spinner and automatic adjustment for the pulsed light source

This study presents a design for a light field inspection system of a biodisk and spinner, which uses a digital camera attached a light filter below to inspect the fluorescence from the biodisk. The pulsed light is a single frequency-controllable light source that is spread over the biodisk. When the frequency of pulsed light is equal to the rotation rate of the spinner, the rotating biodisk would appear to be static due to the persistence of vision effect. The excitation light source (same as the pulsed light) is used to excite the reaction area in the biodisk, and the biochemical reaction emitted fluorescence is recorded in the monitor. Using the continuous image sequence calculation and measuring the variation of the rotating rate for the spinner, and by adjusting the frequency of pulsed light source, the rotational speed of the biodisk and the pulsed light frequency can be synchronized. We also propose a rule for high-speed image processing and low consumption of memory space. By properly judging the rotational speed of the biodisk spinner and quickly inspecting the biodisk, very large amounts of data can be handled. If the images acquired from the camera are processed individually, there will be drawbacks such as slow image acquisition speed and loss of image information. Therefore, we take a multi-task mechanism to use sufficient image buffer areas to increase the speed of acquiring images while processing the images with adjusting the memory spaces efficiently.     

Glycosylation with trichloroacetimidates in ionic liquids: influence of the reaction medium on the stereochemical outcome

[reactions: see text] The glycosylation with trichloroacetimidates derived from different glycopyranoses bearing a nonparticipating group at C-2 was explored in different ionic liquids as solvents. The stereoselectivity of the reaction was significantly affected by the reaction media and by the anomeric configuration of the donor.     

Producing 13C NMR, infrared absorption, and electron ionization mass spectrometric data models of the monodechlorination of chlorobenzenes, chlorophenols, and chloroanilines

We have developed four spectroscopic data-activity relationship (SDAR) models of monodechlorination of 32 chlorinated benzene compounds in anaerobic estuarine sediment. The SDAR models were based on combinations of 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), infrared absorption (IR), and electron ionization mass spectrometric (EI MS) data. The SDAR models segregated the 32 compounds into 17 readily monodechlorinated compounds and 15 not readily monodechlorinated compounds. The SDAR model based on 13C NMR, IR, and EI MS data gave a leave-one-out cross-validation of 93.8%. The SDAR model based on a composite of 13C NMR and IR data gave a leave-one-out cross-validation of 90.6%. The SDAR model based on a composite of IR and EI MS data gave a leave-one-out cross-validation of 84.4%. The SDAR model based on a composite of 13C NMR and EI MS data gave a leave-one-out cross-validation of 84.4%. These reliable SDAR models provide a rapid and simple way to predict whether a chlorinated benzene compound will readily go through monodechlorination. The FDA has filed a patent application on methods of using any combination of spectral data (NMR, MS, UV-vis, IR, and fluorescence, phosphorescence) to model a chemical, physical, or biological endpoint.     

Turbulent flow field and heat transfer in a heated circular channel under a reciprocating motion

This study is to simulate the turbulent flow field and heat transfer when cold fluid flows through a finite-length circular channel, which meantime undergoes a reciprocating motion using a numerical method. The mass, momentum and energy conservation equations and turbulent k- equations are derived for a turbulent flow field in a reciprocating coordinate by a coordinate transformation from the stationary coordinate system. The SIMPLE-C scheme is used to investigate heat transfer in a cooling channel undergoing a reciprocating motion by changing parameters and cooling mediums. The parameters are Reynolds number (7170 to 20000) and Pulsating number (1.55 to 4.65). The results show that the averaged Nusselt number increase with increasing both Reynolds number and Pulsating number, and the averaged Nusselt number of cooling oil is lower than that of water at the same incoming flow rate for both the stationary and reciprocating channel.     

A primal-dual interior point method for optimal zero-forcing beamformer design under per-antenna power constraints

In this paper, we consider an optimal zero-forcing beamformer design problem in multi-user multiple-input multiple-output broadcast channel. The minimum user rate is maximized subject to zero-forcing constraints and power constraint on each base station antenna array element. The natural formulation leads to a nonconvex optimization problem. This problem is shown to be equivalent to a convex optimization problem with linear objective function, linear equality and inequality constraints and quadratic inequality constraints. Here, the indirect elimination method is applied to reduce the convex optimization problem into an equivalent convex optimization problem of lower dimension with only inequality constraints. The primal-dual interior point method is utilized to develop an effective algorithm (in terms of computational efficiency) via solving the modified KKT equations with Newton method. Numerical simulations are carried out. Compared to algorithms based on a trust region interior point method and sequential quadratic programming method, it is observed that the method proposed is much superior in terms of computational efficiency.     

Chemical alterations to murine brain tissue induced by formalin fixation: implications for biospectroscopic imaging and mapping studies of disease pathogenesis

Understanding biochemical mechanisms and changes associated with disease conditions and, therefore, development of improved clinical treatments, is relying increasingly on various biochemical mapping and imaging techniques on tissue sections. However, it is essential to be able to ascertain whether the sampling used provides the full biochemical information relevant to the disease and is free from artefacts. A multi-modal micro-spectroscopic approach, including FTIR imaging and PIXE elemental mapping, has been used to study the molecular and elemental profile within cryofixed and formalin-fixed murine brain tissue sections. The results provide strong evidence that amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, phosphates, proteins and ions, such as Cl(-) and K(+), leach from tissue sections into the aqueous fixative medium during formalin fixation of the sections. Large changes in the concentrations and distributions of most of these components are also observed by washing in PBS even for short periods. The most likely source of the chemical species lost during fixation is the extra-cellular and intra-cellular fluid of tissues. The results highlight that, at best, analysis of formalin-fixed tissues gives only part of the complete biochemical "picture" of a tissue sample. Further, this investigation has highlighted that significant lipid peroxidation/oxidation may occur during formalin fixation and that the use of standard histological fixation reagents can result in significant and differential metal contamination of different regions of tissue sections. While a consistent and reproducible fixation method may be suitable for diagnostic purposes, the findings of this study strongly question the use of formalin fixation prior to spectroscopic studies of the molecular and elemental composition of biological samples, if the primary purpose is mechanistic studies of disease pathogenesis.     

The Toxicity of Graphene Oxides: Dependence on the Oxidative Methods Used

Graphene, a class of two‐dimensional carbon nanomaterial, has attracted extensive interest in recent years, with a significant amount of research focusing on graphene oxides (GOs). They have been primed as potential candidates for biomedical applications such as cell labeling and drug delivery, thus the toxicity and behavior of graphene oxides in biological systems are fundamental issues that need urgent attention. The production of GO is generally achieved through a top‐down route, which includes the usage of concentrated H₂SO₄ along with: 1) concentrated nitric acid and KClO₃ oxidant (Hoffmann); 2) fuming nitric acid and KClO₃ oxidant (Staudenmaier); 3) concentrated phosphoric acid with KMnO₄ (Tour); or 4) sodium nitrate for in‐situ production of nitric acid in the presence of KMnO₄ (Hummers). It has been widely assumed that the properties of these four GOs produced by using the above different methods are roughly similar, so the methods have been used interchangeably. However, several studies have reported that the toxicity of graphene‐related nanomaterials in biological systems may be influenced by their physiochemical properties, such as surface functional groups and structural defects. In addition, considering how GOs are increasingly used in the field of biomedicine, we are interested to see how the oxygen content/functional groups of GOs can impact their toxicological profiles. Since in‐vitro testing is a common first step in assessing the health risks related with engineered nanomaterials, the cytotoxicity of the GOs prepared by the four different oxidative treatments was investigated by measuring the mitochondrial activity in adherent lung epithelial cells (A549) by using commercially available viability assays. The dose–response data was generated by using two assays, the methylthiazolyldiphenyl‐tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and the water‐soluble tetrazolium salt (WST‐8). From the viability data, it is evident that there is a strong dose‐dependent cytotoxic response resulting from the four GO nanomaterials tested after a 24 h exposure, and it is suggested that there is a correlation between the amounts of oxygen content/functional groups of GOs with their toxicological behavior towards the A549 cells.