Solubilization of organic compounds by arginine-derived polymers

Poor aqueous solubility of drugs is one of the major challenges in the pharmaceutical science. In this study, a guanidinium-containing polymer based on arginine was designed and synthesized, and was evaluated as a solubility enhancing additive for three model organic compounds (coumarin, pyrene and doxorubicin). At a guanidinium group concentration of 100 mmol/L, the polymer could significantly increase the solubility of pyrene and doxorubicin by 6-and 11-fold respectively, much more effective than arginine (2-and 3-fold, respectively). In contrast, its effect on the solubility of coumarin was less effective than arginine. The solubilizing effect may be explained by the enhanced interaction between the guanidinium group in the polymer and the aromatic compounds.     

Effects of graft length and density of well‐defined graft polymers on the thermoresponsive behavior and self‐assembly morphology

A series of well‐defined thermoresponsive graft polymers with different lengths and graft densities, poly(glycidyl methacrylate)‐graft‐poly(N‐isopropylacrylate) (PGMA‐g‐PNIPAM), were successfully prepared by combination of controlled/living free radical polymerization and click chemistry. Effects of grafting length and density on the thermoresponsive behavior, aggregating mean diameter, and self‐assembly morphology are systematically investigated. The thermosensitive characteristics of graft polymers in aqueous solution prove that the length and graft density had positive co‐relationship with the lower critical solution temperature value and mean diameter of micelles as well as the size distribution, while the effect of graft length of polymers is more significant than that of density. Transmission electron microscopy analysis shows that the conformations of PGMA₄₅‐g‐PNIPAM₂₀ and PGMA₄₅‐g‐PNIPAM₄₆ with longer length and bigger grafting density in aqueous solutions are spherical nanoparticles with the increasing trend of the diameters, while that of PGMA₄₅‐g‐PNIPAM_{(73, 50%)} shows a spherical‐like morphology, which indicates that the graft length and density have a significant effect on the mean diameter of micelle but not on the self‐assembly morphology. These results reveal that to obtain desired thermoresponsive behavior and self‐assembly morphology of functional polymers, it is essential to design and fabricate the structure of graft polymers with proper length and graft density. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2014 , 52, 2442–2453     

Preface

<正>Biophysical chemistry is a relatively new branch of physical chemistry.Wikipedia-the free encyclopedia describes it with the following sentences(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophysical_chemistry,cited on November 2,2014):"Biophysical chemistry is a physical science that uses the concepts of physics and physical chemistry for the study of     

Low band‐gap D–A conjugated copolymers based on anthradithiophene and diketopyrrolopyrrole for polymer solar cells and field‐effect transistors

Two conjugated copolymers PADT‐DPP and PADT‐FDPP based on anthradithiophene and diketopyrrolopyrrole, with thiophene and furan as the π‐conjugated bridge, respectively, were successfully synthesized and characterized. The number‐averaged molecular weights of the two polymers are 38.7 and 30.2 kg/mol, respectively. Polymers PADT‐DPP and PADT‐FDPP exhibit broad absorption bands and their optical band gaps are 1.44 and 1.50 eV, respectively. The highest occupied molecular orbital energy level of PADT‐DPP is located at ?5.03 eV while that of PADT‐FDPP is at ?5.16 eV. In field‐effect transistors, PADT‐DPP and PADT‐FDPP displayed hole mobilities of 4.7 × 10^?3 and 2.7 × 10^?3 cm²/(V s), respectively. In polymer solar cells, PADT‐DPP and PADT‐FDPP showed power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.44% and 0.29%, respectively. Atomic force microscopy revealed that the poor efficiency of PADT‐FDPP should be related to the large two‐phase separation in its active layer. If 1,8‐diiodooctane (DIO) was used as the solvent additive, the PCE of PADT‐DPP remained almost unchanged due to very limited morphology variation. However, the addition of DIO could remarkably elevate the PCE of PADT‐FDPP to 2.62% because of the greatly improved morphology. Our results suggest that the anthradithiophene as an electron‐donating polycyclic system is useful to construct new D–A alternating copolymers for efficient polymer solar cells. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2014 , 52, 1652–1661     

THERMAL CREEP FLOW IN THE RAREFIED GAS

The usual heat flow moves along the direction from high temperature place to the low one, as often observed in the daily life. However, when the gas is very rarefied, the gas may move along a different way, that is, the so-called thermal creep flow moves along the direction from the low temperature place to the high one. In this note, we will survey our recent mathematical works on this topic, mainly based on [27] and [25].     

Classical Backfitting for Smooth-Backfitting Additive Models

Smooth backfitting has been shown to have better theoretical properties than classical backfitting for fitting additive models based on local linear regression. In this article, we show that the smooth backfitting procedure in the local linear case can be alternatively performed as a classical backfitting procedure with a different type of smoother matrices. These smoother matrices are symmetric and shrinking and some established results in the literature are readily applicable. The connections allow the smooth backfitting algorithm to be implemented in a much simplified way, give new insights on the differences between the two approaches in the literature, and provide an extension to local polynomial regression. The connections also give rise to a new estimator at data points. Asymptotic properties of general local polynomial smooth backfitting estimates are investigated, allowing for different orders of local polynomials and different bandwidths. Cases of oracle efficiency are discussed. Computer-generated simulations are conducted to demonstrate finite sample behaviors of the methodology and a real data example is given for illustration. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.