Dissecting Functional Biological Interactions Using Modular RNA Nanoparticles

Nucleic acid nanoparticles (NANPs) are an exciting and innovative technology in the context of both basic and biomedical research. Made of DNA, RNA, or their chemical analogs, NANPs are programmed for carrying out specific functions within human cells. NANPs are at the forefront of preventing, detecting, and treating disease. Their nucleic acid composition lends them biocompatibility that provides their cargo with enhanced opportunity for coordinated delivery. Of course, the NANP system of targeting specific cells and tissues is not without its disadvantages. Accumulation of NANPs outside of the target tissue and the potential for off-target effects of NANP-mediated cargo delivery present challenges to research and medical professionals and these challenges must be effectively addressed to provide safe treatment to patients. Importantly, development of NANPs with regulated biological activities and immunorecognition becomes a promising route for developing versatile nucleic acid therapeutics. In a basic research context, NANPs can assist investigators in fine-tuning the structure-function relationship of final formulations and in this review, we explore the practical applications of NANPs in laboratory and clinical settings and discuss how we can use established nucleic acid research techniques to design effective NANPs.     

Meminductor Response Under Periodic Current Excitations

Recently, the mem-elements-based circuits have been addressed frequently in the nonlinear circuit theory due to their unique behavior. Thus, the modeling and characterizing of the mem-elements has become essential, especially studying their response under any excitation signal. This paper investigates the response of the meminductor under DC, sinusoidal, and periodic current signals for the first time. Furthermore, a meminductor emulator is developed to fit the obtained formulas which are built using commercial off the shelf components. The proposed analysis offers closed form expressions for the meminductance for each case. Moreover, many fundamentals and properties are derived to understand the responses such as the maximum saturation time in case of the DC response. A general closed form expression for the meminductance is derived under any periodic waveform, and this formula has been validated by applying a square wave as an example.     

The Pomraning-Eddington approximation to diffusion of light in turbid materials

The source-free diffusion problem of light in turbid media with generalized boundary conditions is considered. The intensity of light is considered as a sum of collimated and diffused radiance. In this way the problem is transformed to a source problem with a collimated source (problem 1). This problem is solved in terms of the corresponding source-free problem of simple boundary conditions (problem 2). The Pomraning-Eddington method is used to solve problem 2. Two coupled first-order differential equations are obtained involving the energy density and the radiation net flux. Weight functions are introduced in order to force the boundary conditions to be fulfilled. Numerical results are given and compared with previous calculations. The calculations show that the accuracy depends on the choice of the weight function.     

Conversion of toluene on NiNaY and CeNaY zeolites

Ce–Y and Ni–Y zeolites were studied in the toluen conversion reaction before and after poisoning the acid centers by Na⁺ ions. It has been found that both Ce–Y and Ni–Y zeolites were active in the disproportionation of toluene at elevated pressures, which occur on strong Brönsted acid centers. The poisoning of the acid centers in Ni–Y zeolite led to the appearance of the activity of metallic Ni and complete change in the selectivity.

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Ce- Ni- Na⁺. , , . Ni- .

     

Synthesis of Some New Pyrimidothienopyridazines and Related Heterocycles

5‐Amino‐3,4‐diphenylthieno[2,3‐c]pyridazine‐6‐carbonitrile 2a was reacted with propylene diamine to give tetrahydropyrimidinyl derivative 3 . The latter compound ( 3 ) underwent certain cyclocondensation reactions to produce pyrimidothienopyridazines 4–6 . Also, the reactions of 5‐amino‐3,4‐diphenylthieno[2,3‐c]pyridazine‐6‐carboxamide with heterocyclic aldehydes and/or cycloalkanones were carried out and their products were identified. Moreover, some novel pyridazinothienopyrimidobenzimidazoles 14–17 were synthesized.     

Investigation of Solid-Solid Interactions between Pure and Li2O-Doped Magnesium and Ferric Oxides

The results obtained showed that the addition of small amounts of LiNO₃ to the reacting mixed solids, consisting of equimolar proportion of Fe₂O₃ and basic MgCO₃ much enhanced the thermal decomposition of magnesium carbonate. The addition of 12 mol% LiNO₃ (6 mol% Li₂O) decreased the decomposition temperature of MgCO₃ from 525.5 to362°C. MgO underwent solid–solid interaction with Fe2O3 at temperatures starting from800°C yielding MgFe₂O₄. The amount of ferrite produced increased by increasing the precalcination temperature of the mixed solids. However, the completion of this reaction required prolonged heating at elevated temperature above 1100°C. Doping with Li₂O much enhanced the solid–solid interaction between the mixed oxides leading to the formation of MgFe₂O₄ phase at temperatures starting from 700°C. The addition of 6 mol% Li₂O to the mixed solids followed by precalcination at 1050°C for 4 h resulted in complete conversion of the reacting oxides into magnesium ferrite. The heat treatment of pure and doped solids at 900–1050°C effected the disappearance of most of IR transmission bands of the free oxides with subsequent appearance of new bands characteristic for MgFe₂O₄ structure. The promotion effect of Li2O towards the ferrite formation was attributed to an effective increase in the mobility of the various reacting cations. The activation energy of formation (ΔE) of magnesium ferrite was determined for pure and variously doped solids and the values obtained were 203, 126, 95 and 61 kJ mol⁻¹ for pure mixed solids and those treated with 1.5, 3.0 and 6.0 mol% Li₂O, respectively. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

静态应力作用下预测光学系统性能的计算方法

本文通过计算预测光学性能的方法表征在光学系统组装和外界环境因素影响下的光学系统灵敏度。该方法即通过调制传递函数来表征静态机械应力对光学物镜性能的影响。采用光学干涉仪对经过加工、组装且存在机械应力的光学物镜进行测试,并比较实验调制传递函数与计算模拟分析的调制传递函数。结果表明,计算结果与实验结果相符,证实了本文方法的有效性。     

Fractional Order Oscillator Design Based on Two-Port Network

In this paper, a general analysis of the generation for all possible fractional order oscillators based on two-port network is presented. Three different two-port network classifications are used with three external single impedances, where two are fractional order capacitors and a resistor. Three possible impedance combinations for each classification are investigated, which give nine possible oscillators. The characteristic equation, oscillation frequency and condition for each presented topology are derived in terms of the transmission matrix elements and the fractional order parameters \(\alpha \) and \(\beta \). Mapping between some cases is also illustrated based on similarity in the characteristic equation. The use of fractional order elements \(\alpha \) and \(\beta \) adds extra degrees of freedom, which increases the design flexibility and frequency band, and provides extra constraints on the phase difference. Study of four different active elements, such as voltage-controlled current source, gyrator, op-amp-based network, and second-generation current-conveyor-based network, serve as a two-port network is presented. The general analytical formulas of the oscillation frequency and condition as well as the phase difference between the two oscillatory outputs are derived and summarized in tables for each designed oscillator network. A comparison between fractional order oscillators with their integer order counterparts is also illustrated where some designs cannot work in the integer case. Numerical Spice simulations and experimental results are given to validate the presented analysis.     

Synthesis and characterization of pure and ZrO2-doped nanocrystalline CuO-NiO system

The physicochemical, surface and catalytic properties of pure and doped 0.25CuO-NiO solids prepared by sol-gel method were investigated. The dopant concentration was 2, 4 and 6 mol% ZrO₂. The solids investigated were calcined at 400 and 600 °C. The techniques employed were XRD, EDX, TEM, surface excess oxygen, nitrogen adsorption at −196 °C and catalytic oxidation of CO by O₂ using both static and flow methods. The results revealed that the investigated system dissolved 4 mol% ZrO₂ by heating at 400 °C. This process was accompanied by a significant increase in the S_BET and V_p with subsequent decrease in the (r) values of the doped adsorbent. ZrO₂-doping of the system investigated followed by calcination at 400 and 600 °C led to a considerable increase in its catalytic activity in CO oxidation by O₂ using static and flow methods. The doping process was not accompanied by any change in the activation energy of the catalyzed reaction.