Circular neighbor-balanced designs using cyclic shifts

In agriculture experiments, the response on a given plot may be affected by the treatments on neighboring plots as well as by the treatments applied to that plot. In this paper we consider such type of situations and construct circular neighbor-balanced designs (CNBDs) by the method of cyclic shifts or sets of shifts. An important feature of this method is that the properties of a design can be easily obtained from the sets of shifts instead of constructing the actual blocks of the design. That is, the off-...     

Facile synthesis and characterization of functionalized, monocrystalline rutile TiO2 nanorods

Functionalized, monocrystalline rutile TiO2 nanorods were prepared from TiCl4 in aqueous solution under acidic conditions in the presence of dopamine, followed by aging and hydrothermal treatment at 150 degrees C. The surface-bound organic ligand controls the morphology as well as the crystallinity and the phase selection of TiO2. The presence of monocrystalline rutile TiO2 was confirmed by X-ray powder diffraction and HRTEM investigations. The as-prepared nanorods are soluble in water at pH <3. The surface functionalization was analyzed by IR and 1H NMR, confirming the presence of dopamine on the surface. The surface amine groups can be tailored further with functional molecules such as dyes. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) was used to characterize the binding of the fluorescent dye 4-chloro-7-nitrobenzofurazan (NBD) to the functionalized surface of the TiO2 nanorods.     

Pathogen‐Mimicking MnO Nanoparticles for Selective Activation of the TLR9 Pathway and Imaging of Cancer Cells

Here, design of the first pathogen‐mimicking metal oxide nanoparticles with the ability to enter cancer cells and to selectively target and activate the TLR9 pathway, and with optical and MR imaging capabilities, is reported. The immobilization of ssDNA (CpG ODN 2006) on MnO nanoparticles is performed via the phosphoramidite route using a multifunctional polymer. The multifunctional polymer used for the nanoparticle surface modification not only affords a protective organic biocompatible shell but also provides an efficient and convenient means for loading immunostimulatory oligonucleotides. Since fluorescent molecules are amenable to photodetection, a chromophore (Rhodamine) is introduced into the polymer chain to trace the nanoparticles in Caki‐1 (human kidney cancer) cells. The ssDNA coupled nanoparticles are used to target Toll‐like receptors 9 (TLR9) receptors inside the cells and to activate the classical TLR cascade. The presence of TLR9 is demonstrated independently in the Caki‐1 cell line by western blotting and immunostaining techniques. The magnetic properties of the MnO core make functionalized MnO nanoparticles potential diagnostic agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) thereby enabling multimodal detection by a combination of MR and optical imaging methods. The trimodal nanoparticles allow the imaging of cellular trafficking by different means and simultaneously are an effective drug carrier system.     

Monitoring of <Superscript>137</Superscript>Cs in electric arc furnace steel making process

This article presents the results of ¹³⁷Cs and other radionuclide monitoring in EAF steel-making process in the Croatian CMC Sisak Steel Mill. The presence of ¹³⁷Cs and natural isotopes ⁴⁰K, ²³²Th, ²²⁶Ra and ²³⁸U was established. Investigations on the occurrence of the isotope cesium, as well as natural isotopes and their distribution in waste from the process of carbon steel production by EAF have been conducted. Detection of artificial isotope cesium in EAF dust indicates that it might originate from steel scrap or from the residue of the material that was used in the technological process, thus deserving special attention.     

A New Learning Algorithm for the Fusion of Adaptive Audio–Visual Features for the Retrieval and Classification of Movie Clips

This paper presents a new learning algorithm for audiovisual fusion and demonstrates its application to video classification for film database. The proposed system utilized perceptual features for content characterization of movie clips. These features are extracted from different modalities and fused through a machine learning process. More specifically, in order to capture the spatio-temporal information, an adaptive video indexing is adopted to extract visual feature, and the statistical model based on Laplacian mixture are utilized to extract audio feature. These features are fused at the late fusion stage and input to a support vector machine (SVM) to learn semantic concepts from a given video database. Based on our experimental results, the proposed system implementing the SVM-based fusion technique achieves high classification accuracy when applied to a large volume database containing Hollywood movies.     

Self-assembly of luminescent ternary complexes between seven-coordinate lanthanide(III) complexes and chromophore bearing carboxylates and phosphonates

Luminescent lanthanide complexes have been prepared by exploiting the interaction between lanthanide DO3A complexes and chromophore bearing carboxylates or phosphonates. This interaction can be utilised to probe the choice of sensitising chromophore suited to a given lanthanide. Furthermore, ternary complexes obtained from chromophore appended carboxylates dissociate in the presence of phosphate, while those obtained from phosphonates do not.     

Computational Materials Chemistry at the Nanoscale

In order to illustrate how atomistic modeling is being used to determine the structure, physical, and chemical properties of materials at the nanoscale, we present here the results of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on nanoscale assemblies of such materials as carbon nanotubes, diamond surfaces, metal alloy nanowires, and ceramics. We also include here the results of nonequilibrium MD simulations on the nanorheology of a monolayer of wear inhibitor self-assembled on two metal oxide surfaces, separated by hexadecane lubricant, and subjected to steady state shear.We also present recent developments in force fields (FF) required to describe bond breaking and phase transformations in such systems. We apply these to study of plasticity in metal alloy nanowires where we find that depending on the strain rate, the wire may deform plastically (forming twins), neck and fracture, or transition to the amorphous phase.