Two-dimensional agnor evaluation as a prognostic variable in urinary bladder carcinoma: a different approach via total agnor area/nucleus area per cell

Traditional criterions are not sufficient to predict accurately the recurrence of transitional cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the AgNORs via total AgNOR area/nucleus area (TAA/NA) for each cell as a prognostic parameter, in TCC of urinary bladder. Tumor tissues of 20 consecutive cases of male bladder cancer patients were divided into two groups as middle differentiated (LG) and high grade (HG). The extra-tumoral tissue (ETT) samples of 10 males served as control group. A second control group (HC) consisted of five healthy and normal bladder tissue samples. The 3 microm of sections from each paraffin embedded tumoral, extra-tumoral and normal tissue samples served as patient and control groups. After deparaffinization and rehydratation steps, silver (AgNO(3)) staining of nucleolar organizer regions-associated proteins (AgNORs) was performed. Instead of Giemsa stain, we used Hematoxylin for contra staining. The images of the 100 analyzable nuclei from each tissue sample, transferred by means of a video camera and video capture card from microscope and recorded onto a computer. Software was prepared in Delphi language for analysis. Mean (E+02) TAA/NA values of HC, ETT, LG and HG groups were 6.97+2.80, 5.70+1.82, 7.80+3.22 and 9.24+3.88, respectively. Statistical comparisons have shown significant differences between all groups.In conclusion, mean TAA/NA per cell has a potential to be a prognostic parameter. Therefore, further evaluation of big patient series will be useful.     

Building an Iron Chromophore Incorporating Prussian Blue Analogue for Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation

The replacement of traditional ruthenium-based photosensitizers with low-cost and abundant iron analogs is a key step for the advancement of scalable and sustainable dye-sensitized water splitting cells. In this proof-of-concept study, a pyridinium ligand coordinated pentacyanoferrate(II) chromophore is used to construct a cyanide-based CoFe extended bulk framework, in which the iron photosensitizer units are connected to cobalt water oxidation catalytic sites through cyanide linkers. The iron-sensitized photoanode exhibits exceptional stability for at least 5 h at pH 7 and features its photosensitizing ability with an incident photon-to-current conversion capacity up to 500 nm with nanosecond scale excited state lifetime. Ultrafast transient absorption and computational studies reveal that iron and cobalt sites mutually support each other for charge separation via short bridging cyanide groups and for injection to the semiconductor in our proof-of-concept photoelectrochemical device. The reorganization of the excited states due to the mixing of electronic states of metal-based orbitals subsequently tailor the electron transfer cascade during the photoelectrochemical process. This breakthrough in chromophore-catalyst assemblies will spark interest in dye-sensitization with robust bulk systems for photoconversion applications.     

A nonnormal look at polychoric correlations: modeling the change in correlations before and after discretization

Two algorithms for establishing a connection between correlations before and after ordinalization under a wide spectrum of nonnormal underlying bivariate distributions are developed by extending the iteratively found normal-based results via the power polynomials. These algorithms are designed to compute the polychoric correlation when the ordinal correlation is specified, and vice versa, along with the distributional properties of latent, continuous variables that are subsequently ordinalized through thresholds dictated by the marginal proportions. The method has broad applicability in the simulation and random number generation world where modeling the relationships between these correlation types is of interest.     

Simultaneous voltammetric analysis of lead,copper and mercury ions by carbon paste electrode based on 1-(3-aminopropyl) imidazole modified polymer

In this study, a carbon paste electrode modified with a novel 1-(3-aminopropyl) imidazole functionalised crosslinked chlorosulfonated poly(styrene)-divinyl benzene polymer was used for selective and sensitive determination of the trace amounts of Pb²⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺ ions by square wave anodic stripping voltammetry. The effect of some parameters such as paste composition, pH, preconcentration time, reduction potential and time, type of supporting electrolyte and potential scan rate on the determination of metal ions were investigated to find the optimal conditions. The effective open-circuit accumulation of the studied metal ions was succeeded only by the modification of the carbon paste electrode with functional polymer. For 6 min open-circuit preconcentration, the detection limit of Pb²⁺, Cu²⁺ and Hg²⁺ was found to be 5, 9 and 14 µgL^?1, respectively at 100 mVs^?1. The results confirmed that the lower concentration levels of these trace metal ions can be determined with the increase of preconcentration time and/or potential scan rate. Good detection limits and large dynamic concentration ranges were also obtained for their binary and ternary mixtures. The optimised method was successively applied to determine the concentration of Pb²⁺, Cu²⁺ ions in the tap water sample and Cu²⁺ ion in the waste water sample in the presence of possible interfering species (RSD<1%, recoveries 96–110% for 4 min preconcentration).     

Investigation of therapeutic efficiency of phenytoin (PHT) labeled with radioactive 131I in the cancer cell lines

The aim of this study is to determine the incorporations of PHT radiolabeled with ¹³¹I (¹³¹I-PHT) on U-87 MG, Daoy and A549 cancerous cell lines. For this, cold and radio-labeling studies were carried out. The radio-labeling yield of ¹³¹I-PHT was obtained about 95 %. Subsequently, cell culture studies were carried out and radio-labeling yields of ¹³¹I, ¹³¹I-PHT on U-87 MG, Daoy and A549 cancerous cells were investigated. Cell culture studies demonstrated that the incorporation values of ¹³¹I-PHT on the three cell lines decreased with increasing radioactivity. Consequently, ¹³¹I-PHT may be a good radiopharmaceutical for targeting radionuclide therapy of Central Nervous System Tumors.     

The crystallization kinetics of the Bi2O3-added MgO–Al2O3–SiO2–TiO2 glass ceramics system produced from industrial waste

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with different content of carboxylated groups on their surface (depending on the duration of their treatment with nitric acid)...     

CO2 hydrogenation to methanol and dimethyl ether at atmospheric pressure using Cu-Ho-Ga/γ–Al2O3 and Cu-Ho-Ga/ZSM-5: Experimental study and thermodynamic analysis

CO₂ valorization through chemical reactions attracts significant attention due to the mitigation of greenhouse gas effects. This article covers the catalytic hydrogenation of CO₂ to methanol and dimethyl ether using Cu-Ho-Ga containing ZSM-5 and g-Al₂O₃ at atmospheric pressure and at temperatures of 210 °C and 260 °C using a CO₂:H₂ feed ratio of 1:3 and 1:9. In addition, the thermodynamic limitations of methanol and DME formation from CO₂ was investigated at a temperature range of 100–400 °C. Cu-Ho-Ga/g-Al₂O₃ catalyst shows the highest formation rate of methanol (90.3 µmol_CH3OH/g_cat/h ) and DME (13.2 µmol_DME/g_cat/h) as well as the highest selectivity towards methanol and DME (39.9 %) at 210 °C using a CO₂:H₂ 1:9 feed ratio. In both the thermodynamic analysis and reaction results, the higher concentration of H₂ in the feed and lower reaction temperature resulted in higher DME selectivity and lower CO production rates.     

Microwave-assisted dilute acid pretreatment of different agricultural bioresources for fermentable sugar production

Microwave-assisted pretreatment can be used for fermentable sugar production from lignocellulosic biomass. In this study, the optimum hydrolysis conditions of barley husk, oat husk, wheat bran, and rye bran were determined in power level, treatment time, solid-to-liquid ratio and dilute acid ratio as follows: 700 W, 6.92 min, 1:18.26 w/v, and 3.67% for barley husk, 600 W, 6.96 min, 1:17.22 w/v, and 3.47% for oat husk, 600 W, 6.92 min, 1:16.69 w/v, and 1.85% for wheat bran, and 460 W, 6.15 min, 1:17.14 w/v, and 2.72% for rye bran. The fermentable sugar concentrations were 37.21 (0.68 g/g), 38.84 (0.67 g/g), 49.65 (0.83 g/g), and 36.27 g/L (0.62 g/g) under optimum conditions, respectively. The results showed that microwave-assisted pretreatment is a promising technology which can be successfully implemented for the hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass for high sugar yield. On the other hand, hydrolysates included some inhibitors such as organic acids, furans, and phenolic compounds. Lignocellulosic biomass used in this study can be employed as good feedstocks for value-added product production in the fermentation process, after the inhibitors have been detoxified/removed with different detoxification methods.     

Density functional theory study of interactions between carbon dioxide and functionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes

Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes (POSS) are cage‐structured inorganic–organic hybrid materials which can be used in various industrial applications. It is recently discovered that POSS structures with certain functional groups can be solubilized in supercritical CO₂ allowing their applications in environmentally benign supercritical processing of materials. In this theoretical study, nature and energetics of the interactions of octatrifluoropropyl POSS, octatrifluoromethyl POSS, and octamethyl POSS with CO₂ are investigated according to the principles of density functional theory (DFT) by use of Gaussian 09 software. Simulations show that CO₂‐octamethyl POSS pair has hydrogen bonding between the O atom of CO₂ and the H atom of the methyl group, and CO₂‐octatrifluoromethyl POSS pair has interactions between the C atom of CO₂ and the F atom of the trifluoromethyl group. CO₂‐octatrifluoropropyl POSS pair is found to have both interaction types. The octamethyl, the octatrifluoromethyl and the octatrifluoropropyl POSS structures have interaction energies of ?2.18 kcal/mol, ?3.10 kcal/mol, and ?3.77 kcal/mol, respectively. This shows that the presence of Lewis acid–Lewis base interaction between C and F instead of hydrogen bonding between O and H atoms enhances the interaction of the molecule with CO₂, while the presence of both interactions between the octatrifluoropropyl POSS‐CO₂ pair makes the intermolecular interaction even stronger.