The third-order electric susceptibilities of NaCl and KCl monocrystals

The dispersion of the third-order electric susceptibilities(; , , –) and(; , 0, 0) of NaCl and KCl monocrystals has been calculated by means of experimental data on the electro-optic Kerr effect. The result has been obtained by using semi-classical models of anharmonic oscillators. An ionic contribution to the electro-optic coefficients has been presented. From the result obtained it follows that the third-order electric susceptibilities are of the order of 10^–22 m² V^–2.     

Phenomenological rules for the computation of magneto-electric susceptibilities

Applying the model of the anharmonic oscillator, phenomenological expressions were derived, allowing calculation of the components of tensors describing non-linear magneto-electric susceptibilities. Detailed calculations were carried out for the pseudo-tensor of fourth order ^eeem in terms of which magneto-optical birefringence and rotation are expressed for the monocrystals KDP, DKDP, ADP, KDA, LiNbO₃, LiTaO₃ and NaClO₃. From the results obtained it follows that non-linear magneto-electric susceptibilities, which are described by the pseudo-tensor ^eeem are of the order of 10^–16 m V^–1T^–1.Part of this work was carried out under Research Project MR 15.     

Semi-automatic sparse preconditioners for high-order finite element methods on non-uniform meshes

High-order finite elements often have a higher accuracy per degree of freedom than the classical low-order finite elements. However, in the context of implicit time-stepping methods, high-order finite elements present challenges to the construction of efficient simulations due to the high cost of inverting the denser finite element matrix. There are many cases where simulations are limited by the memory required to store the matrix and/or the algorithmic components of the linear solver. We are particularly interested in preconditioned Krylov methods for linear systems generated by discretization of elliptic partial differential equations with high-order finite elements. Using a preconditioner like Algebraic Multigrid can be costly in terms of memory due to the need to store matrix information at the various levels. We present a novel method for defining a preconditioner for systems generated by high-order finite elements that is based on a much sparser system than the original high-order finite element system. We investigate the performance for non-uniform meshes on a cube and a cubed sphere mesh, showing that the sparser preconditioner is more efficient and uses significantly less memory. Finally, we explore new methods to construct the sparse preconditioner and examine their effectiveness for non-uniform meshes. We compare results to a direct use of Algebraic Multigrid as a preconditioner and to a two-level additive Schwarz method.     

Biological Effects of Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma on Skin Cancer

Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing - Cold atmospheric pressure plasmas (CAPPs) increasingly attracted scientific attention in the field of medicine, especially oncology. Because of the surface...     

Application of Oil-in-Water Nanoemulsion Carrying Size-Defined Gold Nanoparticles Synthesized by Non-thermal Plasma for the Human Breast Cancer Cell Lines Migration and Apoptosis

Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing - In this work, the gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were synthesized using pulse-modulated radio-frequency atmospheric pressure glow discharge (pm-rf-APGD). By...     

Inverse electron-demand Diels-Alder (iEDDA) bioorthogonal conjugation of half-sandwich transition metallocarbonyl entities to a model protein

Novel transition metallocarbonyl complexes carrying a norbornene or an oxanorbornene group were synthesized by [4 + 2] cycloaddition between the organometallic maleimide dienophiles and cyclopentadiene or furan, respectively. The oxanorbornene adduct was obtained as a mixture of endo and exo isomers as confirmed by X-ray diffraction and NMR spectroscopy. The (oxa)norbornene groups further provided convenient chemical reporters to carry out inverse electron demand Diels-Alder (iEDDA) reactions with tetrazine derivatives. Detailed kinetic studies with a model tetrazine revealed that faster rates of reaction were determined with both isomers of the oxanorbornene complex with respect to the norbornene complexes. Eventually, incorporation of metallocarbonyl entities into bovine serum albumin equipped with tetrazine handles was achieved as shown by IR spectroscopy of the protein conjugates.     

Bridging the gap between metabolic profile determination and visualization in neurometabolic disorders: a multivariate analysis of proton magnetic resonance in vivo spectra

The purpose of this work was to check the degree of overlap between rare inborn errors of metabolism and other neurological disorders using principal component analysis of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H MRS) in vivo data. We examined 60 patients (median age of 22 months). Fourteen of them were diagnosed with neurometabolic disorders (three cases of metachromatic leukodystrophy, two cases of Canavan disease, two cases of megalencephalic leukoencephalopathy with subcortical cysts, three cases of mitochondrial cytopathy, one case of nonketotic hyperglycinemia, one case of globoid leukodystrophy, one case of congenital disorders of glycosylation, and one case of ethylmalonic encephalopathy). The remaining 46 patients were diagnosed with epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and developmental delay. Results obtained from principal component analysis of complete unresolved ¹H MRS in vivo spectra were interpreted parallelly with LCModel‐derived metabolite levels. The main attention was paid to the following metabolites: N‐acetylaspartate, glutamate + glutamine, creatine, choline, myo‐inositol signal with an uncertain contribution of glycine, and glucose. ¹H MRS in vivo coupled with multivariate analysis is an efficient tool in visualization of metabolic abnormalities in several inborn errors of metabolism (metachromatic leukodystrophy, globoid leukodystrophy, megalencephalic leukoencephalopathy with subcortical cysts, and Canavan disease). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Activation of the Normal Human Skin Cells by a Portable Dielectric Barrier Discharge-Based Reaction-Discharge System of a Defined Gas Temperature

Skin injury leading to chronic wounds is of high interest due to the increasing number of patients suffering from this symptom. Proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis are key factors in the wound healing processes. For that reason, controlled promotion of these processes is required. In this work, we present the portable helium-dielectric barrier discharge (He-DBD)-based reaction-discharge system of controlled gas temperature for biological activities. To make this He-DBD-based reaction-discharge system safe for biological purposes, a multivariate optimization of the operating parameters was performed. To evaluate the effect of the He-DBD operating parameters on the rotational gas temperature T_rot(OH), a design of experiment followed by a Response Surface Methodology was applied. Based on the suggested statistical model, the optimal operating conditions under which the T_rot(OH) is less than 37 °C (310 K) were estimated. Then, the resulted model was validated in order to confirm its accuracy. After estimation the optical operating conditions of He-DBD operation, the spectroscopic characteristic of the He-DBD-based reaction-discharge system in relevance to the several optical temperatures in addition to electron number density has been carried out. Additionally, the qualitative and quantitative analyses of the reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species were performed in order to investigate of reactions and processes running in the He-DBD-gaseous phase and in the He-DBD-treated liquid. Next, the developed portable He-DBD-based reaction-discharge system, working under the optimal operating conditions, was used to stimulate the wound healing process. It was found that a 30 s He-DBD treatment significantly increased the proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis of keratinocytes (HaCaT) and fibroblasts (MSU-1.1) cell lines, as well as human skin microvascular endothelial cells (HSkMEC.2). Hence, the application of the cold atmospheric pressure plasma generated in this He-DBD-based reaction-discharge system might be an alternative therapy for patient suffering from chronic wounds.