Synthesis, characterization, and biological activities of macrocyclic polyamine complexes

<div><p>Two new dinuclear macrocyclic complexes, [Ni₂L¹(OAc)]·ClO₄ (<b>1</b>) and [Co₂L²(OAc)]·1.5(ClO₄)·0.5Na·2(CH₃OH) (<b>2</b>) (where H₂L¹ and H₂L² are the condensation products of N,N-bis(3-aminopropyl)-4-methoxybenzylamine with 2,6-diformyl-4-brominephenol and 2,6-diformyl-4-methylphenol in the presence of metal ions, respectively) have been synthesized and characterized by infrared spectra, elemental analysis, electrospray mass spectra, and X-ray single crystal diffraction. The interactions of the complexes with CT-DNA have been measured by UV-absorption titrations and fluorescence quenching experiments.</p></div

Radiolysis of Water Confined in Porous Silica: A Simulation Study of the Physicochemical Yields

We investigate the radiolysis of liquid water confined in a porous silica matrix by means of an event-by-event Monte Carlo simulation of electron penetration in this composite system. We focus on the physical and physicochemical effects that take place in the picosecond range, before the radicals start to diffuse and react. We determine the radiolytic yields of the primary species for a system made of cylindrical pores filled with water over a wide range of pore radii RC. We show that the relative position of the conduction band edge V0 in both materials plays a major role in the radiolysis of composite systems. Due to its lower V0 as compared to that of silica, water acts as a collector of low-energy electrons, which leads to a huge enhancement of the solvated electron yields for RC ≤ 100 nm. The confinement has also a marked effect on the spatial distribution of the radicals, which become isolated in a very large number of pores as RC decreases

DNA cleavage activities of two dinuclear copper coordination polymers

<div><p>The DNA cleavage activities of two coordination polymers of Robson-type macrocycles, {[Cu₄L¹(4,4′-bipy)₂](ClO₄)₄·H₂O}_∞ (<b>1</b>) and {[Cu₄L²(4,4′-bipy)₄](ClO₄)₄·2CH₃CN·2H₂O}_∞ (<b>2</b>) (where H₂L¹ and H₂L² are the [2 + 2] condensation products of 1,3-diaminopropane with 2,6-diformyl-4-methylphenol and 2,6-diformyl-4-fluorophenol, respectively), have been studied. The interactions of the complexes with calf thymus-DNA were investigated by UV–vis spectroscopy, CD spectroscopy, and gel electrophoresis. The binding constants of <b>1</b> and <b>2</b> are 7.2 × 10⁴ and 2.1 × 10⁵ M⁻¹, respectively. The complexes exhibit DNA cleavage activity, with the cleavage process involving oxidative cleavage of DNA.</p></div

BCSE: Blockchain-Based Trusted Service Evaluation Model over Big Data

The blockchain, with its key characteristics of decentralization, persistence, anonymity, and auditability, has become a solution to overcome the overdependence and lack of trust for a traditional public key infrastructure on third-party institutions. Because of these characteristics, the blockchain is suitable for solving certain open problems in the service-oriented social network, where the unreliability of submitted reviews of service vendors can cause serious security problems. To solve the unreliability problems of submitted reviews, this paper first proposes a blockchain-based identity authentication scheme and a new trusted service evaluation model by introducing the scheme into a service evaluation model. The new trusted service evaluation model consists of the blockchain-based identity authentication scheme, evaluation submission module, and evaluation publicity module. In the proposed evaluation model, only users who have successfully been authenticated can submit reviews to service vendors. The registration and authentication records of users' identity and the reviews for service vendors are all stored in the blockchain network. The security analysis shows that this model can ensure the credibility of users' reviews for service vendors, and other users can obtain credible reviews of service vendors via the review publicity module. The experimental results also show that the proposed model has a lower review submission delay than other models.</p

Spontaneous-emission-enabled dynamics at the threshold of a directly modulated semiconductor laser

Chaos in semiconductor lasers or other optical systems has been intensively studied in the past two decades. However, modulation around threshold has received much less attention, in particular in gain-modulated semiconductor lasers. In this article, we investigate the bifurcation sequence which appears with pump modulation in the threshold region with a large amplitude and different values of modulation frequency. Modulation around threshold necessarily includes ``below-threshold'' dynamics, which can be effectively displayed only through through a nonlinear visualization of the oscillations. The irregular temporal behaviour is examined at various modulation frequencies and amplitudes, highlighting a possible route to chaos for very large amplitude modulation in the near-threshold region. The addition of the (average) spontaneous emission to the lasing mode enables a coupled dynamics between photons and carriers even below threshold, thus extending the pump range in which the modulation actively modifies the laser behaviour. We also report on the existence of a transition between similar attractors characterized by a temporal transient which depends on the amplitude of the modulation driving the pump

Conductivity Measurements of Paddlewheel Dimetal Complexes with Metal-Metal Multiple Bonds

Published in the 2006 Sixth IEEE Conference on Nanotechnology vol. 1, pp. 74-77</p

DS_10.1177_0022034519890570 – Supplemental material for Carbohydrate Metabolism Regulated by Antisense vicR RNA in Cariogenicity

Supplemental material, DS_10.1177_0022034519890570 for Carbohydrate Metabolism Regulated by Antisense vicR RNA in Cariogenicity by L. Lei, B. Zhang, M. Mao, H. Chen, S. Wu, Y. Deng, Y. Yang, H. Zhou and T. Hu in Journal of Dental Research</p

Strain-stress study of AlxGa1-xN/AlN heterostructures on c-plane sapphire and related optical properties

This work presents a systematic study of stress and strain of AlxGa1-xN/AlN with composition ranging from GaN to AlN, grown on a c-plane sapphire by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, using synchrotron radiation high-resolution X-ray diffraction and reciprocal space mapping. The c-plane of the AlxGa1-xN epitaxial layers exhibits compressive strain, while the a-plane exhibits tensile strain. The biaxial stress and strain are found to increase with increasing Al composition, although the lattice mismatch between the AlxGa1-xN and the buffer layer AlN gets smaller. A reduction in the lateral coherence lengths and an increase in the edge and screw dislocations are seen as the AlxGa1-xN composition is varied from GaN to AlN, exhibiting a clear dependence of the crystal properties of AlxGa1-xN on the Al content. The bandgap of the epitaxial layers is slightly lower than predicted value due to a larger tensile strain effect on the a-axis compared to the compressive strain on the c-axis. Raman characteristics of the AlxGa1-xN samples exhibit a shift in the phonon peaks with the Al composition. The effect of strain is also discussed on the optical phonon energies of the epitaxial layers. The techniques discussed here can be used to study other similar materials

Regulation of semaphorin 4D expression and cell proliferation of ovarian cancer by ERalpha and ERbeta

Ovarian cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women. Semaphorin 4D (sema 4D) is involved in the progress of multiple cancers. In the presence of estrogen-like ligands, estrogen receptors (ERα and ERβ) participate in the progress of breast and ovarian cancers by transcriptional regulation. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of sema 4D and elucidate the regulatory pattern of ERα and ERβ on sema 4D expression in ovarian cancers. Sema 4D levels were up-regulated in ovarian cancer SKOV-3 cells. Patients with malignant ovarian cancers had significantly higher sema 4D levels than controls, suggesting an oncogene role of sema 4D in ovarian cancer. ERα expressions were up-regulated in SKOV-3 cells compared with normal ovarian IOSE80 epithelial cells. Conversely, down-regulation of ERβ was observed in SKOV-3 cells. Forced over-expression of ERα and ERβ in SKOV-3 cells was manipulated to establish ERα+ and ERβ+ SKOV-3 cell lines. Incubation of ERα+ SKOV-3 cells with ERs agonist 17β-estradiol (E2) significantly enhanced sema 4D expression and rate of cell proliferation. Incubated with E2, ERβ+ SKOV-3 cells showed lower sema 4D expression and cell proliferation. Blocking ERα and ERβ activities with ICI182-780 inhibitor, sema 4D expressions and cell proliferation of ERα+ and ERβ+ SKOV-3 cells were recovered to control levels. Taken together, the data showed that sema 4D expression was positively correlated with the progress of ovarian cancer. ERα positively regulated sema 4D expression and accelerated cell proliferation. ERβ negatively regulated sema 4D expression and inhibited cell multiplication.</div

Second-order correlation function supported optical sensing for particle detection

We propose a new sensing method based on the measurement of the second-order autocorrelation of the output of micro- and nanolasers with intensity feedback. The sensing function is implemented through the feedback-induced threshold shift, whose photon statistics is controlled by the feedback level in a characteristic way for different laser sizes. The specific response offers performances which can be adapted to different kinds of sensors. We propose the implementation of two schemes capable of providing a quantitative sensing signal and covering a broad range of feedback levels: one is utilizing the evolution of g$^{(2)}$(0), the other one is the ratio between central and side peaks in g$^{(2)}(\tau)$. Laser-threshold-based sensing could, thanks to its potential sensitivity, gain relevance in biomolecular diagnostics and security monitoring