Pamam dendrimer-based therapeutic and diagnostic nanodevices

Dendrimers are ideal materials to be used in the emerging field of nanomedicine. Their nanoscale size and high density of functional groups on their peripheries allow them to be used for various biomedical applications. This work exploits dendrimers as drug delivery vehicles and a versatile platform for capturing biomarkers with improved sensitivity and specificity. Hydroxyl terminated poly(amidoamine) dendrimer (PAMAM-OH) was modified with a linker having amine group at the end and conjugated to two drugs, erythromycin (EM) and allopregnanonolne, respectively and evaluated in vitro. Both drugs were provided with a linker having carboxylic group required for conjugation reaction with dendrimer. The release rate of the drugs from the conjugates in PBS buffers at pH 7.4 for EM and pH 2.1 for allopregnanolone were evaluated by reverse phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) analysis. EM released quite fast, about 90% of the drug was released within 10 hours and completed within 20 hours, while allopregnanolone released in slower manner, about 90% of the drug was released within 9 days. Dendrimer-EM conjugate was not cytotoxic and was significantly efficacious in inhibiting the nitrite production compared to free drug. The inhibition of bacterial growth by dendrimer-EM conjugate was comparable to free EM. Combined with the intinsinic properties of dendrimers, these nanodevices could lead to improved in vivo efficacy. PAMAM-OH was successfully used for the development of a solid phase bio-sensing platform. The ELISA plate was modified first with polyethylene-glycol (PEG) and then PAMAM-OH was immobilized. A capture antibody was oxidized and covalently attached to dendrimer-modified ELISA plate which gives antibody favorable orientation for the antigen binding sites toward the analyte. The dendrimer modified plate showed enhanced sensitivity and the detection limit for TNF-á was found to be 0.48 pg/mL, which is significantly better than the commercially available ELISA kit. The selectivity of the dendrimer-modified ELISA plate was examined by studying TNF-á in a mixture of cytokines which gave similar results. Dendrimer-modified ELISA plate provides a greater opportunity for the detection of a wide range of cytokines and biomarkers

Climate changes and adaption policies in the Baltic and the Adriatic regions

This paper provides an overview of differences and similarities of the current climate changes in the Baltic and Adriatic coastal regions and appropriate adaptation policies on national, regional and European level. All reparian countries are at different stages of developing and implementing national adaptation strategies. The proposal for an overall BSR wide Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan has been launched with the aim to recommend actions for climate change adaptation in the Baltic region. No similar agreement has been concluded yet on the protection of the semi-closed Adriatic Sea, the surface of which is about 1/2 of that of the Baltic Sea, and whose coastal region is home to about 1/4 of that of the Baltic Sea. The differences in the socio-economic characteristics and indicators may be partly responsible for the differring attitudes, actions and reporting concerning the adaptation to climate change, both between individual countries, as well as between the two regions as a whole

Zbijenost zemljišta različitih teksturnih klasa u zasadima malina ariljskog malinogorja

The principal aim of the present investigations was to establish the influence of threading by agricultural machines or people on the changes of penetration resistance (compaction) of the soils of various textural classes in Arilje raspberry growing area. The investigations included two most abundant soil types in the region, which differed significantly from the aspect of their textural composition: young non-carbonate sandyloam alluvial soil (fluvisol) and silt-loam brown forest acid soil (dystric cambisol ) on micashist. Measuring of penetration resistance in vertical direction, to the depth of 60 cm, between the rows of raspberry plants, at each 10 cm, was performed in the summer 2005 in two raspberry patches 10 years old. For the measurement of the penetration resistance a hand static penetrometer with cone of 30° and radius of 12.3 mm was applied. Repeated (10-20 times a year, according to the statement of the owner) passages of agricultural machines, frequently in very wet weather, as well as people passing (30-50 times a year) lead to a significant increase of penetration resistance (compaction) of the investigated soils in those areas, i.e. paths where machines and people moved. In these areas penetration resistance is 2 to 3 times higher than in surrounding untouched surfaces between the rows of raspberry plants. The values of penetration resistance (compaction) on the threaded paths vary between 1000 and 5000 kPa. The compaction increase made the penetration of raspberry roots into deeper soil layers very difficult.Cilj ovih istraživanja je bio utvrđivanje uticaja gaženja mehanizacijom i od strane ljudi, na izmene otpora penetracije (zbijenosti) zemljišta različitih teksturnih klasa u ariljskom malinogorju. Istraživanjima su obuhvaćena dva najzastupljenija tipa zemljišta u tom malinogorju koja se međusobno jako razlikuju po teksturi, i to: mlado beskarbonatno peskovito ilovasto aluvijalno zemljište (fluvisol) i praškasto ilovasto kiselo smeđe šumsko zemljište (distrični kambisol) na mikašistu. Merenje penetracionog otpora u vertikalnom pravcu, do 60 cm dubine, između redova malina na rastojanju od 10 cm obavljeno je u leto 2005. godine, i to u dva malinjaka starosti 10 godina. Za merenje penetracionog otpora korišćen je ručni statički penetrometar sa konusom od 30o i prečnikom 12.3 mm. Mnogobrojni (10–20 puta godišnje, po izjavi vlasnika malinjaka) prolazi poljoprivrednim mašinama, često i po jako vlažnom zemljištu, kao i prolazi ljudi (30-50 godišnje) doveli su do znatnog povećanja otpora penetracije (zbijenosti) istraženih zemljišta na radnim stazama po kojima su se kretale mašine i ljudi. Na tim površinama penetracioni otpor je 2 do 4 puta veći nego na okolnim negaženim površinama između redova malina. Vrednosti otpora penetracije (zbijenosti) na radnim stazama variraju od 1000 do 5000 kPa. Povećanje zbijenosti jako je smanjilo prodiranje korena maline u dublje slojeve zemljišta, što je utvrđeno pri kopanju zemljišnih profila

ECG Feature Importance Rankings: Cardiologists vs. Algorithms

Feature importance methods promise to provide a ranking of features according to importance for a given classification task. A wide range of methods exist but their rankings often disagree and they are inherently difficult to evaluate due toa lack of ground truth beyond synthetic datasets. In this work, we put feature importance methods to the test on real-world data in the domain of cardiology, where we try to distinguish three specific pathologies from healthy subjects based on ECG features comparing to features used in cardiologists’ decision rules as ground truth. We found that the SHAP and LIME methods andChi-squared test all worked well together with the native Random forest and Logistic regression feature rankings. Some methods gave inconsistent results, which included the Maximum Relevance Minimum Redundancy and Neighbourhood Component Analysis methods. The permutation-based methods generally performed quite poorly. A surprising result was found in the case of leftbundle branch block, where T-wave morphology features were consistently identified as being important for diagnosis, but are not used by clinicians

Multi-Class ECG Feature Importance Rankings: Cardiologists vs. Algorithms

Cardiologists have been using electrocardiogram features to diagnose a wide variety of heart conditions for many decades. There are also numerous algorithms that rank feature importance for a particular classification task. However, different algorithms often give quite different feature rankings. Therefore, we compared the feature importance rankings obtained by various algorithms with the features that cardiologists use for diagnosis

Kinetic phenomena in transport of electrons and positrons in gases caused by the properties of scattering cross sections

Collisions of electrons, atoms, molecules, photons and ions are the basic processes in plasmas and ionized gases in general. This is especially valid for low temperature collisional plasmas. Kinetic phenomena in transport are very sensitivitive to the shape of the cross sections and may at the same time affect the macroscopic applications. We will show how transport theory or simulation codes, phenomenology, kinetic phenomena and transport data may be used to improve our knowledge of the cross sections, our understanding of the plasma models, application of the swarm physics in ionized gases and similar applications to model and improve gas filled traps of positrons. Swarm techniques could also be a starting point in applying atomic and molecular data in models of electron or positron therapy/diagnostics in radiation related medicine

Utilization of Waste In Geopolimerization A Review

The aim of this article is to review the utilization of various types of waste in geopolimerization technology processes. The geopolymerization represents a process comprising of the dissolution of aluminosilicate solids in a strongly alkaline medium followed by condensation of free alumina-silica oligomers to form a tetrahedral polymeric structure. Advantage of this technology represents the possibility of utilization of any silica and alumina-containing waste material that could be dissolved in an alkaline solution. Production of geopolymers from waste not only provides less raw material consumption but also addresses issues regarding the disposal of wastes. Fly ash, red mud, construction and demolition waste (C&DW), slags, or mine waste are the most utilized waste types in combination with supplementary waste materials according to their characteristics. Conducted investigations showed that the use of various waste materials leads to the production of geopolymers with a broad range of final properties. Despite a high number of published Publications and patents, the large-scale utilization of waste is still missing

Charged-Particle Thermonuclear Reaction Rates: III. Nuclear Physics Input

The nuclear physics input used to compute the Monte Carlo reaction rates and probability density functions that are tabulated in the second paper of this series (Paper II) is presented. Specifically, we publish the input files to the Monte Carlo reaction rate code RatesMC, which is based on the formalism presented in the first paper of this series (Paper I). This data base contains overwhelmingly experimental nuclear physics information. The survey of literature for this review was concluded in November 2009.Comment: 132 page