4 research outputs found
Effect of Wind barrier on Wind Environment above Parallel Girders
This paper was reviewed and accepted by the APCWE-IX Programme Committee for Presentation at the 9th Asia-Pacific Conference on Wind Engineering, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand, held from 3-7 December 2017
Aspartic Acid-Promoted Highly Selective and Sensitive Colorimetric Sensing of Cysteine in Rat Brain
Direct selective determination of cysteine in the cerebral
system
is of great importance because of the crucial roles of cysteine in
physiological and pathological processes. In this study, we report
a sensitive and selective colorimetric assay for cysteine in the rat
brain with gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) as the signal readout. Initially,
Au-NPs synthesized with citrate as the stabilizer are red in color
and exhibit absorption at 520 nm. The addition of an aqueous solution
(20 μL) of cysteine or aspartic acid alone to a 200 μL
Au-NP dispersion causes no aggregation, while the addition of an aqueous
solution of cysteine into a Au-NP dispersion containing aspartic acid
(1.8 mM) causes the aggregation of Au-NPs and thus results in the
color change of the colloid from wine red to blue. These changes are
ascribed to the ion pair interaction between aspartic acid and cysteine
on the interface between Au-NPs and solution. The concentration of
cysteine can be visualized with the naked eye and determined by UV–vis
spectroscopy. The signal output shows a linear relationship for cysteine
within the concentration range from 0.166 to 1.67 μM with a
detection limit of 100 nM. The assay demonstrated here is highly selective
and is free from the interference of other natural amino acids and
other thiol-containing species as well as the species commonly existing
in the brain such as lactate, ascorbic acid, and glucose. The basal
dialysate level of cysteine in the microdialysate from the striatum
of adult male Sprague–Dawley rats is determined to be around
9.6 ± 2.1 μM. The method demonstrated here is facile but
reliable and durable and is envisaged to be applicable to understanding
the chemical essence involved in physiological and pathological events
associated with cysteine
Strong Interaction between Imidazolium-Based Polycationic Polymer and Ferricyanide: Toward Redox Potential Regulation for Selective In Vivo Electrochemical Measurements
This study effectively demonstrates a strategy to enable
the ferricyanide-based
second-generation biosensors for selective in vivo measurements of
neurochemicals, with glucose as an example. The strategy is based
on regulation of redox potential of ferricyanide mediator by carefully
controlling the different adsorption ability of ferricyanide (FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>3‑</sup>) and ferrocyanide (FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>4‑</sup>) onto electrode surface. To realize the negative
shift of the redox potential of FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>3‑/4‑</sup>, imidazolium-based polymer (Pim) is synthesized and used as a matrix
for surface adsorption of FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>3‑/4‑</sup> due to its stronger interaction with FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>3‑</sup> than with FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>4‑</sup>. The different
adsorption ability of FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>3‑</sup> and FeÂ(CN)<sub>6</sub><sup>4‑</sup> onto electrodes modified with a composite
of Pim and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) eventually enables
the stable surface adsorption of both species to generate integrated
biosensors and, more importantly, leads to a negative shift of the
redox potential of the surface-confined redox mediator. Using glucose
oxidase (GOD) as the model biorecognition units, we demonstrate the
validity of the ferricyanide-based second-generation biosensors for
selective in vivo neurochemical measurements. We find that the biosensors
developed with the strategy demonstrated in this study can be used
well as the selective detector for continuous online detection of
striatum glucose of guinea pigs, by integration with in vivo microdialysis.
This study essentially paves a new avenue to developing electrochemical
biosensors effectively for in vivo neurochemical measurements, which
is envisaged to be of great importance in understanding the molecular
basis of physiological and pathological events
Shape-Controlled Fabrication of the Polymer-Based Micromotor Based on the Polydimethylsiloxane Template
We report the utilization of the
polydimethylsiloxane template
to construct polymer-based autonomous micromotors with various structures.
Solid or hollow micromotors, which consist of polycaprolactone and
platinum nanoparticles, can be obtained with controllable sizes and
shapes. The resulting micromotor can not only be self-propelled in
solution based on the bubble propulsion mechanism in the presence
of the hydrogen peroxide fuel, but also exhibit structure-dependent
motion behavior. In addition, the micromotors can exhibit various
functions, ranging from fluorescence, magnetic control to cargo transportation.
Since the current method can be extended to a variety of organic and
inorganic materials, we thus believe it may have great potential in
the fabrication of different functional micromotors for diverse applications