Synthesis and characterization of molecularly imprinted polymers for the remediation of PCBs and dioxins in aqueous environments

This paper, reports on the approach devised to remediate water sources contaminated with PCBs and dioxins. The approach reported is based on the synthesis of highly selective molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). The paper elaborates the materials, procedures and protocols devised and followed for the synthesis of MIPs..

Heat Transfer Enhancement by Perforated and Louvred Fin Heat Exchangers

Multi-tube multi-fin heat exchangers are extensively used in various industries. In the current work, detailed experimental investigations were carried out to establish the flow/heat transfer characteristics in three distinct heat exchanger geometries. A novel perforated plain fin design was developed, and its performance was evaluated against standard plain and louvred fins designs. Experimental setups were designed, and the tests were carefully carried out which enabled quantification of the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics. In the experiments the average velocity of air was varied in the range of 0.7 m/s to 4 m/s corresponding to Reynolds numbers of 600 to 2650. The water side flow rates in the tubes were kept at 0.12, 0.18, 0.24, 0.3, and 0.36 m3/h corresponding to Reynolds numbers between 6000 and 30,000. It was found that the louvred fins produced the highest heat transfer rate due to the availability of higher surface area, but it also produced the highest pressure drops. Conversely, while the new perforated design produced a slightly higher pressure drop than the plain fin design, it gave a higher value of heat transfer rate than the plain fin especially at the lower liquid flow rates. Specifically, the louvred fin gave consistently high pressure drops, up to 3 to 4 times more than the plain and perforated models at 4 m/s air flow, however, the heat transfer enhancement was only about 11% and 13% over the perforated and plain fin models, respectively. The mean heat transfer rate and pressure drops were used to calculate the Colburn and Fanning friction factors. Two novel semiempirical relationships were derived for the heat exchanger’s Fanning and Colburn factors as functions of the non-dimensional fin surface area and the Reynolds number. It was demonstrated that the Colburn and Fanning factors were predicted by the new correlations to within ±15% of the experiments

Diverse Functions of Retinoic Acid in Brain Vascular Development

As neural structures grow in size and increase metabolic demand, the CNS vasculature undergoes extensive growth, remodeling, and maturation. Signals from neural tissue act on endothelial cells to stimulate blood vessel ingression, vessel patterning, and acquisition of mature brain vascular traits, most notably the blood–brain barrier. Using mouse genetic and in vitro approaches, we identified retinoic acid (RA) as an important regulator of brain vascular development via non-cell-autonomous and cell-autonomous regulation of endothelial WNT signaling. Our analysis of globally RA-deficient embryos (Rdh10 mutants) points to an important, non-cell-autonomous function for RA in the development of the vasculature in the neocortex. We demonstrate that Rdh10 mutants have severe defects in cerebrovascular development and that this phenotype correlates with near absence of endothelial WNT signaling, specifically in the cerebrovasculature, and substantially elevated expression of WNT inhibitors in the neocortex. We show that RA can suppress the expression of WNT inhibitors in neocortical progenitors. Analysis of vasculature in non-neocortical brain regions suggested that RA may have a separate, cell-autonomous function in brain endothelial cells to inhibit WNT signaling. Using both gain and loss of RA signaling approaches, we show that RA signaling in brain endothelial cells can inhibit WNT-β-catenin transcriptional activity and that this is required to moderate the expression of WNT target Sox17. From this, a model emerges in which RA acts upstream of the WNT pathway via non-cell-autonomous and cell-autonomous mechanisms to ensure the formation of an adequate and stable brain vascular plexus

Circuit dissection of the role of somatostatin in itch and pain

Stimuli that elicit itch are detected by sensory neurons that innervate the skin. This information is processed by the spinal cord; however, the way in which this occurs is still poorly understood. Here we investigated the neuronal pathways for itch neurotransmission, particularly the contribution of the neuropeptide somatostatin. We find that in the periphery, somatostatin is exclusively expressed in Nppb+ neurons, and we demonstrate that Nppb+somatostatin+ cells function as pruriceptors. Employing chemogenetics, pharmacology and cell-specific ablation methods, we demonstrate that somatostatin potentiates itch by inhibiting inhibitory dynorphin neurons, which results in disinhibition of GRPR+ neurons. Furthermore, elimination of somatostatin from primary afferents and/or from spinal interneurons demonstrates differential involvement of the peptide released from these sources in itch and pain. Our results define the neural circuit underlying somatostatin-induced itch and characterize a contrasting antinociceptive role for the peptide

Social factors and obesity: an investigation of the role of health behaviours

OBJECTIVES: This study evaluated a behavioural model of the relation between social factors and obesity, in which differences in body mass index (BMI) across sociodemographic groups were hypothesized to be attributable to social group differences in health behaviours affecting energy expenditure (physical activity, diet and alcohol consumption and weight control). METHODS: A total of 8667 adults who participated in the 1995 Australian National Health and Nutrition Surveys provided data on a range of health factors including objectively measured height and weight, health behaviours, and social factors including family status, employment status, housing situation and migration status. RESULTS: Social factors remained significant predictors of BMI after controlling for all health behaviours. Neither social factors alone, nor health behaviours alone, adequately explained the variance in BMI. Gender-specific interactions were found between social factors and individual health behaviours. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that social factors moderate the relation between BMI and weight-related behaviours, and that the mechanisms underlying sociodemographic group differences in obesity may vary among men and women. Additional factors are likely to act in conjunction with current health behaviours to explain variation in obesity prevalence across sociodemographic groups.<br /

Aharonov-Bohm interference in topological insulator nanoribbons

Topological insulators represent novel phases of quantum matter with an insulating bulk gap and gapless edges or surface states. The two-dimensional topological insulator phase was predicted in HgTe quantum wells and confirmed by transport measurements. Recently, Bi2Se3 and related materials have been proposed as three-dimensional topological insulators with a single Dirac cone on the surface and verified by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments. Here, we show unambiguous transport evidence of topological surface states through periodic quantum interference effects in layered single-crystalline Bi2Se3 nanoribbons. Pronounced Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in the magnetoresistance clearly demonstrate the coverage of two-dimensional electrons on the entire surface, as expected from the topological nature of the surface states. The dominance of the primary h/e oscillation and its temperature dependence demonstrate the robustness of these electronic states. Our results suggest that topological insulator nanoribbons afford novel promising materials for future spintronic devices at room temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, RevTex forma

Effect of fulvic acids on lead-induced oxidative stress to metal sensitive Vicia faba L. plant

Lead (Pb) is a ubiquitous environmental pollutant capable to induce various morphological, physiological, and biochemical functions in plants. Only few publications focus on the influence of Pb speciation both on its phytoavailability and phytotoxicity. Therefore, Pb toxicity (in terms of lipid peroxidation, hydrogen peroxide induction, and photosynthetic pigments contents) was studied in Vicia faba plants in relation with Pb uptake and speciation. V. faba seedlings were exposed to Pb supplied as Pb(NO3)2 or complexed by two fulvic acids (FAs), i.e. Suwannee River fulvic acid (SRFA) and Elliott Soil fulvic acid (ESFA), for 1, 12, and 24 h under controlled hydroponic conditions. For both FAs, Pb uptake and translocation by Vicia faba increased at low level (5 mg l−1), whereas decreased at high level of application (25 mg l−1). Despite the increased Pb uptake with FAs at low concentrations, there was no influence on the Pb toxicity to the plants. However, at high concentrations, FAs reduced Pb toxicity by reducing its uptake. These results highlighted the role of the dilution factor for FAs reactivity in relation with structure; SRFA was more effective than ESFA in reducing Pb uptake and alleviating Pb toxicity to V. faba due to comparatively strong binding affinity for the heavy metal

Practical computational toolkits for dendrimers and dendrons structure design

Dendrimers and dendrons offer an excellent platform for developing novel drug delivery systems and medicines. The rational design and further development of these repetitively branched systems are restricted by difficulties in scalable synthesis and structural determination, which can be overcome by judicious use of molecular modelling and molecular simulations. A major difficulty to utilise in silico studies to design dendrimers lies in the laborious generation of their structures. Current modelling tools utilise automated assembly of simpler dendrimers or the inefficient manual assembly of monomer precursors to generate more complicated dendrimer structures. Herein we describe two novel graphical user interface (GUI) toolkits written in Python that provide an improved degree of automation for rapid assembly of dendrimers and generation of their 2D and 3D structures. Our first toolkit uses the RDkit library, SMILES nomenclature of monomers and SMARTS reaction nomenclature to generate SMILES and mol files of dendrimers without 3D coordinates. These files are used for simple graphical representations and storing their structures in databases. The second toolkit assembles complex topology dendrimers from monomers to construct 3D dendrimer structures to be used as starting points for simulation using existing and widely available software and force fields. Both tools were validated for ease-of-use to prototype dendrimer structure and the second toolkit was especially relevant for dendrimers of high complexity and size.Peer reviewe

Working Group Report: Heavy-Ion Physics and Quark-Gluon Plasma

This is the report of Heavy Ion Physics and Quark-Gluon Plasma at WHEPP-09 which was part of Working Group-4. Discussion and work on some aspects of Quark-Gluon Plasma believed to have created in heavy-ion collisions and in early universe are reported.Comment: 20 pages, 6 eps figures, Heavy-ion physics and QGP activity report in "IX Workshop on High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP-09)" held in Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India, during January 3-14, 2006. To be published in PRAMANA - Journal of Physics (Indian Academy of Science