In vitro and in vivo ocular biocompatibility of electrospun poly(ɛ-caprolactone) nanofibers.

Biocompatibility is a requirement for the development of nanofibers for ophthalmic applications. In this study, nanofibers were elaborated using poly(ε-caprolactone) via electrospinning. The ocular biocompatibility of this material was investigated. MIO-M1 and ARPE-19 cell cultures were incubated with nanofibers and cellular responses were monitored by viability and morphology. The in vitro biocompatibility revealed that the nanofibers were not cytotoxic to the ocular cells. These cells exposed to the nanofibers proliferated and formed an organized monolayer. ARPE-19 and MIO-M1 cells were capable of expressing GFAP, respectively, demonstrating their functionality. Nanofibers were inserted into the vitreous cavity of the rat's eye for 10days and the in vivo biocompatibility was investigated using Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), histology and measuring the expression of pro-inflammatory genes (IL-1β, TNF-α, VEGF and iNOS) (real-time PCR). The OCT and the histological analyzes exhibited the preserved architecture of the tissues of the eye. The biomaterial did not elicit an inflammatory reaction and pro-inflammatory cytokines were not expressed by the retinal cells, and the other posterior tissues of the eye. Results from the biocompatibility studies indicated that the nanofibers exhibited a high degree of cellular biocompatibility and short-term intraocular tolerance, indicating that they might be applied as drug carrier for ophthalmic use

Integer quantum Hall effect for hard-core bosons and a failure of bosonic Chern-Simons mean-field theories for electrons at half-filled Landau level

Field-theoretical methods have been shown to be useful in constructing simple effective theories for two-dimensional (2D) systems. These effective theories are usually studied by perturbing around a mean-field approximation, so the question whether such an approximation is meaningful arises immediately. We here study 2D interacting electrons in a half-filled Landau level mapped onto interacting hard-core bosons in a magnetic field. We argue that an interacting hard-core boson system in a uniform external field such that there is one flux quantum per particle (unit filling) exhibits an integer quantum Hall effect. As a consequence, the mean-field approximation for mapping electrons at half-filling to a boson system at integer filling fails.Comment: 13 pages latex with revtex. To be published in Phys. Rev.

Remarks on self-interaction correction to black hole radiation

In the work [P. Kraus and F. Wilczek, \textit{Self-interaction correction to black hole radiation, Nucl. Phys.} B433 (1995) 403], it has been pointed out that the self-gravitation interaction would modify the black hole radiation so that it is no longer thermal, where it is, however, corrected in an approximate way and therefore is not established its relationship with the underlying unitary theory in quantum theory. In this paper, we revisit the self-gravitation interaction to Hawking radiation of the general spherically symmetric black hole, and find that the precisely derived spectrum is not only deviated from the purely thermal spectrum, but most importantly, is related to the change of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy and consistent with an underlying unitary theory.Comment: 14 page

Density functional study of Aun_n (n=2-20) clusters: lowest-energy structures and electronic properties

We have investigated the lowest-energy structures and electronic properties of the Au$_n$(n=2-20) clusters based on density functional theory (DFT) with local density approximation. The small Au$_n$ clusters adopt planar structures up to n=6. Tabular cage structures are preferred in the range of n=10-14 and a structural transition from tabular cage-like structure to compact near-spherical structure is found around n=15. The most stable configurations obtained for Au$_{13}$ and Au$_{19}$ clusters are amorphous instead of icosahedral or fcc-like, while the electronic density of states sensitively depend on the cluster geometry. Dramatic odd-even alternative behaviors are obtained in the relative stability, HOMO-LUMO gaps and ionization potentials of gold clusters. The size evolution of electronic properties is discussed and the theoretical ionization potentials of Au$_n$ clusters compare well with experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Modelling of photonic wire Bragg Gratings

Some important properties of photonic wire Bragg grating structures have been investigate. The design, obtained as a generalisation of the full-width gap grating, has been modelled using 3D finite-difference time-domain simulations. Different types of stop-band have been observed. The impact of the grating geometry on the lowest order (longest wavelength) stop-band has been investigated - and has identified deeply indented configurations where reduction of the stop-bandwidth and of the reflectivity occurred. Our computational results have been substantially validated by an experimental demonstration of the fundamental stop-band of photonic wire Bragg gratings fabricated on silicon-on-insulator material. The accuracy of two distinct 2D computational models based on the effective index method has also been studied - because of their inherently much greater rapidity and consequent utility for approximate initial designs. A 2D plan-view model has been found to reproduce a large part of the essential features of the spectral response of full 3D models

Quantitative trait loci for the diurnal flag leaf starch content during the early grain-filling stage in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)

Starch is a product of photosynthetic activities in leaves. Wheat yields largely depend on photosynthetic carbon fixation and carbohydrate metabolism in flag leaves. The mapping of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with flag leaf starch content (FLSC) in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) was completed using unconditional and conditional QTL analyses. The FLSC of this population during the early grain-filling stage was measured at six stages in six environments. Combining unconditional and conditional QTL mapping methods, eight unconditional QTLs and nine conditional QTLs were detected, with five QTLs identified as unconditional and conditional QTLs. Four unconditional QTLs (i.e. qFLS-1B, qFLS-1D-1, qFLS-4A, and qFLS-7D-1) and one conditional QTL (i.e. qFLS-3A-1) were identified in two of six environments. Two QTLs (qFLS-1D-2 and qFLS-7D-1), which significantly affected the FLSC, were identified using the unconditional QTL mapping method, while three QTLs (i.e. qFLS-1A, qFLS-3A-1, and qFLS-7D-1) were detected using the conditional QTL mapping method. Our findings provide new insights into the genetic mechanism and regulatory network underlying the diurnal FLSC in wheat

Vector meson production and nucleon resonance analysis in a coupled-channel approach for energies m_N < sqrt(s) < 2 GeV II: photon-induced results

We present a nucleon resonance analysis by simultaneously considering all pion- and photon-induced experimental data on the final states gamma N, pi N, 2 pi N, eta N, K Lambda, K Sigma, and omega N for energies from the nucleon mass up to sqrt(s) = 2 GeV. In this analysis we find strong evidence for the resonances P_{31}(1750), P_{13}(1900), P_{33}(1920), and D_{13}(1950). The omega N production mechanism is dominated by large P_{11}(1710) and P_{13}(1900) contributions. In this second part we present the results on the photoproduction reactions and the electromagnetic properties of the resonances. The inclusion of all important final states up to sqrt(s) = 2 GeV allows for estimates on the importance of the individual states for the GDH sum rule.Comment: 41 pages, 26 figures, discussion extended, typos corrected, references updated, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Determination of oxygen stoichiometry in the mixed-valent manganites

The possible redox (oxidation reduction) chemical methods for precisely determining the oxygen content in the perovskite manganites including hole-doped La1-xCaxMnOy and electron-doped La1-xTexMnOy compounds are described. For manganites annealed at different temperatures, the oxygen content of the samples was determined by a redox back titration in which the powder samples taken in a quartz crucible were dissolved in (1+1) sulfuric acid containing an excess of sodium oxalate, and the excess sodium oxalate was titrated with permanganate standard solution. The results indicate that the method is effective and highly reproducible. Moreover, the variation of oxygen content is also reflected in significantly affecting the electrical transport property of the samples, which is mainly considered to be closely related to introduce oxygen vacancies in the Mn-O-Mn network.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure. J. Magn. Magn .Mater (accepted

Approximate Solution of the effective mass Klein-Gordon Equation for the Hulthen Potential with any Angular Momentum

The radial part of the effective mass Klein-Gordon equation for the Hulthen potential is solved by making an approximation to the centrifugal potential. The Nikiforov-Uvarov method is used in the calculations. Energy spectra and the corresponding eigenfunctions are computed. Results are also given for the case of constant mass.Comment: 12 page

Hybrid CPU/GPU Acceleration of Detection of 2-SNP Epistatic Interactions in GWAS

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09873-9_57[Abstract] High-throughput genotyping technologies allow the collection of up to a few million genetic markers (such as SNPs) of an individual within a few minutes of time. Detecting epistasis, such as 2-SNP interactions, in Genome-Wide Association Studies is an important but time consuming operation since statistical computations have to be performed for each pair of measured markers. In this work we present EpistSearch, a parallelized tool that, following the log-linear model approach, uses a novel filter to determine the interactions between all SNP-pairs. Our tool is parallelized using a hybrid combination of Pthreads and CUDA in order to take advantage of CPU/GPU architectures. Experimental results with simulated and real datasets show that EpistSearch outperforms previous approaches, either using GPUs or only CPU cores. For instance, an exhaustive analysis of a real-world dataset with 500,000 SNPs and 5,000 individuals requires less than 42 minutes on a machine with 6 CPU cores and a GTX Titan GPU