Physicochemical Characterization, and Relaxometry Studies of Micro-Graphite Oxide, Graphene Nanoplatelets, and Nanoribbons

The chemistry of high-performance magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents remains an active area of research. In this work, we demonstrate that the potassium permanganate-based oxidative chemical procedures used to synthesize graphite oxide or graphene nanoparticles leads to the confinement (intercalation) of trace amounts of Mn2+ ions between the graphene sheets, and that these manganese intercalated graphitic and graphene structures show disparate structural, chemical and magnetic properties, and high relaxivity (up to 2 order) and distinctly different nuclear magnetic resonance dispersion profiles compared to paramagnetic chelate compounds. The results taken together with other published reports on confinement of paramagnetic metal ions within single-walled carbon nanotubes (a rolled up graphene sheet) show that confinement (encapsulation or intercalation) of paramagnetic metal ions within graphene sheets, and not the size, shape or architecture of the graphitic carbon particles is the key determinant for increasing relaxivity, and thus, identifies nano confinement of paramagnetic ions as novel general strategy to develop paramagnetic metal-ion graphitic-carbon complexes as high relaxivity MRI contrast agents

Rate Controlled Servers for Very High-Speed Networks

Future high-speed networks are expected to carry traffic with a wide range of performance requirements. We describe two queue service disciplines, rate-based scheduling and hierarchical round robin scheduling, that allow some connections to receive guaranteed rate and jitter performance, while others receive best effort service. Rate-based scheduling is designed for fast packet networks, while hierarchical round robin is an extension of round robin scheduling suitable for use in networks based on the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) being defined in CCITT. Both schemes are feasible at rates of one Gigabit/sec. The schemes allow strict bounds on the buffer space required for rate controlled connections and can provide efficient utilization of transmission bandwidth. Introduction Future high-speed networks are expected to carry traffic with a wide range of performance requirements. A classic tradeoff in network design is between providing quality of service guarantees on one hand, and ..

Physicochemical characterization of a novel graphene-based magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent

Shruti Kanakia,1 Jimmy D Toussaint,1 Sayan Mullick Chowdhury,1 Gaurav Lalwanim,1 Tanuf Tembulkar,1 Terry Button,1,2 Kenneth R Shroyer,3 William Moore,2 Balaji Sitharaman11Department of Biomedical Engineering, 2Department of Radiology, 3Department of Pathology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USAAbstract: We report the synthesis and characterization of a novel carbon nanostructure-based magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent (MRI CA); graphene nanoplatelets intercalated with manganese (Mn2+) ions, functionalized with dextran (GNP-Dex); and the in vitro assessment of its essential preclinical physicochemical properties: osmolality, viscosity, partition coefficient, protein binding, thermostability, histamine release, and relaxivity. The results indicate that, at concentrations between 0.1 and 100.0 mg/mL, the GNP-Dex formulations are hydrophilic, highly soluble, and stable in deionized water, as well as iso-osmolar (upon addition of mannitol) and iso-viscous to blood. At potential steady-state equilibrium concentrations in blood (0.1–10.0 mg/mL), the thermostability, protein-binding, and histamine-release studies indicate that the GNP-Dex formulations are thermally stable (with no Mn2+ ion dissociation), do not allow non-specific protein adsorption, and elicit negligible allergic response. The r1 relaxivity of GNP-Dex was 92 mM-1s-1 (per-Mn2+ ion, 22 MHz proton Larmor frequency); ~20- to 30-fold greater than that of clinical gadolinium (Gd3+)- and Mn2+-based MRI CAs. The results open avenues for preclinical in vivo safety and efficacy studies with GNP-Dex toward its development as a clinical MRI CA.Keywords: manganese, dextran, preclinical, physicochemical properties, relaxivity, graphene, magnetic resonance imaging, contrast agen