Silver Nanoparticle Aggregates as Highly Efficient Plasmonic Antennas for Fluorescence Enhancement

The enhanced local fields around plasmonic structures can lead to enhancement of the excitation and modification of the emission quantum yield of fluorophores. So far, high enhancement of fluorescence intensity from dye molecules was demonstrated using bow-tie gap antenna made by e-beam lithography. However, the high manufacturing cost and the fact that currently there are no effective ways to place fluorophores only at the gap prevent the use of these structures for enhancing fluorescence-based biochemical assays. We report on the simultaneous modification of fluorescence intensity and lifetime of dye-labeled DNA in the presence of aggregated silver nanoparticles. The nanoparticle aggregates act as efficient plasmonic antennas, leading to more than 2 orders of magnitude enhancement of the average fluorescence. This is comparable to the best-reported fluorescence enhancement for a single molecule but here applies to the average signal detected from all fluorophores in the system. This highlights the remarkable efficiency of this system for surface-enhanced fluorescence. Moreover, we show that the fluorescence intensity enhancement varies with the plasmon resonance position and measure a significant reduction (300×) of the fluorescence lifetime. Both observations are shown to be in agreement with the electromagnetic model of surface-enhanced fluorescence

Di-n-butyl 5-amino­isophthalate

The title compound, C16H23NO4, is essentially planar except for the last two C atoms in each n-butyl group (r.m.s. deviation from the least-squares plane = 0.02 Å for 17 non-H atoms). In the crystal, inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between the amine and carbonyl groups link the mol­ecules into one-dimensional chains

Bis(6-meth­oxy-2-{[tris­(hydroxy­meth­yl)methyl-κO]imino­meth­yl}phenolato-κ2 N,O 1)nickel(II) dihydrate

In the title compound, [Ni(C12H16NO5)2]·2H2O, the NiII atom is coordinated by four O atoms and two N atoms from the two 6-meth­oxy-2-{[tris­(hydroxy­meth­yl)meth­yl]imino­meth­yl}phenolate ligands in a distorted octa­hedral coordination geometry. O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link the complexes and uncoordinated water mol­ecules into two-dimensional networks parallel to (001)

Energy-balanced multi-hop-aware cooperative geographic routing for wireless ad hoc networks

Since the cooperative communication can reduce the transmitted power and extend the transmission coverage, minimum energy routing protocols are considered to reduce the total energy consumption in a multi-hop wireless Ad Hoc network. In this paper, an Energy-balanced Multi-hop-aware Cooperative Geographic Routing (EMCGR) algorithm is proposed. We firstly formulate the outage probability and construct the minimum power route in Multi-hop-aware Cooperative Transmission (MCT) mode. The MCT mode can fully exploit the merit of the relay broadcasting characteristics to achieve the aim of saving the total transmitted power. Then an improved Energy-Balanced Geographic Routing (EBGR) algorithm is designed. The EBGR algorithm selects the next hop forwarding node by combining the geographic position information and energy information. The goal of this strategy is to balance the energy consumption among nodes so that the lifetime of the whole network can be prolonged. The route of the proposed EMCGR algorithm is based on EBGR algorithm. Simulation results show that in the same computer simulation scene, the power saving of the EMCGR algorithm with respect to the MPCR algorithm and EBGR algorithm can achieve 15.2% and 67.1%, respectively. Besides, the EMCGR algorithm does well in balancing the energy consumption among nodes in the wireless Ad Hoc network

Effect of Baicalin on inflammatory mediator levels and microcirculation disturbance in rats with severe acute pancreatitis

Objective: To investigate the effect of Bacailin on inflammatory mediator levels and microcirculation disturbance in severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) rats and explore its therapeutic mechanism on this disease. Methods: SAP model rats were randomly divided into model control group and Baicalin treated group, 45 rats in each group. The same number of normal rats were included in sham-operated group. These groups were further subdivided into 3 h, 6 h and 12 h subgroups, respectively (15 rats in each subgroup). At 3, 6 and 12 hours after operation, rats were killed to conduct the following experiments: (1) to examine the mortality rates of rats, the ascites volume and pancreatic pathological changes in each group; (2) to determine the contents of amylase, PLA~2~, TXB~2~, PGE~2~, PAF and IL-1[beta]; in blood as well as the changes in blood viscosity.Results: (1) Compared to model control group, treatment with Baicalin is able to improve the pathological damage of the pancreas, lower the contents of amylase and multiple inflammatory mediators in blood, decrease the amount of ascitic fluid and reduce the mortality rates of SAP rats; (2) at 3 hours after operation, the low-shear whole blood viscosity in Baicalin treated group was significantly lower than that in model control group;at 12 hours after operation, both the high-shear and low-shear whole blood viscosity in Baicalin treated group were also significantly lower than those in model control group.Conclusion: Baicalin, as a new drug, has good prospects in the treatment of SAP since it can exert therapeutic effects on this disease through inhibiting the production of inflammatory mediators, lowering blood viscosity, improving microcirculation and mitigating the pathological damage of the pancreas

Cell-Based Assays in High-Throughput Screening for Drug Discovery

Drug screening is a long and costly process confronted with low productivity and challenges in using animals, which limit the discovery of new drugs.  To improve drug screening efficacy and minimize animal testing, recent efforts have been dedicated to developing cell-based high throughput screening (HTS) platforms that can provide more relevant in vivo biological information than biochemical assays and thus reduce the number of animal tests and accelerate the drug discovery process. Today, cell-based assays are used in more than half of all high-throughput drug screenings for target validation and ADMET (absorption, distribution, metabolism, elimination and toxicity) in the early stage of drug discovery. In this review, we discuss the uses of different types of cells and cell culture systems, including 2D, 3D and perfusion cell cultures, in cell-based HTS for drug discovery. Optical and electrochemical methods for online, non-invasive detection and quantification of cells or cellular activities are discussed. Recent progresses and applications of 3D cultures and microfluidic systems for cell-based HTS are also discussed, followed with several successful examples of using cell-based HTS in commercial development of new drugs. Finally, a brief discussion on potential applications of cell-based HTS for screening phytochemicals and herbal medicines is provided in this review

Black hole shadow, photon ring and lensing ring in the cold dark matter halo

The Schwarzschild black hole in the cold dark matter (CDM) halo is deeply studied, and the radiation laws of the thin accretion disk near the black hole is discussed and summarized. The light orbits around the black hole are calculated. According to the number of times that the light from the north pole passes through the equatorial plane of the black hole, the light orbits can be divided into three categories. At the same time, the innermost stable circular orbit of the black hole is also calculated. By analyzing the calculation results of radiation intensity of three kinds of radiation which emitted by thin accretion disk on the equatorial plane of black hole and observed at infinity away from the north pole of black hole, the radiation laws of the thin accretion disk of Schwarzschild black hole suitable for the background of the CDM halo is obtained.Comment: 21pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2105.15073 by other author