Encapsulation of Cationic Fluorescent Dyes and Photosensitizers into the Nanoscopic Domains of Poly(ethylene Glycol)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone) Micelles

This study describes an initial systematic investigation on the molecular determinants associated with the effective encapsulation (or lack thereof) of small cationic molecules into the nanoscopic domains of Poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone) micelles. Out of the seven model dyes investigated here (methylene blue, crystal violet, rhodamine 123, styryl 9M, HITC, DIR and Cardiogreen) only DiR and Cardiogreen were found to partition into the core region of the respective polymeric micelles with a high degree of efficiency. Evidences of weak interactions between styryl 9M and HITC with the corona region of these micelles were also found. No experimental evidences indicating any significant interaction involving methylene blue, crystal violet and rhodamine 123 with the nanoscopic regions of these micelles were found. The experimental observations described here are in keeping with the expected overall trend of enhanced encapsulation efficiencies associated with more lipophilic guest molecules as compared to those associated with more hydrophilic structural analogs (e.g. HITC vs DiR). Accordingly, the reduced form of crystal violet (i.e. leuco-crystal violet), a neutral and highly hydrophobic molecule, was found to partition into the core region of Poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone) micelles with a high degree of efficiency (comparable to those found for DiR and Cardiogreen), while no micellar interactions involving the respective parent cationic dye crystal violet were found

Ecosystem synergies, change and orchestration

This thesis investigates ecosystem synergies, change, and orchestration. The research topics are motivated by my curiosity, a fragmented research landscape, theoretical gaps, and new phenomena that challenge extant theories. To address these motivators, I conduct literature reviews to organise existing studies and identify their limited assumptions in light of new phenomena. Empirically, I adopt a case study method with abductive reasoning for a longitudinal analysis of the Alibaba ecosystem from 1999 to 2020. My findings provide an integrated and updated conceptualisation of ecosystem synergies that comprises three distinctive but interrelated components: 1) stack and integrate generic resources for efficiency and optimisation, 2) empower generative changes for variety and evolvability, and 3) govern tensions for sustainable growth. Theoretically grounded and empirically refined, this new conceptualisation helps us better understand the unique synergies of ecosystems that differ from those of alternative collective organisations and explain the forces that drive voluntary participation for value co-creation. Regarding ecosystem change, I find a duality relationship between intentionality and emergence and develop a phasic model of ecosystem sustainable growth with internal and external drivers. This new understanding challenges and extends prior discussions on their dominant dualism view, focus on partial drivers, and taken-for-granted lifecycle model. I propose that ecosystem orchestration involves systematic coordination of technological, adoption, internal, and institutional activities and is driven by long-term visions and adjusted by re-visioning. My analysis reveals internal orchestration's important role (re-envisioning, piloting, and organisation architectural reconfiguring), the synergy and system principles in designing adoption activities, and the expanding arena of institutional activities. Finally, building on the above findings, I reconceptualise ecosystems and ecosystem sustainable growth to highlight multi-stakeholder value creation, inclusivity, long-term orientation and interpretative approach. The thesis ends with discussing the implications for practice, policy, and future research.Open Acces

To Alleviate the Ebola Virus Epidemic Diffusion

The emergence of new drug can stop Ebola and cure patients whose disease is not advanced. It optimizes the eradication of Ebola, or at least its current strain. For the sake of dealing with this problem, there are three models being developed. Firstly, this paper establishes the model 1 on the basis of the classical model of SIR and diffusion characteristic of Ebola virus. It verifies the reduction of the spread of the virus, the improvement of the patient’s cure rate and the effectiveness of three preventive measures which are significant in the formation of herd immunity. At the same time, we use linear programming to control the cost of drug delivery. Model 2, namely, the model of SIR with pulse vaccination, provides a pulse vaccination therapy on the basis of model 1. Model 2 considers many factors comprehensively, such as the cycle of inoculation, vaccination rate, the birth rate, death rate and so on. We use differential equation models to get the critical condition of the number of susceptible people, vaccination rate, and the development of predicated estimate with the change of time. Next, based on the model 2, we establish model 3 which not only considers many factors comprehensively, such as the amount of supply, the location of supply and so on, but also introduce 0-1 variable to combine the general linear programming with another linear programming which is not fixed but multi objectives so that we get the drug delivery network. Meanwhile, this paper obtains the best drug delivery program which has to spend the minimum cost on the condition of effectively controlling the epidemic. Also the result can alleviate serious situation of the Ebola virus epidemic diffusion through the drug delivery network.This paper puts forward the improvement of the model by using the Self-Organizing Map neural network and cluster analysis to get the urgent degree of different epidemic areas and divide these areas into different priorities. We get a goal programming model based on different priority. Furthermore, we use the drug delivery model and Lingo to get a more reliable drug delivery program on the basis of the objective function of priority