Linear Viscoelasticity of Complex Coacervates

Rheology is a powerful method for materials characterization that can provide detailed information about the self-assembly, structure, and intermolecular interactions present in a material. Here, we review the use of linear viscoelastic measurements for the rheological characterization of complex coacervate-based materials. Complex coacervation is an electrostatically and entropically-driven associative liquid-liquid phase separation phenomenon that can result in the formation of bulk liquid phases, or the self-assembly of hierarchical, microphase separated materials. We discuss the need to link thermodynamic studies of coacervation phase behavior with characterization of material dynamics, and provide parallel examples of how parameters such as charge stoichiometry, ionic strength, and polymer chain length impact self-assembly and material dynamics. We conclude by highlighting key areas of need in the field, and specifically call for the development of a mechanistic understanding of how molecular-level interactions in complex coacervate-based materials affect both self-assembly and material dynamics

Rheological Characterization of Liquid-to-Solid Transitions in Bulk Polyelectrolyte Complexes

Polyelectrolyte complexation has long been known to result in both liquid and solid complexes. However, the exact nature of the liquid-to-solid transition remains an open question. We have used rheology to explain this phenomenon for the model system of poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid, sodium salt) (PSS) and poly(diallyldimethyl ammonium chloride) (PDADMAC) in the presence of potassium bromide (KBr). The use of a time-salt superposition allows for a detailed analysis of changes in the linear viscoelastic response for both liquid complex coacervates and solid polyelectrolyte complexes as a function of salt concentration, and facilitates unambiguous determination of the mechanism for this phase transition. Decreasing salt concentration, and the commensurate decrease in the water content of PSS/PDADMAC/KBr complexes is shown to lead to the formation of a physical gel due to the development of a network with trapped electrostatic crosslinks that percolates the sample at a critical salt concentration

Joint Power and Multiple Access Control for Wireless Mesh Network with Rose Projection Method

This paper investigates the utility maximization problem for the downlink of the multi-interface multichannel wireless mesh network with orthogonal frequency division multiple access. A cross-layer joint power and multiple access control algorithm are proposed. Rosen projection matrix is combined with Solodov projection techniques to build a three-memory gradient Rosen projection method, which is applied to solve this optimization problem. The convergence analysis is given and simulations show that the proposed solution achieves significant throughput compared with existing approaches

Cross-Domain Depth Estimation Network for 3D Vessel Reconstruction in OCT Angiography

Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography (OCTA) has been widely used by ophthalmologists for decision-making due to its superiority in providing caplillary details. Many of the OCTA imaging devices used in clinic provide high-quality 2D en face representations, while their 3D data quality are largely limited by low signal-to-noise ratio and strong projection artifacts, which restrict the performance of depth-resolved 3D analysis. In this paper, we propose a novel 2D-to-3D vessel reconstruction framework based on the 2D en face OCTA images. This framework takes advantage of the detailed 2D OCTA depth map for prediction and thus does not rely on any 3D volumetric data. Based on the data with available vessel depth labels, we first introduce a network with structure constraint blocks to estimate the depth map of blood vessels in other cross-domain en face OCTA data with unavailable labels. Afterwards, a depth adversarial adaptation module is proposed for better unsupervised cross-domain training, since images captured using different devices may suffer from varying image contrast and noise levels. Finally, vessels are reconstructed in 3D space by utilizing the estimated depth map and 2D vascular information. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method and its potential to guide subsequent vascular analysis in 3D domain

Retinal vessel segmentation:An efficient graph cut approach with Retinex and local phase

Our application concerns the automated detection of vessels in retinal images to improve understanding of the disease mechanism, diagnosis and treatment of retinal and a number of systemic diseases. We propose a new framework for segmenting retinal vasculatures with much improved accuracy and efficiency. The proposed framework consists of three technical components: Retinex-based image inhomogeneity correction, local phase-based vessel enhancement and graph cut-based active contour segmentation. These procedures are applied in the following order. Underpinned by the Retinex theory, the inhomogeneity correction step aims to address challenges presented by the image intensity inhomogeneities, and the relatively low contrast of thin vessels compared to the background. The local phase enhancement technique is employed to enhance vessels for its superiority in preserving the vessel edges. The graph cut-based active contour method is used for its efficiency and effectiveness in segmenting the vessels from the enhanced images using the local phase filter. We have demonstrated its performance by applying it to four public retinal image datasets (3 datasets of color fundus photography and 1 of fluorescein angiography). Statistical analysis demonstrates that each component of the framework can provide the level of performance expected. The proposed framework is compared with widely used unsupervised and supervised methods, showing that the overall framework outperforms its competitors. For example, the achieved sensitivity (0:744), specificity (0:978) and accuracy (0:953) for the DRIVE dataset are very close to those of the manual annotations obtained by the second observer

Wireless Powering Internet of Things with UAVs: Challenges and Opportunities

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have the potential to overcome the deployment constraint of Internet of Things (IoT) in remote or rural area. Wirelessly powered communications (WPC) can address the battery limitation of IoT devices through transferring wireless power to IoT devices. The integration of UAVs and WPC, namely UAV-enabled Wireless Powering IoT (Ue-WPIoT) can greatly extend the IoT applications from cities to remote or rural areas. In this article, we present a state-of-the-art overview of Ue-WPIoT by first illustrating the working flow of Ue-WPIoT and discussing the challenges. We then introduce the enabling technologies in realizing Ue-WPIoT. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the enabling technologies in Ue-WPIoT. We finally outline the future directions and open issues.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Understanding The Electrospinability Of Complex Coacervates

Complex coacervation is an associative, liquid-liquid phase separation that is driven by the electrostatic and entropic interactions between oppositely-charged polymers in water. For many coacervating systems it is possible to transition from the liquid coacervate state to a solid material by removing salt. This ‘saloplasticity’ allows for the processing of materials via methods such as spin coating, extrusion, etc. using the coacervate phase as a liquid precursor. In particular, we have developed an approach that uses complex coacervation as an environmentally friendly method for fabricating ultra-stable electrospun fibers directly from aqueous solutions. We have used this method to electrospin complexes of various synthetic polymers as well as natural biopolymers. These efforts have required the simultaneous exploration of the phase behavior of coacervate formation, as well as the rheology of the liquid coacervates

Electrospinning complex coacervates

As polymer-based materials become ever more integrated into our daily lives, there is an increasing need to develop both materials that are safe for the consumer, and manufacturing strategies that have a minimal impact on the environment. However, the vast majority of polymers require either organic solvents for dissolution, or the use of potentially cytotoxic cross-linking agents to prevent material dissolution. Additionally, many of the chemistries and solution conditions necessary for processing can damage cargo molecules and create biocompatibility issues for subsequent use. Complex coacervation is an associative, liquid-liquid phase separation that has the potential to circumvent many of the challenges associated with processing traditional polymers and encapsulating actives. Complex coacervation is driven by the electrostatic and entropic interactions between oppositely-charged polymers in water. For many coacervating systems, the solid or liquid nature of the complex can be tuned via the concentration of salt present. Additionally, the strength of the electrostatic interactions within the complex are such that in the absence of salt, solid complexes are highly resistant to thermal melting and/or solvent dissolution. Furthermore, complex coacervation has a strong history of use for the encapsulation of a range of cargo. We have taken advantage of this salt-driven plasticity to enable fabrication of ultra-stable electrospun fibers directly from aqueous solutions. These efforts have required the simultaneous characterization of coacervation, as well as the effect of cargo molecules on the phase behavior and rheology of the resulting coacervates/precursor solutions. Furthermore, these materials show tremendous promise for the use of electrospun coacervate-based nanofiber meshes across a range of applications