Cellulose coating and chelation of antibacterial compounds for the protection of flax yarns against natural soil degradation.

Natural cellulosic fibres such as flax fibres present interesting mechanical properties as well as biodegradability, and by-products, such as short flax fibres, could be used to produce geotextiles to stabilise soils. Today, geotextiles are often made of coir fibres, which have a high lignin percentage leading to their slow degradation in soil. Fibres with a high cellulosic content, such as those of flax, exhibit lower resistance to soil degradation. This study investigates solutions to improve this parameter with a view to increasing their service life and therefore their credibility compared to coir fibres for geotextile applications. For this purpose, a cellulose coating of yarns made of short flax fibres was performed and its stability under a water flow was assessed. The ability to form a cellulose sheath was estimated by chromaticity measurements of flax fibres after applying a dye specific to lignin. Infrared spectrometry analysis to monitor the level of protection against degradation by cellulolytic enzymes was also carried out. It appears that the cellulose coating provides an efficient physical protection, preventing access of these enzymes to their fibrous substrate. Then, the possibility of conferring antibacterial properties on the cellulose coating by chelating phytoalexin molecules such as gramine on it was assayed and proven to be effective against soil cellulolytic bacteria such as Cellvibrio fulvus and Cellvibrio vulgaris. This study therefore establishes that coating flax yarns with cellulose associated with antibacterial molecules could contribute to obtaining a longer service life in soil for geotextiles manufactured from flax fibres

Pharmacogenomics of the efficacy and safety of Colchicine in COLCOT

© 2021 The Authors. Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine is published on behalf of the American Heart Association, Inc., by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.Background: The randomized, placebo-controlled COLCOT (Colchicine Cardiovascular Outcomes Trial) has shown the benefits of colchicine 0.5 mg daily to lower the rate of ischemic cardiovascular events in patients with a recent myocardial infarction. Here, we conducted a post hoc pharmacogenomic study of COLCOT with the aim to identify genetic predictors of the efficacy and safety of treatment with colchicine. Methods: There were 1522 participants of European ancestry from the COLCOT trial available for the pharmacogenomic study of COLCOT trial. The pharmacogenomic study's primary cardiovascular end point was defined as for the main trial, as time to first occurrence of cardiovascular death, resuscitated cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, stroke, or urgent hospitalization for angina requiring coronary revascularization. The safety end point was time to the first report of gastrointestinal events. Patients' DNA was genotyped using the Illumina Global Screening array followed by imputation. We performed a genome-wide association study in colchicine-treated patients. Results: None of the genetic variants passed the genome-wide association study significance threshold for the primary cardiovascular end point conducted in 702 patients in the colchicine arm who were compliant to medication. The genome-wide association study for gastrointestinal events was conducted in all 767 patients in the colchicine arm and found 2 significant association signals, one with lead variant rs6916345 (hazard ratio, 1.89 [95% CI, 1.52-2.35], P=7.41×10-9) in a locus which colocalizes with Crohn disease, and one with lead variant rs74795203 (hazard ratio, 2.51 [95% CI, 1.82-3.47]; P=2.70×10-8), an intronic variant in gene SEPHS1. The interaction terms between the genetic variants and treatment with colchicine versus placebo were significant. Conclusions: We found 2 genomic regions associated with gastrointestinal events in patients treated with colchicine. Those findings will benefit from replication to confirm that some patients may have genetic predispositions to lower tolerability of treatment with colchicine.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Etude des mécanismes de coloration de verres obtenue par échange ionique Ag+/Na+ et précipitation de nano agrégats métalliques

L objectif est d étudier par la méthode d échange ionique à l argent de verres silicatés la coloration induite etla réalisation de guides d ondes planaires. Deux méthodes de modélisation de l échange ionique sont présentées pour évaluer les paramètres de l e change qui sont le coefficient de diffusion, la forme du profil et la mobilité des ions. Cette technique purement thermique permet la réalisation de guides d onde à gradient d indice, l ajout d un champ électrique permet d obtenir un profil à saut d indice. Différentes compositions de verre sont étudiées dans le but de déterminer la variation d indice induite par la polarisabilité de l ion argent plus forte que les ions sodium ou lithium initialement présents dans les verres. A la suite de l échange ionique, un recuit peut être effectué dans le but de précipiter l argent en nanoparticules métalliques qui possèdent des propriétés d absorption intéressantes permettant de colorer les verres : la résonance plasmon de surface (RPS). Le mécanisme de formation de ces nanoparticules dépend de la température et de l effet redox de l environnement. L irradiation effectuée par un laser pulsé nanoseconde des verres échangés permet la précipitation locale des nanoagrégats d argent à la surface des verres. L irradiation pulsée en régime femtoseconde permet une interaction dans le volume du verre, soit avec des nanoparticules déjà présentes dans le but de modifier la couleur localement, soit avec des verres échangés dans lequel des défauts sont générés pour ensuite favoriser la formation de nanoparticules par recuit. La modélisation de la résonance plasmon de surface effectuée permet d évaluer le mécanisme de croissance des nanoparticules dans les verres. Les méthodes de caractérisation utilisées sont la microscopie électronique à balayage, la microscopie électronique en transmission, la spectrophotométrie UV/Visible, la photoluminescence et la spectroscopie infrarouge à transformée de Fourier.The main purpose is to study by the method of silver ionic exchange of silicate glasses the induced coloring and the realization of planar waveguides.Two methods of modelization of Ionic exchange are presented to estimate the exchange parameters which are diffusion coefficient, profile s shape and ions mobility. This purely thermal method allows the realization of graded index waveguide, the addition of an electric field allows to obtain a step index profile. Various glass compositions are studied with the aim of determining the index variation induced by a polarizability of silver ions stronger than those of sodium/lithium ions initially contained in glasses. Following the Ionic exchange, an annealing can be made with the aim of precipitating silver in metallic nanoparticles which possess interesting properties of absorption allowing to color glasses : the Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR). The nanoparticles formation mechanism depends on temperature and on redox effect of the medium. The irradiation made with a pulsed laser in nanosecond regime of exchanged glasses allows the local formation of silver nanoaggregates onto the glass surface. The pulsed irradiation in femtosecond regime allows an interaction into the glass volume, either with already present nanoparticles with the aim of modifying the color locally, or with exchanged glasses in which the defects are generated to favor then the formation of nanoparticles by annealing. The modelization of Surface Plasmon Resonance allows the evaluation of the nanoparticles growth mechanism in glasses. The used methods of characterization are Scanning Electron microscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy, UV/Visible Spectroscopy, Photoluminescence and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy.ORLEANS-SCD-Bib. electronique (452349901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Conception et r alisation du balayage par lectro-aimants d'un faisceau de protons de 95 MeV

SIGLEBSE B226478Y / UCL - Université Catholique de LouvainBEBelgiu

A Critical Cross-Species Comparison of Pollen from Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. vs. Nymphaea lotus L. for Authentication of Thai Medicinal Herbal Tea

“Bau Luang” or Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. is an aquatic medicinal herb that has been used as a component of traditional medicines, medicinal products, and herbal tea for good health, particularly in Asia. The stamen of N. nucifera is an important part of this medicinal plant that is used in the form of dried and/or powdered stamens for herbal tea as well as the main ingredient of some traditional remedies. However, there is another aquatic herb called “Bau Sai” or Nymphaea lotus L. that is distributed in similar locations. Living plants of these two aquatic species may be classified according to their morphology, but the dried and powdered stamens of these two medicinal species are difficult to distinguish. The major reason of adulteration is the higher price of Bau Luang stamen. As a result, various methods of authentication, such as pollen micromorphology evaluation using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, bioinformatics analysis of two nuclear and plastic DNA markers, phytochemical stamen profiling, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis of stamen plant material authentication from Bau Luang and Bau Sai, have been used in this present research in order to avoid some adulteration and/or misuse between the dried stamens of Bau Luang and Bau Sai. These results showed that the micro-morphology of pollen (size of pollen grain, number of apertures, and surface ornamentation) from the SEM analysis, some phytochemical compounds and the FTIR sporopollenin-to-protein ratio signal analysis are potential tools for authentication and identification of these two medicinal plants from their dried-stamen materials. This model of investigation may also be used to distinguish dried plant material from other problematic plant groups

Nanosecond infrared laser-induced precipitation of silver nanoparticles in glass

We describe a novel plasmonic hybrid nanostructure based on a silver island film covered with a dielectric silica layer. The thickness of the silica layer is varied from 0 to approximately 46 nm on a single sample, thus allowing for continuous variation of the interaction strength between plasmon excitations in the metallic film and the excited states of pigments comprising photosynthetic complexes used to probe this interaction. While the largest separation between the silver film and photosynthetic complexes provides fluorescence featuring mono-exponential decay, thinner silica spacer distances show bi-exponential decay. The intensity of the fast component, which is attributed to the emission of photosynthetic complexes coupled to plasmon excitations, strongly decreases as a function of the spacer thickness. The interaction is stronger for excitation wavelengths resonant with plasmon absorption in the metallic layer

Nanosecond (ns) laser transfer of silver nanoparticles from silver-exchanged soda-lime glass to transparent soda-lime glass and shock waves formation

International audienc

Electrochemically deposited polyethyleneimine films and their characterization

International audiencePolyethyleneimine films have been deposited on platinum electrode surfaces by electrochemical oxidation of ethylenediamine H2N-CH2-CH2-NH2 (EDA) in acetonitrile solutions. This electrochemical synthesis was realized by cyclic voltammetry and gravimetry techniques. Then, the characterization of the thin solid polyethyleneimine film was performed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy. It was also shown, using atomic force microscopy, that the solid polymeric coating has a granular and homogeneous structure. The influence of EDA concentration on the electropolymerization process was studied leading to the conclusion that the reaction is easier for high EDA concentration. Then, the influence of the nature and concentration of the supporting salt was investigated, showing that its nature is not very important, contrary to its concentration

Optical nonlinearities of silicate oxide glass with gold nanoparticles outside the spectral range of surface plasmon resonance

International audienc