Search results for " diffusion"

Disruption of White Matter Integrity in Bipolar Depression as a Possible Structural Marker of Illness

2011

Background: Diffusion tensor imaging allows the study of integrity of white matter (WM) tracts. Literature suggests that WM integrity could be altered in bipolar disorder. Heterogeneity of brain imaging methods, the studied samples, and drug treatments make localization, nature, and severity of the WM abnormalities unclear. Methods: We applied tract-based spatial statistics of diffusion tensor imaging measures to compare fractional anisotropy (FA), mean, and radial diffusivity of the WM skeleton in a group of 40 consecutively admitted inpatients affected by a major depressive episode without psychotic features with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder type I and 21 unrelated healthy volunteers f…

Clinical aspects of the apparent diffusion coefficient in 3He MRI: results in healthy volunteers and patients after lung transplantation.

2007

Purpose To measure the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) after inhalation of hyperpolarized 3He in healthy volunteers and lung transplant recipients, and demonstrate the gravity dependence of ADC values. Materials and Methods Six healthy volunteers, 10 patients after single-lung transplantation, and six patients after double-lung transplantation were examined at 1.5T during inspiration and expiration. The inhalation of 300 mL of hyperpolarized 3He was performed with a computer-controlled delivery device. A two-dimensional fast low-angle shot (FLASH) sequence measured the 3He diffusive gas movement. From these data the ADC was calculated. Results The mean ADC was 0.143 cm2/second in healt…

Bio-Preservative Potential of Microorganisms Isolated from Red Grape against Food Contaminant Fungi

2021

Fungal spoilage is one of the main reasons of economic losses in the food industry, especially in the wine sector. Consequently, the search for safer and new preservation techniques has gained importance in recent years. The objective of this study was to investigate the antifungal and anti-mycotoxigenic activity from 28 microorganisms (MO) isolated from red grape. The antifungal activity of a cell free supernatant of fermented medium by the isolated MO (CFS) was tested with the agar diffusion method and the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) assay. Additionally, different antifungal compounds from the CFS were identified and quantified (organi…

An improved cathode for alkaline fuel cells

2010

Abstract The use of nickel foam as an electrode substrate in alkaline fuel cells (AFCs) has been investigated for bipolar cells incorporating an electrically conducting gas diffusion layer (GDL). Improved performance, compared to a previous design, was obtained by adding an extra active layer (AL) composed of manganese (IV) oxide (MnO2) deposited onto carbon black. This new cathode design performed significantly better (130 mA cm−2 at 0.8 V and 25 °C) than the previous design (35 mA cm−2 under the same condition), especially at higher potential. It has been shown that the GDL is a key component of the gas diffusion electrode for both performance and durability, especially with liquid electr…

Unravelling substitution effects on charge transfer characteristics in cocrystals of pyrene based donors and 3,5-dinitrobenzoic acid

2019

Here we report charge-transfer cocrystals composed of pyrene and amino/bromopyrene as π-donors (D) and 3,5-dinitrobenzoic acid (A) as a π-acceptor. The 1 : 1 cocrystals of pyrene/1-aminopyrene adopt a ⋯DADADA⋯ mixed stack arrangement whereas the 2 : 1 cocrystal of 1-bromopyrene and 3,5-dinitrobenzoic acid shows ⋯DDADDA⋯ stacking. Crystallographic, spectral and theoretical studies reveal that the frontier molecular orbital energy level rather than the π-donor strength plays the governing role in predicting charge transfer. In addition, a theoretical study demonstrates that the ambipolar semiconductor nature in cocrystals of the pyrene/aminopyrene donor and the p-type nature of bromopyrene wi…

Thermo-responsive hydrogels from cellulose-based polyelectrolytes and catanionic vesicles for biomedical application.

2016

In this study, negatively charged catanionic vesicles/hydrophobically modified hydroxyethylcellulose polymers thermo-responsive hydrogels have been fabricated. Vesicular aggregates were found to act as multifunctional junctions for networking of modified-cellulose water solutions. The contributions of the electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions were evaluated by changing either vesicles composition or the polymer hydrophobic substitution. Thermal-induced size and lamellarity of hydrogel-enclosed vesicles were detected, with further polygonal shape changes induced by cellulose-based polymer addition. The thermal transition was also found to tune hydrogel mechanical behaviour. The network …

Exact non-Markovian dynamics of Gaussian quantum channels: Finite-time and asymptotic regimes

2018

We investigate the Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics of Gaussian quantum channels, exploiting a recently introduced necessary and sufficient criterion and the ensuing measure of non-Markovianity based on the violation of the divisibility property of the dynamical map. We compare the paradigmatic instances of Quantum Brownian motion (QBM) and Pure Damping (PD) channels, and for the former we find that the exact dynamical evolution is always non-Markovian in the finite-time as well as in the asymptotic regimes, for any nonvanishing value of the non-Markovianity parameter. If one resorts to the rotating wave approximated (RWA) form of the QBM, that neglects the anomalous diffusion contribut…

FRACTIONAL-ORDER GENERALIZATION OF TRANSPORT EQUATIONS IN FRACTAL POROUS MEDIA

2014

Diffusion Acceleration in Randomly Switching Sawtooth Potential

2005

We investigate an overdamped Brownian motion in symmetric sawtooth periodic potential switched by Markovian dichotomous noise between two configurations. The two configurations differ each other by a translation of half of period. The calculation of the effective diffusion coefficient is reduced to the mean first‐passage time problem, and we obtain the exact expression valid for arbitrary mean rate of switchings and arbitrary intensity of white Gaussian noise. We find the area at parameters plane where acceleration of diffusion in comparison with the free diffusion case takes place.

Antibacterial and white spot lesions preventive effect of an orthodontic resin modified with silver-nanoparticles

2021

Background To evaluate the antibacterial property of a modified orthodontic resin with different concentrations of silver-nanoparticles (AgNPs), and quantify its preventive effect on the formation of white spot lesions (WSLs). Material and Methods An orthodontic resin (Transbond XT) was modified with four concentrations of AgNPs (1%, 0.5%, 0.1%, and 0.05%), the orthodontic resin without AgNPs was used as control. Polymerized resin discs (n=80) were submitted to Agar diffusion test on Petri dishes inoculated with Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus acidophilus. In addition, resin discs of each group (n=40) were placed in 96-well plates with bacterial suspensions to evaluate the colony-for…