Search results for "2100"
showing 10 items of 8004 documents
TRAIL acts synergistically with iron oxide nanocluster-mediated magneto- and photothermia
2019
International audience; Targeting TRAIL (Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-Related Apoptosis-Inducing Ligand) receptors for cancer therapy remains challenging due to tumor cell resistance and poor preparations of TRAIL or its derivatives. Herein, to optimize its therapeutic use, TRAIL was grafted onto iron oxide nanoclusters (NCs) with the aim of increasing its pro-apoptotic potential through nanoparticle-mediated magnetic hyperthermia (MHT) or photothermia (PT). Methods: The nanovector, NC@TRAIL, was characterized in terms of size, grafting efficiency, and potential for MHT and PT. The therapeutic function was assessed on a TRAIL-resistant breast cancer cell line, MDA-MB-231, wild type (WT) or T…
Deepening Inside the Pictorial Layers of Etruscan Sarcophagus of Hasti Afunei: An Innovative Micro-Sampling Technique for Raman/SERS Analyses
2019
The Hasti Afunei sarcophagus is a large Etruscan urn, made up of two chalky alabaster monoliths. Dated from the last quarter of the third century BC, it was found in 1826 in the small town of Chiusi (Tuscany- Il Colle place) by a landowner, Pietro Bonci Casuccini, who made it part of his private collection. The noble owner&rsquo
Removal of silicon from CFB-derived fly ash leachate in the context of phosphorus recovery
2018
High concentrations of dissolved silica in the acid leachate impose two major challenges on precipitation based recovery of phosphorus (P). Firstly, co-precipitation of colloidal silica in the acidic regimes decreases the purity and value of precipitated P-products. In addition, silica scaling on internal surfaces of equipment is also a problematic issue in industrial operations. Therefore, removal of dissolved silica prior to P-recovery process minimizes the risks of Si-contamination in P-products and Si-scaling. In the present study, silica removal was achieved by accelerated silica polymerization with higher acidity and ionic strength of mineral acid, which also assisted the leaching of …
Microscratch testing method for systematic evaluation of the adhesion of atomic layer deposited thin films on silicon
2016
The scratch test method is widely used for adhesion evaluation of thin films and coatings. Usual critical load criteria designed for scratch testing of coatings were not applicable to thin atomic layer deposition (ALD) films on silicon wafers. Thus, the bases for critical load evaluation were established and the critical loads suitable for ALD coating adhesion evaluation on silicon wafers were determined in this paper as LCSi1, LCSi2, LCALD1, and LCALD2, representing the failure points of the silicon substrate and the coating delamination points of the ALD coating. The adhesion performance of the ALD Al2O3, TiO2, TiN, and TaCN+Ru coatings with a thickness range between 20 and 600 nm and dep…
Targeted Drug Delivery in Plants: Enzyme‐Responsive Lignin Nanocarriers for the Curative Treatment of the Worldwide Grapevine Trunk Disease Esca
2019
Abstract Nanocarrier (NC)‐mediated drug delivery is widely researched in medicine but to date has not been used in agriculture. The first curative NC‐based treatment of the worldwide occurring grapevine trunk disease Esca, with more than 2 billion infected plants causing a loss yearly of $1.5 billion, is presented. To date, only repetitive spraying of fungicides is used to reduce chances of infection. This long‐term treatment against Esca uses minimal amounts of fungicide encapsulated in biobased and biodegradable lignin NCs. A single trunk injection of <10 mg fungicide results in curing of an infected plant. Only upon Esca infection, ligninolytic enzymes, secreted by the Esca‐associated fu…
Biocompatibility and Antibacterial Properties of ZnO-Incorporated Anodic Oxide Coatings on TiZrNb Alloy
2020
In a present paper, we demonstrate novel approach to form ceramic coatings with incorporated ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) on low modulus TiZrNb alloy with enhanced biocompatibility and antibacterial parameters. Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) was used to integrate ZnO nanoparticles (average size 12&ndash
Kohn-Sham Decomposition in Real-Time Time-Dependent Density-Functional Theory An Efficient Tool for Analyzing Plasmonic Excitations
2017
The real-time-propagation formulation of time-dependent density-functional theory (RT-TDDFT) is an efficient method for modeling the optical response of molecules and nanoparticles. Compared to the widely adopted linear-response TDDFT approaches based on, e.g., the Casida equations, RT-TDDFT appears, however, lacking efficient analysis methods. This applies in particular to a decomposition of the response in the basis of the underlying single-electron states. In this work, we overcome this limitation by developing an analysis method for obtaining the Kohn-Sham electron-hole decomposition in RT-TDDFT. We demonstrate the equivalence between the developed method and the Casida approach by a be…
Fracture and fatigue of titanium narrow dental implants: New trends in order to improve the mechanical response
2019
Sixty-four fractured commercially pure titanium (cp-Ti) narrow dental implants (NDIs) with similar macrogeometry and connection designs were studied after different implantation times in humans in order to determine their reliability and to evaluate the causes of the fracture. These NDIs were compared with other similar implants, made with alloyed titanium with 15% Zr and with 12% strained titanium. Original implants were tested under static and fatigue conditions, simulating the tri-axial loads in the mouth by means of a Bionix hydraulic test machine. Fractography was studied using field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FSEM). The results showed that cp-Ti NDI exhibits low strength f…
Toward Sustainable PLA-Based Multilayer Complexes with Improved Barrier Properties
2019
Poly(lactic acid) or PLA is currently considered as one of the most promising substitutes of conventional plastics, with low environmental impact, especially for food packaging applications. Nevertheless, some drawbacks, such as high permeability to oxygen, are still limiting its industrial applications. The objective of this study was to highly increase the oxygen barrier performance of PLA without compromising its sustainable nature and following the principles of circular economy perspective. Coproducts coming from mill industries, such as wheat gluten proteins (WG), were used to produce PLA-WG-PLA multilayer complexes with improved barrier performance. Different technologies of industri…
Self-Consistent Charge Density-Functional Tight-Binding Parametrization for Pt–Ru Alloys
2017
We present a self-consistent charge density-functional tight-binding (SCC-DFTB) parametrization for PtRu alloys, which is developed by employing a training set of alloy cluster energies and forces obtained from Kohn-Sham density-functional theory (DFT) calculations. Extensive simulations of a testing set of PtRu alloy nanoclusters show that this SCC-DFTB scheme is capable of capturing cluster formation energies with high accuracy relative to DFT calculations. The new SCC-DFTB parametrization is employed within a genetic algorithm to search for global minima of PtRu clusters in the range of 13-81 atoms and the emergence of Ru-core/Pt-shell structures at intermediate alloy compositions, consi…