Dynamic proteome in enigmatic preeclampsia: an account of molecular mechanisms and biomarker discovery

The coevolution of genomics and proteomics has led to advancements in the field of diagnosis and molecular mechanisms of disease. Proteomics is now stepping into the field of obstetrics, where early diagnosis of pregnancy complication such as preeclampsia (PE) is imperative. PE is a multifactorial disease characterized by hypertension with proteinuria, which is a leading cause of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality occurring in 5-7% of pregnancies worldwide. This review discusses the probable molecular mechanisms that lead to PE and summarizes the proteomics research carried out in understanding the pathogenicity of PE, and for identifying the candidate biomarker for diagnosis of the disease.     

Residual stress gradients along ion implanted zones — cubic crystals

Large internal strains and stresses can be produced by low temperature implantation over small distances from the free surface in a thick substrate. These are typically non-uniform and have large composition gradients. In dilute bcc solutions, containing unclustered interstitial implants, the residual macroscopic strains may be treated as isotropic. The calculation of residual strain (or stress) is based upon anisotropic elasticity theory and internal stress is given in terms of the dipole tensor for individual defects in single crystal films. In a completely elastic zone, forces act to maintain a rigid outside surface and cause the strain distribution to be zero along directions parallel to the free surface. This produces a strain magnification along the perpendicular direction from Poisson contractions. If the implanted zone is completely relaxed by plastic deformation, the strains are described by the free expansion strains due to both implants and lattice damage. There is no angular dependence of the free expansion strain in this extreme condition. One can determine whether a zone is completely elastic, completely relaxed by plastic deformation, or in some intermediate state from plots of strain against sin², where is the angle of tilt relative to the surface normal. These results may be obtained from X-ray Bragg intensity data by measuring shifts and line broadening from (hkl) planes at different tilt angles. Theoretical results are given for both single crystal and polycrystalline materials in terms of residual strain and stress.     

Sustainable Synthesis of Biaryls Using Silica Supported Ferrocene Appended N-Heterocyclic Carbene-Palladium Complex

Catalysis Letters - A novel silica supported ferrocene appended N-heterocyclic carbene-palladium complex (SilFemBenzNHC@Pd) has been prepared and characterized by using fourier transform infrared...     

Analysis of sub-anatomic diffusion tensor imaging indices in white matter regions of Alzheimer with MMSE score

In this study, an attempt has been made to find the correlation between diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) indices of white matter (WM) regions and mini mental state examination (MMSE) score of Alzheimer patients. Diffusion weighted images are obtained from the ADNI database. These are preprocessed for eddy current correction and removal of non-brain tissue. Fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), radial diffusivity (RD) and axial diffusivity (DA) indices are computed over significant regions (Fornix left, Splenium of corpus callosum left, Splenium of corpus callosum right, bilateral genu of the corpus callosum) affected by Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology. The correlation is computed between diffusion indices of the significant regions and MMSE score using linear fit technique so as to find the relation between clinical parameters and the image features. Binary classification has been employed using support vector machine, decision stumps and simple logistic classifiers on the extracted DTI indices along with MMSE score to classify Alzheimer patients from healthy controls. It is observed that distinct values of DTI indices exist for the range of MMSE score. However, there is no strong correlation (Pearson's correlation coefficient ‘r’ varies from 0.0383 to −0.1924) between the MMSE score and the diffusion indices over the significant regions. Further, the performance evaluation of classifiers shows 94% accuracy using SVM in differentiating AD and control. In isolation clinical and image features can be used for prescreening and diagnosis of AD but no sub anatomic region correlation exist between these features set. The discussion on the correlation of diffusion indices of WM with MMSE score is presented in this study.     

Controlled destruction of residual crosslinker in a silicone elastomer for drug delivery

In drug delivery systems that use silicone elastomers as a diffusion matrix for the active drug, it is common to crosslink the material by the hydrosilylation reaction. In this platinum‐catalyzed reaction, vinyl groups on a polymer add to the methyl siloxane hydride (MHS) groups on a low molecular mass crosslinker. With an excess of crosslinker, a fast curing is achieved and a fully crosslinked material is formed. Unreacted MHS groups were shown to remain in the elastomer after curing because of the excess crosslinker. In this work, a simple procedure was developed to eliminate the unreacted MHS groups from the final product. We found that storage of the product at +40°C and 75% relative humidity for a few weeks will effectively destroy the residual MHS groups in the elastomer. The effects of varying levels of humidity, oxygen, and temperature on this postcuring procedure were studied. The amount of MHS groups was measured with NMR and IR spectroscopy. We also found that the hardness of the material increased by approximately 25% as a consequence of this postcuring treatment. This increase is probably due to a secondary crosslinking reaction between MHS and silanol groups. Heat treatment at higher temperatures led to an even further increase in the hardness and compression modulus. Because no MHS groups remained in the elastomer when this heat treatment was started, it is apparent that another secondary crosslinking reaction is occurring, probably silanol condensation. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 84: 2254–2264, 2002     

Rightful ownership through image adaptive DWT-SVD watermarking algorithm and perceptual tweaking

In this paper, a tailored blended image adaptive watermarking scheme has been presented, which is based on DWT and SVD. Through this paper an attempt has been made to solve the problem of false positive while maintaining the robustness and imperceptibility with the help of principal component and perceptual tuning of the image. Perceptual tuning is a non-blind technique and based on the objective quality of image. The embedding strength is made dependent on watermark features as well as of host in wavelet domain by using tuning parameter which is user specific. The idea of embedding the principal component of intermediate frequency sub-bands of watermark image into singular values of perceptually tuned intermediate frequency sub-bands of host image have been exploited. The proposed algorithm is providing the adaptive behavior towards the image content for perceptual transparency and at the same time avoiding the possibility of false watermark extraction well supported by a private key, which is necessary at the time of extraction. Thus the proposed watermarking algorithm is a kind of non-blind, image adaptive and suitable for rightful ownership. Various comparative results make the algorithm superior in terms of intentional and non-intentional attacks. Also the algorithm is strong against the print and scan attack.     

Emergent Properties of the Public Realm and Encroachments in the Urban Environment

The declining quality of the public realm in urban environment is a matter of concern and is found to be encroached upon in Indian cities. There is an urgent need to address this issue, and it is challenging for urban designers. Adopting an analytic framework addressing this ever-changing nature of the public realm in practice would be instrumental in improving the quality of urban life at large. The public realm in an urban environment is considered as a complex system to observe the macro-level behaviour—emergent properties which are either encouraging or discouraging for encroachments assumed to be the function of micro-level behaviour—elementary properties of interconnected and interdependent individual elements. Owing to the impossibility of experimenting with these emergent properties in the real world, an agent-based model—“Emergent Properties of Public Realm 3.1”—was developed in NetLogo 4.1.3. The typical cases representing the encroached and the un-encroached public realm were identified in the real world and experiments were conducted with varied interaction constants assumed to represent the pace of change in an urban environment. The output generated by the agent-based model was analyzed with respect to the real world.     

Sodium alginate–poly(hydroxyethylmethacrylate) interpenetrating polymeric network membranes for the pervaporation dehydration of ethanol and tetrahydrofuran

Interpenetrating polymeric network (IPN) membranes of sodium alginate (NaAlg) and various amounts of poly(hydroxyethylmethacrylate) (PHEMA) have been prepared and tested for the pervaporation dehydration of ethanol and tetrahydrofuran (THF). The presence of hydrophilic PHEMA in the IPN matrix was found to be responsible for increase in membrane selectivity to water. NaAlg–PHEMA IPN membrane containing 20 wt % of PHEMA exhibited a selectivity of 571 to water for the water–ethanol mixture and 857 for water–THF mixture. These data are much better than those observed for the pristine NaAlg membrane. However, flux of the IPN membranes was smaller than that of pristine NaAlg membrane. Comparatively higher flux values were observed for water–THF mixture than for water–ethanol mixture. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 101: 3324–3329, 2006     

RF sputter deposition of poly(tetrafluoroethylene) films as masking materials for silicon micromachining

Polymers have been studied extensively because of their wonderful array of properties. Their properties can be tailored by many means and can be made useful in many ways. Polymers can be crosslinked or branched and can provide different properties, such as conduction and passivation. This study dealt with the RF sputter deposition of poly(tetrafluoroethylene) (PTFE) films with the aim of using them as masking materials during the fabrication of various micromachined structures. The films were deposited on silicon substrates at different plasma powers (100, 150, and 200 W) for a constant deposition time (60 min). To test the masking properties, the deposited films were immersed in a 20 wt % aqueous KOH solution at 80°C for 60 min. The films showed lower contact angles and interfacial tension, and this indicated good adhesion of the films to the silicon substrates. Good adhesion is an essential quality of masking materials during micromachining. The structural properties of the as‐deposited and etched films were studied with Fourier transform infrared and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy. These indicated that the bonding groups and binding energies of C? F and C? CF matched the reported values well. Furthermore, the presence of C? F and C? CF bonds, even after the etching of silicon substrates in highly alkaline KOH solutions for 60 min, showed that the PTFE films remained unchanged in the etchant and, therefore, could function as good masking materials during the fabrication of micromachined structures. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 1183–1192, 2004     

Kinetics of swelling of cotton fibers in aqueous ethylenediamine solutions using moisture regain data

Kinetic studies of swelling of cotton cellulose with 75% (w/w) EDA solution have been carried out. Three rates of the reaction were observed in the temperature range 10–35°C: first, the very fast rate (k₁) lasting for about 10 s; second, the extremely slow rate (k₂) lasting for 30–50 s; and third, once again a fast rate (k₃), k₁ being faster than k₃. k₁ was attributed to the swelling action of EDA–monohydrate in amorphous regions of cellulose; k₂ was assigned to the penetration of swelling species into crystallities accompanied by breakage of H bonds in these regions; and k₃ was assigned to the opening up of the crystallites. Activation energy values confirmed this trend. At higher temperatures (35–55°C), the middle rate k₂ merged with k₃, giving only two rates, k₁ and k₂₊₃, as the higher temperatures brought about simultaneous diffusion of swelling agent into, and decrystallization of, the crystalline portions of cellulose. EDA solution of 65% (w/w) concentration gave only two rates: the initial fast rate assigned to the swelling of the amorphous portion, followed by a slow one, operating in mesomorphous regions of cellulose, without any appreciable decrystallization. This was atributed to the important fact, viz., the absence of EDA–monohydrates in the solution.