Characterization Tools for Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials are nanostructures that have gained massive interest in the scientific community due to their exciting functional and physicochemical properties. They offer high stability, advanced optical-electronic properties, and tuneable surface functionalization. Such properties have made them a material of everyday use in the pharmaceutical industries, cosmetics, electronics, and many more. Considering their increasing usage, there is a demand for reliable and better quantitative and qualitative characterization tools. This chapter is dedicated to such characterization methodologies for the analysis of nanomaterials. Numerous distinct and integrated correlated techniques are discussed in detail. Such tools are arranged from the basic to advanced methods, each mentioning the unique property of nanomaterial such as elemental composition, morphology, crystal structure, magnetism, and strength. Lastly, some recent advancements in the characterization methodologies of nanostructures are provided. Understanding the properties of nanomaterials will enable us to expand their applications in society.

A Study of ψ-Hilfer Fractional Boundary Value Problem via Nonlinear Integral Conditions Describing Navier Model

This paper investigates existence, uniqueness, and Ulam’s stability results for a nonlinear implicit ψ-Hilfer FBVP describing Navier model with NIBCs. By Banach’s fixed point theorem, the unique property is established. Meanwhile, existence results are proved by using the fixed point theory of Leray-Schauder’s and Krasnoselskii’s types. In addition, Ulam’s stability results are analyzed. Furthermore, several instances are provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the main results.

Evaluation of the ASSIGN open-source deterministic address-matching algorithm for allocating Unique Property Reference Numbers to general practitioner-recorded patient addresses

IntroductionLinking places to people is a core element of the UK government's geospatial strategy. Matching patient addresses in electronic health records to their Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs) enables spatial linkage for research, innovation and public benefit. Available algorithms are not transparent or evaluated for use with addresses recorded by health care providers. ObjectivesTo describe and quality assure the open-source deterministic ASSIGN address-matching algorithm applied to general practitioner-recorded patient addresses. MethodsBest practice standards were used to report the ASSIGN algorithm match rate, sensitivity and positive predictive value using gold-standard datasets from London and Wales. We applied the ASSIGN algorithm to the recorded addresses of a sample of 1,757,018 patients registered with all general practices in north east London. We examined bias in match results for the study population using multivariable analyses to estimate the likelihood of an address-matched UPRN by demographic, registration, and organisational variables. ResultsWe found a 99.5% and 99.6% match rate with high sensitivity (0.999,0.998) and positive predictive value (0.996,0.998) for the Welsh and London gold standard datasets respectively, and a 98.6% match rate for the study population. The 1.4% of the study population without a UPRN match were more likely to have changed registered address in the last 12 months (match rate: 95.4%), be from a Chinese ethnic background (95.5%), or registered with a general practice using the SystmOne clinical record system (94.4%). Conversely, people registered for more than 6.5 years with their general practitioner were more likely to have a match (99.4%) than those with shorter registration durations. ConclusionsASSIGN is a highly accurate open-source address-matching algorithm with a high match rate and minimal biases when evaluated against a large sample of general practice-recorded patient addresses. ASSIGN has potential to be used in other address-based datasets including those with information relevant to the wider determinants of health.

Barcode aware adaptive sampling for Oxford Nanopore sequencers.

Adaptive sampling enables selection of individual molecules from sequencing libraries, a unique property of nanopore sequencing. Here we develop our adaptive sampling tool readfish to become "barcode-aware" enabling selection of different targets within barcoded samples or filtering out individual barcodes. We show that multiple human genomes can be assessed for copy number and structural variation on a single sequencing flow cell using sample specific customised target panels.

Modeling of systems with a closed loop of material resources circulation

The work is devoted to the problem of artificial realization of the unique property of living systems to self-recovery due to the existence in them of mechanisms of accumulation and closed circulation of material resources. The problem of developing a mathematical model that reproduces the processes of functioning of such systems is being solved. A functional diagram of these processes is built, in which the stages of active use of resources, their recovery and subsequent accumulation as a reserve are highlighted. The formal description of the system is made in the class of stochastic models with continuous time – in the form of a Markov process with a discrete set of states. Analytical expressions for the final probabilities of each of its states were found on the basis of the hypothesis of the Poisson character of event streams in the system. As an assessment of the system’s ability to self-recovery, the probability of its functioning with the maximum amount of resources capable of being processed by the system was calculated. Using a numerical example, a quantitative study of the dependence of this estimate on the main variable parameters of the closed-loop system was carried out: the number of recovery channels, the intensity of these channels, and the amount of resources accumulated in the reserve. The presence of an accumulated stock of resources in the system allows ensuring high indicators of its efficiency with a significant decrease in the requirements for the total intensity of resource recovery.

All-Dielectric Huygens’ Metasurface for Wavefront Manipulation in the Visible Region

All-dielectric Huygens’ metasurfaces have been widely used in wavefront manipulation through multipole interactions. Huygens’ metasurfaces utilize the superposition between an electric dipole and a magnetic dipole resonance to realize transmission enhancement and an accumulated 2π phase change. Benefiting from this unique property, we design and numerically investigate an all-dielectric Huygens’ metasurface exhibiting high-efficiency anomalous refraction. To suppress the substrate effect, the metasurface structure is submerged in a dielectric plate. We strategically placed two elements in four short periods to form a unit cell and adjusted the spacing between the two elements to effectively inhibit the interaction between elements. At the operating wavelength of 692 nm, the obtained anomalous transmission efficiency is over 90.7% with a diffraction angle of 30.84°. The performance of the proposed structure is far superior to most of the existing phase-gradient metasurface structures in the visible region, which paves the way for designing efficient beam deflection devices.

PSXII-2 Identification of candidate SNPs associated with high prolificacy in Romanov sheep

Prolificacy is a very important trait in sheep. Romanov sheep, the well-known Russian sheep breed, are characterized by very high prolificacy; however, the genetic basis of this unique property of Romanov sheep is still unknown. It was reported that Ovine BMPR1B gene, located on the OAR6, is associated with prolificacy in several sheep breeds. The aim of our study was to identify candidate SNPs within BMPR1B gene, related to prolificacy. To achieve this goal, using NGS technology, we sequenced ovine BMPR1B gene in Romanov sheep (n = 6), which are characterized by high prolificacy (about 270 lambs per 100 ewes). The sequences of BMPR1B gene of Noire du Velay, Tan, Southdown and Australian Horned Merino sheep breeds as well as Asiatic mouflon (n = 1), which are characterized by significantly lower prolificacy (from 110 to 180 lambs per 100 ewes) were derived from publicly available sources and used for comparison. FST analysis performed in PLINK 1.9 program revealed 10 SNPs with values higher than 0.8. The majority of candidate SNPs under putative selection were localized in the region from 29,382,098 to 29,430,387 on OAR6 of Ovine reference genome (Oar_v3.1 (Ensembl release 98). Thus, we can suggest, that this region of the BMPR1B gene can be considered as the putative region, associated with high prolificacy of Romanov sheep. Additional studies will be needed to confirm the effect of identified candidate SNPs on prolificacy traits. The research results will be useful for artificial selection of sheep with higher prolific capacity, including the introduction of desired alleles in sheep populations using genome editing technologies. This work was supported by the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education No. 0445-2019-0024 and RFBR No. 20-516-56002.

Gaikwad Abhijeet R. Phytosome as a Novel Drug Delivery System for Bioavailability Enhancement of Phytoconstituents and its Applications: A Review

Phytoconstituents are used extensively in modern science due to their varied therapeutic actions with few side effects. Regardless of their excellent pharmacodynamic activity, many Phytoconstituents have shown less bioavailability in vivo. Novel drug delivery systems have gained vital importance due to their increased bioavailability, and overall therapeutics. The water miscible Phytoconstituents have excellent bioactivity in vitro, however poor or no action in vivo. Phytosome technology can overcome this drawback during which the Phyto actives are allowed to react with phospholipid molecules. The Phytoconstituents with low lipoid solubility on complexation into herbal extract. Phospholipids show high affinity for polyphenolics, and type supramolecular adducts having a certain ratio. Hydrogen bond interactions between Phytoconstituents and phospholipids enable phospholipid complexes as an integral part. Complexation of phospholipids with active constituents of plants improves their bioavailability and is being extensively studied by researchers, and additional research during this regard is predicted within the future. This review highlights the unique property of phospholipids in drug delivery, phospholipid chemistry, stoichiometric ratios. We also discuss recent progress in research on the preparation, characterization, structural verification, advantages, recent patents, marketed formulation their application to enhance the bioavailability of active herbal Phytoconstituents. Keywords: Phytosome, Novel drug delivery, Phosphatidylcholine, Bioavailability, Patents, Applications.