A series of thermosensitive copolymer hydrogels, aminated hyaluronic acid-g-poly(Nisopropylacrylamide) (AHA-g-PNIPAAm), were synthesized by coupling carboxylic end-capped PNIPAAm (PNIPAAm-COOH) to AHA through amide bond linkages. AHA was prepared by grafting adipic dihydrazide to the HA backbone and PNIPAAm-COOH copolymer was synthesized via a facile thermo-radical polymerization technique by polymerization of NIPAAm using 4,4′-azobis(4-cyanovaleric acid) as an initiator, respectively. The structure of AHA and AHA-gPNIPAAm copolymer was determined by 1 H NMR. Two AHA-g-PNIPAAm copolymers with different weight ratios of PNIPAAm on the applicability of injectable hydrogels were characterized. The lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of AHA-g-PNIPAAm copolymers in PBS were measured as ~30°C by rheological analysis, regardless of the grafting degrees. Enzymatic resistance of AHA-g-PNIPAAm hydrogels with 28% and 53% of PNIPAAm in 100U/mL hyaluronidase/PBS at 37°C was 12.3% and 37.6% over 28 days, respectively. Equilibrium swelling ratios of AHA-gPNIPAAm hydrogels with 28% of PNIPAAm were 21.5, and significantly decreased to 13.3 with 53% of PNIPAAm in PBS at 37°C. Results from SEM observations confirm a porous 3D AHA-gPNIPAAm hydrogel structure with interconnected pores after freeze-drying and the pore diameter depends on the weight ratios of PNIPAAm. Encapsulation of human adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) within hydrogels showed the AHA-g-PNIPAAm copolymers were noncytotoxic and preserved the viability of the entrapped cells. A preliminary in vivo study demonstrated the usefulness of the AHA-g-PNIPAAm copolymer as an injectable hydrogel for adipose tissue engineering. This newly described thermoresponsive AHA-g-PNIPAAm copolymer demonstrated attractive properties to serve as cell or pharmaceutical delivery vehicles for a variety of tissue engineering applications.

Novel main‐chain liquid crystalline Diels—Alder dynamic networks (LCDANs) were prepared that exhibit unprecedented ease for actuator programming and reprocessing compared to existing liquid crystalline network (LCN) systems. Following cooling from 125 °C, LCDANs are deformed with aligned mesogens self‐locked at room temperature by slowly formed Diels–Alder (DA) bonds, which allows for the formation of solid 3D actuators capable of reversible shape change, and strip walker and wheel‐capable light‐driven locomotion upon either thermally or optically induced order–disorder phase transition. Any actuator can readily be erased at 125 °C and reprogrammed into a new one under ambient conditions. Moreover, LCDANs can be processed directly from melt (for example, fiber drawing) and from solution (for example, casting tubular actuators), which cannot be achieved with LCNs using exchangeable covalent bonds. The combined attributes of LCDANs offer significant progress toward developing easily programmable/processable LCN actuators.

This paper reports an interlaboratory comparison that evaluated a protocol for measuring and analysing the particle size distribution of discrete, metallic, spheroidal nanoparticles using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The study was focused on automated image capture and automated particle analysis. NIST RM8012 gold nanoparticles (30 nm nominal diameter) were measured for area-equivalent diameter distributions by eight laboratories. Statistical analysis was used to (1) assess the data quality without using size distribution reference models, (2) determine reference model parameters for different size distribution reference models and non-linear regression fitting methods and (3) assess the measurement uncertainty of a size distribution parameter by using its coefficient of variation. The interlaboratory area-equivalent diameter mean, 27.6 nm ± 2.4 nm (computed based on a normal distribution), was quite similar to the area-equivalent diameter, 27.6 nm, assigned to NIST RM8012. The lognormal reference model was the preferred choice for these particle size distributions as, for all laboratories, its parameters had lower relative standard errors (RSEs) than the other size distribution reference models tested (normal, Weibull and Rosin–Rammler–Bennett). The RSEs for the fitted standard deviations were two orders of magnitude higher than those for the fitted means, suggesting that most of the parameter estimate errors were associated with estimating the breadth of the distributions. The coefficients of variation for the interlaboratory statistics also confirmed the lognormal reference model as the preferred choice. From quasi-linear plots, the typical range for good fits between the model and cumulative number-based distributions was 1.9 fitted standard deviations less than the mean to 2.3 fitted standard deviations above the mean. Automated image capture, automated particle analysis and statistical evaluation of the data and fitting coefficients provide a framework for assessing nanoparticle size distributions using TEM for image acquisition.

A new series of linear−comb and 4-arm star− comb side chain liquid crystalline polymers (Lc-/Sc-SCLCPs) have been synthesized and characterized. The treatment of hydride siloxane-containing terminated liquid crystalline and high 1,2-/1,4-(high vinyl, hv/low vinyl, lv) linear or 4-arm star polybutadienes (L-/S-PBs) was conducted via the methods in combination of living anionic polymerization and "reverse" hydrosilylation to obtain SCLCPs with wide mesomorphic temperature range (ΔT) and narrow polydispersity index (PDI). The possible molecular arrangement model of two analogous hv-/lv-architectures was constructed, that was used to systematically investigate the effects of Lc-and Sctopological morphology on liquid crystalline (LC) properties and molecular microstructures. SCLCPs exhibited the same smectic A phase around room temperature, but thermal properties were significantly different due to differences of interaction force resulting from different macromolecular side chains packing. Surprisingly, the trend of lv-SCLCP displaying the effects of topology on phase transitions and microstructures was just contrary to that of hv-topology. hv-Sc-SCLCPs containing high density mesogenic composition were desired to generate wider ΔT and higher molecular layer order in comparison with Lc analogues, which provided a unexpected analyzed model that are of interest to be explored. In particular, the uniaue differences of macromolecular aggregation state arrangement in liquid crystal state dependent on free cooling between hv-Lc-and Sc-SCLCPs were observed from POM.