The plausible effect of atmospheric tides on the longitudinal structure of the equatorial ionosphere is observed by the FORMOSAT‐3/COSMIC (F3/C) constellation during September Equinox, 2006, near solar minimum. The longitudinal structure was first reported in IMAGE satellite airglow observations at the far‐ultraviolet (FUV) 135.6‐nm wavelength during March Equinox, 2002, near solar maximum. The global three‐dimensional ionospheric electron density observed by F3/C shows a prominent four‐peaked wave‐like longitudinal enhancement in the equatorial ionization anomaly (EIA). The vertical electron density structures observed by F3/C reveal that the feature exists mainly above 250 km altitude indicating that the feature is an F‐region phenomenon. The four longitudinal F‐region enhancements of the EIA peaks may result from a stronger equatorial plasma fountain at each longitude region produced by a stronger F‐region eastward electric field transmitted along the magnetic field lines from E‐region where longitudinal variations in atmospheric tides affect the ionospheric dynamo process.

The Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles, tailored with maleimidyl 3-succinimidopropionate ligands, were conjugated with paclitaxel molecules that were attached with a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) spacer through a phosphodiester moiety at the (C-2')-OH position. The average number of paclitaxel molecules/nanoparticles was determined as 83. These nanoparticles liberated paclitaxel molecules upon exposure to phosphodiesterase.

For establishment of the structure-activity relationship, 19 heterobicycle-coumarin conjugated compounds with the -SCH(2)- linker were synthesized and found to possess significant antiviral activities. Prominent examples included imidazopyridine-coumarin 12c, purine-coumarin 12d, and benzoxazole-coumarin 14c, which inhibited HCV replication at an EC(50) of 6.8, 2.0, and 12 microM, respectively. The heteroatoms in bicycles and the substituent effect on coumarin played essential roles.

This paper derives the theoretical relationship between vertical integrated intensity of OI 135.6 nm oxygen emission with integrated electron content (IEC) from 150 to 800 km altitude as well as F layer peak electron density (NmF2). Local time, seasonal, and solar cycle dependence of the relationship is investigated, and it is proposed as a conversion factor to retrieve IEC and NmF2 values from airglow measurements. The errors associated with the IEC and NmF2 estimation using the derived conversion factor are demonstrated for different local times and solar activity. The theoretical conversion factor is compared with that calculated using airglow measurements by the Global Ultraviolet Imager onboard the Theremosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics mission and the Global Ionospheric Map total electron content as well as the nadir integrated OI 135.6 nm intensity by the Tiny Ionospheric Photometer and NmF2 determined from the Global Positioning System Occultation Experiment, both onboard FORMOSAT‐3/COSMIC.

By applying the microfluidic emulsification and sorting processes, the formation of twin monodispersed droplets can be achieved in one step. The purpose of this study was to accurately separate the smaller of the twin droplets from the larger one to obtain two monodispersed microparticles. A bi-T-junction hybrid microchannel design was employed to control both emulsification and separation. The results show that the droplet sizes are comparable to the channel diameter and can be tuned by varying the shear rate of the oil phase relative to the aqueous phase. Due to the fact that the separation efficiency is close to 100% in this system, both of the collected larger and smaller droplets are highly monodispersed (RSD < 2% and 6%, respectively), and have high reproducibility. In addition, the proposed microfluidic device was employed to present a facile one-step synthetic approach for the preparation of twin monodispersed alginate microparticles entrapping quantum dots and Fe 3 O 4 nanoparticles. The proposed microfluidic chip is capable of generating relatively uniform twin microparticles with sizes that can be well controlled. It is a simple, low cost, and high throughput process. In the future this apparatus could be applied to manufacture various twin monodispersed composite microvehicles to act as a smart drug delivery system.

This study aims to establish a (198)Au-radiotracer technique for in vivo tracing, rapid quantification, and ex vivo visualization of PEGylated gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in animals, organs and tissue dissections. The advantages of GNPs lie in its superior optical property, biocompatibility and versatile conjugation chemistry, which are promising to develop diagnostic probes and drug delivery systems. (198)Au is used as a radiotracer because it simultaneously emits beta and gamma radiations with proper energy and half-life; therefore, (198)Au can be used for bioanalytical purposes. The (198)Au-tagged radioactive gold nanoparticles ((198)Au-GNPs) were prepared simply by irradiating the GNPs in a nuclear reactor through the (197)Au(n,γ)(198)Au reaction and subsequently the (198)Au-GNPs were subjected to surface modification with polyethylene glycol to form PEGylated (198)Au-GNPs. The (198)Au-GNPs retained physicochemical properties that were the same as those of GNP before neutron irradiation. Pharmacokinetic and biodisposition studies were performed by intravenously injecting three types of (198)Au-GNPs with or without PEGylation into mice; the γ radiation in blood specimens and dissected organs was then measured. The (198)Au-radiotracer technique enables rapid quantification freed from tedious sample preparation and shows more than 95% recovery of injected GNPs. Clinical gamma scintigraphy was proved feasible to explore spatial- and temporal-resolved biodisposition of (198)Au-GNPs in living animals. Moreover, autoradiography, which recorded beta particles from (198)Au, enabled visualizing the heterogeneous biodisposition of (198)Au-GNPs in different microenvironments and tissues. In this study, the (198)Au-radiotracer technique facilitated creating a trimodality analytical platform for tracing, quantifying and imaging GNPs in animals.

Arylhydrazones were linked onto gold nanoparticles through the poly(ethylene glycol) spacer to produce a new type of photoinduced DNA-cleaving nanomaterials with great potency.

Perovskite solar cells using a new benzotrithiophene-based derivative as the dopant-free hole-transport material display promising efficiencies of up to 16.15%.