Polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) containing liquid crystalline (LC) mesogens with tunable anisotropic morphologies have applications in various fields, but their preparation typically suffers from tedious and lowthroughput approaches. Here we present an efficient route to the preparation of anisotropic morphologies of azobenzene-containing block copolymers (BCPs) at high solids content via a polymerization-induced hierarchical self-assembly in ethanol. Various anisotropic NPs, including cuboids, short belts, lamellae, and ellipsoidal vesicles, have been obtained in a remarkably broad range of BCP compositions. The NPs exhibit a smectic phase with ordered stripes when observed under TEM. This internal LC ordering plays a significant role on the formation of these intriguing anisotropic morphologies. Morphological transitions from anisotropic to isotropic spheres can be obtained upon UV illumination due to the photoresponsive properties of the azobenzene mesogens. This work significantly expands the scope of accessible morphologies in PISA and suggests that the under explored LC BCPs may have an impactful role in the PISA field.
We introduce a novel topological formulation for contour grouping. Our grouping criterion, called untangling cycles, exploits the inherent topological 1D structure of salient contours to extract them from the otherwise 2D image clutter. To define a measure for topological classification robust to clutter and broken edges, we use a graph formulation instead of the standard computational topology. The key insight is that a pronounced 1D contour should have a clear ordering of edgels, to which all graph edges adhere, and no long range entanglements persist. Finding the contour grouping by optimizing these topological criteria is challenging. We introduce a novel concept of circular embedding to encode this combinatorial task. Our solution leads to computing the dominant complex eigenvectors/ eigenvalues of the random walk matrix of the contour grouping graph. We demonstrate major improvements over state-of-the-art approaches on challenging real images. Disciplines
Photoresponsive wormlike block copolymer nanoparticles (NPs) have potential applications in versatile fields, but their preparation suffers from narrow worm phase region and tedious approaches. In this work, azobenzene-containing wormlike NPs based on poly(methylacrylic acid)-b-poly(4-((4-butylphenyl)diazenyl)phenyl methacrylate) are prepared via polymerization-induced self-assembly at high solids concentration in ethanol. The pure wormlike NPs occupy a remarkably broad region in the morphological phase diagram because of the rigid nature of the core-forming block. These wormlike NPs expand resulting from trans–cis transformation upon UV irradiation, and slim near to the original state via visible light irradiation. The diameter and its variation amplitude of worms increase with the chain length of core-forming block. Moreover, a nanofiltration switch for rhodamine B is assembled to illustrate one of its potential applications by remote trigger using light.
Background: Breath analysis became promising for noninvasive diagnoses of cancer with sophisticated spectrometry technology introduced. This study aimed to screen volatile markers for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods: Breath samples were collected from 30 HCC patients who were comorbid with type B hepatitis and cirrhosis and from 27 hepatocirrhosis patients and 36 healthy persons, both taken as controls. The volatile organic compounds in the samples were analyzed with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and the markers were selected by comparing their levels between groups. Each of the markers was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and a discriminant function using the markers was established. The relationships of α-fetoprotein (AFP) levels and clinical stages with the concentrations of the markers were also investigated.Results: 3-Hydroxy-2-butanone, styrene, and decane were screened as potential markers, among which 3-hydroxy-2-butanone was found to have the best diagnostic value. The diagnostic function using these markers had a sensitivity of 86.7% and a specificity of 91.7% between HCC patients and normal controls and a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 91.7% by cross-validation. No statistically significance (P > 0.05) was found for the concentration differences of these markers between HCC patients with AFP >400 or <400 μg/L or between stage I-II and stage III-IV patients.Conclusion: These volatile organic compounds could be useful as breath markers of HCC patients, independent of AFP levels or clinical stages.Impact: Breath analysis could be useful for early diagnosis of HCC, especially for AFP-negative HCC.
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