Adsorption features of various inorganic materials for the drug removal from water and synthetic urine medium: A multi-technique time-resolved in situ investigation

Pharmaceutical active compounds, including hundreds of different substances, are counted among the emerging contaminants in waterbodies, whose presence raises a growing concern for the ecosystem. Drugs are metabolized and excreted mainly through urine as an unchanged active ingredient or in the form of metabolites. These emerging contaminants are not effectively removed with the technologies currently in use, making them a relevant environmental problem. This study proposes the treatment of urine and water at the source that can allow an easier removal of dissolved drugs and metabolites. The treatment of synthetic urine, with dissolved ibuprofen as a model compound, by adsorption, using various classes of inorganic materials, such as clays, hierarchical zeolites and ordered mesoporous silica (MCM-41), is presented. A multi-technique approach involving X-ray powder diffraction, solid-state NMR, UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopies was employed to investigate the adsorption process in inorganic adsorbents. Moreover, the uptake, the ensuing competition, the efficiency and selectivity as well as the packing of the model compound in ordered mesoporous silica during the incipient wetness impregnation process were all thoroughly monitored by a novel approach, involving combined complementary time-resolved in situ1 H and13 C MAS NMR spectroscopy as well as X-ray powder diffraction

Fingerprinting the hydration products of hydraulic binders using snapshots from time-resolved in situ multinuclear mas nmr spectroscopy

The very early hydration behavior of a hydraulic binder phase, ye'elimite, Ca4Al6O12SO4, in the absence and in the presence of calcium sulfate, has been investigated. A time-resolved in situ multinuclear magic angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic suite involving 1H and 27Al MAS as well as two-dimensional 27Al multiple quantum MAS (MQMAS) experiments has been employed to detect the transient species and to govern the sequence of hydration reactions and the subsequent formation of the hydration products. The results of the study show that the rates of formation of ye'elimite hydration products vary substantially according to the absence or the presence of calcium sulfate. Hydrated calcium sulfoaluminate phases such as ettringite and monosulfate as well as aluminum hydroxide gel have been detected during the various stages of hydration. The direct observation of various transient species during the hydration stages of calcium aluminates and calcium sulfoaluminates illustrates the potential of a newly designed time-resolved in situ 1H MAS NMR experimental approach for fingerprinting phases and offers significant advantages over other established techniques in detecting transient species

Aging Skin: Nourishing from Out-In. Lessons from Wound Healing

Skin lesion therapy, peculiarly in the elderly, cannot be isolated from understanding that the skin is an important organ consisting of different tissues. Furthermore, dermis health is fundamental for epidermis integrity, and so adequate nourishment is mandatory in maintaining skin integrity. The dermis nourishes the epidermis, and a healthy epidermis protects the dermis from the environment, so nourishing the dermis through the epidermal barrier is a technical problem yet to be resolved. This is also a consequence of the laws and regulations restricting cosmetics, which cannot have properties that pass the epidermal layer. There is higher investment in cosmetics than in the pharmaceutical industry dealing with skin therapies, because the costs of drug registration are enormous and the field is unprofitable. Still, wound healing may be seen as an opportunity to “feed” the dermis directly. It could also verify whether providing substrates could promote efficient healing and test optimal skin integrity maintenance, if not skin rejuvenation, in an ever aging population

Ontology-based end-user visual query formulation: Why, what, who, how, and which?

Value creation in an organisation is a time-sensitive and data-intensive process, yet it is often delayed and bounded by the reliance on IT experts extracting data for domain experts. Hence, there is a need for providing people who are not professional developers with the flexibility to pose relatively complex and ad hoc queries in an easy and intuitive way. In this respect, visual methods for query formulation undertake the challenge of making querying independent of users’ technical skills and the knowledge of the underlying textual query language and the structure of data. An ontology is more promising than the logical schema of the underlying data for guiding users in formulating queries, since it provides a richer vocabulary closer to the users’ understanding. However, on the one hand, today the most of world’s enterprise data reside in relational databases rather than triple stores, and on the other, visual query formulation has become more compelling due to ever-increasing data size and complexity—known as Big Data. This article presents and argues for ontology-based visual query formulation for end-users; discusses its feasibility in terms of ontology-based data access, which virtualises legacy relational databases as RDF, and the dimensions of Big Data; presents key conceptual aspects and dimensions, challenges, and requirements; and reviews, categorises, and discusses notable approaches and systems

Fertilización con magnesio: efecto sobre la calidad de tubérculos de papa

Los tubérculos de papa (Solanum tuberosum L.) se utilizan para consumo fresco, sirven como materia prima para productos industrializados y son fuentes de energía, minerales, proteínas, grasas y vitaminas. La calidad de los tubérculos está influenciada por la disponibilidad de nutrientes, entre ellos el magnesio (Mg). La fertilización con Mg reduce la decoloración enzimática, el contenido de azúcares reductores y la concentración de compuestos fenólicos; favorece la asimilación y la translocación de carbohidratos y la síntesis de compuestos fenólicos. Por lo expuesto, se evaluó el efecto de la fertilización con Mg sobre el rendimiento, la concentración de materia seca (MS), la concentración de almidón y el pardeamiento enzimático de los tubérculos a la cosecha. Se realizaron cuatro ensayos de fertilización con Mg y se probaron tres dosis (0, 20 y 40 kg Mg ha-1) aplicadas a la plantación, en cuatro variedades de papa, Spunta, Daisy, Sagitta e Innovator. En cada ensayo a campo, se utilizó un diseño en bloques completo y aleatorizado con tres repeticiones. Cada unidad experimental estuvo conformada por 8 surcos de 5 m de largo y 0,85 m de distancia entre surcos. En todos los ensayos, se recurrió a la fertilización con macro y micronutrientes para asegurar que no limiten el crecimiento del cultivo, excepto el nutriente a investigar. A la cosecha, se determinó el rendimiento en peso fresco y la concentración de MS y de almidón. Se homogeneizaron 5 rodajas de tubérculos de cada tratamiento y el puré fue colocado en cápsulas de Petri. Se midió el color con un Colorímetro MINOLTA (Chromameter CR300), usando la representación en tres dimensiones CIE 1976 L* a* b*, donde L* es la luminosidad, a* es el color rojo-verde (enrojecimiento) y b* es el color azul-amarillo (amarillamiento). Se calculó el índice de pardeamiento (IP) = (100 x (X-0,31))/0,17; donde: X = ((a*+1,75 x L*))/((5,64 x L*+a*-3,012 x b*)). Las mediciones de color se realizaron a los 0, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 y 120 minutos de exposición al aire. El rendimiento varió de 34-70 t ha-1, siendo mayor en los tratamientos fertilizados en comparación con el testigo (~8%). La concentración de MS (15,0-21,3 g 100 g-1) y de almidón (8,5-12,7 g 100 g-1) aumentaron con la dosis de Mg (~2,3% y ~8,3%, respectivamente). El IP aumentó con el tiempo de exposición de los tubérculos al aire, alcanzando los máximos valores después de 15 minutos. Además, el IP tendió a disminuir con el incremento en la dosis de Mg, demostrando que los tubérculos se oscurecieron más en los tratamientos testigo que en los fertilizados. A los 120 minutos, los tratamientos fertilizados tuvieron entre 8,6-16,2% menos de pardeamiento que los testigos. Al comparar las variedades, Sagitta y Daisy se oscurecieron menos que Spunta e Innovator. Los resultados mostraron que la fertilización con Mg mejoró la calidad de los tubérculos de papa, debido principalmente al aumento de la concentración de almidón y a la disminución del IP

Hybrid Injectable Sol-Gel Systems Based on Thermo-Sensitive Polyurethane Hydrogels Carrying pH-Sensitive Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles for the Controlled and Triggered Release of Therapeutic Agents

Injectable therapeutic formulations locally releasing their cargo with tunable kinetics in response to external biochemical/physical cues are gaining interest in the scientific community, with the aim to overcome the cons of traditional administration routes. In this work, we proposed an alternative solution to this challenging goal by combining thermo-sensitive hydrogels based on custom-made amphiphilic poly(ether urethane)s (PEUs) and mesoporous silica nanoparticles coated with a self-immolative polymer sensitive to acid pH (MSN-CS-SIP). By exploiting PEU chemical versatility, Boc-protected amino groups were introduced as PEU building block (PEU-Boc), which were then subjected to a deprotection reaction to expose pendant primary amines along the polymer backbone (PEU-NH2, 3E18 -NH2/gPEU–NH2) with the aim to accelerate system response to external acid pH environment. Then, thermo-sensitive hydrogels were designed (15% w/v) showing fast gelation in physiological conditions (approximately 5 min), while no significant changes in gelation temperature and kinetics were induced by the Boc-deprotection. Conversely, free amines in PEU-NH2 effectively enhanced and accelerated acid pH transfer (pH 5) through hydrogel thickness (PEU-Boc and PEU-NH2 gels covered approximately 42 and 52% of the pH delta between their initial pH and the pH of the surrounding buffer within 30 min incubation, respectively). MSN-CS-SIP carrying a fluorescent cargo as model drug (MSN-CS-SIP-Ru) were then encapsulated within the hydrogels with no significant effects on their thermo-sensitivity. Injectability and in situ gelation at 37°C were demonstrated ex vivo through sub-cutaneous injection in rodents. Moreover, MSN-CS-SIP-Ru-loaded gels turned out to be detectable through the skin by IVIS imaging. Cargo acid pH-triggered delivery from PEU-Boc and PEU-NH2 gels was finally demonstrated through drug release tests in neutral and acid pH environments (in acid pH environment approximately 2-fold higher cargo release). Additionally, acid-triggered payload release from PEU-NH2 gels was significantly higher compared to PEU-Boc systems at 3 and 4 days incubation. The herein designed hybrid injectable formulations could thus represent a significant step forward in the development of multi-stimuli sensitive drug carriers. Indeed, being able to adapt their behavior in response to biochemical cues from the surrounding physio-pathological environment, these formulations can effectively trigger the release of their payload according to therapeutic needs