Nano Life最新文献

{"title":"Correction in Bicinchoninic Acid (BCA) Absorbance Assay to Analyze Protein Concentration","authors":"Daniel Smith, Elizabeth N. Lemieux, Sutapa Barua","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418500058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418500058","url":null,"abstract":"Conducting the bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assay directly after a coupling reaction using (1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide) (EDC) and [Formula: see text]-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) chemistry produces significant errors. Here we present a correction for the quantification of gelatin in the supernatant (SN) following gelatin conjugation to polymer microparticles using EDC and NHS chemistry. Following the conjugation reaction, SNs from the gelatin-microparticle formation reaction are treated with BCA assay reagents and quantified for the percentage of unbound gelatin in the solution. NHS was found to interfere with the BCA assay reagents and is dependent on incubation time. It is found that the large concentration (500[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]g/mL) of NHS in the conjugation reaction interferes with the sensitivity of gelatin present in SNs. The interference from NHS requires a careful analysis to distinguish the BCA background absorbance from the sample absorbance. Using an NHS control solution can correct NHS interference and thus decrease the expensive iterations in gelatin quantification and enable accurate analysis of gelatin content. The accuracy of gelatin quantification is further improved by reducing the BCA assay incubation time to approximately 20[Formula: see text]min, compared with the recommended 30[Formula: see text]min. This re-assessment of BCA assay is important to avoid misestimating biases in bioconjugation processes.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418500058","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42766410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Nano Engineering of Artificial Granulocytes for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapeutics","authors":"Donglu Shi","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418710010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418710010","url":null,"abstract":"The study of nanomedicine research, to date, has been concentrating on developing nanovectors for medical imaging, drug/gene delivery, and cell targeting, particularly in cancer diagnosis and therapeutics. Although quite successful in some areas, critical challenges remain, especially in the clinical settings. Some of the critical issues include delivery inefficiency, targeting non-specificity, and low uptake of theranostic-payloads by the cancerous lesions upon intravenous injection. Therefore, an alternative approach may be possible, via nanotechnology, by simulating some of the immune cells. In this Technical Note, we propose using specifically designed nanoparticles to simulate neutrophils that are capable of effective cancer cells targeting and killing without the complications in drug loading, biomarker conjugation, and assembly of chemical and physical therapeutic means. The simulated artificial cells mimic neutrophils, namely, granulocytes, according to their biological characteristics, for instance, positively-charged cell surfaces and the ability to release perferin upon binding onto the cancer cells leading to cytolysis. This Technical Note is intended to deliver a new concept in artificially-engineered granulocytes for cancer diagnosis and therapeutics.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418710010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43987451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Residential Satisfaction of Elderly as Determinant Behind Design Thinking in Urban Planning","authors":"Yi-ling Yu, Fuqin Wang, Feiyang Zhu, Zhigang Yin","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418400044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418400044","url":null,"abstract":"Residential satisfaction (RS) is an important bolometer to capture the mood of residents and their opinions on the quality of life they are living. Here, it is our intent to focus on the evaluation of the home as the measurement for satisfaction of the occupant, as it occurs naturally for its occupants. In this case, we study the urban folks, in terms of density, location and housing type, designed by the urban planners. Using data from the 4th National Sample Survey on the living conditions of China’s urban and rural older population, we analyzed the RS among people in their 60[Formula: see text]s and older ([Formula: see text]) living in the suburban neighborhoods in Shanghai. Using Logistic Regression models, we compared and studied the impacts of these three independent variables on their view on RS. The results confirmed the housing type and the location as the two most impactful factors and as the two main determinants in RS among the elderly population living in the urban areas of Shanghai.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418400044","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45535738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatial Clustering of Pedestrian Activity and the Built Environment Characteristics","authors":"Haotong Zhang, L. Yin","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418400056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418400056","url":null,"abstract":"Promoting pedestrian activity has attracted increasing attention as an important strategy for the improvement of public health and urban revitalization. The impact on physical activity underpinned by built environment has been studied substantially; however, few studies had focused on the geographically varying relationships between pedestrian activity and the built environment characteristics. Built upon previous work, this study looks at the spatial patterns of pedestrian counts and the built environment contributors along two major streets in Buffalo, New York using global and local spatial autocorrelation tests and geographically weighted regression. Pedestrian generators, job density and land use mix are included as independent variables in order to study the impact on them due to the characteristics of built environment. Our findings suggest that (1) there are statistically significant clusters of street intersections with high pedestrian counts along the streets selected in our study; (2) there are some optimal sizes of clusters of pedestrian generators, which attract more pedestrians; (3) geographically weighted Poisson model helps to analyze the geographically varying relationships between the built environment and pedestrian activity with a more pronounced goodness of fit. This research contributes to the understanding of the spatial patterns of pedestrian activity and the geographically varying relationship between the built environment and pedestrian counts. Hopefully this research will help to guide and focus the minds of policy makers and urban planners alike to introduce street vitality through the modifications of the built environment, so as to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418400056","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41561630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Impact of Built Environment on Respiratory Health: An Empirical Study","authors":"Wangyue Xu, Xiaojing Zhao, Lan Wang","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418400019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418400019","url":null,"abstract":"In many heavy industrialized countries such as China and India, the impact of air pollution on respiratory health has been headline news in recent years. Among the risk issues examined, exposure to particulate matter (PM) is cited as the prime contributing factor that causes respiratory diseases, yet it is traceable and controllable. In this paper, we report on an empirical study conducted in Shanghai, based on urban spatial determinants as independent variables to investigate its link to occurrence of lung cancer in their neighborhoods. A survey was conducted on a population of 472 lung cancer patients. After reliability and validity tests, only 156 pairs were included in this report. The questionnaire designed for this survey covers 11 outdoor and 6 indoor factors; these include the building density where they live, proximity to pollution sources, volume of traffic nearby, degree of enclosure by surrounding tall buildings, being residential or commercial with reference to their homes, proximity to parks, measured in terms of the plant type, green space per capita, accessibility to public open spaces for outdoor activities and water body; while parameters inside the house cover the age of the house, bedroom sizes, space per occupant, cooling-off time of taking up residency after renovation, humidity and dust inside the houses. Data collected were classified using random forest classification and further refined with Boruta algorithm for feature selection to identify possible correlation between risk of lung cancer to both outdoor and indoor factors of built environment. The results reveal a strong correlation between lung cancer and the environment where they live, so much so that the finding confirms our long-held belief that urban redevelopment could play an important role in reducing the risk of respiratory disease. Since prevention is better than cure, if by design to relocate pollution sources away from residential areas, provision of good public transportation to cut down vehicles on our streets, creation of green spaces to improve airflow pathway to deduce the concentration of PM in the atmosphere in our neighborhoods, we could perhaps reduce or even prevent lung cancer and a range of other respiratory diseases for the residents we served.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418400019","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44154987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ethnography for Accessibility to Public Open Spaces","authors":"Yu-lin Lu, H. Leng, Qing Yuan","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418400020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418400020","url":null,"abstract":"The access to public open spaces (POSs) has been catching the attention of urban planners and architects alike to inject dynamism into their design so as to bring life back into the static structures they have or about to create. POSs are not just green spaces existing between buildings, but spaces to host events, grounds for physical exercise, as well as rehabilitation workout places for patients discharged from the hospitals. In China, 44.6% of the country, mostly located in high latitude and altitude areas, accessibility to POSs is often hampered by bad weather. In this paper, we reported on an ethnography process from the point of view of pedestrians walking in the cold to experience the accessibility to POSs using Global Position System (GPS) mobile phones carried in their pockets, as a biosensor, to study the behaviors of pedestrians on the move, so as to identify the access points for possible urban redevelopment, where weatherproof linkways could be put in place to facilitate and encourage people to venture out into the open during winter months. In the course of our research, we undertook a case study in the central districts of Harbin that includes Nangang, Daoli, Daowai and Xiangfang districts, during the winter months (from December 2015 to June 2016), enduring an average monthly temperature of [Formula: see text]C, to ethnography, the pattern of pedestrians walking in the cold. The results confirm our hypothesis that harsh cold environment and the extreme climate conditions have discouraged the access to POSs. At the same time, the data collected have also helped us to pinpoint access points where weatherproof link way could be provided to facilitate and encourage people to travel by foot during winter months.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418400020","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41940900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards Pedestrian Microclimatic Comfort: A Rapid Predication Model for Street Winds and Pedestrian Thermal Sensation","authors":"Jing Li, MengNan Qi, Qiuhua Duan, Lei Huo, Julian Wang","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418400068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418400068","url":null,"abstract":"Significant changes in the urban built environment have occurred due to rapid urbanization and increases in the urban population. Such alterations may produce environmental health-related issues such as urban heat stress, air pollution and traffic noise. This research undertook a field study to collect data including urban design parameters, micro-environmental factors and city climatic information. This work was conducted over a two-year period on three pedestrian streets located in high-density urban areas in Beijing. These areas were selected in order to study the influences of urban street canyon texture within a particular geometric layout, wind flow corridors and variations in air temperature on pedestrian microclimatic comfort. The results will facilitate the work of urban planners by providing them with information for use in improving outdoor thermal comfort through their designs. A total of 60[Formula: see text]485 samples were organized into training, validation and test sets. We confirmed our hypothesis that internal wind speed ([Formula: see text] is attributable mainly to the urban texture coefficient ([Formula: see text], air temperature ([Formula: see text] and leading-in wind speed ([Formula: see text]. The model was tested using the test data collected onsite, which demonstrated a very accurate goodness-of-fit; the model achieved an R-squared value of 0.82, which meant that [Formula: see text] as a dependent variable was 82% correlated to the three predictors as independent variables. With this computer simulation, urban planners can now predict and visualize the impact of changes on the built environment in terms of either the direction of solar radiation received or increases in wind speed, in return for the desired thermal comfort level for residents of the neighborhood.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418400068","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47060774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Preface","authors":"Lanqin Wang","doi":"10.1142/s1793984418020014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/s1793984418020014","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/s1793984418020014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47480775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cardiovascular Diseases Due to Stress Arisen from Social Risk Factors: A Synopsis and Prospectiveness","authors":"Bin Jiang, Jielin Chen, Lan Wang","doi":"10.1142/S1793984418400032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1142/S1793984418400032","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reviews the causes of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) from a perspective other than traditional clinical pathology. We look at social factors that could arouse stressful feelings, and could further lead to cardiovascular diseases. Major social factors including job stress, daily hassles, life events, social inequity and trauma are covered in our review. This paper also discusses potential interventions which could be taken by environmental professionals to create dynamism within the existing static structures so as to eventually eradicate the causes of mental stress and ameliorate the quality of life for urban dwellers.","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/S1793984418400032","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46753089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Prostaglandin E₂ Produced by Alginate-Encapsulated Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Modulates the Astrocyte Inflammatory Response.","authors":"Elizabeth C Stucky, Joshua Erndt-Marino, Rene S Schloss, Martin L Yarmush, David I Shreiber","doi":"10.1142/s1793984417500052","DOIUrl":"10.1142/s1793984417500052","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Astroglia are well known for their role in propagating secondary injury following brain trauma. Modulation of this injury cascade, including inflammation, is essential to repair and recovery. Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have been demonstrated as trophic mediators in several models of secondary CNS injury, however, there has been varied success with the use of direct implantation due to a failure to persist at the injury site. To achieve sustained therapeutic benefit, we have encapsulated MSCs in alginate microspheres and evaluated the ability of these encapsulated MSCs to attenuate neuro-inflammation. In this study, astroglial cultures were administered lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to induce inflammation and immediately co-cultured with encapsulated or monolayer human MSCs. Cultures were assayed for the pro-inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-<i>α</i>) produced by astroglia, MSC-produced prostaglandin E₂, and expression of neurotrophin-associated genes. We found that encapsulated MSCs significantly reduced TNF-<i>α</i> produced by LPS-stimulated astrocytes, more effectively than monolayer MSCs, and this enhanced benefit commences earlier than that of monolayer MSCs. Furthermore, in support of previous findings, encapsulated MSCs constitutively produced high levels of PGE₂, while monolayer MSCs required the presence of inflammatory stimuli to induce PGE₂ production. The early, constitutive presence of PGE₂ significantly reduced astrocyte-produced TNF-<i>α</i>, while delayed administration had no effect. Finally, MSC-produced PGE₂ was not only capable of modulating inflammation, but appears to have an additional role in stimulating astrocyte neurotrophin production. Overall, these results support the enhanced benefit of encapsulated MSC treatment, both in modulating the inflammatory response and providing neuroprotection.</p>","PeriodicalId":44929,"journal":{"name":"Nano Life","volume":"7 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2017-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1142/s1793984417500052","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36032055","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}