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AUSTRALASIA – Mighty River Honey: Saving the Bee Through Social Enterprise

SINGAPORE – A*STAR’S IME AND INEX Innovations Exchange to Develop Non-invasive Prenatal Diagnostic Technology

SINGAPORE – CellResearch Corporation receives new US patent approval for exclusive stem cell technology amidst new partnerships

SINGAPORE – A Gel That Can Make Drugs Last Longer

JAPAN – Japanese Biotech JCR Pharmaceuticals Selects Medidata’s Cloud-Based Platform to Power Rare Disease Clinical Research in Japan

PARIS – MedDay Reports Additional Positive Data of its Pivotal Phase III Study With MD1003 in Patients with Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

GERMANY – Merck Serono Introduces New Eeva Test Version Aiming for Optimized Assisted Reproductive Outcomes

AFRICA – Ebola Genome Insights Indicate that Containment Worked

UNITED STATES – TissueGene, Inc. Announces FDA Acceptance Of Invossa™ As Proprietary Name For TissueGene-C

UNITED STATES – FDA Approves Technology Upgrade for Recipients of First Commercially Available Cochlear Implant

Deviation of a needle from its intended path can be minimized by using a robotic device to steer the needle towards its target. Such a device requires information about the interactions between the needle and soft tissue, and this information can be obtained using finite element (FE) analysis. In this study, we present an FE analysis that integrates the Johnson–Cook damage model for a linear elastic material with an element deletion-based method. The FE analysis is used to model a bevel-tipped needle interacting with gel. The constants for the damage model are obtained using a compression test. We compare simulation results with experimental data that include tip–gel interaction forces and torques, and three-dimensional (3D) in situ images of the gel rupture obtained using a laser scanning confocal microscope. We quantitatively show that the percentage errors between simulation and experimental results for force along the insertion axis and torque about the bevel edge are 3% and 5%, respectively. Furthermore, it is also shown qualitatively that tip compression is observed at the same locations in both experimental and simulation results. This study demonstrates the potential of using an FE analysis with a damage model and an element deletion-based method to accurately simulate 3D gel rupture, and tip–gel interaction forces and torques.

Surfactants self-associate in aqueous solutions to form micelles. Less well-known is that they form a wide range of liquid crystals — through self-association. These liquid crystals often occur in consumer products where they play an essential role in product stability and function. Some products are marketed in a liquid crystalline state although they are not recognized by the consumer (or, on occasion, by the manufacturer). This review describes the formation of micelles and the various liquid crystalline phases. These include lamellar, hexagonal, cubic and gel phases which have different long range structures but are based on micelles. The key factors linking surfactant molecular structure to liquid crystal architecture have been elucidated. These are the sizes of the surfactant hydrophobic tail(s) and head groups, together with the head group charge and the presence of any additives. Examples of liquid crystals in emulsion stabilization, household cleaners, conditioners, detergent liquid and some food are described.

One of the unique properties of polymeric gel is that the volume and shape of gel can dramatically change even at mild variation of external stimuli. Though a variety of instability patterns of slender and thin film gel structures due to swelling have been observed in various experimental studies, many are not well understood. This paper presents the analytical solutions of swelling-induced instability of various slender and thin film gel structures. We have adopted the well developed constitutive relation of inhomogeneous field theory of a polymeric network in equilibrium with a solvent and mechanical load or constraint with the incremental modulus concept for slender beam and thin film gel structures. The formulas of buckling and wrinkle conditions and critical stress values are derived for slender beam and thin film gel structures under swelling-induced instability using nonlinear buckling theories of beam and thin film structures. For slender beam structure, we construct the stability diagram with the distinct stable and unstable zones. The critical slenderness ratio and corresponding critical stresses are provided for different dimensionless material parameters. For thin film gel structures, we consider the thin film gel on an elastic foundation with different stiffness. The analytical solutions of critical stress and corresponding wrinkle wavelength, as well as buckling condition (or critical chemical potential) are given. These analytical solutions will provide a guideline for gel structure design used in polymeric gels MEMS and NEMS structures such as sensors and actuators. More importantly, the work provides a theoretical foundation of gel structure buckling and wrinkle, instability phenomena are different from normal engineering or material buckling.

If gel swells in binary solvents, two unusual phenomena may appear. Two solvents with relatively low swelling ability may become a good solvent for the polymer with high swelling ability when mixed, which is known as a cosolvency effect. In contrast, a cononsolvency effect indicates polymer is less soluable in solvent mixtures than it is in each of the cosolvents. In this work, we develop a thermodynamic theory to describe the equilibrium swelling behaviors of gels in binary solvents based on the Flory–Huggins lattice model. The model can reproduce both cosolvency and cononsolvency effects, showing that these effects are caused by the preferential absorption of the solvent by polymer together with solvent–solvent interactions. The model is also applied to describe experimentally observed cosolvency and cononsolvency effects in the literature, which shows an acceptable agreement.

The force response of poroelastic materials including poroelastic gels to indentation is known to be time- and space-dependent (i.e., a function of indenter shape and size). Despite the complexity of the poroelastic response and in contrast to viscoelastic mechanics, poroelastic mechanics can be captured in terms of several intrinsic mechanical properties, such as elasticity, permeability, and Poisson ratio. While these intrinsic properties can be found from time-domain or frequency-domain master curves, indentation is usually conducted and analyzed only in the time domain using stress-relaxation or creep experiments. This paper advocates using frequency-domain analysis of poroelastic gels by reviewing and analyzing the relevant works of the literature. The analysis and methods, proposed here, enable researchers to characterize dynamic moduli of poroelastic gels in frequency domain using only a few experimental defining parameters. The authors have intentionally provided extensive details and background, to make this work useful for researchers who consider using frequency-domain analysis for the first time. This work reviews and explains the instantaneous elastic modulus, depicted over normalized time as a unifying and understandable set of master curves for time-domain stress relaxation tests on poroelastic gels for cylindrical, conical, and spherical indenters. The dynamic elastic modulus, depicted over normalized frequency, are derived symbolically and numerically and explained for the first time as master curves with simple transfer function in the frequency domain for presenting poroelastic mechanics of gels.

Chemically-responsive amorphous shape-memory polymers (SMPs) can transit from the temporary shape to the permanent shape in responsive to solvents. This effect has been reported in various polymer-solvent systems. However, limited attention has been paid to the constitutive modeling of this behavior. In this work, we develop a fully thermo-chemo-mechanical coupled thermodynamic framework for the chemically-responsive amorphous SMPs. The framework shows that the entropy, the chemical potential and the stress can be directly obtained if the Helmholtz free energy density is defined. Based on the entropy inequality, the evolution equation for the viscous strain, the temperature and the number of solvent molecules are also derived. We also provide an explicit form of Helmholtz free energy density as an example. In addition, based on the free volume concept, the dependence of viscosity and diffusivity on the temperature and solvent concentration is defined. The theoretical framework can potentially advance the fundamental understanding of chemically-responsive shape-memory effect. Meanwhile, it can also be used to describe other important physical processes such as the diffusion of solvents in glassy polymers.

After mechanochemical reaction of hydrous cerium (III) chloride and citric acid with a little of ethanol followed by a subsequent calcination process at different temperature, cerium dioxide nanoparticles with fluorite structure were successfully prepared. Then the obtained ceria powders were characterized by means of X-ray diffractometer, specific surface area analyzer, scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscopy and laser particle analyzer. It was found that the degree of particle aggregation passed through a minimum with the calcination temperature rising from 400${}^{\circ }$C to 800${}^{\circ }$C, accompanied with growth of particle size. The ceria powders calcined at 500${}^{\circ }$C had an average aggregated particle size of 59.8nm with uniform spheroidal morphology, while their crystallite sizes ranged from 10nm to 20nm. Yet the product calcined at 400${}^{\circ }$C had the maximum specific surface area of 109.6m²/g. In polishing experiment, the ceria powders calcined at 500${}^{\circ }$C showed great polishing performances.

Gemini surfactants, composed of two surfactant monomers, are likely to self-assemble into viscoelastic fluids in water at low concentrations. Here, the aggregation behaviors of quaternary ammonium gemini surfactant with a hydroxyl group on the spacer (16-3OH-16) have been studied in the dilute aqueous system by rheological techniques, small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and other characterizations. At room temperature, the samples behave as elastic gels. The structure and morphology of gels were confirmed by SAXS and SEM characterizations. Due to the hydroxyl group on the spacer of 16-3OH-16, the gels are more stable than those formed by 16-3-16. At high temperature, the gels transform into wormlike micelles and behave as viscoelastic fluids. The obtained results would help to construct complexed fluids with structure tailorable gemini surfactants.

Hydrogels with different weight percent of $N$-hydroxylethyl acrylamide and $N$-(2-mannosylethyl) acrylamide were prepared, using $N$, $N^{\prime }$-methylenebis (acrylamide) (MBA) (1.0wt.%) and ammonium persulfate (APS) (1.0wt.%) as the crosslinker and initiator, respectively. The successful preparation of hydrogels was confirmed by both inverted vial test and rheological measurements. These hydrogels were grinded into nanogel powders and applied as a bromelain stabilizer against high temperature by measuring the proteolytic activities of bromelain, which increased from 47% to $>$95% under nanogel protection. This indicated that nanogels can be potentially applied as an enzyme stabilizer in food industry.