Mechanistic Computational Modeling of Implantable, Bioresorbable Drug Release Systems.

Implantable, bioresorbable drug delivery systems offer an alternative to current drug administration techniques; allowing for patient-tailored drug dosage, while also increasing patient compliance. Mechanistic mathematical modeling allows for the acceleration of the design of the release systems, and for prediction of physical anomalies that are not intuitive and may otherwise elude discovery. This study investigates short-term drug release as a function of water-mediated polymer phase inversion into a solid depot within hours to days, as well as long-term hydrolysis-mediated degradation and erosion of the implant over the next few weeks.

Precision Milling of Carbon Nanotube Forests Using Low Pressure Scanning Electron Microscopy.

A nanoscale fabrication technique appropriate for milling carbon nanotube (CNT) forests is described. The technique utilizes an environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM) operating with a low pressure water vapor ambient. In this technique, a portion of the electron beam interacts with the water vapor in the vicinity of the CNT sample, dissociating the water molecules into hydroxyl radicals and other species by radiolysis.

Electrically Conductive Hierarchical Carbon Nanotube Networks with Tunable Mechanical Response.

Small diameter carbon nanotube (CNTs) are synthesized directly from a parent CNT forest using a floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. To support a new CNT generation from an existing forest, an alumina coating was applied to the CNT forest using atomic layer deposition (ALD). The new generation of small diameter CNTs (8 nm average) surround the first generation, filling the interstitial regions.

Modified Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac statistics if excitations are localized on an intermediate length scale: applications to non-Debye specific heat.

Disordered systems show deviations from the standard Debye theory of specific heat at low temperatures. These deviations are often attributed to two-level systems of uncertain origin. We find that a source of excess specific heat comes from correlations between quanta of energy if excitations are localized on an intermediate length scale.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LYMPH AND SERUM FERMENTS DURING PROTEIN SHOCK REACTIONS.

The relation of two phenomena involved in the mechanism of recovery following protein shock therapy is shown in these experiments to be due to changes that concern the lymph rather than the serum. The first of these, the increase in the rate of flow of the lymph, has been suggested by Teague and McWilliams as a possible factor in recovery from infection when due to bacteria proliferating in the lymph spaces and inaccessible to the antibodies of the serum (typhoid). By means of the protein shock, antibody-rich fluids (serum) are forced into the lymph channels.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SERUM AND LYMPH FERMENTS AFTER FEEDING.

In these experiments in which the lymph and serum ferments and antiferment have been studied separately, the changes that are found to occur are uniform and consistent. Possibly as a result of increased blood flow through the ferment-producing organs a moderate amount of protease is directly absorbed into the blood stream, but when intestinal digestion is actively under way this rapidly diminishes in extent. If any protease is absorbed during digestion from the gastrointestinal tract it is probably removed when it reaches the liver.