The kinetics of moisture uptake in a rigid gas-permeable contact lens material, Fluoroperm60, has been investigated. The free volume changes accompanied by the sorption of water were monitored using the positron lifetime spectroscopy (PLS) technique. The positron results indicated swelling in the initial stages of sorption and the filling of vacant free volume sites with water in the later stages of sorption. The sorption curve suggests that the diffusion process in this polymer follows the dual-mode sorption model. Using this model, it was possible to separate Fickian-controlled diffusion and relaxation-controlled diffusion. Furthermore, the positron results combined with the sorption results indicated that Fujita's free volume theory does not seem to be valid for the diffusion process in the present sample under study. The variation of the permeability as a function of the free volume suggests that the amount of water in a contact lens is a measure of its permeability.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685620260449705 | DOI Listing |
Int J Surg
January 2025
Aging Research Center, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Introduction: Lung function has been associated with cognitive decline and dementia, but the extent to which lung function impacts brain structural changes remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the association of lung function with structural macro- and micro-brain changes across mid- and late-life.
Methods: The study included a total of 37 164 neurologic disorder-free participants aged 40-70 years from the UK Biobank, who underwent brain MRI scans 9 years after baseline.
Reprod Fertil
January 2025
M Bazrgar, Department of Genetics, Reproductive Biomedicine Research Center, Royan Institute for Reproductive Biomedicine, ACECR, Tehran, Iran., Tehran, Iran (the Islamic Republic of).
It is believed that aneuploid embryos release cell-free DNA (cfDNA) into the blastocyst cavity during the self-correction process through the apoptotic mechanism. This study aimed to develop less invasive methods for predicting ploidy status by investigating how ploidy status affects blastocoel fluid DNA (BF-DNA) levels and apoptotic gene expression as indicators of embryo viability. Human blastocysts were classified into three groups; Survivable Embryo (SE), Fatal Single and double Aneuploidy (FSDA), and Multiple Aneuploidy (MA) using array comparative genomic hybridization (array-CGH) by trophectoderm (TE) biopsy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnal Chem
January 2025
Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, U.K.
Total free thiols are an important marker of the whole-body redox state, which has been shown to be associated with clinical outcome in health and disease. Recent investigations have suggested that increased insight may be gained by monitoring alterations of redox state in response to exercise and hypoxia and to monitor redox trajectories in disease settings. However, conducting such studies is challenging due to the requirement for repeated venous blood sampling and intensive lab work.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStruct Dyn
January 2025
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3135 N. Maryland Ave, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53211, USA.
There is a growing understanding of the structural dynamics of biological molecules fueled by x-ray crystallography experiments. Time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography (TR-SFX) with x-ray Free Electron Lasers allows the measurement of ultrafast structural changes in proteins. Nevertheless, this technique comes with some limitations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe expression of genomically-encoded information is not error-free. Transcript-error rates are dramatically higher than DNA-level mutation rates, and despite their transient nature, the steady-state load of such errors must impose some burden on cellular performance. However, a broad perspective on the degree to which transcript-error rates are constrained by natural selection and diverge among lineages remains to be developed.
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