ALBERT

Description: 〈p〉Many drug candidates fail therapeutic development because of poor aqueous solubility. We have conceived a computer-aided strategy to enable polymeric micelle-based delivery of poorly soluble drugs. We built models predicting both drug loading efficiency (LE) and loading capacity (LC) using novel descriptors of drug-polymer complexes. These models were employed for virtual screening of drug libraries, and eight drugs predicted to have either high LE and high LC or low LE and low LC were selected. Three putative positives, as well as three putative negative hits, were confirmed experimentally (implying 75% prediction accuracy). Fortuitously, simvastatin, a putative negative hit, was found to have the desired micelle solubility. Podophyllotoxin and simvastatin (LE of 95% and 87% and LC of 43% and 41%, respectively) were among the top five polymeric micelle-soluble compounds ever studied experimentally. The success of the strategy described herein suggests its broad utility for designing drug delivery systems.〈/p〉

Description: Optical control of states exhibiting macroscopic phase coherence in condensed matter systems opens intriguing possibilities for materials and device engineering, including optically controlled qubits and photoinduced superconductivity. Metastable states, which in bulk materials are often associated with the formation of topological defects, are of more practical interest. Scaling to nanosize leads to reduced dimensionality, fundamentally changing the system’s properties. In one-dimensional superconducting nanowires, vortices that are present in three-dimensional systems are replaced by fluctuating topological defects of the phase. These drastically change the dynamical behavior of the superconductor and introduce dynamical periodic long-range ordered states when the current is driven through the wire. We report the control and manipulation of transitions between different dynamically stable states in superconducting 3 -MoN nanowire circuits by ultrashort laser pulses. Not only can the transitions between different dynamically stable states be precisely controlled by light, but we also discovered new photoinduced hidden states that cannot be reached under near-equilibrium conditions, created while laser photoexcited quasi-particles are outside the equilibrium condition. The observed switching behavior can be understood in terms of dynamical stabilization of various spatiotemporal periodic trajectories of the order parameter in the superconductor nanowire, providing means for the optical control of the superconducting phase with subpicosecond control of timing.

Description: The CPOG Kugaluk N-02 well drilled east of Inuvik (the northern Mackenzie River valley) preserves an essentially complete stratigraphic record of the Devonian Landry Formation. Detailed examination of the core demonstrates that the contact between the Landry Formation and the overlying Headless Formation is gradational and conformable, recording upward deepening. The Landry Formation is 216 m thick and composed of characteristic metre-scale peritidal T-R sequences. The highstand end of the facies spectrum is composed of shallow-subtidal fossiliferous packstones, grainstones, and minor tabulate-coral boundstones. The shallowest marine parts of sequences are notably thick (30% of the total succession) and represented by laminated tidal-flat calcimudstones, calcisiltites, and birds-eye dismicrites with occasional supratidal brecciation. Rooted and synsedimentary pedogenized palustrine calcimudstones are recognized in initial-transgressive parts of sequences. The sequences are bounded by disconformities with paleokarst profiles of different depths and degree of host-rock weathering. The log combining lithofacies and subaerial exposure profiles reveals hierarchical 4 th to 5 th order cyclicity with inferred amplitudes of sea-level fluctuations ranging between 10 and 20 metres. This high-frequency cyclicity may have glacioeustatic origin, which is consistent with the relatively cool (22°C in average) surface tropical waters of the late Emsian–Givetian Ocean. The base of the Landry Formation is gradational and spatially diachronous, defined by a downward increase in dolomite content and limestone-dolostone interbedding. A thick paleosol near the base of Landy Formation may have potential for regional allostratigraphic correlations.