The synthesis of nano- structured cobalt through a controlled chemical process followed by heat treating at various temperatures is studied. The product is characterized by ICP, XRD, FESEM , and TEM, indicating that the as- synthesized particles have an amorphous structure with 1.76 for Co/B ratio, an average size of 50 nm. The transformation of intermediate phases into single phase nano- cryst...

Two separate coupling effects are evaluated with respect to steady-state potassium chloride (KCl) diffusion through a bentonite-based geosynthetic clay liner (GCL) that behaves as a semipermeable membrane. Both of the coupling effects are correlated with measured chemico-osmotic efficiency coefficients, omega, that range from 0.14 to 0.63 for the GCL. The first coupling effect is an explicit (t...

Cubosome dispersions are thermodinamically stable, bioadhesive and biocompatible.Because of their properties, cubosome are versatile systems, administrable by different ways such as orally, percutaneously and parenterally. The discovery of cubosomes is a unique story and spans the fields of food science, differential geometry, biological membranes, and digestive processes. Despite the early rea...

Unilever initiated a long-term research and capability development program in 2004 to evaluate and implement a new conceptual approach for assuring consumer safety without animal testing (Fentem et al., 2004, Westmoreland et al., 2010). Unilever’s approach for safety assessment is risk-based, meaning that all available data on a new ingredient (including predicted levels of consumer exposure du...

Environmental chemico-physical factors, pathogens and biological interactions constantly affect organism physiology and behaviour. Invertebrates, including bivalve molluscs do not possess acquired immunity. Their defence mechanisms rely on an innate, non-adaptive immune system employing circulating cells and a large variety of molecular effectors. The mechanisms underlying host defence depend o...

The need for alternatives to animal-based skin sensitization testing has spurred research on the use of in vitro, in silico, and in chemico methods. Glutathione and other select peptides have been used to determine the reactivity of electrophilic allergens to nucleophiles, but these methods are inadequate to accurately measure rapid kinetics observed with many chemical sensitizers. A kinetic sp...

Diabetes patients suffer from chronic disorders in the metabolism due to high blood sugar caused by anomalies in insulin excretion. Recently, vanadium compounds have been prepared and functionalized to decrease the level of hyperglycemia. Vitamin A boosts beta cell activity; therefore, the lack of this vitamin plays a role in the development of type 2 diabetes. The aim of this article focused o...

Pt/α-Fe2O3 nanocomposites were synthesized on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates by a sequential plasma enhanced-chemical vapor deposition (PE-CVD)/radio frequency (RF) sputtering approach, tailoring the overall Pt content as a function of sputtering time. The chemico-physical properties of the as-prepared systems were extensively investigated by means of complementary techniques, includ...