Stroke asymmetry of tilted superhydrophobic ion track textures.

The stroke asymmetry of contact angles of water drops on tilted hydrophobic textures is demonstrated, obtained by ion track etching followed by a hydrophobic treatment. Preliminary trends concerning the advancing and receding contact angles are established, each with and against stroke direction. In rough agreement with Cassie-Baxter theory, the cosines of these four contact angles depend linearly on the wetted area fraction. The etched tracks are randomly distributed on the surface of polycarbonate disks and inclined by 30 degrees with respect to the surface, whereby the aspect ratio of individual etched cones is larger than 10. The morphology of the resulting surface is characterized by randomly shaped flat tops overhanging on one side and gradually falling off on the other side. The area fraction of the supporting tops can be calculated from the number of impinging ions per unit area and the cross section of the etched ion tracks. The top layer of the texture consists of flat, horizontal, irregularly shaped tops supporting water drops in the Cassie-Baxter state. With increasing etching time, the texture becomes increasingly clefted. To fabricate the textures, we irradiated polycarbonate with 5 x 10(7) (80)Br(7+) ions/cm(2) of 30 MeV total energy (having a range of about 20 microm in polycarbonate) at a tilt angle of 30 degrees with respect to the sample surface and etched the latent ion tracks selectively. The textured surface is made hydrophobic by carbondifluoride radicals (CF(2)) resulting from the decay of octafluorocyclobutane, C(4)F(8), in a plasma reactor. The goal of the report is to show that the tilt orientation of a superhydrophobic surface leads to advancing and receding contact angles depending on the orientation with and against the stroke direction. In addition, a rotating movement is demonstrated qualitatively by floating a rotationally asymmetric disk on an ultrasonic bath, similarly treated after an irradiation with (1.2 +/- 0.4) x 10(7) (129)Xe(27+) ions/cm(2) of 8.3 MeV/nucleon at an angle of 45 degrees, whereby the superhydrophobic side of the disk points downward to the water of the ultrasonic bath.

A clinical study to assess the efficacy of Triyushnadi Anjana in Kaphaja Abhishyanda with special reference to vernal keratoconjunctivitis.

Vernal keratoconjunctivitis / spring catarrh is a variety of exogenous allergic conjunctivitis, which is a very troublesome ocular disease of childhood and in the adolescent age group. The child suffers from intense itching, grittiness, discharge, redness, lacrimation, photophobia, and so on, thereby, decreasing his learning hours. The troublesome features are aggravated in the spring season / hot climate that lasts for years together and rarely persists after adolescence. Mast cell stabilizers, topical Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and steroids are the available treatment options that too with symptomatic relief and potential side effects, which limits the long-term use of these medicines. The clinical picture of vernal keratoconjunctivitis / spring catarrh is very similar to Kaphaja Abhishyanda, and Triyushnadi Anjana Bhaishajya Ratnavali (B.R.), and its treatment was clinically tried on the patients attending the Netra Roga OPD of the R.G. Government P.G. Ayurveda College Hospital at Paprola (H.P.). A proper protocol and performa was adopted with strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. In the first phase, a pilot study was conducted on 38 clinically diagnosed patients with vernal keratoconjunctivitis, and it gave 100% relief in photophobia, foreign body (FB) sensation, and lacrimation, with marked relief in other features. Encouraged by this pilot work, Triyushnadi Anjana (TA) and 2% sodium cromoglycate (mast cell stabilizer) eye drops in the second-phase clinical trial on 32 patients were tried clinically to evaluate the comparative efficacy. In the second clinical trial, the patients were randomly divided into two groups and Group I was given sodium cromoglycate 2% eye drops and Group II was given TA. The outcome of this study verified the results of the first phase pilot study, and on comparison of the results of the two groups in the second clinical study it was observed that the TA-treated group showed better results. Transient irritation in the eyes was reported by all patients after application of TA, which was relieved by keeping the eyes closed for a few minutes. None of the patients reported any adverse action of the trial drug. Thus, it can be concluded that TA is a safe, cost-effective, and potent Ayurvedic alternative in the treatment of vernal keratoconjunctivitis / spring catarrh.

Myotube formation on micro-patterned glass: intracellular organization and protein distribution in C2C12 skeletal muscle cells.

Proliferation and fusion of myoblasts are needed for the generation and repair of multinucleated skeletal muscle fibers in vivo. Studies of myocyte differentiation, cell fusion, and muscle repair are limited by an appropriate in vitro muscle cell culture system. We developed a novel cell culture technique [two-dimensional muscle syncytia (2DMS) technique] that results in formation of myotubes, organized in parallel much like the arrangement in muscle tissue. This technique is based on UV lithography-produced micro-patterned glass on which conventionally cultured C2C12 myoblasts proliferate, align, and fuse to neatly arranged contractile myotubes in parallel arrays. Combining this technique with fluorescent microscopy, we observed alignment of actin filament bundles and a perinuclear distribution of glucose transporter 4 after myotube formation. Newly formed myotubes contained adjacently located MyoD-positive and MyoD-negative nuclei, suggesting fusion of MyoD-positive and MyoD-negative cells. In comparison, the closely related myogenic factor Myf5 did not exhibit this pattern of distribution. Furthermore, cytoplasmic patches of MyoD colocalized with bundles of filamentous actin near myotube nuclei. At later stages of differentiation, all nuclei in the myotubes were MyoD negative. The 2DMS system is thus a useful tool for studies on muscle alignment, differentiation, fusion, and subcellular protein localization.