Preparation of curcumin microemulsions with food-grade soybean oil/lecithin and their cytotoxicity on the HepG2 cell line.

The choice of surfactants and cosurfactants for preparation of oral formulation in microemulsions is limited. In this report, a curcumin-encapsulated phospholipids-based microemulsion (ME) using food-grade ingredients soybean oil and soybean lecithin to replace ethyl oleate and purified lecithin from our previous study was established and compared. The results indicated soybean oil is superior to ethyl oleate as the oil phase in curcumin microemulsion, as proven by the broadened microemulsion region with increasing range of surfactant/soybean oil ratio (approx. 1:1-12:1). Further preparation of two formula with different particle sizes of formula A (30nm) and B (80nm) exhibited differential effects on the cytotoxicity of hepatocellular HepG2 cell lines. At 15µM of concentration, curcumin-ME in formula A with smaller particle size resulted in the lowest viability (approx. 5%), which might be explained by increasing intake of curcumin, as observed by fluorescence microscopy. In addition, the cytotoxic effect of curcumin-ME is exclusively prominent on HepG2, not on HEK293, which showed over 80% of viability at 15µM. The results from this study might provide an innovative applied technique in the area of nutraceuticals and functional foods.

Bidirectional phase-modulated hybrid cable television/radio-over-fiber lightwave transport systems.

A bidirectional phase-modulated hybrid cable television/radio-over-fiber lightwave transport system employing fiber Bragg grating tilt filter as a phase modulation-to-intensity modulation conversion scheme is proposed and demonstrated. Impressive performances of carrier-to-noise ratio, composite second-order, composite triple-beat, and bit-error rate are obtained in our proposed systems over a combination of 40 km single-mode fiber-and 1.43 km photonic crystal fiber transmission.

Full-duplex lightwave transport systems employing phase-modulated RoF and intensity-remodulated CATV signals.

A full-duplex lightwave transport system employing phase-modulated radio-over-fiber (RoF) and intensity-remodulated CATV signals in two-way transmission is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The transmission performances of RoF and CATV signals are investigated in bidirectional way, with the assistance of only one optical sideband and optical single sideband (SSB) schemes at the receiving sites. The experimental results show that the limitation on the optical modulation index (OMI) of the downlink RoF signal can be relaxed due to the constant intensity of phase modulation scheme. Impressive transmission performances of bit error rate (BER), carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR), composite second-order (CSO), and composite triple-beat (CTB) were obtained over two 20-km single-mode fiber (SMF) links. This proposed system reveals an outstanding one with economy and convenience to be installed.

RoF transport systems with OSNR enhanced multi-band optical carrier generator.

A combination of an economic multi-band optical carrier generator and a novel optical signal to noise ratio (OSNR) enhancement circuit is proposed and demonstrated for radio over fiber (RoF) transport systems. Different from normal RoF transport systems which a central station (CS) needs multiple dedicate wavelength laser diodes (LDs) to support various base stations (BSs), the proposed scheme can employ a single LD to provide multiple optical carriers for various BSs. To verify this scheme, 8 coherent optical carriers are firstly generated using a single LD and a local oscillator (LO). Subsequently, their OSNR values are optimized by the developed OSNR enhancement circuit. An up to 15 dB OSNR enlargement in those optical carriers is experimentally achieved. To demonstrate the practice of the proposal, a pair of those optical carriers is employed to experimentally achieve frequency up-conversion process in a RoF transport system. Clear eye diagram and error free transmission reveal that with a proper carrier selector the proposed scheme can be employed to support multiple RoF transmissions. Furthermore, this proposal also presents a high possibility to achieve 60 GHz RoF transmission using a 10 GHz LO, a LD and a low frequency external modulator.

Simplified radio-over-fiber transport systems with a low-cost multiband light source.

In this Letter, low-cost radio-over-fiber (ROF) transport systems are proposed and experimentally demonstrated. By utilizing a laser diode (LD) and a local oscillator (LO) to generate coherent multiband optical carriers, as well as a self-composed wavelength selector to separate every two carriers for different ROF transport systems, no any other dedicated LD or electrical frequency upconverting circuit/process is needed in the central station (CS). Compared with current ROF systems, the required numbers of LDs, LOs, and mixers in a CS are significantly reduced. Reducing the number of components not only can simplify the network structure but can also reduce the volume and complexity of the relative logistics. To demonstrate the practice of the proposed ROF transport systems, clear eye diagrams and error-free transmission performance are experimentally presented.