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Biomimetic dopamine-conjugated polyaspartamides as novel adhesive materials were synthesized and characterized. These modified polyaspartamides contain three different groups combined with dopamine (DOPA), i.e., γ-amino butyric acid (GABA), ethanolamine (EA) and octylamine (OA), which are referred to as PolyAspAm (DOPA/GABA), PolyAspAm(DOPA/EA) and PolyAspAm(DOPA/OA), respectively. These three water-swollen polymer glues show good adhesion (0.1~0.4 MPa) with various daily-life materials (aluminum foil, glass and paper) as well as some plastic substrates (PET and PMMA). Compared to the polymers with more hydrophilic groups (GABA and EA), the polymer glue with the hydrophobic alkyl group (OA) exhibited higher adhesive strength values on most substrates. In addition, when applied to biological porcine skin, these glues demonstrated adhesion of values of 15~20 kPa with EA- and OA-conjugated polymers. These results suggest the great potential of dopamine-modified polyaspartamides as versatile and efficient polymeric glues for industrial and biomedical applications.

One-neutron knockout from 24O leading to the first excited state in 23O has been measured for a proton target at a beam energy of 62 MeV/nucleon. The decay energy spectrum of the neutron unbound state of 23O was reconstructed from the measured four momenta of the 22O fragment and emitted neutron. A sharp peak was found at E decay = 50 ± 3 keV , corresponding to an excited state in 23O at 2.78 ± 0.11 MeV , as observed in previous measurements. The longitudinal momentum distribution for this state was consistent with d-wave neutron knockout, providing support for a J π assignment of 5 / 2 + . The associated spectroscopic factor was deduced to be C 2 S ( 0 d 5 / 2 ) = 4.1 ± 0.4 by comparing the measured cross section ( σ − 1 n exp = 61 ± 6 mb ) with a distorted wave impulse approximation calculation. Such a large occupancy for the neutron 0 d 5 / 2 orbital is in line with the N = 16 shell closure in 24O.

Early and proper diagnosis of cancer is the most critical factor for the survival and treatment of veterinary cancer patients. In this study, we evaluated extracellular cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase A (ECPKA) level in serum as a useful cancer biomarker in dogs.ECPKA levels were detected in sera from dogs with cancers (n = 48), benign tumours (n = 18), and non-tumour diseases (n = 102) as well as healthy control dogs (n = 54) utilizing enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Sera from dogs bearing various types of cancer exhibited markedly increased levels of ECPKA by up to 7.1-, 8.8-, and 10.9-fold compared with those from dogs harbouring benign tumours, dogs with non-tumour diseases, and healthy control dogs, respectively (P .0001). In addition, serum ECPKA level did not show statistically significant correlation with gender, breed, or age of dogs or their non-cancerous disease conditions.Our data strongly propose that detection of serum ECPKA level is a potential and specific diagnostic tool for cancer in dogs.