No abstract

The in vivo applications of gas-core microbubbles have been limited by gas diffusion, rapid body clearance, and poor vascular permeability. To overcome these limitations, using a modified three-step emulsion process, we have developed a first-of-its-kind India ink incorporated optically-triggerable phase-transition perfluorocarbon nanodroplets (INDs) that can provide not only three types of contrast mechanisms—conventional/thermoelastic photoacoustic, phase-transition/nonlinear photoacoustic, and ultrasound imaging contrasts, but also a new avenue for photoacoustic effect mediated tumor therapy. Upon pulsed laser illumination above a relatively low energy threshold, liquid-gas phase transition of the INDs has been demonstrated both in vitro and in vivo, offering excellent contrasts for photoacoustic and ultrasound dual-modality imaging. With further increased laser energy, the nanodroplets have been shown to be capable of destructing cancer cells in vivo, presumably due to the photoacoustic effect induced shock-wave generation from the carbon particles of the incorporated India ink. The demonstrated results suggest that the developed multifunctional phase-transition nanodroplets have a great potential for many theranostic biomedical applications, including photoacoustic/ultrasound dual-modality molecular imaging and targeted, localized cancer therapy.

Despite being an ancient crop there is limited knowledge on the water and nitrogen (N) requirements of pomegranate. We conducted research at the University of California, Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center (KARE) to determine the water and N requirements of a developing pomegranate orchard. Pomegranate trees (Punica granatum L. var. Wonderful) were planted in 2010. The irrigation treatments were surface drip irrigation (DI) and subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) with three N sub-treatments (N application rates of 50, 100, and 150 % of current practice) and 5 replications in split-plot design. A weighing lysimeter located in the experimental field was used to automatically irrigate the orchard after 1.0 mm of measured crop water use. The trees received uniform application of fertilizers and water during the first two years of growth to insure uniform stand establishment prior to beginning the experiment. The pH of the irrigation water was maintained at 6.5+/-0.5 by injection of N as urea sulfuric acid (US-10; 10% N). Differential N treatments were started in 2012 and continued through the end of the project. Phosphorus (PO 4-P) was continuously injected during irrigation and potassium (K 2 T) was injected weekly. We report the results of the study from 2013 to 2015. From 2013 to 2015 the applied N ranged from 62 to 332 kg/ha and the total yields ranged from 33,144 to 57,769 kg/ha. There were no statistical differences in yield within any year related to total applied N. The yearly applied irrigation water increased as the plant size increased. The total water requirement is approximately 952 mm and the maximum daily water use was 10.5 mm. The DI irrigation application went from 645 mm to 932 mm and the SDI application increased from 584 mm to