Magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) offers a means of doing this, which involves direct intratumoral injection of magnetic fluids into the target region, and then the particles are selectively heated in an externally applied alternating magnetic field (AMF). The technique uses the Curie temperature (Tc) of the magnetic material in magnetic response heating to achieve automatic temperature control and a constant temperature. Thus this technique could avoid overheating of the tissue. In vitro and in vivo experiments with magnetic fluids have documented significant antitumor effects in a murine model of liver cancer [1]. Heat also enhances the effectiveness of radiotherapy and magnifies the cytotoxicity of many anticancer drugs.

For this reason, hyperthermic treatment, alone or in combination with traditional anticancer treatments, is receiving a great deal of attention.Arsenic trioxide (As2O3), a kind of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has drawn researchers�� great interest due to its high efficacy in the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL). It also has been tested in some solid cancers, such as hepatocellular carcinoma [2], gastric carcinoma [3], breast cancer [4], etc. After intravenous or oral administration [5], As2O3 has been accompanied a series of side effects, such as skin reactions, gastrointestinal upset, hepatitis and even cardiotoxicity [6]. To make the best use of the drug and reduce the harmfulness to the body, it is very important to find a new form of As2O3 for clinical therapy.

In this study, As2O3 was integrated with Mn0.5Zn0.

5Fe2O4 nanoparticles, which have super-paramagnetic Batimastat characteristics. This feature is quite suitable for use in hyperthermia. On the one hand, a certain concentration of magnetic nanoparticles could absorb high power and transform it into heat in an alternating magnetic field, while barely damaging peripheric tissue. If used in vivo, the magnetic nanoparticles could be inducted in the target region by an external magnetic field. In this way, not only does the drug level in the tumor region rise, but also the drug dose decreases. Finally the nanosized As2O3/Mn0.5Zn0.

5Fe2O4 complex could Dacomitinib produce chemotherapy and thermotherapy effects at the same time.2.?Results and Discussion2.1. Characteristics of Mn0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 NanoparticlesFigure 1a shows an image of Mn0.5Zn0.5Fe2O4 nanoparticles acquired by TEM. It shows that they were nearly spherical, with high electron-density and uniform in size. The X-ray diffraction pattern of the ferrite sample is shown in Figure 1b. The observed diffraction lines were found to correspond to those of a standard manganese ferrite pattern, thereby indicating that the samples have spinel structure.

However, despite some reported success stories, there still exists the problem of the extraction of optimal sensor parameters theoretically due to a lack of precise extraction of mechanical parameters like shear modulis. In this paper, the Martin model was used to deal with the response analysis of a SXFA-coated chemical sensor, its shear modulus was determined experimentally by the inversion method. Then, referring to the Wang model [15], the response mechanism of the SXFA-coated chemical sensor was depicted in detail, including the polymer thickness and frequency effect on vapor adsorption, allowing optimal design parameter extraction.

Also, it is well known that the sensor performance, especially the threshold detection limit, depend, mainly on the frequency stability of the oscillator.

Thus, improvement of the frequency stability is another main topic of SAW chemical sensor research. Many groups have reported some success with SAW oscillators of different design for gas sensing. Schickfus et al. analyzed the effect of temperature changes, ageing of the transducer and the layer material on the frequency stability of the oscillator [18]. Hoyt et al. presented a way to improve the frequency stability of the oscillator, in which both of the dual delay line oscillators were modified with chemically sensitive interface materials to compensate for the noise and drift in SAW oscillator frequency and frequency associated with temperature effects on wave velocity in coating films [19].

Schmit et al. reported a rapid design of SAW oscillator electronics for sensor application with high frequency stability [20].

Jasel et al. reported the detailed design of oscillation circuits to improve the frequency stability of the oscillator Anacetrapib [21]. Also, in our previous work, a new SAW device for chemical sensing Batimastat design was done, in which electrode width controlled single-phase unidirectional transducers (EWC/SPUDT) and combed transducers were used to structure the SAW delay line, resulting in lower insertion loss and single oscillation frequency mode [13,14]. The frequency stability was improved effectively, however, to maintain the stable oscillator status, further work should be done for the oscillator including the SAW devices and oscillation circuit.

This is the second topic in this paper. Here, a delay line with frequency of 300 MHz and Al/Au metallization was fabricated; lower insertion loss less than 10 dB and single frequency oscillation were realized from the measured data. A new approach of phase modulation was also demonstrated, which make the oscillation occur at the lowest insertion loss point. Superior short-term freqency stability was obtained experimentally.

Over 50% of adults in the United States and over 40% of adults in Europe own a smartphone [1]. By 2016 it is expected that there will be one billion smartphone owners worldwide [2]. A smartphone is a mobile phone with a purposely built mobile operating system with advanced computing ability and interconnectivity compared with a standard mobile phone. Smartphones have more advanced Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for running third party applications. They also contain technology that standard phones lack, such as portable media players, digital cameras, GPS navigation systems and modern web browsers. One key feature provided by smartphones relevant to this work is access to embedded sensors, such as gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers.

When a series of wirelessly networked sensors are positioned on a human body, this is referred to as Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). Any sensor that can gather some form of physiological data can be integrated into a WBAN. Examples include piezoresistive sensors to measure breathing rate [3] and electrocardiograms used to measure heart rate. Physiological sensors integrated into a WBAN can be used for computer assisted rehabilitation [3], diagnosing illnesses and providing care for incurable conditions. WBANs promote non-invasive wireless monitoring, which allows patients to have increased levels of freedom. Subjects can be monitored constantly for symptoms at home, work or while on hospital grounds. WBANs also allow physiological changes in athletes to be monitored while they are in their preferred environment.

For instance, foot pressure insole technology allows track athletes to record foot pressure in their natural environment i.e., on the track, whereas previously pressure plate technology required the athlete to be in an unfamiliar scientific setting [4].Physiological data collected from WBANs can be used to ascertain the state and activity of a person independent of external infrastructure. This is called human activity recognition and it is important in various applications such as monitoring the health and security of the elderly who live alone for example, with a goal of improving their quality of life, freedom and safety [5]. One application that is beginning to receive attention is the benefit that activity recognition technology can give to athletes [6].

Here activity recognition can help athletes gather performance metrics quickly and easily, help physiotherapists identify possible injury concerns Dacomitinib and give coaches detailed information on their players’ fitness and ability.Much of the research completed in WBAN activity recognition has dealt with detecting everyday tasks such as eating, ascending and descending staircases, sitting, brushing teeth as well as motion activities such as walking, jogging and running [7�C9].

The AWC method is used to provide 3-dimensional atmospheric information from the GPV-MSM data matching those for the days of the selected JERS-1 interferometry pairs over the Nobi Plain, days when detailed upper level meteorological data are available. In the following, data sets and the analysis method are described in Section 2, research results and discussions are given in Sections 3 and 4, respectively, followed by concluding remarks in Section 5.2.?Data Sets and Analysis Method2.1. Ground Level DataFor our ground subsidence analyses, we use ground level data from surveys conducted on annual basis over the Nobi Plain since 1971 by the Land Subsidence Survey Committees of the three Prefectures (Aichi, Gifu and Mie) in the Tokai Region, at approxi
Physical health is usually assessed according to some health-related fitness components, like a morphological component, a muscular component, a motor component, a cardiorespiratory component and a metabolic component [1,2].

Among these components, the assessment of muscular components provides health information about muscles or muscle groups. The conventional muscular assessment, which is the essential requirement for the diagnosis of musculoskeletal disorders in rehabilitation and sports medicine, includes muscle strength, muscular endurance and explosive strength. Although flexibility is not categorized as a muscular component, it provides the physiological information about muscles and is another health index specifically designed for athletic performance and the capacity to carry out the daily activities.

As muscular flexibility is an important aspect of health, muscle tightness is frequently postulated as an intrinsic risk factor in the development of a common muscular dysfunction. This disorder is often accompanied by pain, muscle weakness, and restricted range of motion. Limited joint range of motion has been regarded as a predisposing factor in a number of lower limb injuries, including muscle strains, stress fractures [3], and patellofemoral syndrome [4]. Maintaining normal muscle length requires regular stretching to prevent Drug_discovery muscle stiffness and benefit from the decreased risk of musculoskeletal injuries and enhance exercise performance [5,6].The typical flexibility tests, including side bending and sit and reach, are the evaluations related to whole body flexibility.

The measurement of range of motion by goniometry performed around a joint center and surrounding body segments provides the regional flexibility. The calf muscle flexibility test is a simple indirect flexibility test, which usually requires a ruler or tape measure. The procedure is to ask a subject to stand flat footed the maximum distance away from the wall and also be able to bend the knee to touch the wall. The maximum distance from toe to the wall is the calf muscle flexibility.

The main applications of GASMAS for now involve mainly oxygen and water vapor, with absorption lines around 760 nm and 935 nm, respectively. The oxygen absorption lines are due to the transitions from the ground state X3��g? to the excited state b1��g+, with the strongest absorption cross-section in the order of 6 �� 10?23 cm?2/molecule. The water vapor absorption lines used are in the transition bands of (301)��(000). The strongest absorption cross section of water vapor in this region is about 2 �� 10?21 cm?2/molecule, which is about 30 times stronger than that for oxygen at 760 nm; however, to be noted, water vapor generally has much lower concentration in the context of human tissues and food packages. In the following discussions, we will use these two gases as sample gases in the following sections.

However, these applications can also be explored to other gases.4.?Pathlength Calibrated GASMASTraditional TDLAS applications normally measure the gas concentration using a well-defined gas cell with a known pathlength. On the other hand, if the gas concentration is known, the pathlength can be retrieved, as can be seen from Equation (3b). Based on this simple idea, one way is to simultaneously monitor another gas with known concentration, e.g., water vapor, the saturated concentration of which depends upon the temperature according to the Arden-Buck equation [44]. In this case, the pathlength for a water vapor absorption line can be obtained and is assumed to be the same as the pathlength for the gas of interest, e.g., oxygen. Thus, the target gas (oxygen) concentration can be retrieved.

This method was first demonstrated in [45] by using the LeqH2O of water vapor to calibrate LeqO2 of oxygen, and later utilized for oxygen and water vapor diagnosis in human sinuses and food packages [18,20,46]. Figure 3 shows GASMAS data for the right and left maxillary sinuses of a healthy volunteer. Although the values of the LeqO2 are different for the two sinuses, the same ratios are obtained after normalization on the corresponding values of LeqH2O, indicating the same oxygen concentration in both well ventilated sinuses. We note that data from a clinical study involving 40 patients, after being evaluated in this way, were found to be well correlated with the results obtained by X-ray computed tomography (CT) [47].

The method assumes that the scattering cross-sections involved in determining the path length for the light probing the different Cilengitide species are the same for both wavelengths used. This is only approximately true, in view of Mie and Rayleigh scattering theory, and for certain geometries large differences can occur.Figure 3.Experimental results of pathlength calibrated GASMAS with water vapor and oxygen for human left and right sinuses (Modified from [45]).

However, it is hard to define the reasonable ��energy�� function for each image. Angular texture signature (ATS) has also been improved to semi-automatically track road axes. Lin et al. [28] and Shen et al. [29] proposed the mean value and the entropy besides existing variance to measure the texture. As a result, ATS is capable of tracing the bright ribbon roads from SPOT imagery or tracing the dark ribbon roads from VHR COSMO SAR imagery. Minimum cost to follow a path was proposed by Shukla et al. [30]. Essentially, the minimum cost is similar to the ATS in the sense that it takes variance as a measure of texture. Another practical methodology is template matching. McKeown and Denlinger [31] introduced a semi-automatic road tracker based on profile correlations. This road tracker starts from some road seed points.

The profile matching technique compares a reference profile with the road profile at a pixel predicted to be on the road. The differences between the two profiles are measured by identifying two geometric parameters (shift and width) and two radiometric parameters (brightness and contrast). These parameters are estimated by minimizing the squared sum of the gray value differences between the profiles. Actually, the subsequent approaches essentially follow the same scheme as the above method. Vosselman and Knecht [1] improved the profile matching with a Kalman filter, Baumgartner et al. [25] also developed a human-computer interactive prototype system based on the above method. Zhou et al.

[32] used two profiles, one orthogonal to the road direction and the other parallel to the road direction, to enhance the robustness of the tracker and applied extended Kalman filter and particle filter to solve profile matching problems Carfilzomib for road tracking, and a prototype system for semi-automatic road extraction is also developed. Kim et al. [33] utilized a rectangular template instead of profile to track ribbon roads by least squares template matching from VHR satellite images. Zhao et al. [34] used rectangular template matching on the classified imagery and proposed another prototype. However, there are no reports on their applicability on VHR images finer than 0.2 m/pixel, and most of the road trackers mentioned above don’t operate well when they encounter irregular geometric deformations and radiometric changes due to the appearance of road junctions, material changes, occlusion from cars, shadows, lane markings etc. As a result, consecutive failure of the road tracker not only loses efficiency, but also increases the work required of the human operators.After reviewing the existing work on road extraction, it was realized that ATS, profile matching and rectangular template matching are practical to extract road networks.

2.1. Metrics for finding correspondence between two point cloudsAlthough the simplest method of estimating the surface normal vector is the first order three-dimensional plane fitting [33], the covariance matrix will be utilised in this paper since the first order plane fitting is equivalent to the eigenvalue problem of the covariance matrix. In addition, the covariance analysis provides additional geometric information such as curvature and its higher order derivatives. Let pi be the coordinates of ith point in a point cloud and note that a bold letter represents a matrix or a vector. The covariance of a point and its k neighbour points is expressed as:COV(pi)=1k��m=1krmrmT=��l=02��lelelT(1)where rm = pi ? pcentorid, pcentroid, pcentroid is the centroid of the k neighbourhood and el is the eigenvector of the (l+1)th smallest eigenvalue.

Since COV(pi) is a real, positive and semi-definite matrix, its eigenvalue are always greater than or equal to zero [18]. The eigenvector of the minimum eigenvalue is the estimated normal vector of the surface formed by pi and its neighbourhood. The other eigenvectors are the tangential vectors of the surface and if the minimum eigenvalues are close to zero, and then the surface consisting of a point and its neighbourhood is geometrically flat. If all eigenvalues are similar, then the surface is a round-shape and locally well distributed. One can find details of other methods based on the covariance analysis for 3D point clouds in [37].There are many ways to define geometric curvature, e.g.

through Gaussian and mean curvatures or using the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix [15]. It is preferable to estimate curvature directly by using points without any pre-process such as triangulation and surface fitting since it is faster to use the neighbourhood of a point than to utilise the connectivity information provided by triangulation. Hoppe et al. [22] proposed a covariance analysis method for the estimation of the normal vector with consistent orientation. The covariance analysis method has been also utilised for the estimation of local curvature estimation using the ratio between the minimum eigenvalue and the sum of the eigenvalues. Definition of local curvature proposed by Hoppe et al. [22] is used in this paper and this method estimates the first order differential of local surface rather than local curvature itself.Each eigenvalue of the covariance matrix represents the spatial variation along the direction of the corresponding eigenvector. The curvature approximation quantifies AV-951 the percentage of variance attributed by surface deviation from the tangential plane formed by e1 and e2.

The laser light intensity modulated by the FBG subjected to the sound pressure is detected by a fast photodiode.Indeed, in the transmission mode and by working on the edge of the grating spectrum, the transmitted optical power Pt is directly related to the sound pressure according to the following expression:Pt(t)=Pi[T0+?T?��0?��0?pP(t)](3)where Pi is the incident optical power, T0 is the transmission value at FWHM, ?T/?��0 and ?��0/?p represent the edge slope of the grating spectral response and the wavelength sensitivity to the pressure, respectively. Yet, in order to achieve the maximum sensitivity and dynamic range, the laser wavelength should be set in correspondence of the full width at half maximum (FWHM), on either the longer or shorter wavelength side of the spectrum curve.

It is seen from Equation 3 that the ac component of the transmitted light power is proportional to the sound pressure experienced by the FBG. Thus, the detection of the light with a photodiode provides an electrical output directly proportional to the acoustic field in the water. From the resulting temporal waveform, the amplitude, the frequency and the phase of the field can easily be measured after a proper calibration procedure.The experimental set-up is shown in Figure 1. Field trials have been carried out in a professional tank at the Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquei’s laboratory. The tank size was 11 �� 5 m, and its depth was 7 m. The sensor’s symmetry axis was orthogonally to the direction of propagation of the acoustic wave. A piezoelectric hydrophone has been used as reference.

A computer-controlled scanning stage that allows independent translations in X, Y and Z directions and rotations about the vertical axis is used to place the optical fiber hydrophone.Figure 1.Lateral view of the experimental set-up.4.?Results and DiscussionIn this section, we report a series of measurements carried out to evaluate the sensitivity, the linearity and the resolution of the FBG-based hydrophone coated with materials of different geometrical and acousto-mechanical properties and to compare Anacetrapib the obtained performances with a reference PZT hydrophone.The first comparison is between two hydrophones with the FBGs (one characterized by a central wavelength of 1,554.20 nm and a FWHM of 0.5 nm and the other by a central wavelength of 1,547.6 nm and a FWHM of 0.45 nm) embedded in a material of cylindrical geometry with diameter of 4 mm and length of 25 mm exhibiting an elastic modulus of ~100 MPa and in a material (the Damival 13650) of spherical geometry with diameter of 4.4 cm (exhibiting elastic modulus lower than 100 Mpa and acoustic impedance that matches that of water), respectively (see Figure 2).Figure 2.

Improving the science and conservation of coral reef ecosystems, such as the significant fish-habitat relationship, is often the objective of marine ecology, and also is an important facet in the application of IKONOS imagery [21]. Harborne et al. examined intra-habitat variability in coral-reef fish by mapping habitat het
The resonant mirror (RM) setup is a leaky waveguide structure that first became commercially available as IAsys in 1993 by Fisons Applied Sensor Technologies [16]. Although the commercial availability of this instrument was recently discontinued, it is still important to note its application and contribution to the field.

The RM configuration is similar to SPR��s Kretschmann configuration, but differs in that RM relies on coupling of incident light through a prism with a high-index dielectric layer, rather than a metal surface, Figure (3).

This replacement combines the simple structure of SPR systems with the enhanced sensitivity of waveguide structures to produce sharper resonance peaks than SPR [58], thereby increasing the sensitivity of the technique. As light passes through the prism to a low-index medium, it couples with the high-index resonant layer, thereby allowing total internal reflection to occur at the boundary of the sensing layer. Similar to SPR, resonance only occurs when the angle of the incident light and the resonant modes in the high-index layer are phase-matched, resulting in strong reflection at the output.

Any change in the refractive index of the biological layer at the surface corresponds to a change in the angle of light that satisfies this resonance condition [59,60].

Although the waveguide structure of the RM allows for both TM and transverse electric (TE) resonances (with different angles) to occur, generally only one is physically measured since TM and TE modes diverge when adjusting the thickness of the resonant structure for optimal sensitivity AV-951 [60].Figure 3.Schematic of a resonant mirror biosensor. Light reflected from a prism is coupled to a resonant structure (low and high index coupling layers) to produce an evanescent wave at the sensing surface. Light is then reflected out of the prism and a detector …

Identical to SPR, RM has been used to monitor many different molecular interactions of macromolecules [61�C64] and has parallel capabilities in terms of surface modifications. The cuvette structure of the RM biosensor, however, provides an advantage over flow through microfluidic Drug_discovery systems commonly used in SPR when sample conservation is imperative. Use of a stirring bar in the cuvette is also helpful since the constant mixing limits mass transport effects [16].4.

SPR allows the kinetic parameters of the molecular interaction to be determined, but it is also used for quantitative kinase inhibitor Axitinib purposes, i.e. for the determination of unknown concentrations of analytes in complex samples. The significant advantage over other biophysical approaches is that the interaction is studied in real time and without the need of labelling. The method is very sensitive, as concentrations in the picomolar range may be determined. The limit for the detection is around 200 Da, depending from the instrument used. Smaller molecules may also be detected with competition type assay or by including one or more amplification steps, which lowers the sensitivity of detection to femtomolar levels [17]. Finally, the technology can be included in portable instruments [18�C20].

Field detection is desirable in Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries monitoring and identification of biological agents as well as environmental pollutants. The portable SPR platforms were among other included in detection of ricin [21], enterotoxin B [22], 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid [23] and atrazine [24].Biosensors based on SPR utilize a thin metal film between two transparent media of different refractive index, e.g. a glass prism and sample solution. Gold is preferably used in many SPR refractometers. A plane-polarized Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries light beam entering the higher refractive index medium (glass prism) can undergo total internal refraction above a critical angle of incidence. Under these conditions, an electromagnetic field component of the light, the evanescent wave, will penetrate into the gold film.

At a specific angle of incidence, interaction of this wave with free oscillating electrons at the gold film surface will cause the excitation of surface plasmons, resulting subsequently in a decrease in the reflected light intensity. This phenomenon is called surface plasmon resonance Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries and occurs only at a specific angle of incident light. SPR system thus detects changes in the refractive Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries index of the surface layer of a solution in contact with the sensor chip (Figure 1A).Figure 1.(A and B) The angle of the minimum of reflected intensity shifts when one molecule binds to the other one attached to the surface of the gold layer and, therefore, changes the refractive index of solution. In the SPR biosensor terminology the molecule …SPR is observed as a sharp dip in reflected intensity at a certain angle, which is dependent on the refractive index of the medium on the non-illuminated side of the surface.

This angle shifts when biomolecules bind to the surface and change the refractive index of the surface layer Batimastat (Figure 1B). The sensorgram is a plot of the SPR angle against time, and displays the real-time progress of the interaction at the sensor surface (Figure 1C). Most of the SPR biosensors utilize response units (RU). The signal is proportional to the amount of the bound molecule (Figure 2). For proteins it was estimated that approximately selleck bio 1,000 RU corresponds to surface coverage of 1 ng/mm2 [25].