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On-body health monitoring involves continuous sensing and wireless data transmissions, which severely impacts the battery life of wearable devices. However, rapid advances in kinetic energy harvesting (KEH) soon might obviate the need for battery recharging or replacement by harnessing human motion energy. The authors discuss the challenges and opportunities of KEH technology to help realize the ultimate vision of fully autonomous IoT-based healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to effectively delivering therapeutic agents, including γ-secretase inhibitors (GSIs), into live cells, remains a significant challenge. This study assessed the effect of Notch signaling inhibition by examining levels of the Notch1 intracellular domain (N1ICD) in cultured oral cancer cells analyzed with random stitched images (2D) and 3D visualizations using confocal microscopy and quantitative gene analysis. Substantially, we have developed a novel method to assist the delivery of γ-secretase inhibitor, DAPT, into live cells in the presence of an effective minimum concentration of Triton-X100 (0.001%) without damaging cell activity and membrane integrity assessed with cell proliferation assays. The images obtained in this study showed that DAPT alone could not block the γ-secretase inhibitor despite inhibiting cell growth. Further analysis of quantitative gene expressions of Notch signaling canonical pathway to verify the effectiveness of the novel method for delivering inhibitor into live cells, displayed deregulation of Notch1, Delta-like ligand 1 (DLL1) and hairy and enhancer of split 1 (Hes1). Our data suggest that Notch1/Hes1 signaling pathway is deactivated using DAPT with a low dose of Triton-X100 in this cancer cells. And the finding also suggests that Notch1 could be engaged by DLL1 to promote differentiation in oral cancer cells. Using this approach, we demonstrate that Triton-X100 is a promising and effective permeabilization agent to deliver γ-secretase inhibitor DAPT into live oral epithelial cells. This strategy has the potential to implicate in the treatment of cancer diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and development of efficient TiO 2 -based, hybrid, nanostructured photocatalysts has recently been receiving substantial attention for environmental remediation due to their excellent physiochemical properties. This article provides an overview of the synthesis strategies and characteristics of the next-generation TiO 2 -based hybrid photocatalysts, produced in combination with polymers (e.g., polyaniline, polypyrrole, polythiophene) and carbon nanomaterials (e.g., graphene, GO, CNT, carbon quantum dots, carbon nitride). The structural aspects, nanostructure formation process, parameters affecting catalytic activity, photocatalytic mechanisms and photocatalytic applications of TiO 2 -based catalysts for efficient photocatalytic degradation of gaseous/volatile organic pollutants in water/air are reviewed. Further, current research trends, means to increase catalytic performance and future prospects of high-performance TiO 2 -based hybrid photocatalytic materials, are briefly summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Free-standing composite films based on graphene/polyaniline (PANI) nanostructure were synthesized for supercapacitor application. First, polyaniline nanospheres were prepared by microemulsion polymerization, followed by the incorporation of graphene oxide nanosheets by hierarchical organization. The cationic PANI nanospheres were attached to the anionic GO sheets by electrostatic interaction and hierarchical deposition of GO/PANI nanostructures on a membrane filter via targeted self-assembly. Subsequent in situ chemical reduction of GO using hydroiodic acid produced well-defined graphene/PANI nanostructures having interpenetrating network with 3D open structure. The in situ GO reduction enabled keeping the hierarchical organization intact. The flexible graphene/PANI film produced was tested as a supercapacitor electrode using voltammograms and Nyquist analysis. The electro-capacitance of the film (448F/g) was enhanced by 60% through the synergistic combination of graphene and PANI nanostructures. About 81% capacity retention was achieved for the composite compared to 38% for PANI alone after subjecting the samples to 5000 cyclic operations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background. For the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis in Bangladesh, single dose liposomal amphotericin B (ambisome) is supposed to be the safest and most effective treatment. Specific needs for application and storage raise questions about feasibility of its implementation and acceptance by patients and health staff. Methods. The study was carried out in the most endemic district of Bangladesh. Study population includes patients treated with ambisome or miltefosine, hospital staff, and a director of the national visceral leishmaniasis program. Study methods include direct observation (subdistrict hospitals), open interviews (heath staff and program personnel), structured questionnaires, and focus group discussions (patients). Results. Politicalcommitment for ambisome is strong; the general hospital infrastructure favours implementation but further strengthening is required, particularly for drug storage below 25°C (refrigerators), back-up energy (fuel for generators), and supplies for ambisome administration (like 5% dextrose solution). Ambisome created high satisfaction in patients and hospital staff, less adverse events, and less income loss for patients compared to miltefosine. Conclusions. High political commitment, general capacities of sub district hospitals, and high acceptability favour the implementation of ambisome treatment in Bangladesh. However, strengthening of the infrastructure and uninterrupted supplies of essential accessories is mandatory before introducing sLAB in Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] 90+% FLG graphene nanosheets synthesized in aqueous phase via single step. [•] Ultrasonication and surfactant concentration optimized to maximize exfoliation. [•] Graphene/polystyrene nanocomposite prepared via one-pot emulsion polymerization. [•] Characterizations include UV–vis, TEM, Raman, XRD, FTIR, TGA, EIS, CV. [•] Composite potential applications target sensing and catalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Packet loss in vehicular networks can undermine the effectiveness of communication-based accident prevention systems. Traditionally, retransmission has been used to combat packet loss in communication networks. However, retransmission overhead is known to increase channel congestion in dense wireless vehicular networks, which increases the likelihood of packet loss due to collisions, limiting the loss recovery capacity of the retransmission algorithm. This paper presents a low-overhead retransmission algorithm called blind xor (BXOR). By xoring multiple packets into a single retransmission, BXOR recovers an increased number of lost packets per retransmission. BXOR keeps the overhead low by not trying to learn the loss status of the receivers via feedback, rather, which packets to xor are blindly decided by the retransmitter alone. It is mathematically proved that BXOR can outperform existing retransmission methods if the conditional reception probability (CRP) of the xored packets is greater than 0.5. The performance is maximized by xoring an optimal number of packets, which is a function of the CRP. It is also proved that there is a negative performance if BXOR is exercised for a CRP of less than 0.5. Guided by the analytical results, we propose a practical BXOR protocol, which opportunistically exercises the xor operation based on the current estimation of the CRP. Simulation experiments confirm that, within a 110-m radius of the original packet transmitter, BXOR can reduce the packet reception failure rate by up to 60% of the rates achievable by previously proposed retransmission algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Presents information on a study which discussed the services, challenges and products for Internet telephony. Applications and services; Technical challenges faced by Internet telephony; Products and market segments; Conclusions.

Multi-color emissive carbon dots (CDs) with intrinsic ternary doping were synthesized by a hydrothermal process from a single precursor, vitamin B1 derivative, thiamine pyrophosphate or ThPP. The origin of the multi-color photoluminescence was ascribed to the hybrid doping (N, S, P) in a carbon framework. The subsequent conjugation of CDs with folic acid (FA) enabled targeted bioimaging and photosensitization of the human melanoma cancer cells, SK-MEL28. The unique excitation-dependent multi-color emission of CD-FA probes allowed wide spectral resolution and targeting for amplified whole cell bioimaging including the nucleus. The photosensitization of cancer cells in the multi-color window was accomplished in a deep tissue cell culture setting. The synthesized CD-FAs showed excellent biocompatibility, photostability, and notably, their cellular targeting with enhanced uptake by folate receptor positive (FR +) cancer cells, SK-MEL28 over folate receptor negative (FR-), HEK293T ones in a co-culture model having both diseased and normal cells. The results demonstrate excellent potential for melanoma diagnostic, mapping and phototherapeutic applications with multi-spectral sensitivity. Image 1 • Excitation-dependent multispectral ternary doped carbon dots derived from vitamin B. • Carbon dot enabled enhanced bioimaging of whole cell including nucleus. • Photosensitization enabled with multi-color window in deep tissue setting. • Enhanced targeting of FR + cancer cells over normal and FR-cells in mixed system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of nanomaterials into biopolymeric matrices followed by three-dimensional printing is poised to open new horizons in tissue engineering by generating customized 3D structures with optimized properties and multifunctionality. In this review, we present an overview on nanostructured ceramic, metal, carbon and polymer materials integrated with hard and soft forms of biopolymers for manufacturing both acellular and cellular 3D tissue constructs using a range of 3D-printing and bioprinting techniques. Property enhancements and emergence of new functional characteristics of biopolymeric composites with the incorporation of nanomaterials, followed by 3D printing are of particular interest. Several methods, including fused deposition modelling, stereolithography, selective laser sintering and bioprinting using droplet, laser and extrusion assisted techniques are presented. Significant modifications via surface functionalization, biodegradation of scaffolds and the cytotoxicity of nanocomposites are discussed. The results derived from in vitro and in vivo analysis of stem cells and 3D printed scaffolds, their interactions and degradations are highlighted. Advances with multiple nanomaterials are also discussed with the advantages of harnessing the potential of 3D printing to produce unique multifunctional nanocomposites for tissue engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show how the absorption and re-radiation energy from molecules in the air can influence the Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) performance in high-frequency bands, e.g., millimeter wave (mmWave) and terahertz. In more detail, some common atmosphere molecules, such as oxygen and water, can absorb and re-radiate energy in their natural resonance frequencies, such as 60 GHz, 180 GHz and 320 GHz. Hence, when hit by electromagnetic waves, molecules will get excited and absorb energy, which leads to an extra path loss and is known as molecular attenuation. Meanwhile, the absorbed energy will be re-radiated towards a random direction with a random phase. These re-radiated waves also interfere with the signal transmission. Although, the molecular re-radiation was mostly considered as noise in literature, recent works show that it is correlated to the main signal and can be viewed as a composition of multiple delayed or scattered signals. Such a phenomenon can provide non-line-of-sight (NLoS) paths in an environment that lacks scatterers, which increases spatial multiplexing and thus greatly enhances the performance of MIMO systems. Therefore in this paper, we explore the scattering model and noise models of molecular re-radiation to characterize the channel transfer function of the NLoS channels created by atmosphere molecules. Our simulation results show that the re-radiation can increase MIMO capacity up to 3 folds in mmWave and 6 folds in terahertz for a set of realistic transmit power, distance, and antenna numbers. We also show that in the high SNR, the re-radiation makes the open-loop precoding viable, which is an alternative to beamforming to avoid beam alignment sensitivity in high mobility applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biocompatible and photostable fluorescent probes are crucial yet challenging to develop for visualising and tracking biological functions and interactions that occur in living organisms. We synthesised biocompatible CQDs with 15% QY and tested them for cellular and scaffold imaging at variable depths. The CQDs, synthesised from collagen under controlled and benign conditions in a hydrothermal reactor, were characterised for their key physicochemical properties. The fluorescence characteristics were determined using two-photon microscopy, and based on our results we propose a mechanism for CQD luminescence by combining the carbogenic core and edge-effect contributions to the PL behaviour. The bioimaging of cells embedded in a luminescent 3D printed scaffold showed that CQDs enable imaging at depths of about 1500 μm under biomimetic conditions. Real-time videography and imaging tests showed differential visualisation of individual cells and scaffold. The excellent photostability and non-photobleaching characteristics of CQDs make them suitable for long-term whole cell and tissue imaging via multi-photon microscopy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remotely triggered drug delivery using nanoparticles is an area of great interest for targeted therapy to fight cancer. In this work, we synthesized photoresponsive nanoparticles to remotely initiate the delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) to 3D cultured human breast cancer cells (MCF-7) via NIR two-photon excitation (TPE) using nitrogen-doped and surface passivated (PEG 200 ) carbon nanohybrid dots (CNDs). On-demand drug delivery relies on bio-compatible, photo-responsive nano-carriers with high quantum yields. A facile (5 min synthesis) one-pot hot plate method was used to synthesize functionalized and surface passivated carbon nanohybrid dots (CND-P) having 53% quantum yield (QY). Compared to CNDs prepared from citric acid (CND-C) and citric acid plus urea (CND-N), CND-P had QY enhanced by factors of 12.6 and 4.4, respectively. The up-converted emission intensity of CND-P was strengthened by a factor of 4.5 over that of CND-N from nitrogen doped CNDs for similar test conditions (wavelength, excitation power and concentration). The drug loading capacity of CND-P was measured to be 0.98 w/w with the ability to release DOX via two-photon excitation (TPE). Intense green luminescence was observed under both 360 and 780 nm lasers using single and two-photon excitations. The highly biocompatible CND-P showed 88% cell viability at concentrations as high as 1100 µg/mL. The combined chemo- and photothermal therapeutic effect of the DOX-loaded CND-P (CND-P@DOX) complex resulted in the death of 78% of the MCF-7 cells compared to 59% with DOX alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chiral metasurfaces exhibit extraordinary capabilities of steering polarization of electromagnetic waves; and hence offering enormous potential in development of ultrathin components for advanced photonic technologies such as quantum computing and communication, imaging, optical memories and logics. These structures are realized by periodically arranged subwavelength resolved artificial elements (metaelements). Metaelements are mainly metallic, dielectric or metal-dielectric based and their fabrication is a daunting task due to the associated complex fabrication methodologies involving serial, time-consuming processes and sophisticated instrumentation, hence limiting the growth, and application of these metasurfaces to its true potential. To mitigate these issues, we exploited the single-step fabrication capabilities of two-photon polymerization based lithography to generate a range of all-carbon-based dielectric chiral metasurfaces in a carbon-polymer nanocomposite resin. Additionally, theoretical responses of these structures are also calculated. These structures derive their responses from structural chirality. With the advantages of single-step fabrication of any arbitrary structure with sub-wavelength resolved features, along with the capability of rapid prototyping in the proposed material system; this work holds a great potential towards generation of all-carbon metamaterials and 3D metasurfaces for several advanced photonic and optical technologies. [Display omitted] • Two-photon active acrylate-carbon nanocomposites. • Additive manufacturing of chiral metasurfaces. • Optically active two- and three-dimensional micro/nanostructures. • Sub-wavelength resolved features via maskless, single step processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porous nitrogen-doped graphene samples were synthesized and tuned via pyrolysis of solid nitrogen precursor dimethyl-aminoterephthalate with graphene oxide as template. Our investigations show that the extent of thermal treatment, total concentration of nitrogen and the nature of nitrogen moieties play important roles in enhancing oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and CO 2 uptake. N-doped graphene synthesized at 650 °C (NG-650) with specific BET surface area of 278 m 2 /g, exhibits enhanced CO 2 sorption capacity of 4.43 mmol/g (at 298 K, 1 bar) with exceptional selectivity (CO 2 :N 2 = 42) and cyclic regeneration stability. In contrast, nitrogen-doped graphene synthesized at 750 °C (NG-750) demonstrated excellent catalytic activity for ORR via favourable 4e − transfer, performance stability with tests conducted up to 5000 cycles, and is unaffected by methanol cross-over effect. Thus, NG-750 shows potential to replace metal-based electrodes for fuel cell application. The comparative results for ORR with non-doped and nitrogen-doped graphene electrodes showed that graphitic nitrogen sites play vital role in enhancing catalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For UAV-aided wireless systems, online path planning attracts much attention recently. To better adapt to the real-time dynamic environment, for the first time, we propose a Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS)-based path planning scheme. In details, we consider a single UAV acts as a mobile server to provide computation tasks offloading services for a set of mobile users on the ground, where the movement of ground users follows a Random Way Point model. Our model aims at maximizing the average throughput under energy consumption and user fairness constraints, and the proposed time-saving MCTS algorithm can further improve the performance. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves a larger average throughput and a faster convergence performance compared with the baseline algorithms of Q-learning and Deep Q-Network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fischer–Tropschsynthesis, a major process for convertingnatural gas to liquid hydrocarbons (GTL), suffers from selectivitylimitations that refer to the ratio of highly useful hydrocarbonsto the total product output. Existing strategies for selectivity improvement,such as manipulation of reactor operating conditions (temperature,pressure, etc.) and catalyst design variables may be classified astop-down approaches. In this work, a bottom-up approach is proposedin which surface processes can be controlled via a nanosensor network(NSN) involving the turning on or off of elementary steps creatingundesired species and redirection of surface efforts to step(s) leadingto the desired products. The overall effect of these nanolevel communicationsoffers superior selectivity to that hitherto possible by reducingthe rate of hydrogenation of surface unsaturated species to paraffin(HTP) reactions. Our numerical and simulation results confirm substantialimprovement of overall selectivity in a catalyst that is equippedwith a highly reliable NSN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperative positioning (CP) can potentially improve the accuracy of vehicle location information, which is vital for several road safety applications. Although concepts of CP have been introduced, the efficiency of CP under real-world vehicular communication constraints is largely unknown. Our simulations reveal that the frequent exchange of large amounts of range information required by existing CP schemes not only increases the packet collision rate of the vehicular network but reduces the effectiveness of the CP as well. To address this issue, we propose simple easily deployable protocol improvements in terms of utilizing as much range information as possible, reducing range broadcasts by piggybacking, compressing the range information, tuning the broadcast frequency, and combining multiple packets using network coding. Our results demonstrate that, even under dense traffic conditions, these protocol improvements achieve a twofold reduction in packet loss rates and increase the positioning accuracy of CP by 40%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Microneedle arrays have recently received much attention as cancer detection and treatment platforms, because invasive injections and detection of the biopsy are not needed, and drug metabolism by the liver, as well as adverse effects of systemic drug administration, are diminished. Microneedles have been used for diagnosis, vaccination, and in targeted drug delivery of breast cancer. In this review, we summarize the recent progress in diagnosis and targeted drug delivery for breast cancer treatment, using microneedle arrays to deliver active molecules through the skin. The results not only suggest that health and well-being of patients are improved, but also that microneedle arrays can deliver anticancer compounds in a relatively noninvasive manner, based on body weight, breast tumor size, and circulation time of the drug. Moreover, microneedles could allow simultaneous loading of multiple drugs and enable controlled release, thus effectively optimizing or preventing drug-drug interactions. This review is designed to encourage the use of microneedles for diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, by describing general properties of microneedles, materials used for construction, mechanism of action, and principal benefits. Ongoing challenges and future perspectives for the application of microneedle array systems in breast cancer detection and treatment are highlighted. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bioprinting technique with specialized tissue production allows the study of biological, physiological, and behavioral changes of cancerous and non-cancerous tissues in response to pharmacological compounds in personalized medicine. To this end, to evaluate the efficacy of anticancer drugs before entering the clinical setting, tissue engineered 3D scaffolds containing breast cancer and derived from the especially patient, similar to the original tissue architecture, can potentially be used. Despite recent advances in the manufacturing of 3D bioprinted breast cancer tissue (BCT), many studies still suffer from reproducibility primarily because of the uncertainty of the materials used in the scaffolds and lack of printing methods. In this review, we present an overview of the breast cancer environment to optimize personalized treatment by examining and identifying the physiological and biological factors that mimic BCT. We also surveyed the materials and techniques related to 3D bioprinting, i.e , 3D bioprinting systems, current strategies for fabrication of 3D bioprinting tissues, cell adhesion and migration in 3D bioprinted BCT, and 3D bioprinted breast cancer metastasis models. Finally, we emphasized on the prospective future applications of 3D bioprinted cancer models for rapid and accurate drug screening in breast cancer. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the application of the flying Drone Base Stations (DBS) in order to improve the network performance. Given the high degrees of freedom of a DBS, it can change its position and adapt its trajectory according to the users movements and the target environment. A two-hop communication model, between an end-user and a macrocell through a DBS, is studied in this work. We propose Q-learning and Deep Q-learning based solutions to optimize the drone's trajectory. Simulation results show that, by employing our proposed models, the drone can autonomously fly and adapts its mobility according to the users' movements. Additionally, the Deep Q-learning model outperforms the Q-learning model and can be applied in more complex environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a system based on pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) for localization of networked mobile users, which relies only on sensors embedded in the devices and device- to-device connectivity. The user trajectory is reconstructed by measuring step by step the user displacements. Though step length can be estimated rather accurately, heading evaluation is extremely problematic in indoor environments. Magnetometer is typically used, however measurements are strongly perturbed. To improve the location accuracy, this paper proposes a novel cooperative system to estimate the direction of motion based on a machine learning approach for perturbation detection and filtering, combined with a consensus algorithm for performance augmentation by cooperative data fusion at multiple devices. A first algorithm filters out perturbed magnetometer measurements based on a-priori information on the Earth's magnetic field. A second algorithm aggregates groups of users walking in the same direction, while a third one combines the measurements of the aggregated users in a distributed way to extract a more accurate heading estimate. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach that combines machine learning with consensus algorithms for cooperative PDR. Compared to other methods in the literature, the method has the advantage of being infrastructure-free, fully distributed and robust to sensor failures thanks to the pre-filtering of perturbed measurements. Extensive indoor experiments show that the heading error is highly reduced by the proposed approach thus leading to noticeable enhancements in localization performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic wounds are among the major healthcare challenges, consuming billions of dollars of resources and resulting in high numbers of morbidity and mortality every year. Lack of sufficient oxygen supply is one of the most dominant causes of impaired healing in diabetic wounds. Numerous clinical and experimental studies have demonstrated positive outcomes as a result of delivering oxygen at the diabetic wound site, including enhanced angiogenesis, antibacterial and cell proliferation activities. However, prolonged and sustained delivery of oxygen to improve the wound healing process has remained a major challenge due to rapid release of oxygen from oxygen sources and limited penetration of oxygen into deep skin tissues. Hydrogels made from sugar-based polymers such as chitosan and hyaluronic acid, and proteins such as gelatin, collagen and hemoglobin have been widely used to deliver oxygen in a sustained delivery mode. This review presents an overview of the recent advances in oxygen releasing hydrogel based patches as a therapeutic modality to enhance diabetic wound healing. Various types of oxygen releasing wound healing patch have been discussed along with their fabrication method, release profile, cytocompatibility and in vivo results. We also briefly discuss the challenges and prospects related to the application of oxygen releasing biomaterials as wound healing therapeutics. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract Highlights • Intrinsic doping design to produce high intensity green emissive quantum dots. • Solvothermal synthesis in ethanol achieves excitation-independent two-photon fluorescence. • Sensing mechanism via Stern-Volmer formalism and fluorescence lifetime responses. • Platform for high sensitivity exogenous and endogenous ferric ion detection in live cells. Abstract Ferric ions play significant roles in human bodily functions, since both overload and deficiency can cause major physiological dysfunctions. Hence, engineering of sensitive, selective sensors to detect such ions merits attention. We found that certain CDs derived from a nitrogen-containing precursor (phthalocyanine) in suitable media could provide significant advantages. Excitation-independent carbon dots (CDs) were prepared through facile one-pot hydrothermal (W-CDs) and solvothermal (E-CDs) methods. Compared to W-CDs, ethanol-mediated E-CDs provide narrower particle size distribution, higher pyrrolic and pyridinic N-content, higher quantum yield ( Q Y E - C D s / Q Y W - C D s = 2.58), strong green luminescence, excellent biocompatibility and efficient two-photon absorption. The E-CDs enabled superior NIR excitable two-photon bioimaging of breast cancer cells at variable depths and fluorescence quenching (81% extinction) for 10–600 μM Fe3+ ions. The mechanism of sensing was elucidated based on the fluorescence lifetime and the Stern-Volmer formalism. Intracellular Fe3+ ion sensing was first confirmed with E-CDs for lysed MCF-7 cells and quenching was detected in direct proportion to Fe3+ concentration (0–80 μM test range) with an LOD of 10.8 nM. Next, MCF-7 cells supplemented with variable concentrations of Fe3+ were incubated with E-CDs for sensing intracellular Fe3+ in live cells. The E-CDs showed high sensitivity for sensing endogenous Fe3+ ions in a stress-induced cell-based model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile terminals are becoming the primary Internet devices for most of the people in the world, and smartphone users are generating on average 10 times more traffic than other users. Current forecasts expect mobile data traffic to grow by 300?500 percent over the next 10 years, whereas the capacity of cellular infrastructure only doubles every two years. In order to cope with these challenges, it is critical that telecom operators and Internet service providers adopt smarter traffic management and pricing strategies. By 2020, more than half of the revenue in the global broadband industry is likely to be from two business models: ?wholesale? and ?two-sided? fees for improved access capacity and quality. These models require enforcement of stringent policy control mechanisms for bandwidth management, quality of service (QoS), and service level agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]