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Fluorescent terbium-doped carbon dots (Tb-CDs) show high X-ray contrasting properties of ∼48.2 ± 3.9 HU L g−1.

Recent advances in inorganic nanomaterial-based theranostics enabled imaging-guided molecular targeting and drug delivery, and various combinations of theranostic systems. The term “theranostics” is defined as diagnosis processed with therapy simultaneously with a specific connection between therapy and diagnosis. The inorganic nanomaterials, representatively carbon, metal, ceramic, and semiconductor-based nanomaterials, exhibit their unique characteristics to be used in theranostic applications. However, the unveiled human biosafety of nanomaterials for clinical use has become a major concern. Therefore, in this review, we compiled recent research on in vitro and in vivo biosafety of inorganic nanomaterials in various theranostic applications, along with a discussion of how the particle formulation, size, surface functionalization, test species, and test condition affect biocompatibility. Furthermore, the progress and challenges of the development of biocompatible inorganic nanomaterials for theranostic applications were discussed. In conclusion, with appropriate precautions on the biosafe condition to be administered, inorganic nanomaterials can be proposed to have excellent potential in the future theranostic application.

Design rules for ships have become more extensive and detailed due to an increase in the sizes of ships. Several variables and equations used in the rules are complex, thereby impeding their review by reviewers due to their voluminosity. In addition, because these rules are constantly revised, professional investigators may miss these changes. To prevent such confusion, a shipping register, which approves ship drawings, constantly automates the search and review processes of the rules. Consequently, this study proposes a method for recognizing variables in documents to review the rules and build relationships between variables. Each component of a document must be accurately identified. The document containing these rules includes different components such as equations, figures, and strings. Because these rules are mainly converted to a portable document format (PDF) for compatibility, it is challenging to extract each component as raw data. This study used a public library to extract elements from the PDF and utilized the positional relationship between the elements to identify the variables. By applying the Levenshtein distance algorithm, which compares the differences between two strings, the document was partitioned following to the table of contents. Hence, the identified variables were indexed into sections of the table of content. Additionally, based on the indexed information, a data structure was proposed to show the equations, definition of variables, and relationships. This study applied it to common structural rules, which are widely used in the shipbuilding industry. The effectiveness of the proposed method was confirmed by achieving the F1 score = 0.93 in variable recognition and intuitively visualizing the relationship between the variables.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze Korean domestic patents on aconiti ciliare radixand to identify the trend of aconitum tuber technology.Methods: To analyze the patent, a combinations of words such as “aconitum” or “korean aconite root” were usedin search engine Kipris(www.kirpis.or.kr). The patents of aconiti ciliare radix were analyzed in three ways: year trendanalysis, internatonal patent classification (IPC) code analysis related to content classification, and patent registrationstatus analysis.Results: Among the patents found in the search results, 17 patents with significant contents were analyzed. Resultsshowed that, first, patents were steadily registered until 2018, but recently there has been no new patent registration.Second, there were many patents related to efficacy verification and decoction method, and the number of IPC codesrelated to them was also high. Third, there are five patents maintaining the registration status, and they are patentsrelated to the aconiti ciliare radix extraction method, toxicity removal, and combination method.Conclusions: In this study, the domestic patents of aconiti ciliare radix were analyzed. The analysis results of thisstudy are expected to be exploited as basic data for the development of Korean medicine analgesics with fewer sideeffects by suppressing tuber toxicity and the creation of new medical technologies.

Conventional dual-active-bridge dc-dc converters require dedicated voltage balancer or feedback control if they are used for a bipolar LVDC distribution system. This paper proposes a dual-active-half-bridge (DAHB) converter with voltage balancing capability. The proposed converter is composed of a conventional DAHB converter with additional inductor and capacitor voltage balancer (LCVB). The LCVB is added between transformer and output of the DAHB converter. Although the LCVB increases switch current, it can balance the two output voltages without additional active switching device and feedback control under unbalanced load condition. In addition, when compared with the conventional DAHB converter, the LCVB can increase zero-voltage-switching range of the DAHB converter and has no detrimental effect on the operation modes and performance. A 2.8-kW prototype was built and tested to verify the performances of the proposed converter.

The limited localization and penetration of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) into solid tumors restricts their antitumor efficacy. Here, we describe a solid tumor–targeting antibody with enhanced tumor penetration activity. We designed a 22-residue peptide (A22p), which was extracted from the C-terminal basic region of semaphorin 3A (Sema3A) but modified to have higher affinity with neuropilin receptors (NRP), and genetically fused it to the C-terminus of Fc of human immunoglobulin G1 via a 15-residue (G4S)3 linker, generating Fc-A22p, for the bivalent binding to NRPs. In contrast to Fc or the monovalent A22p peptide alone, Fc-A22p homed to tumor vessels and induced vascular permeability through VE-cadherin downregulation and penetrated tumor tissues by interacting with NRPs in mice bearing human tumor xenografts. We extended the Fc-A22p platform by generating mAb-A22p antibodies of two clinically approved solid tumor–targeting mAbs, the anti-EGF receptor mAb cetuximab (erbitux), and the anti-Her2 mAb trastuzumab (herceptin). The mAb-A22p antibodies retained the intrinsic antigen binding, natural Fc-like biophysical properties, and productivity in mammalian cell cultures, comparable with those of the parent mAbs. In mouse xenograft tumor models, the mAb-A22p antibodies more efficiently homed to tumor vessels and spread into the extravascular tumor parenchyma, which significantly enhanced antitumor efficacy compared with the parent mAbs. Our results suggest that mAb-A22p is a superior format for solid tumor–targeting antibodies due to its enhanced tumor tissue penetration and greater antitumor efficacy compared with conventional mAbs. Mol Cancer Ther; 13(3); 651–61. ©2014 AACR.

PDF - 2613K, Figure S1: Structural analysis of NRP1, NRP2, and Sema3A, and their interactions to facilitate the understanding of the interactions between Sema3A and NRP1/2. Figure S2: SDS-PAGE analyses of the purified proteins showing that NRP1/2-b1b2 domains, Fc-A22, and Fc-A22p are well prepared. Figure S3: FACS and confocal fluorescence data showing that Fc-A22p, but not Fc, specifically interacts with cell-surface expressed NRP1/2 undergoing cellular internalization. Figure S4: Cell viability data showing that Fc-A22p does not cause significant cytotoxicity on HUVECs and tumor cells. Figure S5: Tumor tissue analyzing data showing that Fc-A22p homes to tumor, induces vascular permeability, and downregulates VE-cadherin in endothelial cells and E-cadherin in tumor cells. Figure S6: Confocal fluorescence data showing that Fc-A22p causes downregulation of VE-/E-cadherin and their dissociation from F-actin cytoskeleton resulting in disruption of cell-cell contacts. Figure S7: Data showing the expression and biochemical characterization of mAb-A22p antibodies, cetuximab-A22p and trastuzumab-A22p, compared with the parent mAbs. Figure S8: Cell proliferation and Western blotting data showing that cetuximab-A22p exerts in vitro biological activities comparable to those of cetuximab in A431 and FaDu tumor cells. Figure S9: Human tumor xenografted mouse data showing that mAb-A22p antibodies show increased tumor homing and penetration and thus superior in vivo anti-tumor efficacy, compared with the parent mAbs. Table S1: SPR data showing the kinetic binding parameters for the interactions of Fc-A22, Fc-A22p, VEGF165, and Sema3A with soluble NRP1-b1b2 and NRP2-b1b2 fragments. Table S2: Purification yields of Fc proteins and antibodies obtained from transient expression in HEK293F cells. Table S3: SPR data showing the kinetic binding parameters for the interactions of mAbs and mAb-A22p antibodies with the indicated proteins. Supplementary Materials and Methods: Detailed description of Reagents; Recombinant protein expression and purification; Construction, expression, and purification of antibodies; Binding analysis by ELISA; Surface plasmon resonance (SPR); Flow cytometric analysis; Cell proliferation assay; Western blotting and immunoprecipitation; Co-localization studies by confocal immunofluorescence microscopy; RNA Interference; Ex vivo tumor penetration assays.

This research aims to study the factors affecting MSMEs’ performance in the Malang region and investigate the 0.5% final tax regulation role on MSMEs business in 2019. This study is quantitative research. The author conducted a survey shared to four hundred ninety-six MSMEs in Malang city and region and collected 217 questionnaires. Moreover, the author also collected tax and government regulation, previous research, books, and the internet. This study used Structural Equation Model (SEM) using AMOS 26. The result reveals that entrepreneurial orientation, funding, government policy, and the social and economic aspect affect the MSMEs’ performance. The research shows that government policies are mediating funding in affecting the performance of MSMEs. It also explains explicitly that new tax regulation plays an essential role in enhancing the performance of MSMEs. However, marketing information and external institutions did not affect the performance of MSMEs in the Malang region.

In general, tugboats are used to convey many kinds of surface vessels, including unactuated vessels, such as barge ships and offshore structures. This requires an adequate model for tugboat operation to precisely take into account surge, sway, and yaw motions. We present an optimization method of tugboat operation for conveying a large surface vessel in the shipyard. An optimization problem that includes the interactions between the vessel and the tugboats is mathematically formulated. The procedure to solve this problem is composed of three steps. The desired control input, which should act on the vessel to track the desired path in the presence of environmental disturbances, is calculated every control interval. Second, the optimization problem is solved by using an optimization algorithm to find the thrust force and tug force direction for each tugboat. Finally, based on the three-degrees of freedom (DOF) horizontal model, the position and velocity of the vessel in the next step are calculated. There are three advantages to this study. First, the proposed method considers the thrust force and the direction of the tugboats at the same time, and the number of tugboats can also be changed. Second, it is possible to control the tugboats through realistic time intervals. Finally, the practical external force is considered in the application. The proposed method is applied to the conveying of a mega floating crane, one of the large surface vessels, in various environmental conditions, such as waves, winds, and currents, and the applicability of the method was evaluated.

In this article, a split-capacitor (SC) dual-active-bridge (DAB) converter is proposed. In the proposed converter, dc-link capacitors in both the input and output are split, and primary and secondary windings of the transformer are connected to midpoints of the input and output dc links, respectively. Although the switch current stress of the proposed converter is twice that of conventional DAB converter, its switch voltage stress is reduced to half. Therefore, the proposed converter has higher conduction loss than the conventional DAB converter, however, the switching loss can be reduced, which implies that the proposed converter is beneficial and can achieve higher efficiency than the conventional DAB converter as switching frequency increases. In addition, owing to the SC structure, no dc-blocking capacitors are required and the proposed converter can be readily connected to neutral-point-clamped or half-bridge-type converters without increasing the number of dc-link capacitors. To verify the performances of the proposed converter, 3-kW prototypes are built, tested, and compared.

Fuel oil consumption (FOC) must be minimized to determine the economic route of a ship; hence, the ship power must be predicted prior to route planning. For this purpose, a numerical method using test results of a model has been widely used. However, predicting ship power using this method is challenging owing to the uncertainty of the model test. An onboard test should be conducted to solve this problem; however, it requires considerable resources and time. Therefore, in this study, a deep feed-forward neural network (DFN) is used to predict ship power using deep learning methods that involve data pattern recognition. To use data in the DFN, the input data and a label (output of prediction) should be configured. In this study, the input data are configured using ocean environmental data (wave height, wave period, wave direction, wind speed, wind direction, and sea surface temperature) and the ship's operational data (draft, speed, and heading). The ship power is selected as the label. In addition, various treatments have been used to improve the prediction accuracy. First, ocean environmental data related to wind and waves are preprocessed using values relative to the ship's velocity. Second, the structure of the DFN is changed based on the characteristics of the input data. Third, the prediction accuracy is analyzed using a combination comprising five hyperparameters (number of hidden layers, number of hidden nodes, learning rate, dropout, and gradient optimizer). Finally, k-means clustering is performed to analyze the effect of the sea state and ship operational status by categorizing it into several models. The performances of various prediction models are compared and analyzed using the DFN in this study.

Wound healing is the dynamic tissue regeneration process replacing devitalized and missing tissue layers. With the development of photomedicine techniques in wound healing, safe and noninvasive photobiomodulation therapy is receiving attention. Effective wound management in photobiomodulation is challenged, however, by limited control of the geometrical mismatches on the injured skin surface. Here, adhesive hyaluronic acid–based gelatin nanofibrous membranes integrated with multiple light-emitting diode (LED) arrays are developed as a skin-attachable patch. The nanofibrous wound dressing is expected to mimic the three-dimensional structure of the extracellular matrix, and its adhesiveness allows tight coupling between the wound sites and the flexible LED patch. Experimental results demonstrate that our medical device accelerates the initial wound healing process by the synergetic effects of the wound dressing and LED irradiation. Our proposed technology promises progress for wound healing management and other biomedical applications.

Background Alopecia has become a very common disease that many people around the world are suffered. Minoxidil (MXD) is the most well-known commercialized drug in its treatment. However, in the case of MXD administration, there are some problems with low efficiency of transdermal delivery and additional side effects. Method MXD and Rhodamine B (Rho B) are encapsulated in poly(Lactide-co-Glycolide) grafted hyaluronate nanoparticles (HA-PLGA/MXD NPs, HA-PLGA/Rho B NPs) which is prepared with W/O/W solvent evaporation method. After then, the investigation is carried out to confirm the feasibility of NPs in alopecia treatment. Results Both of HA-PLGA/MXD NPs and HA-PLGA/Rho B NPs are successfully prepared. In addition, it is confirmed that HA-PLGA NPs sufficiently delivered to cells without any significant cytotoxicity by cell viability, cellular uptake and skin permeation test. Conclusion Taken together, HA-PLGA NPs as a transdermal delivery carrier to hair follicle cells can be exploited to develop the efficient and effective platform of transdermal drug delivery for the treatment of various diseases.

The localized surface plasmon resonance of metallic nanoparticles has attracted much attention owing to its unique characteristics, including the enhancement of signals in sensors and photothermal effects. In particular, hollow gold nanostructures are highly promising for practical applications, with significant advantages being found in their material properties and structures: 1) the interaction between the outer surface plasmon mode and inner cavity mode leads to a greater resonance, allowing it to absorb near-infrared light, which can readily penetrate tissue; 2) it has anti-corrosiveness and good biocompatibility, which makes it suitable for biomedical applications; 3) it shows a reduced net density and large surface area, allowing the possibility of nanocarriers for drug delivery. In this review, we present information on the classification, characteristics, and synthetic methods of hollow gold nanostructures; discuss the recent advances in hollow gold nanostructures in biomedical applications, including biosensing, bioimaging, photothermal therapy, and drug delivery; and report on the existing challenges and prospects for hollow gold nanostructures.

Hyaluronate (HA) has been widely investigated for noninvasive topical drug delivery of chemical drugs and biopharmaceuticals. However, previous noninvasive delivery systems have been facilitated mostly by chemical conjugation of drugs with HA, which can cause reduced therapeutic efficacy and safety issues in chemically modified drugs. Here, HA nanogels were synthesized by crosslinking via “click” chemistry for noninvasive topical delivery of a model drug without chemical modification. The model-drug-encapsulating HA nanogels could be uptaken to the skin melanoma cells in vitro by HA-mediated endocytosis. In addition, histological analysis showed that HA nanogels could be topically delivered to the deep skin and tongue tissues through the noninvasive delivery routes. Taken together, HA nanogels could be effectively used for the noninvasive topical delivery of various therapeutic drugs.

Powder-based 3D printing is an excellent technique for the fabrication of complex structural shapes. The outstanding bone remodeling capacity of calcium phosphate bioceramics is a desirable characteristic for such fabrication. Whitlockite (WH) is a calcium phosphate-based ceramic that contains Mg ions and possesses good mechanical properties, rapid resorbability, and promotes osteogenesis. The aim of this study was to fabricate 3D-printed scaffolds using marine plankton-derived WH (MP-WH) powder. The surface morphology and composition of the fabricated scaffolds were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The biocompatibility and osteogenic effects were evaluated using human mesenchymal stem cells. We successfully obtained a 3D porous scaffold using MP-WH. The MP-WH 3D scaffold showed improved compressive strength compared to the tricalcium phosphate (TCP) 3D scaffold. The in vitro results showed that compared with TCP 3D scaffolds, MP-WH 3D scaffolds were biocompatible and enhanced cell proliferation and adhesion. In addition, alkaline phosphatase activity and real-time polymerase chain reaction assays demonstrated that osteoblast differentiation was improved on the MP-WH scaffold. These results suggest that marine plankton-derived WH is useful for fabricating 3D-printed scaffolds for bone tissue engineering applications.

Recently, interest in the design and construction of smart ships has been widely increasing. Optimal route planning is a widely studied essential aspect of smart ship technology. Planning an optimal route requires an accurate estimation of the fuel oil consumption of a ship. Various studies have suggested methods for theoretically estimating the fuel oil consumption. However, the calculation methodology and accuracy are different for each method. In addition, in commercial software, a statistical model based mainly on operating data has been used. Therefore, in this study, we propose a method based on ISO 15016:2015 for estimating the fuel oil consumption of a ship by improving the ISO 15016:2002 method&mdash, which has been predominantly used in existing studies. Moreover, the accuracy of the proposed method is examined by comparing it with a gray box model based on operating data. The results confirm that the proposed method can be used for estimating the fuel oil consumption of a ship.

Research on cancer theragnosis with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) has rapidly increased, as AuNPs have many useful characteristics for various biomedical applications, such as biocompatibility, tunable optical properties, enhanced permeability and retention (EPR), localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), photothermal properties, and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). AuNPs have been widely utilized in cancer theragnosis, including phototherapy and photoimaging, owing to their enhanced solubility, stability, biofunctionality, cancer targetability, and biocompatibility. In this review, specific characteristics and recent modifications of AuNPs over the past decade are discussed, as well as their application in cancer theragnostics and future perspectives. In the future, AuNP-based cancer theragnosis is expected to facilitate the development of innovative and novel strategies for cancer therapy.

As the combination of therapies enhances the performance of biocompatible materials in cancer treatment, theranostic therapies are attracting increasing attention rather than individual approaches. In this review, we describe a variety of two-dimensional (2D) theranostic nanomaterials and their efficacy in ablating tumors. Though many literature reports are available to demonstrate the potential application of 2D nanomaterials, we have reviewed here cancer-treating therapies based on such multifunctional nanomaterials abstracting the content from literature works which explain both the in vitro and in vivo level of applications. In addition, we have included a discussion about the future direction of 2D nanomaterials in the field of theranostic cancer treatment.

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a natural mucopolysaccharide and has many useful advantages, including biocompatibility, non-immunogenicity, chemical versatility, non-toxicity, biodegradability, and high hydrophilicity. Numerous tumor cells overexpress several receptors that have a high binding affinity for HA, while these receptors are poorly expressed in normal body cells. HA-based drug delivery carriers can offer improved solubility and stability of anticancer drugs in biological environments and allow for the targeting of cancer treatments. Based on these benefits, HA has been widely investigated as a promising material for developing the advanced clinical cancer therapies in various formulations, including nanoparticles, micelles, liposomes, and hydrogels, combined with other materials. We describe various approaches and findings showing the feasibility of improvement in theragnosis probes through the application of HA.

In this letter, a modified series-capacitor (SC) high conversion ratio (HCR) dc–dc converter is proposed. The proposed converter inherits most of the advantages of the existing SC HCR dc–dc converter and can eliminate the problem of high switch-voltage stress of the existing converter encountered during start-up using a simple circuit modification. Although an extra capacitor is required in the proposed converter, total series capacitance of the proposed converter is the same as that of the conventional SC converter. In addition, input capacitance of the proposed converter can be reduced by less than half of that of the SC buck converter. A 1-kW prototype converter is built and tested to verify the performance of the proposed converter.

This paper presents a new single-phase switched-coupled-inductor dc–ac inverter featuring higher voltage gain than the existing single-phase qZ-source and semi-Z-source inverters. Similar to the single-phase qZ-source and semi-Z-source inverters, the proposed inverter also has common grounds between the dc input and ac output voltages, which is beneficial especially for photovoltaic inverter systems. The inverter volume and maximum current flowing can be reduced significantly through the coupling of all inductors. A theoretical analysis of the proposed inverter is described and a 280-W experimental prototype is built to verify the performance of the inverter.