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Breast cancer remains the most frequently diagnosed cancer and is the leading cause of neoplastic disease burden for females worldwide, suggesting that effective therapeutic and/or diagnostic strategies are still urgently needed. In this study, a type of indocyanine green (ICG) and camptothecin (CPT) co-loaded perfluorocarbon double-layer nanocomposite named ICPNC was developed for detection and photochemotherapy of breast cancer. The ICPNCs were designed to be surface modifiable for on-demand cell targeting and can serve as contrast agents for fluorescence diffuse optical tomography (FDOT). Upon near infrared (NIR) irradiation, the ICPNCs can generate a significantly increased production of singlet oxygen compared to free ICG, and offer a comparable cytotoxicity with reduced chemo-drug dosage. Based on the results of animal study, we further demonstrated that the ICPNCs ([ICG]/[CPT] = 40-/7.5-μM) in association with 1-min NIR irradiation (808 nm, 6 W/cm2) can provide an exceptional anticancer effect to the MDA-MB-231 tumor-bearing mice whereby the tumor size was significantly reduced by 80% with neither organ damage nor systemic toxicity after a 21-day treatment. Given a number of aforementioned merits, we anticipate that the developed ICPNC is a versatile theranostic nanoagent which is highly promising to be used in the clinic.

Background Enriched electronic health records (EHRs) contain crucial information related to disease progression, and this information can help with decision-making in the health care field. Data analytics in health care is deemed as one of the essential processes that help accelerate the progress of clinical research. However, processing and analyzing EHR data are common bottlenecks in health care data analytics. Methods The dxpr R package provides mechanisms for integration, wrangling, and visualization of clinical data, including diagnosis and procedure records. First, the dxpr package helps users transform International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes to a uniform format. After code format transformation, the dxpr package supports four strategies for grouping clinical diagnostic data. For clinical procedure data, two grouping methods can be chosen. After EHRs are integrated, users can employ a set of flexible built-in querying functions for dividing data into case and control groups by using specified criteria and splitting the data into before and after an event based on the record date. Subsequently, the structure of integrated long data can be converted into wide, analysis-ready data that are suitable for statistical analysis and visualization. Results We conducted comorbidity data processes based on a cohort of newborns from Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care-III (n = 7,833) by using the dxpr package. We first defined patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) cases as patients who had at least one PDA diagnosis (ICD, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification [ICD-9-CM] 7470*). Controls were defined as patients who never had PDA diagnosis. In total, 381 and 7,452 patients with and without PDA, respectively, were included in our study population. Then, we grouped the diagnoses into defined comorbidities. Finally, we observed a statistically significant difference in 8 of the 16 comorbidities among patients with and without PDA, including fluid and electrolyte disorders, valvular disease, and others. Conclusions This dxpr package helps clinical data analysts address the common bottleneck caused by clinical data characteristics such as heterogeneity and sparseness.

Laser-induced fluorescence systems that are used in fluorescence research are expensive. This study demonstrated a novel, cheap, and compact fluorescence system comprising a fiber-coupled LED and pinholes to achieve a confocal arrangement. For investigating photobleaching, two model fluorescence dyes-fluorescein and calcein-were successfully tested using this platform. The results indicated that the two dyes exhibit similar self-quenching phenomena. Photobleaching by using the two dyes under normalized intensity was evaluated using a double-negative exponential model. The photobleaching rate increased with the dye concentration.

Background Periodontal disease effects 20–50% of the population worldwide, posing a global health challenge. It has been reported to be more prevalent among adults. Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans (A. actinomycetemcomitans) is an important organism associated with localized juvenile periodontitis. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been widely utilized for the treatment of periodontal disease; however, the effect of laser (light) profile on the antibacterial efficacy of PDT remains to be established. The quantitative measurement of laser profile is required to confirm the in vitro efficacy of PDT. Aim In the present study, a low cost PDT system comprising of six copper tube waveguides (CTW) was developed to provide more uniform irradiation of the culture plate. Methods The antibacterial effect of PDT, in combination with 200 μg/mL methylene blue (MB) as photosensitizer and 60 sec of irradiation, was studied on A. actinomycetemcomitans and Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans). In the present case, 660 nm laser guided with unpolished CTW, polished CTW, and optical fiber waveguide (OFW) provided radiant exposure of 0.86, 1.38, and 1.36 J/cm2, respectively, for a 24‐well culture plate. Results The designed PDT system provided antimicrobial efficacy of 98% and 91% for A. actinomycetemcomitans and S. mutans, respectively, which was significantly higher as compared to OFW guided PDT. Conclusion The results of the study highlighted the importance of laser profile as a key parameter that determines the survival rate of bacteria at the edge of the culture plate. Thus, the dose of PDT at the margin of optical profile is important for antibacterial activity for in vitro evaluation.

The study is to evaluate the effect of surface roughness of titanium implants on bacterial adhesion and then to investigate the efficacy of the three cleaning treatments for bacterial removal in titanium surfaces.Although surface debridement is the basic element for treatment of peri-implantitis to reduce bacterial adhesion, adjunctive therapies such as antiseptics and laser debridement have been proposed to improve the nonsurgical treatment options of the peri-implant infection.Titanium specimens were divided into five groups: No. 1200 grit sandpaper polishing (Grit), 50 μm (SB50), 100 μm (SB100), and 250 μm Al2O3 sandblasting (SB250), and sandblasting, large-grit, and acid-etching (SLA). Surface roughness (Ra), contact angle, and surface morphology were examined. The subsequent adhesion of Escherichia coli on the different substrates was assayed. After 8 h of bacterial culture, three different cleaning treatments, including plastic curettage, air-powder abrasive system, and Er:YAG laser debridement, were applied on the specimens.The Ra value changed from the lower value of 0.2 μm for the Grit group to the significantly higher value of 2.7 μm for the SB250 group, indicating a significant difference from the SLA group (2.0 μm). The average contact angle of SLA (101°) was significantly higher than the other groups. No significant difference in E. coli bacterial adhesion was found among the all roughened groups, except the SB50 and SB250 groups at 12 h of culture. The use of three cleaning treatments did not induce significant surface alterations. However, the E. coli adhesion was significantly reduced in the air-powder abrasive system and laser debridement in comparison with that treated with the plastic curettage.Laser debridement could be a useful cleaning method for peri-implantitis therapy.

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) has become more and more popular in recent years. An endoscopic image tracking system will assist surgeons to adjust the field of view autonomously in MIS. In this paper, we propose a novel image tracking algorithm based on natural features of surgical instruments. We suggest to use texture and geometric features in laparoscopic instrument imagery and to adopt a spiking neural network approach for object detection; considering color will be affected by lighting and the white balance conditions in the endoscope imagery. To enhance tracking performance, we further design a Kalman filter to combine with the neuro-based tracker. The instrument can be detected more robustly despite of deformation of the instrument image during surgery. A laparoscopic video has been tested to verify the developed methods. Experimental results show that two instruments can be distinguished and tracked simultaneously in the surgical video.

With an autonomous tool tracking system, surgeons do not need to handle the endoscope during surgery. This paper aims to develop an image tracking system with a stable view for minimally invasive surgery (MIS) by using monocular endoscope. In order to provide a stable view for the surgery, we propose to set a buffer zone in the center of image frame for the robotic camera holder to track the endoscope instruments. If endoscope instruments are inside the buffer zone, the endoscope robot will keep still. However, if one or both of them move away from the buffer zone, the robot will start to track the instrument. Furthermore, by calculating the distance between two instruments in the image plane, the robotic camera holder can track the depth to the instruments. The robot will therefore zoom in if the distance is too short. A safe distance from the camera lens to instrument tools can therefore be maintained during the image tracking. Preliminary experimental results show that the proposed design achieves satisfactory tracking accuracy in real time and provides a stable view simultaneously.

This paper proposes a novel planning method using genetic algorithm (GA) to achieve minimization of load shedding. The frequency of a power system declines rapidly when generator outage occurs. The general solution is to install sufficient under-frequency relays to pull frequency back to normal range. In this study, a single machine infinite bus (SMIB) is utilized to simulate system load with genetic algorithm for estimating the optimal load shedding and shedding ratio in each stage. Simulated results indicate that the proposed GA-based method is both feasible and effective to facilitate optimal load shedding planning.