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Hyperthermia plays a significant role in cancer treatment by inducing cell damage through temperature elevation, often used alongside other treatment modalities. During hyperthermia therapy, temperature control is crucial. Here, we report on a simple synthesis route of hybrid plasmonic nanodiamonds either completely wrapped with an Au shell (NV@Au) or densely covered with Au NPs (NV@SiO 2 @Au). Such integration of nanodiamonds with Au NPs is advantageous both for heating and precise thermometry at nanoscale. After structural and optical investigations, heating abilities of the obtained plasmonic nanodiamonds were thoroughly inspected on glass, in association with living cells, and in tissue slices ex vivo, revealing their effective heat generation under excitation with light using a single excitation source. The developed hybrid plasmonic nanodiamonds were finally applied for local photothermal therapy of melanoma in vivo, demonstrating their efficacy in eradicating cancer cells and monitoring temperature during the process.

The modern development of computer technologies is accompanied by an increasing immersion of a person into the virtual world, where he often spends many hours. The longer a person uses a computer and various electronic gadgets, the more traces he leaves. In fact, there is a situation in which a digital copy or digital twin of a person appears in the virtual world. This phenomenon is new to legal science and requires its own research. The purpose of the article is to analyze the concept of «digital twin» and its development, to study the approaches of foreign and Russian authors from various fields of knowledge to the definition of this term, to identify the possibilities of using this concept in the legal sphere. When writing the article, the following methods are used: comparative legal, analysis and synthesis. The following results are obtained: every computer and gadget user has his «digital copy», a kind of «digital twin», on behalf of which a person performs various, including criminal actions in the virtual space. Public relations in the cyberspace are largely not regulated by law, and when developing a framework for regulating such specific legal relations, it is necessary to begin with the definition of the subject. The authors pay special attention to the question of equating a digital identity with a real one, as well as the lack of legislative regulation of the legal status of a digital twin. The discrepancy between such categories as «digital identity» and «digital twin» is shown. A more correct definition of a digital twin is proposed for legal regulation, in particular for identifying the account with which the Internet crime was committed – a digital identity twin. The paper also proposes the basic principles for the subsequent legal regulation of public relations arising and developing in the cyberspace and lays the foundation for further research on the topic of legal regulation of the digital twin.

Photothermal therapy (PTT) has attracted increasing interest as a complementary method to be used alongside conventional therapies. Despite a great number of studies in this field, only a few have explored how temperatures affect the outcome of the PTT at nanoscale. In this work, we study the necrosis/apoptosis process of cancerous cells that occurs during PTT, using a combination of local laser heating and nanoscale fluorescence thermometry techniques. The temperature distribution within a whole cell was evaluated using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy during laser-induced hyperthermia. For this, gold nanorods were utilized as nanoheaters. The local near-infrared laser illumination produces a temperature gradient across the cells, which is precisely measured by nanoscale thermometry. This allows one to optimize the PTT conditions by varying concentration of gold nanorods associated with cells and laser power density. During the PTT procedure, such an approach enables an accurate determination of the percentages of apoptotic and necrotic cells using 2D and 3D models. According to the performed cell experiments, the influence of temperature increase during the PTT on cell death mechanisms has been verified and determined. Our investigations can improve the understanding of the PTT mechanisms and increase its therapeutic efficiency while avoiding any side effects.

The development of systems capable of efficiently eliminating organic dyes from wastewater is crucial for the environment. In this context, TiO2-based photocatalytic systems are of particular interest. However, the development of eco-friendly and single-step methods for the fabrication of such systems remains a challenge to their practical use. Here, we demonstrate a fabrication approach for a catalytic system composed of TiO2 nanocoating created on the surface of a bulk titanium plate by exposure to a nanosecond laser. The exposure conditions affect the relief and phase composition of the nanocoating, as revealed by a combination of scanning electron microscopy (SEM), contact profilometry, Raman, High-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (HR XPS), and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) methods. Using the GIXRD method, we establish that nanocoatings consist of a mixture of anatase and rutile grains with sizes of 22.7–24.4 and 29.8–32.2 nm, respectively. HR XPS analysis demonstrates that changes in the number of pulses per spot modify the anatase surface content from 40.6 to 70.4%. The samples with a higher anatase content exhibit up to 6.3 times higher catalytic activity, which is confirmed by methylene blue degradation when exposed to UV light and can be related to the synergistic effect of the anatase–rutile heterojunction. The reusability of the samples is supported by repeated degradation experiments. The photocatalytic activity of the obtained TiO2 nanocoatings is improved by Au nanoparticles deposited on their surface by magnetron sputtering. The proposed approach lays the foundation for the application of nanosecond laser-assisted technologies in the eco-friendly fabrication of catalytic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

3D printing is a well-known concept. It converts digital directives to real-time molds in the form of polymers, metals, alloys, plastics, ceramics, and textiles. Bioprinting is a form of 3D [...]

A summary of the technical advances that are incorporated in the fourth major release of the Q-Chem quantum chemistry program is provided, covering approximately the last seven years. These include developments in density functional theory methods and algorithms, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) property evaluation, coupled cluster and perturbation theories, methods for electronically excited and open-shell species, tools for treating extended environments, algorithms for walking on potential surfaces, analysis tools, energy and electron transfer modelling, parallel computing capabilities, and graphical user interfaces. In addition, a selection of example case studies that illustrate these capabilities is given. These include extensive benchmarks of the comparative accuracy of modern density functionals for bonded and non-bonded interactions, tests of attenuated second order Møller-Plesset (MP2) methods for intermolecular interactions, a variety of parallel performance benchmarks, and tests of the accuracy of implicit solvation models. Some specific chemical examples include calculations on the strongly correlated Cr2 dimer, exploring zeolite-catalysed ethane dehydrogenation, energy decomposition analysis of a charged ter-molecular complex arising from glycerol photoionisation, and natural transition orbitals for a Frenkel exciton state in a nine-unit model of a self-assembling nanotube.

Drug carriers with intelligent functions are powerful therapeutic and diagnostic platforms in curing various diseases such as malignant neoplasms. These functions include the remote noninvasive activation of drug using physical impacts, e.g. light exposure. Combination of different therapeutic modalities (chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy, and so forth) with light-responsive carriers enables promising synergetic effect in tumour treatment. The main goal of this review article is to provide the state of the art on light-sensitive delivery systems with the identification of future directions and their implementation in tumour treatment. In particular, this article reviews the general information on the physical and chemical fundamental mechanisms of interaction between light and carrier systems (e.g. plasmonic and dielectric nanoparticles), the design of optically responsive drug carriers (plain and composite), and the mechanisms of light-driven controlled release of bioactive compounds in biological environment. The special focus is dedicated to the most recent advances in optically responsive bioinspired drug vehicles.

A production-level implementation of equation-of-motion coupled-cluster singles and doubles (EOM-CCSD) for electron attachment and excitation energies augmented by a complex absorbing potential (CAP) is presented. The new method enables the treatment of metastable states within the EOM-CC formalism in a similar manner as bound states. The numeric performance of the method and the sensitivity of resonance positions and lifetimes to the CAP parameters and the choice of one-electron basis set are investigated. A protocol for studying molecular shape resonances based on the use of standard basis sets and a universal criterion for choosing the CAP parameters are presented. Our results for a variety of π(*) shape resonances of small to medium-size molecules demonstrate that CAP-augmented EOM-CCSD is competitive relative to other theoretical approaches for the treatment of resonances and is often able to reproduce experimental results.