...these results, based on comparing a range of trials, should be interpreted with caution. ...the balance of benefit versus toxicity needs to be considered carefully for escalation in chemotherapy. ...According to the results, concurrent taxane and anthracycline for six cycles seems to be the preferred regimen to achieve optimum survival benefit, with similar proportional reductions irrespective of patient age or tumour characteristics, including size, grade, nodal involvement, hormone receptor status, or HER2 expression.
We study the thermodynamics of spherically symmetric, neutral and non-rotating black holes in conformal (Weyl) gravity. To this end, we apply different methods: (i) the evaluation of the specific ...heat; (ii) the study of the entropy concavity; (iii) the geometrical approach to thermodynamics known as
thermodynamic geometry
; (iv) the Poincaré method that relates equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics. We show that the thermodynamic geometry approach can be applied to conformal gravity too, because all the key thermodynamic variables are insensitive to Weyl scaling. The first two methods, (i) and (ii), indicate that the entropy of a de Sitter black hole is always in the interval
2
/
3
≤
S
≤
1
, whereas thermodynamic geometry suggests that, at
S
=
1
, there is a second order phase transition to an Anti de Sitter black hole. On the other hand, we obtain from the Poincaré method (iv) that black holes whose entropy is
S
<
4
/
3
are stable or in a saddle-point, whereas when
S
>
4
/
3
they are always unstable, hence there is no definite answer on whether such transition occurs. Since thermodynamics geometry takes the view that the entropy is an extensive quantity, while the Poincaré method does not require extensiveness, it is valuable to present here the analysis based on both approaches, and so we do.
Anticancer modalities based on oxygen free radicals, including photodynamic therapy and radiotherapy, have emerged as promising treatments in the clinic. However, the hypoxic environment in tumor ...tissue prevents the formation of oxygen free radicals. Here we introduce a novel strategy that employs oxygen‐independent free radicals generated from a polymerization initiator for eradicating cancer cells. The initiator is mixed with a phase‐change material and loaded into the cavities of gold nanocages. Upon irradiation by a near‐infrared laser, the phase‐change material is melted due to the photothermal effect of gold nanocages, leading to the release and decomposition of the loaded initiator to generate free radicals. The free radicals produced in this way are highly effective in inducing apoptosis in hypoxic cancer cells.
Oxygen‐independent free radicals: Gold nanocages filled with a phase‐change material (green patches in picture) are used as a carrier for the radical source AIPH (blue circles) to achieve controlled generation of free radicals. The process is oxygen‐independent and can be used for the therapy of hypoxic cancer.
A smart release system responsive to near‐infrared (NIR) light is developed for intracellular drug delivery. The concept is demonstrated by coencapsulating doxorubicin (DOX) (an anticancer drug) and ...IR780 iodide (IR780) (an NIR‐absorbing dye) into nanoparticles made of a eutectic mixture of naturally occurring fatty acids. The eutectic mixture has a well‐defined melting point at 39 °C, and can be used as a biocompatible phase‐change material for NIR‐triggered drug release. The resultant nanoparticles exhibit prominent photothermal effect and quick drug release in response to NIR irradiation. Fluorescence microscopy analysis indicates that the DOX trapped in the nanoparticles can be efficiently released into the cytosol under NIR irradiation, resulting in enhanced anticancer activity. A new platform is thus offered for designing effective intracellular drug‐release systems, holding great promise for future cancer therapy.
A smart system responsive to near‐infrared (NIR) light is developed by coencapsulating a drug and an NIR‐absorbing dye into nanoparticles made of a eutectic mixture of naturally occurring fatty acids. Photothermal heating under NIR irradiation facilitates rapid and efficient intracellular drug release, leading to enhancement in anticancer activity.
Removing heavy metal ions from industrial wastewater is one of the most important and difficult areas of the water treatment industry. In this study, Bacterial Cellulose/Polyvinyl Alcohol/Graphene ...Oxide/Attapulgite (BC/PVA/GO/APT) composites were successfully prepared via a repeated freeze-thaw method using bacterial cellulose, polyvinyl alcohol as the skeleton, and graphene oxide, attapulgite as fillers. The capacities of adsorbing Cu2+ and Pb2+ ions in solution were investigated. FTIR, XRD, SEM, BET, and TG-DSC analyses showed that the BC/PVA/GO/APT hydrogel has a better hydrophilicity, a larger specific surface area and a better thermal stability than traditional materials. We found that the adsorption of Cu2+ and Pb2+ ions can be accurately predicted by the Freundlich kinetic model, and the optimal adsorption capacities of these ions were found to be 150.79 mg/g and 217.8 mg/g respectively. Thermodynamic results showed that the adsorption process is spontaneous and exothermic. BC/PVA/GO/APT composites are suggested to be an ideal adsorption material for removing heavy metal ions from industrial wastewater.
This paper proposes three-dimensional cooperative guidance laws with prescribed performance. To avoid degradation in performance due to error in the estimation of the time-to-go, the relative ...distance between the missiles and the target is chosen as a coordination variable, and a fixed-time cooperative guidance law along the direction of the line-of-sight (LOS) is proposed. The guidance laws with prescribed performance for the elevation and direction of the azimuth of the LOS are then developed by combining the LOS angle tracking error with a performance constraint function to formulate a transformed error function. The problem of prescribed performance control is transformed into that of the boundedness of the transformed error function. A fixed-time convergence disturbance observer is designed to discuss the problem whereby information on aggregate uncertainty, including on the target, is unavailable. The results of simulations show that the proposed guidance laws are effective.
A two-port pattern reconfigurable three-layered Yagi-Uda patch antenna with ±45° dual-polarization characteristic is presented. A driven patch (DP) and two large parasitic patches (LPPs) are printed ...on the top side of the middle layer, and the middle and bottom layers share a common metal ground. Two microstrip feedlines printed orthogonally on the bottom side of the bottom layer are used to feed the DP through two H-shaped slots etched in the ground. The LPPs are connected to/disconnected from the ground controlled by switches. By adjusting the connection states of the LPPs, one wide-beam mode and three narrow-beam modes can be obtained in both polarizations. A small parasitic patch is printed on the top side of the top layer to improve the pattern coherence of the two polarizations. This antenna is studied by both simulation and measurement. The measured common bandwidth of the four modes in both polarizations is 3.32-3.51 GHz, and the isolations between two polarizations in all the modes are higher than 20 dB. The low-profile antenna is very suitable for microbase-station applications.
In this paper, we consider the problem of asynchronous estimation in the presence of packet losses for the randomly sampling nonlinear system. Packet losses occur at the control input and at the ...measurement side. Firstly, the synchronization of the asynchronous sampling system is realized by weighting the state of the adjacent state update points. Secondly, the projection theorem is used to estimate the system state at the sampling time. Due to modeling errors and unmodeled dynamics, obtaining an accurate dynamic model is challenging. Therefore, observation inference based on interpolation techniques is proposed to solve the asynchronous estimation problem. Furthermore, the algorithm is extended to multi-sensor systems to obtain a distributed fusion estimator. Finally, simulation experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm.
PDF
