Development of docetaxel nanocapsules for improving in vitro cytotoxicity and cellular uptake in MCF-7 cells

The aim of this study was to fabricate docetaxel loaded nanocapsules (DTX-NCs) with a high payload using Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technique by successive coating with alternate layers of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes. Developed nanocapsules (NCs) were characterized in terms of morphology, particle size distribution, zeta potential (ζ-potential), entrapment efficiency and in vitro release. The morphological characteristics of the NCs were assessed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) that revealed coating of polyelectrolytes around the surface of particles. The developed NCs successfully attained a submicron particle size while the ζ-potential of optimized NCs alternated between (+) 34.64?±?1.5 mV to (?) 33.25?±?2.1 mV with each coating step. The non-hemolytic potential of the NCs indicated the suitability of the developed formulation for intravenous administration. A comparative study indicated that the cytotoxicity of positively charged NCs (F4) was significant higher (p?in vitro on MCF-7 cells. Furthermore, cell uptake studies evidenced a higher uptake of positive NCs (≥1.2 fold) in comparison to negative NCs. In conclusion, formulated NCs are an ideal vehicle for passive targeting of drugs to tumor cells that may result in improved efficacy and reduced toxicity of encapsulated drug moiety.     

Energy Detection in Hoyt/Gamma Fading Channel with Micro-Diversity Reception

Spectrum sensing is the important function of cognitive radio and energy detection is the most popular technique used for spectrum sensing. Detection of the availability of unused spectrum for the secondary user becomes difficult when the channel is affected by composite multipath/shadowed fading. In this paper, the performance analysis of an Energy Detector in Hoyt/gamma composite fading channel with Maximum Ratio Combining employing micro-diversity is analyzed. Analytical expressions for performance parameters, i.e., the average probability of detection and the average area under the receiver operating characteristics curve are evaluate. The effect of diversity on the performance of energy detector is also studied. Monte-Carlo simulation results have verified the accuracy of the proposed analysis.     

Acute renal failure in a patient with mantle cell lymphoma

Mantle cell lymphoma is a rare form of B‐cell lymphoma. We present a 54‐year‐old gentleman with mantle cell lymphoma. It was diagnosed based on the demonstration of B‐cell antigens CD20 and CD5. It was further confirmed by demonstration of overexpression of cyclin D1 on these atypical lymphocytes in the immunohistochemical staining. He also had acute renal failure and proteinuria. Renal biopsy revealed crescents and lymphomatous infiltration of tubulointerstitium. The presence of infiltrating cells with similar markers in both the lymph node and the kidney confirmed the infiltration of kidney with lymphomatous cells. Our present patient, after a thorough literature search, is found to be the second one with a glomerular lesion and tubulointerstitial infiltration by malignant lymphoma cells.     

Flexibility in manufacturing: A survey

This article is an attempt to survey the vast literature on flexibility in manufacturing that has accumulated over the last 10 to 20 years. The survey begins with a brief review of the classical literature on flexibility in economics and organization theory, which provides a background for manufacturing flexibility. Several kinds of flexibilities in manufacturing are then defined carefully along with their purposes, the means to obtain them, and some suggested measurements and valuations. Then we examine the interrelationships among the several flexibilities. Various empirical studies and analytical/optimization models dealing with these flexibilities are reported and discussed. The article concludes with suggestions for some possible future research directions.     

A study on remanufacturing possibility of a product

With the intensification of Globalization, customers’ environment-friendly attitude and stringent environmental regulations, the manufacturers have been orienting their manufacturing and other value additive processes towards the development of more environment-friendly products and use of relevant processes including taking back of used products after their end-of-use or end-of-life from the end users. Remanufacturing is one of the prominent and popular options. Remanufacturing perhaps has drawn maximum attention because of its economic viability and environmental cleanliness. The remanufacturing operation depends upon the quality and quantity of the used. Better the quality lesser the remanufacturing cost. A remanufacturer is unaware about the condition of used product before its acquisition. It may also be noted that the remanufactured product may be taken after a period of its use by users. So it is really difficult to judge how many cycles does the product go for remanufacturing. This has drawn the attention of the authors and the problem is studied with developing some mechanism on the possible frequency of the remanufacturing of a new product. This paper is a study report on this area of research which is expected to contribute immensely to the remanufacturing business.

     

Performance analysis of wireless communication system over nonidentical cascaded generalised gamma fading channels

Multiplicative fading statistics usually encountered in different radio propagation environments. In this context, we evaluate and analyse the performance of a wireless communication system over the nonidentical cascaded generalised Gamma Fading Channels, also known as generalised Bessel‐K fading channel. To this end, the closed‐form expressions for the amount of fading (AOF), the outage probability (OP), the average symbol error probability (SEP), and the channel capacity are derived. In addition approximate expressions for the average SEP with maximal ratio combining (MRC) diversity are also provided. The low‐ and high‐power solutions for the channel capacity are also provided. Furthermore, simplified asymptotic average SEP expressions for MRC and selection combining (SC) are presented to gain the system performance with diversity. The proposed methodologies provide more flexibility to accommodate different radio propagation scenarios. To examine the accuracy of the proposed solutions, numerical and simulation results are compared and shown to fit for variety of fading parameters.     

Centralized sliding mode frequency regulation approach for an uncertain islanded micro grid integrated with disturbance observer

This paper proposes a novel secondary frequency regulation technique for an uncertain islanded micro grid (MG). The major motivation of the work is to integrate the intrinsic robustness of the sliding mode control scheme with the disturbance observer to estimate and alleviate the unknown mismatched uncertainties caused by renewable resources and load variations. To this end, a dynamical sliding manifold is first utilized and then a control law is derived with Lyapunov's method which stabilizes the MG dynamics. Moreover, in order to ensure faster time domain responses of the closed‐loop system, we employ a power rate reaching law in our proposed control design. Thereafter, the performances of the introduced control strategy are tested on an islanded MG using MATLAB/Simulink, and robustness analysis is also carried out by considering five different case studies. Further, in contrast to the existing approaches such as robust H _∞ and robust PID control, the proposed strategy renders appealing time domain characteristics such as settling time, peak overshoot, and integral absolute frequency error.