Topical delivery of paclitaxel for treatment of skin cancer

Context: Skin cancer represents the most growing types of cancer in human and ultraviolet radiation can be cited as one of the prime factor for its occurrence. Current therapy of skin cancer suffers from numerous side effects; for effective therapy, topical application of formulation of paclitaxel (PTX) can be considered as a novel approach.

Objective: The present study is an attempt to prepare formulation of solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) of PTX for the effective treatment of various form of skin carcinoma.

Methods: The SLN were prepared by high-speed homogenization and ultrasonication method. The prepared SLN were characterized. The optimized PTX SLN were loaded in carbopol gel. The prepared gels were evaluated for its gelling properties and finally studied for in vivo anti-cancer efficacy and histopathological study.

Results: The particle size distribution was found to be in the range of 78.82–587.8?nm. The product yield (%) was found between 60% and 66% and showed a highest entrapment efficiency of 68.3%. The in vitro release of the drug from SLN dispersion was found to be biphasic with the initial burst effect, followed by slow release. SLN-loaded gel were subjected to permeability study and the results show steady-state flux (J_ss), permeability coefficient (K_p), and enhancement ratio were significantly increased in SLN-loaded gel formulation as compared with PTX-loaded gel. The histopathological study clearly reveals the efficacy of the SLN-F3 3G in the treatment of skin cancer.

Conclusion: The experimental formulations show controlled release of PTX and thus expected to show reduce dose-related side effects.     

Selection criteria of induction machines for speed-sensorless drive applications

Induction motors, both three and single phase, are used extensively for adjustable-speed drives' applications. These machines are structurally very robust and are a primary source of motive power and speed control where DC machines cannot be used. For closed-loop control of these machines, sensorless speed estimation is usually preferred. Among the current estimation techniques available for speed-sensorless induction motor drives, speed measurement based on rotor-slot-related harmonic detection in machine line current happens to be a prominent one. While these harmonics can be strong in certain kinds of machines, some other machines may exhibit very weak rotor slot harmonics that can be obscured by noise. Skewing, slot shapes and types, structural unbalances, etc., also have a prominent effect on the detectability of these harmonics. This paper attempts to investigate this problem based on the interaction of pole pairs, number of rotor bars, and stator winding. Although the analysis and experimental results have been mainly provided for three-phase squirrel-cage induction motors, single-phase and slip-ring induction motors have also been addressed. Further, it has been shown that eccentricity-related fault detection could also be easily accommodated with this kind of speed detection technique at no or negligible extra cost when certain motors are selected.     

Design and development of bioinspired calcium phosphate nanoparticles of MTX: pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic evaluation

The aim of this investigation is the management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) by developing methotrexate-loaded calcium phosphate nanoparticles (MTX-CAP-NP) and to evaluate pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic behavior in adjuvant induced arthritis model. The nanoparticles were synthesized by wet precipitation method and optimized by Box-Behnken experimental design. MTX-CAP-NPs were characterized by TEM, FTIR, DSC and XRD studies. The particle size, zeta potential and entrapment efficiency of the optimized nanoparticles were found to be 204.90?±?64?nm, ?11.58?±?4.80?mV, and 88.33?±?3.74%, respectively. TEM, FTIR, DSC and XRD studies revealed that the developed nanoparticles were nearly spherical in shape and the crystalline structure of CAP-NP was not changed after MTX loading. The pharmacokinetic studies revealed that MTX-CAP-NP enhanced bioavailability of MTX by 2.6-fold when compared to marketed formulation (FOLITRAX-10). Under pharmacodynamic evaluation, arthritic assessment, radiography and histopathology studies revealed that CAP has ability to regenerate cartilage and bone therefore, together with MTX, MTX-CAP-NPs have shown significant reduction in disease progression. The overall work demonstrated that the developed nanodelivery system was well tolerated and more effective than the marketed formulation.     

Design, analysis, and implementation of an agent driven pull-based distributed video-on-demand system

The problem of employing multiple servers to serve a pool of clients on a network based multimedia service is addressed. We have designed and practically implemented a prototype system employing multiple servers to render a long duration movie to the customers. We have employed a multiple server retrieval strategy proposed in the literature [39] to realize this system. In the system, server coordination, client behavior and service facilities are completely controlled by an Agent based approach in which we have used the recent Jini technology. Several issues, ranging from data retrieval from individual server, behavior of the underlying network infrastructure, to client management and resource (client buffers) management, are considered in this implementation. We describe in detail our experiences in this complete design process of every module in the software architecture, its purpose, and working style. Further, the system is shown to be robust amidst unpredictable failures, i.e., in the event of server crashes. The load balancing capability is built-in as a safe guard measure to assure a continuous presentation. We present a comprehensive discussion on the software architecture to realize this working system and present our experiences. A system comprising a series of Pentium III PCs on a fast Ethernet network is built as a test-bed. Through this prototype, a wider scope of research challenges ahead are highlighted as possible extensions. Bharadwaj Veeravalli Member, IEEE & IEEE-CS, received his BSc in Physics, from Madurai-Kamaraj Uiversity, India in 1987, Master's in Electrical Communication Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1991 and PhD from Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1994. He did his post-doctoral research in the Department of Computer Science, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, in 1996. He is currently with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer and Information Engineering (CIE) division, at The National University of Singapore, Singapore, as a tenured Associate Professor. His main stream research interests include, Multiprocessor systems, Cluster/Grid computing, Scheduling in parallel and distributed systems, Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, and Multimedia computing. He is one of the earliest researchers in the field of divisible load theory. He has published over 75 papers in high-quality International Journals and Conferences. He had secured several externally funded projects. He has co-authored three research monographs in the areas of Parallel and Distributed Systems, Distributed Databases, and Multimedia systems, in the years 1996, 2003, and 2005, respectively. He had guest edited a special issue on Cluster/Grid Computing for IJCA, USA journal in 2004. He has been recently invited to contribute to Multimedia Encyclopedia, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2005. He is currently serving the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on SMC-A and International Journal of Computers & Applications, USA, as an Associate Editor. He had served as a program committee member and as a session chair in several International Conferences. Long Chen received the B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering and M.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Northwestern Polytechnic University, P. R. China, in 1998 and 2001, respectively, and the M.E. degree in Computer Engineering from the National University of Singapore, Singapore, in 2004. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of Delaware, United States. His research interests include multimedia systems, distributed system, network security, and computer architecture.     

A multi-dimensional scheduling scheme in a Grid computing environment

In this paper, we propose a novel distributed resource-scheduling algorithm capable of handling multiple resource requirements for jobs that arrive in a Grid computing environment. In our proposed algorithm, referred to as multiple resource scheduling (MRS) algorithm, we take into account both the site capabilities and the resource requirements of jobs. The main objective of the algorithm is to obtain a minimal execution schedule through efficient management of available Grid resources. We first propose a model in which the job and site resource characteristics can be captured together and used in the scheduling algorithm. To do so, we introduce the concept of a n-dimensional virtual map and resource potential. Based on the proposed model, we conduct rigorous simulation experiments with real-life workload traces reported in the literature to quantify the performance. We compare our strategy with most of the commonly used algorithms in place on performance metrics such as job wait times, queue completion times, and average resource utilization. Our combined consideration of job and resource characteristics is shown to render high-performance with respect to above-mentioned metrics in the environment. Our study also reveals the fact that MRS scheme has a capability to adapt to both serial and parallel job requirements, especially when job fragmentation occurs. Our experimental results clearly show that MRS outperforms other strategies and we highlight the impact and importance of our strategy.     

Inkjet-printed patch antenna emitter for wireless communication application

This research focuses on exploring low-cost and rapid production solutions for fabricating emitters for patch antennas for wireless communication applications. Additive manufacturing technique is employed to fabricate two patch antennas using silver nanoparticle ink on FR4 substrate. Finite-element simulation software, HFSS is used to analyse and predict the theoretical performance of the antenna designs for 2.4?GHz MIMO and 6?GHz wireless data transmission. The fabricated antennas have resonant frequencies closely matching the design values. The work provides a viable solution for fabricating emitters and finally antennas commercially using inkjet printing platform, thus overall reducing the cost and simplifying the process.     

Microwave Hydrothermally Synthesized Nanocrystalline Co-Zn Ferrites

Co-Zn ferrite nano-powder was synthesized using the Microwave- Hydrothermal (M-H) method. The powder was characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The densification of nanoferrites was done using two methods: a) conventional and b) microwave sintering. Electrical and magnetic properties of the sintered samples were measured at room temperature. Electrical properties such as dielectric constant (?'), dissipation factor (D), initial permeability (μ_i) and quality factor (Q) were measured over a wide frequency range (10 kHz to 1 MHz). The Curie temperature has been determined from the permeability versus temperature plots. It was found that the enhanced electrical and magnetic properties were observed for microwave sintered samples.     

Calculus of fuzzy hierarchical censored production rules (FHCPRs)

The article addresses the problem of reasoning under time constraints with incomplete, vague, and uncertain information. It is based on the idea of Variable Precision Logic (VPL), introduced by Michalski and Winston, which deals with both the problem of reasoning with incomplete information subject to time constraints and the problem of reasoning efficiently with exceptions. It offers mechanisms for handling trade-offs between the precision of inferences and the computational efficiency of deriving them. As an extension of Censored Production Rules (CPRs) that exhibit variable precision in which certainty varies while specificity stays constant, a Hierarchical Censored Production Rules (HCPRs) system of Knowledge Representation proposed by Bharadwaj and Jain exhibits both variable certainty as well as variable specificity. Fuzzy Censored Production Rules (FCPRs) are obtained by augmenting ordinary fuzzy conditional statement: “if X is A then Y is B” (or A(x) ⇒ B(y) for short) with an exception condition and are written in the form: “if X is A then Y is B unless Z is C” (or A(x) ⇒ B(y) ∥ C(z)). Such rules are employed in situations in which the fuzzy conditional statement “if X is A then Y is B” holds frequently and the exception condition “Z is C” holds rarely. Thus, using a rule of this type we are free to ignore the exception condition, when the resources needed to establish its presence are tight or there simply is no information available as to whether it holds or does not hold. Thus if … then part of the FCPR expresses important information while the unless part acts only as a switch that changes the polarity of “Y is B” to “Y is not B” when the assertion “Z is C” holds. Our aim is to show how an ordinary fuzzy production rule on suitable modifications and augmentation with relevant information becomes a Fuzzy Hierarchical Censored Production Rules (FHCPRs), which in turn enables to resolve many of the problems associated with usual fuzzy production rules system. Examples are given to demonstrate the behavior of the proposed schemes. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.