Recent advances in nanocarrier-loaded gels: Which drug delivery technologies against which diseases?

The combination of pharmaceutical technologies can be a wise choice for developing innovative therapeutic strategies. The association of nanocarriers and gels provides new therapeutic possibilities due to the combined properties of the two technologies. Gels support the nanocarriers, localize their administration to the target tissue, and sustain their release. In addition to the properties afforded by the gel, nanocarriers can provide additional drug sustained release or different pharmacokinetic and biodistribution profiles than those from nanocarriers administered by the conventional route to improve the drug therapeutic index. This review focuses on recent (over the last ten years) in vivo data showing the advances and advantages of using nanocarrier-loaded gels. Liposomes, micelles, liquid and solid lipid nanocapsules, polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, and fullerenes are all nanotechnologies which have been recently assessed for medical applications, such as cancer therapy, the treatment of cutaneous and infectious diseases, anesthesia, the administration of antidepressants, and the treatment of unexpected diseases, such as alopecia

Intelligent anvils applied to experimental investigations: state-of-the-art

Since a long time, efforts have been made to improve the accuracy of pressure and temperature measurements in diamond anvil cell experiments performed in experimental petrology and high-pressure physics. Here, we report on the state-of-the-art of the research carried out during past few years with the diamond anvils carrying implanted electronic structures (‘intelligent' anvils, iAnvils). The electronic structures are inserted a few microns below the diamond surface into the diamond lattice by high-energy implantation of boron. These structures can be used as pressure- and temperature-sensitive devices. Another useful application is the fabrication of micro-heaters integrated in the anvils. Pressure- and temperature-induced responses of the sensors (change of resistance) are quantified by low-current measurement equipment. Calibrations against pressure–temperature parameters are performed using well-known phase transitions or by using equation of state of pure substances. Results of in situ measurements performed on iAnvils under pressure and temperature are presented, together with calibration curves for pressure and temperature. Future experiments on in situ measurements of the conductivity dependence of the sensor structures are discussed

Local directional mask maximum edge patterns for image retrieval and face recognition

This study proposes a new feature descriptor, local directional mask maximum edge pattern, for image retrieval and face recognition applications. Local binary pattern (LBP) and LBP variants collect the relationship between the centre pixel and its surrounding neighbours in an image. Thus, LBP based features are very sensitive to the noise variations in an image. Whereas the proposed method collects the maximum edge patterns (MEP) and maximum edge position patterns (MEPP) from the magnitude directional edges of face/image. These directional edges are computed with the aid of directional masks. Once the directional edges (DE) are computed, the MEP and MEPP are coded based on the magnitude of DE and position of maximum DE. Further, the robustness of the proposed method is increased by integrating it with the multiresolution Gaussian filters. The performance of the proposed method is tested by conducting four experiments onopen access series of imaging studies‐magnetic resonance imaging, Brodatz, MIT VisTex and Extended Yale B databases for biomedical image retrieval, texture retrieval and face recognition applications. The results after being investigated the proposed method shows a significant improvement as compared with LBP and LBP variant features in terms of their evaluation measures on respective databases

American game fishes : their habits, habitat, and peculiarities; how, when, and where to angle for them

Cheney, A. N. Introduction.--Hallock, Charles. The Salmon.--Perry. W. A. The Pacific salmon.--Cheighton, J. G. A. The landlocked salmon.--Haldeman, W. N. The tarpon.--Endicott, Francis. The striped bass.--Henshall, J. A. The black bass.--Goode, G. B. The blue-fish.--Henshall, J. A. The mascalonge.--Mosher, A. A. The mascalonge in Wisconsin waters.--Thurston, F. H. The brook trout.--Murray, W. H. H. Trouting on the Nipigon.--Pardee, Luther. The lake trout.--Shields, G. O. The Rocky mountain trout.--Clarke, S. C. Sea bass, sea trout, Spanish mackerel...and other southern fishes.--Thurston, F. H. The grayling.--Tomlia, W. D. The pike.--Mosher, A. A. The wall-eyed pike.--Tomlin, W. D. The pickerel.--Mather, Fred. The white perch.--Jordan, D. S. The yellow bass, white bass, strawberry bass...--Harris, W. C. The senses of fishes.--Keene, J. H. Fishing tackle, and how to make it.--Milan, B. C. Reels, their use and abuse.--Shields, G. O. The angler's camp outfit.Mode of access: Internet