Magnetic hyperthermia controlled drug release in the GI tract : solving the problem of detection

Drug delivery to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is highly challenging due to the harsh environments any drug- delivery vehicle must experience before it releases it’s drug payload. Effective targeted drug delivery systems often rely on external stimuli to effect release, therefore knowing the exact location of the capsule and when to apply an external stimulus is paramount. We present a drug delivery system for the GI tract based on coating standard gelatin drug capsules with a model eicosane- superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle composite coating, which is activated using magnetic hyperthermia as an on-demand release mechanism to heat and melt the coating. We also show that the capsules can be readily detected via rapid X-ray computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), vital for progressing such a system towards clinical applications. This also offers the opportunity to image the dispersion of the drug payload post release. These imaging techniques also influenced capsule content and design and the delivered dosage form. The ability to easily change design demonstrates the versatility of this system, a vital advantage for modern, patient-specific medicine

The Final Frontier: Embedding Networked Sensors in the Soil

This paper presents the first systematic design of a robust sensing system suited for the challenges presented by soil environments. We describe three soil deployments we have undertaken: in Bangladesh, and in California at the James Reserve and in the San Joaquin River basin. We discuss our experiences and lessons learned in deploying soil sensors. We present data from each deployment and evaluate our techniques for improving the information yield from these systems. Our most notable results include the following: in-situ calibration techniques to postpone labor-intensive and soil disruptive calibration events developed at the James Reserve; achieving a 91% network yield from a Mica2 wireless sensing system without end-to-end reliability in Bangladesh; and the javelin, a new platform that facilitates the deployment, replacement and in-situ calibration of soil sensors, deployed in the San Joaquin River basin. Our techniques to increase information yield have already led to scientifically promising results, including previously unexpected diurnal cycles in various soil chemistry parameters across several deployments

Dialogue interpreting: data and analysis

Up to the development of the Verbmobil-prototype mainly two types of speech data within the domain of appointment scheduling are recorded: 1. German-German dialogues serving as test and trianing data, 2. Wizard-of-Oz-dialogues and some authentic German-English and German-Japanese dialogues with human interpreter. Most of the dialogues of type 2 are recorded by the Verbmobil Subproject 13 in Hamburg and are stored in a special database (DiaBoLiC, Dialogue Interpreting: Analysis Base of Linguistic Corpora). In this paper, we describe characteristic features of the data of type 2, existing analysis and the structure of DiaBoLic, and we present new results of data analysis (extension of the list of dialogue acts for the domain TRAVEL PLANNING, analysis of translation strategies). As dialogues of type 2 are regarded as relevant for the Verbmobil application, the data have been analyzed with reference to key-words in the realization of dialogue acts ([2]). A list of key-words for dialogue acts as well as a list of tested scenarios is attached to this paper. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RR 5221(189)+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie, Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Networked Sensing of Nitrate in Support of Groundwater Quality Protection

None provided

Networked Sensing of Nitrate in Support of Groundwater Quality Protection

None provided

EmStar: An Environment for Developing Wireless Embedded Systems Software

An overview of EmStar, CENS'' Linux-based framework for developing sensor network software