Development of theranostic dual-layered Au-liposome for effective tumor targeting and photothermal therapy

Abstract Background Photothermal therapy (PTT) is an emerging anti-cancer therapeutic strategy that generates hyperthermia to ablate cancer cells under laser irradiation. Gold (Au) coated liposome (AL) was reported as an effective PTT agent with good biocompatibility and excretory property. However, exposed Au components on liposomes can cause instability in vivo and difficulty in further functionalization. Results Herein, we developed a theranostic dual-layered nanomaterial by adding liposomal layer to AL (LAL), followed by attaching polyethylene glycol (PEG) and radiolabeling. Functionalization with PEG improves the in vivo stability of LAL, and radioisotope labeling enables in vivo imaging of LAL. Functionalized LAL is stable in physiological conditions, and 64Cu labeled LAL (64Cu-LAL) shows a sufficient blood circulation property and an effective tumor targeting ability of 16.4%ID g−1 from in vivo positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. Also, intravenously injected LAL shows higher tumor targeting, temperature elevation in vivo, and better PTT effect in orthotopic breast cancer mouse model compared to AL. The tumor growth inhibition rate of LAL was 3.9-fold higher than AL. Conclusion Based on these high stability, in vivo imaging ability, and tumor targeting efficiency, LAL could be a promising theranostic PTT agent. Graphic Abstrac

Magnetic and near-infrared derived heating characteristics of dimercaptosuccinic acid coated uniform Fe@Fe3O4 core–shell nanoparticles

Among the number of hyperthermia materials, magnetic nanoparticles have received much attention. In this work, we studied the heating characteristics of uniform Fe@Fe3O4 core–shell nanoparticle under near-infrared laser irradiation and external AC magnetic field applying. The Fe@Fe3O4 core–shell nanoparticles were prepared by thermal decomposition of iron pentacarbonyl and followed by controlled oxidation. The prepared uniform particles were further coated with dimercaptosuccinic acid to make them well dispersed in water. Near-infrared derived photothermal study of solutions containing a different concentration of the core–shell nanoparticles was made by using 808 nm laser Source. Additionally, magnetic hyperthermia ability of the Fe@Fe3O4 nanoparticle at 150 kHz and various oersted (140–180 Oe) condition was systemically characterized. The Fe@Fe3O4 nanoparticles which exhibited effective photo and magnetic hyperthermia are expected to be used in biomedical application.This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2018R1D1A1B07051249), Nano Material Technology Develop‑ment Program (NRF-2015M3A7B6027970) of MSIP/NRF and Center for Inte‑grated Smart Sensors funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Plan‑ning, Republic of Korea, as Global Frontier Project (CISS-012M3A6A6054186)

The role of case-marked noun phrases in clause structure building

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the pervasive role of case-markers in the morpho-syntax of various constructions in heavily dependent-marking languages such as Korean and Japanese. I show that Case plays a special role in Korean, unlike in other languages (e.g. German) by comparing the morphosyntax (and prosody and interpretation) of two types of nominal coordinations that are differentiated by the presence/absence of the case-marker in the initial conjunct. I then develop a novel system, which I call the ???Incremental C-selectional Combinatoric Analysis???, in which case markers or other combinatoric markers are crucially implicated in the structure building. I also demonstrate how some of the traditional issues revolving around the so-called null categories ??? both null arguments and null predicates ??? are resolved; null predicates are licensed strictly by syntax, while null arguments are not syntactically licensed. Rather, missing arguments mean the structural absence of the arguments. The constructions that I am focusing on in this investigation include different types of Noun Phrase Coordinations, Right Node Raising (RNR) Constructions, Coordination under Right Node Raising (CoRNR) Constructions, Null Argument Constructions and Right-Dislocation Constructions in Korean/Japanese. First, I discuss how the null predicate is licensed and gets interpreted in coordination contexts such as Type A/B nominal coordinations, RNR as well as CoRNR constructions. The null predicate is syntactically licensed by the (combined) case-marked NPs in the initial conjunct. The contents of this null predicate are cataphorically resolved when the overt predicate in the final conjunct is encountered. I then discuss the syntax of Null Argument Constructions. Unlike the proposals made so far, I propose that null arguments mean structural absence of the arguments. Specifically, missing elements are not syntactically projected at all. Finally, I analyze Right-Dislocation Constructions as bi-clausal, which are composed of a host clause and an appendix clause containing a null predicate. The null predicate in the appendix clause receives anaphoric interpretation by being co-indexed with the overt predicate in the host clause. Before closing with some implications of the proposed analysis, I discuss how to handle sentences with some case-drop or without case-markers at all. I propose that they are asyntactically formed

Business Sustainability of Start-Ups Based on Government Support: An Empirical Study of Korean Start-Ups

Since the mid-2000s, start-ups have increasingly become the driving force of new jobs and growth engines for advanced countries, and emerging nations are striving to vitalize start-ups through active government support policies. However, approximately 30% of start-ups shut down within two years of their foundation. Accordingly, this study determines the factors affecting the business sustainability of start-ups as based on available government support and provides suggestions to increase the effectiveness of the government-supported projects. This study conducted a survey of 273 start-ups in Korea, and empirically analyzed whether factors such as entrepreneurship, market orientation, and network affected business sustainability by using flow experience and entrepreneurial satisfaction as mediators. The results found that entrepreneurship affected business sustainability with flow experience and entrepreneurial satisfaction as the mediators, while market orientation affected business sustainability using flow experience as the mediator, and network affected business sustainability with entrepreneurial satisfaction as the mediator

SyncCoding: A Compression Technique Exploiting References for Data Synchronization Services

In this work, we raise a question on why the abundant information previously shared between a server and its client is not effectively utilized in the exchange of a new data which may be highly correlated with the shared data. We formulate this question as an encoding problem that is applicable to general data synchronization services including a wide range of Internet services such as cloud data synchronization, web browsing, messaging, and even data streaming. To this problem, we propose a new encoding technique, SyncCoding that maximally replaces subsets of the data to be transmitted with the coordinates pointing to the matching subsets included in the set of relevant shared data, called references. SyncCoding can be easily integrated into a transport layer protocol such as HTTP and enables significant reduction of network traffic. Our experimental evaluations of SyncCoding implemented in Linux shows that it outperforms existing popular encoding techniques, Brotli, LZMA, Deflate, and Deduplication in two practical use networking applications: cloud data sharing and web browsing. The gains of SyncCoding over Brotli, LZMA, Deflate, and Deduplication in the encoded size to be transmitted are shown to be about 12.4%, 20.1%, 29.9%, and 61.2% in the cloud data sharing and about 78.3%, 79.6%, 86.1%, and 92.9% in the web browsing, respectively. The gains of SyncCoding over Brotli, LZMA, and Deflate when Deduplication is applied in advance are about 7.4%, 10.6%, and 17.4% in the cloud data sharing and about 79.4%, 82.0%, and 83.2% in the web browsing, respectively

An Inter-data Encoding Technique that Exploits Synchronized Data for Network Applications

In a variety of network applications, there exists significant amount of shared data between two end hosts. Examples include data synchronization services that replicate data from one node to another. Given that shared data may have high correlation with new data to transmit, we question how such shared data can be best utilized to improve the efficiency of data transmission. To answer this, we develop an inter-data encoding technique, SyncCoding, that effectively replaces bit sequences of the data to be transmitted with the pointers to their matching bit sequences in the shared data so called references. By doing so, SyncCoding can reduce data traffic, speed up data transmission, and save energy consumption for transmission. Our evaluations of SyncCoding implemented in Linux show that it outperforms existing popular encoding techniques, Brotli, LZMA, Deflate, and Deduplication. The gains of SyncCoding over those techniques in the perspective of data size after compression in a cloud storage scenario are about 12.5%, 20.8%, 30.1%, and 66.1%, and are about 78.4%, 80.3%, 84.3%, and 94.3% in a web browsing scenario, respectively

Pterodactyls 7

October 26-29, 2000. Deuxieme Maison 150 Theatre. Written by Nicky Silver. Directed by Rosie Sermeno. Set Design by Nicole Santaella. Costume Design by Arnold Bueso. Starring Brad Murphy as Todd Duncan; Talia Tejeda as Emma Duncan; Michael Santos as Tommy McKorckle; Eva Ruiz as Grace Duncan; Charles A. Quinteros as Arthur Duncan.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/theatre_images/1650/thumbnail.jp