A multi-objective optimization framework through genetic algorithm for hyperthermia-mediated drug delivery.

This study presents an approach to the multi-objective optimization of hyperthermia-mediated drug delivery using thermo-sensitive liposomes (TSLs) for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. The research focuses on addressing the non-optimal coupling methods that combine thermal treatments and chemotherapy by employing a Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm (MOGA) optimization process, in order to identify the right combination of design variables to achieve better treatment outcomes. The proposed model integrates Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis using the Pennes' Bioheat equation for tissue heating and a convection-diffusion model for drug delivery.

Microwave ablation modeling with AMICA antenna: Validation by means a numerical analysis.

Background And Objectives: Percutaneous microwave thermal ablation is based on electromagnetic waves that generate dielectric heating, and it is widely recognized as one of the mostly used techniques for tumor treatment. The aim of this work is to validate a predictive model capable of providing physicians with guidelines to be used during thermal ablation procedures avoiding collateral damage.

Methods: A finite element commercial software, COMSOL Multiphysics, is employed to implement a tuning-parameter approach.

Emprint Microwave Thermoablation System: Bridging Thermal Ablation Efficacy between Human Patients and Porcine Models through Mathematical Correlation.

To investigate the in vivo ablation characteristics of a microwave ablation antenna in the livers of humans with tumors, a retrospective analysis of the ablation zones was conducted after applying Emprint microwave ablation systems for treatment. Percutaneous microwave ablations performed between January 2022 and September 2022 were included in this study. Subsequently, immediate post-ablation echography images were subjected to retrospective evaluation to state the long ablated diameter, short ablated diameter, and volume.

Are Short Duration Naps Better than Long Duration Naps for Mitigating Sleep Inertia? Brief Report of a Randomized Crossover Trial of Simulated Night Shift Work.

Objective: We sought to test the effects of different duration naps on post-nap cognitive performance during simulated night shifts.

Methods: We used a randomized laboratory-based crossover trial design with simulated 12-hr night shifts and each participant completing three conditions of 72 hrs each (Clinicaltrials.gov; registration # NCT04469803).

Effects of Pulsed Radiofrequency Source on Cardiac Ablation.

Heart arrhythmia is caused by abnormal electrical conduction through the myocardium, which in some cases, can be treated with heat. One of the challenges is to reduce temperature peaks-by still guaranteeing an efficient treatment where desired-to avoid any healthy tissue damage or any electrical issues within the device employed. A solution might be employing pulsed heat, in which thermal dose is given to the tissue with a variation in time.

Mathematical modeling of microwave liver ablation with a variable-porosity medium approach.

Background And Objectives: Thermal ablation of tumors plays a key role to fight cancer, since it is a minimally invasive treatment which involves some advantages compared to surgery and chemotherapy, such as shorter hospital stays and consequently lower costs, along with minor side effects. In this context, computational modeling of heat transfer during thermal ablation is relevant to accurately predict the obtained ablation zone in order to avoid tumor recurrence risk caused by incomplete ablation, and the same time to save the surrounding healthy tissue. The aim of this work is to develop a more realistic porous media-based mathematical model to simulate a microwave thermal ablation (MWA) of an in vivo liver tumor surrounded by healthy tissue.

Endophytes from African Rice ( L.) Efficiently Colonize Asian Rice ( L.) Stimulating the Activity of Its Antioxidant Enzymes and Increasing the Content of Nitrogen, Carbon, and Chlorophyll.

Bacterial endophytes support the adaptation of host plants to harsh environments. In this study, culturable bacterial endophytes were isolated from the African rice L., which is well-adapted to grow with poor external inputs in the tropical region of Mali.

Pennes' bioheat equation vs. porous media approach in computer modeling of radiofrequency tumor ablation.

The objective of this study was to compare three different heat transfer models for radiofrequency ablation of in vivo liver tissue using a cooled electrode and three different voltage levels. The comparison was between the simplest but less realistic Pennes' equation and two porous media-based models, i.e.

Numerical analysis of the pulsating heat source effects in a tumor tissue.

Background And Objectives: Hyperthermia treatment is nowadays recognized as the fourth additional cancer therapy technique following surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation; it is a minimally or non-invasive technique which involves fewer complications, a shorter hospital stay, and fewer costs. In this paper, pulsating heat effects on heat transfer in a tumor tissue under hyperthermia are analyzed. The objective of the paper is to find and quantify the advantages of pulsatile heat protocols under different periodical heating schemes and for different tissue morphologies.

The effects of exterior boundary conditions on a internally heated tumor tissue with a thermoporoelastic model.

Modeling flow field in tumor regions interstitial space is of primary importance, because of the importance of advection in macromolecule drug delivery. Its deformation has also to be taken into account because of the forces caused by the fluid; if the tumor region is not isothermal, this deformation can be also strongly affected by temperature fields. In this paper, the effects of thermal boundary conditions on a tumor region periphery with an internal heat source are investigated.

Effects of pulsating heat source on interstitial fluid transport in tumour tissues.

Macromolecules and drug delivery to solid tumours is strongly influenced by fluid flow through interstitium, and pressure-induced tissue deformations can have a role in this. Recently, it has been shown that temperature-induced tissue deformation can influence interstitial fluid velocity and pressure fields, too. In this paper, the effect of modulating-heat strategies to influence interstitial fluid transport in tissues is analysed.

Bacterial IAA-Delivery into Medicago Root Nodules Triggers a Balanced Stimulation of C and N Metabolism Leading to a Biomass Increase.

Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is the main auxin acting as a phytohormone in many plant developmental processes. The ability to synthesize IAA is widely associated with plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR). Several studies have been published on the potential application of PGPR to improve plant growth through the enhancement of their main metabolic processes.

New Insights into Structural and Functional Roles of Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA): Changes in DNA Topology and Gene Expression in Bacteria.

Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) is a major plant hormone that affects many cellular processes in plants, bacteria, yeast, and human cells through still unknown mechanisms. In this study, we demonstrated that the IAA-treatment of two unrelated bacteria, the nsifer meliloti 1021 and coli, harboring two different host range plasmids, influences the supercoiled state of the two plasmid DNAs in vivo. Results obtained from in vitro assays show that IAA interacts with DNA, leading to DNA conformational changes commonly induced by intercalating agents.

A thermoporoelastic model for fluid transport in tumour tissues.

In this paper, the effect of coupled thermal dilation and stress on interstitial fluid transport in tumour tissues is evaluated. The tumour is modelled as a spherical deformable poroelastic medium embedded with interstitial fluid, while the transvascular fluid flow is modelled as a uniform distribution of fluid sink and source points. A hyperbolic-decay radial function is used to model the heat source generation along with a rapid decay of tumour blood flow.

Efficient colonization of the endophytes Herbaspirillum huttiense RCA24 and Enterobacter cloacae RCA25 influences the physiological parameters of Oryza sativa L. cv. Baldo rice.

Several important bacterial characteristics, such as biological nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase activity and production of siderophores and phytohormones, can be assessed as plant growth promotion traits. Our aim was to evaluate the effects of nitrogen fixing and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) producing endophytes in two Oryza sativa cultivars (Baldo and Vialone Nano). Three bacteria, Herbaspirillum huttiense RCA24, Enterobacter asburiae RCA23 and Staphylococcus sp.

Long term control of luteinized thecoma with sclerosing peritonitis with leuprorelin and tamoxifen treatment.

Background: Luteinized thecoma with sclerosing peritonitis (LTSP) is a very rare condition, and its clinical management is not evidence-based. Here we describe a case of long-term disease control achieved with leuprorelin and tamoxifen therapy.

Case Presentation: A 18-year-old woman with acute abdomen underwent surgical removal of an ovarian mass and received diagnosis of LTSP.

Modeling Heat Transfer in Tumors: A Review of Thermal Therapies.

It is quite challenging to describe heat transfer phenomena in living systems because of the involved phenomena complexity. Indeed, thermal conduction and convection in tissues, blood perfusion, heat generation due to metabolism, complex vascular structure, changing of tissue properties depending on various conditions, are some of the features that make hard to obtain an accurate knowledge of heat transfer in living systems for all the clinical situations. This theme has a key role to predict accurately the temperature distribution in tissues, especially during biomedical applications, such as hyperthermia treatment of cancer, in which tumoral cells have to be destroyed and at the same time the surrounding healthy tissue has to be preserved.

Boundary layer considerations in a multi-layer model for LDL accumulation.

Boundary layer effects for Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) concentration problems in a multi-layer artery model are analyzed in this work. Both a straight artery and aorta-iliac bifurcation are analyzed. Mass, momentum and species governing equations are based on the porous media theory and solved with the commercial finite-element based code COMSOL Multiphysics.

Improved Drought Stress Response in Alfalfa Plants Nodulated by an IAA Over-producing Strain.

The drought-stress response in plant involves the cross-talk between abscisic acid (ABA) and other phytohormones, such as jasmonates and ethylene. The auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) plays an integral part in plant adaptation to drought stress. Investigation was made to see how the main auxin IAA interacted with other plant hormones under water stress, applied through two different growth conditions (solid and hydroponic).

Analysis of non-Newtonian effects within an aorta-iliac bifurcation region.

The geometry of the arteries at or near arterial bifurcation influences the blood flow field, which is an important factor affecting arteriogenesis. The blood can act sometimes as a non-Newtonian fluid. However, many studies have argued that for large and medium arteries, the blood flow can be considered to be Newtonian.

The Overproduction of Indole-3-Acetic Acid (IAA) in Endophytes Upregulates Nitrogen Fixation in Both Bacterial Cultures and Inoculated Rice Plants.

Endophytic bacteria from roots and leaves of rice plants were isolated and identified in order to select the diazotrophs and improve their nitrogen-fixing abilities. The nitrogen-fixing endophytes were identified by PCR amplification of the nifH gene fragment. For this purpose, two isolates, Enterobacter cloacae RCA25 and Klebsiella variicola RCA26, and two model bacteria (Herbaspirillum seropedicae z67 and Sinorhizobium fredii NGR234) were transformed to increase the biosynthesis of the main plant auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA).

Quantification of Triphenyl-2H-tetrazoliumchloride Reduction Activity in Bacterial Cells.

This protocol describes the use of the 2,3,5-triphenyl-2H-tetrazolium chloride (TTC) salt to evaluate the cell redox potential of rhizobia cells. The production of brightly colored and insoluble 1,3,5-Triphenyltetrazolium formazan arising from TTC reduction is irreversible and can be easily quantified using a spectrophotometer. This protocol allows the production of reproducible results in a relatively short time for 1021 cells grown both in exponential and stationary phases.

Nanoscale control of Si nanoparticles within a 2D hexagonal array embedded in SiO thin films.

In this work, we investigate the ability to control Si nanoparticles (NPs) spatially arranged in a hexagonal network of 20 nm wide nanovolumes at controlled depth within SiO thin films. To achieve this goal an unconventional lithographic technique was implemented based on a bottom-up approach, that is fully compatible with the existing semiconductor technology. The method combines ultra-low energy ion beam synthesis with nanostructured block-copolymer thin films that are self-assembled on the SiO substrates to form a nanoporous template with hexagonally packed pores.

Analysis of non-Newtonian effects on Low-Density Lipoprotein accumulation in an artery.

In this work, non-Newtonian effects on Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL) transport across an artery are analyzed with a multi-layer model. Four rheological models (Carreau, Carreau-Yasuda, power-law and Newtonian) are used for the blood flow through the lumen. For the non-Newtonian cases, the arterial wall is modeled with a generalized momentum equation.

Low-density lipoprotein transport through an arterial wall under hyperthermia and hypertension conditions--An analytical solution.

An analytical solution for Low-Density Lipoprotein transport through an arterial wall under hyperthermia conditions is established in this work. A four-layer model is used to characterize the arterial wall. Transport governing equations are obtained as a combination between Staverman-Kedem-Katchalsky membrane equations and volume-averaged porous media equations.