No abstract

The influences of strand twisting and bending (applied at room temperature) on the critical current densities, Jc, and n-values of MgB2 multifilamentary strands were evaluated at 4.2 K as function of applied field strength, B. Three types of MgB2 strand were evaluated: (i) advanced internal magnesium infiltration (AIMI)-processed strands with 18 filaments (AIMI-18), (ii) powder-in-tube (PIT) strands processed using a continuous tube forming and filling (CTFF) technique with 36 filaments (PIT-36) and (iii) CTFF processed PIT strands with 54 filaments (PIT-54). Transport measurements of Jc(B) and n-value at 4.2 K in fields of up to 10 T were made on: (i) PIT-54 after it was twisted (at room temperature) to twist pitch values, Lp, of 10–100 mm. Transport measurements of Jc(B) and n-value were performed at 4.2 K; (ii) PIT-36 and AIMI-18 after applying bending strains up to 0.6% at room temperature. PIT-54 twisted to pitches of 100 mm down to 10 mm exhibited no degradation in Jc(B) and only small changes in n-value. Both the Jc(B) and n-value of PIT-36 were seen to be tolerant to bending strain of up to 0.4%. On the other hand, AIMI-18 showed ±10% changes in Jc(B) and significant scatter in n-value over the bending strain range of 0–0.6%.

We present and evaluate a NIC-based network intrusion detection system. Intrusion detection at the NIC makes the system potentially tamper-proof and is naturally extensible to work in a distributed setting. Simple anomaly detection and signature detection based models have been implemented on the NIC firmware, which has its own processor and memory. We empirically evaluate such systems from the perspective of quality and performance (bandwidth of acceptable messages) under varying conditions of host load. The preliminary results we obtain are very encouraging and lead us to believe that such NIC-based security schemes could very well be a crucial part of next generation network security systems.

Purpose: Conventional thermal ablation modalities are limited by their lack of tumoral specificity, resulting in unavoidable thermal injury to adjacent non-malignant tissues. We have previously shown that indocyanine green (ICG) localizes to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with exceptional target-tobackground ratios. In this study, a novel NIR heptamethine cyanine dye (1) was synthesized and analyzed for dual effect photothermal therapy and photodynamic therapy (PTT/PDT) which holds advantages of higher specificity and minimal invasive burden. The cyanine was also conjugated with palbociclib (1-pal), a CDK4/6 kinase inhibitor specifically to HCC tumors cells. Materials: A subcutaneous HCC model was generated by injecting McArdle RH-7777 (ATCC) hepatoma cells in female Buffalo rats (N¼10). For tumor localization, 0.5mg/kg of 1 or 1-pal was injected intravenously, and the dye localization was quantified at different time points using with epifluorescence imaging (IVIS, PerkinElmer). For tumor therapeutics, 10 mg/kg of 1 was administered intravenously and after 3 hours, the tumor was illuminated with a 785nm, 450mW NIR laser. Temperature changes were measured with a non-contact infrared camera (FLIR). Tumor sizes were measured for 10 days post treatment.Results: Both cyanine dyes 1 and 1-pal localized in tumor, with a high tumor to background ratio (~3:1) that was maintained for 72 hours. Under NIR laser irradiation, the temperature increased by 26.2oC. Moreover, the rate of tumor growth decreased in rats which were treated with dye 1 and followed by NIR laser relative to untreated control animals. Conclusions: We have shown a novel class of cyanines that specifically localize to HCC and has the potential for dual therapeutic effect using PDT/PTT. We have also shown that such dyes could be used a carrier to deliver therapeutic drugs. Further studies are needed to assess the dosage and the detailed therapeutic effect of a combined therapy.