Open Access

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) serve as imaging tracers, therapeutic heating agents and biosensors in biomedical applications. All the above applications rely upon the particles’ unique relaxation mechanisms, which lead to phase shifts in alternating magnetic fields and dissipation. As MNP have an intrinsic size distribution and their magnetic properties are also size-dependent, search is ongoing for the optimally sized MNP that could potentially serve for all three applications simultaneously. In this work, we present our current results on simulating the influence of core size, mono- and polydisperse size distributions as well as magnetic anisotropy on the performance of MNP for both heating and biosensing using micromagnetic dynamic magnetization simulations.

Magnetic Particle Spectroscopy (MPS) allows for direct characterization of magneto-physical properties of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP), which are widely researched as imaging tracers, biosensing units and therapeutic heating agents. All these applications rely primarily on the core size-dependent magnetic particle relaxation dynamics. Therefore, knowledge about core size of any MNP sample is crucial. Dual-frequency MPS increases the characterization potential by considering frequency mixing terms of the received signal of MNP, from which their sizes can be approximated. In this work, preliminary feasibility and interpretation of a proposed size reconstruction method is tested against precisely simulated input data from stochastically coupled Néel-Brownian relaxation modeling using Monte Carlo implementation.

Companies often have to extract information from PDF documents by hand since these documents only are human-readable. To gain business value, companies attempt to automate these processes by using the newest technologies from research. In the field of table analysis, e.g., several hundred approaches were introduced in 2019. The formats of those PDF documents vary enormously and may change over time. Due to that, different and high adjustable extraction strategies are necessary to process the documents automatically, while specific steps are recurring. Thus, we provide an architectural pattern that ensures the modularization of strategies through microservices composed into pipelines. Crucial factors for success are identifying the most suitable pipeline and the reliability of their result. Therefore, the automated quality determination of pipelines creates two fundamental benefits. First, the provided system automatically identifies the best strategy for each input document at runtim e. Second, the provided system automatically integrates new microservices into pipelines as soon as they increase overall quality. Hence, the pattern enables fast prototyping of the newest approaches from research while ensuring that they achieve the required quality to gain business value.

Magnetic fluid hyperthermia (MFH) enables the controlled release of therapeutical heat using magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) as heating agents. The MNP are triggered to transform the energy of an externally applied alternating magnetic field into heat via relaxation of their magnetic moments. This heat is then dissipated into their immediate surroundings, e.g. a tumor, facilitating organ confined cancer treatment. While offering great potential in minimally-invasive localized cancer therapy, MFH efficacy relies on MNP efficiency to generate heat in interaction with the biological environment. Among other things, MNP are restricted in their mobility and form clusters under these physiological conditions, overall alternating their magnetic relaxation and heating behavior. Here, current approaches ranging from theorectical modelling to preclinical application of MFH are presented, specifically addressing MNP heating under these alternations. Particle heating modelling techinques are developed, predicting sets of parameters matching field amplitude and frequency as well as MNP size and magnetic properties for optimized MFH efficiency. The MNP interaction with tumor cells and its impact on heating efficiency is quantified and validated with heating experiments on MNP immobilized in hydrogels, mimicking the settings in cellular environments such as binding to the cell membranes and agglomeration inside lysosomes. These hydrogels have tunable materials properties that allow to quantify the effects of clustering and immobilization on the particle heating. Further, the general feasibility of MFH is addressed with in-vitro MFH experiments carried out on pancreatic tumor cells. Beyond the obvious bulk temperature cytotoxic effect, the so-called nanoheating effect is demonstrated. This effect underscores the use of MNP as therapeutical agents, which, combined with their use as diagnostic agents in magnetic particle imaging (MPI), display a promising theranostic platform for future biomedical applications.

The purpose of this study was to analyse stiffness in the mechanical system of the world’s elite high jumpers. Seven male elite high jump athletes (personal best 2.24 m ± 0.06 m) were filmed with 19 Infrared-High-Speed-Cameras during jumping. Kinetics were captured with a force plate. It was found that a different leg and joint stiffness during takeoff enables nearly the same jumping height. For example, a typical power jumper with a leg stiffness of 543.6 N m-1 kg-1 reached 2.13 m, while a typical speed jumper with a leg stiffness of 1133.5 N m-1 kg-1 reached a comparable height of 2.12 m. Therefore, it seems that sports performance in single leg jumping is not limited by athlete’s leg and joint stiffness in a small group of male elite high jumpers.