4D printing of core-shell hydrogel capsules for smart controlled drug release

Personalized drugs,as well as disease-specific and condition-dependent drug release,have been highly desired in drug delivery systems for effective and safe therapies.Four-dimensional(4 D)printing,as a newly emerging technique to develop drug capsules,displays unique advantages that can autonomously control drug release according to the actual physiological circumstances.Herein,core-shell structured hydrogel capsules were developed using a multimaterial extrusion-based 4 D printing method,which consists of a model drug as the core and UV cross-linked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)(PNIPAM)hydrogel as the shell.Owing to the lower critical solution temperature(LCST)-induced shrinking/swelling properties,the prepared PNIPAM hydrogel capsules showed temperature-responsive drug release along with the topography changes in the cross-linked PNIPAM network.The in vitro drug release test confirmed that the PNIPAM hydrogel capsules can autonomously control their drug release behaviors according to changes in ambient temperature.Moreover,the increased shell thickness of these capsules causes an obvious reduction in drug release rate,distinctly indicating that the drug release behavior can be well adjusted by setting the shell thickness of the capsules.The proposed 4 D printing strategy pioneers the paradigm of smart drug release by showing great potential in the smart controlled release of drugs and macromolecular active agents.

Observer-based robust H-infinity control for uncertain switched systems

The problem of observer-based robust H-infinity control is addressed for a class of linear discrete-time switched systems with time-varying norm-bounded uncertainties by using switched Lyapunov function method. None of the individual subsystems is assumed to be robustly H-infinity solvable. A novel switched Lypunov function matrix with diagonal-block form is devised to overcome the difficulties in designing switching laws. For robust H-infinity stability analysis, two linear-matrix-inequality-based sufficient conditions are derived by only using the smallest region function strategy if some parameters are preselected. Then, the robust H-infinity control synthesis is studied using a switching state feedback and an observer-based switching dynamical output feedback. All the switching laws are simultaneously constructively designed. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the validity of the results.