Driving a Microswimmer with Wall-Induced Flow

Active walls such as cilia and bacteria carpets generate background flows that can influence the trajectories of microswimmers moving nearby. Recent advances in artificial magnetic cilia carpets offer the potentiality to use a similar wall-generated background flow to steer bio-hybrid microrobots. In this paper, we provide some ground theoretical and numerical work assessing the viability of this novel means of swimmer guidance by setting up a simple model of a spherical swimmer in an oscillatory flow and analysing it from the control theory viewpoint. We show a property of local controllability around the reference free trajectories and investigate the bang–bang structure of the control for time-optimal trajectories, with an estimation of the minimal time for suitable objectives. By direct simulation, we have demonstrated that the wall actuation can improve the wall-following transport by nearly 50%, which can be interpreted by synchronous flow structure. Although an open-loop control with a periodic bang–bang actuation loses some robustness and effectiveness, a feedback control is found to improve its robustness and effective transport, even with hydrodynamic wall-swimmer interactions. The results shed light on the potentialities of flow control and open the way to future experiments on swimmer guidance.

Boundary controllability of a system modelling a partially immersed obstacle

In this paper, we address the problem of boundary controllability for the one-dimensional nonlinear shallow water system, describing the free surface flow of water as well as the flow under a fixed gate structure. The system of differential equations considered can be interpreted as a simplified model of a particular type of wave energy device converter called oscillating water column. The physical requirements naturally lead to the problem of exact controllability in a prescribed region. In particular, we use the concept of nodal profile controllability in which at a given point (the node) time-dependent profiles for the states are required to be reachable by boundary controls. By rewriting the system into a hyperbolic system with nonlocal boundary conditions, we at first establish the existence and uniqueness of the semi-global classical solution for the system, then get the local controllability and that of nodal profile using a constructive method. In addition, based on this constructive process, we provide an algorithmic concept to calculate the required boundary control function for generating a solution for solving this control problem.

Efficacy and Safety of the Radiotherapy for Liver Cancer: Assessment of Local Controllability and Its Role in Multidisciplinary Therapy

This study investigated the efficacy and safety of radiotherapy as part of multidisciplinary therapy for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Clinical data of 49 HCC patients treated with radiotherapy were assessed retrospectively. The efficacy of radiotherapy was assessed by progression-free survival, disease control rate, and overall survival. Safety was assessed by symptoms and hematological assay, and changes in hepatic reserve function were determined by Child–Pugh score and albumin–bilirubin (ALBI) score. Forty patients underwent curative radiotherapy, and nine patients with portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT) underwent palliative radiotherapy as part of multidisciplinary therapy. Local disease control for curative therapy was 80.0% and stereotactic body radiotherapy was 86.7% which was greater than that of conventional radiotherapy (60.0%). Patients with PVTT had a median observation period of 651 days and 75% three-year survival when treated with multitherapy, including radiotherapy for palliative intent, transcatheter arterial chemoembolization, and administration of molecular targeted agents. No adverse events higher than grade 3 and no changes in the Child–Pugh score and ALBI score were seen. Radiotherapy is safe and effective for HCC treatment and can be a part of multidisciplinary therapy.