Abstract.With the development of e-manufacturing, the flexible intelligent maintenance is necessary. Wireless sensor network is competent for a flexible maintenance system. Client/Server model adopted in traditional intelligent maintenance which requires transmitting vast data via network is unsuitable in wireless sensor network with limited bandwidth and unstable connection. Emerging mobile agent technology can reduce the network traffic and overcome the network latency, and is an eligible substitute for Client/Server model. This paper presents a mobile agent based wireless sensor network for intelligent maintenance. The flexible maintenance system integrates softcomputing, wireless sensor network and mobile agent technology. The system is used to maintain Mori Seiki Co. SV500 numerical control machining center and the results illustrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the system.

Energy consumption is critical and the processing ability and memory of sensor nodes are limited in wireless sensor networks. Mobile agent technology can decrease energy consumption and boost network performance. Inadequate deployment of mobile agents might lead to network failure due to constraint bandwidth. In this paper, a deployment strategy of mobile agents in wireless sensor networks, which integrates the creation sequence, priority and energy consumption of mobile agents, is proposed. Genetic algorithm is engaged to optimize the strategy. Then the energy consumption and time delay of mobile agent model are compared with client/server model. The simulation results indicate that the optimized deployment strategy of mobile agents can efficiently decrease the energy consumption and time delay in wireless sensor network, and improve the real-time ability. Thus, the network lifetime is prolonged and the real-time ability is boosted. Finally, the performance of optimized deployment strategy of mobile agents has been validated in quality inspection on manufacturing.

Drug delivery systems (DDSs) have recently gained widespread attention for improving drug loading and delivery efficiency in treating many cancers. Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are synthetic peptides derived from a precursor of elastin (tropoelastin), reserving similar structural and physicochemical properties. ELPs have gained a variety of applications in tissue engineering and cancer therapy due to their excellent biocompatibility, complete degradability, temperature-responsive property, controllable sequence and length, and precisely tuned structure and function. ELPs-based drug delivery systems can improve the pharmacokinetics and biodistribution of therapeutic reagents, leading to enhanced antitumor efficacy. In this review, we summarize the recent application of ELPs in cancer treatment, focusing on the delivery of functional peptides, therapeutic proteins, small molecule drugs, and photosensitizers.