Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drug delivery systems to include liposomes and microparticles in order to aid treatment of glioma.

Targeted drug delivery is achieved by enhancing drug availability at the response site while minimising its availability at other sites, especially those that manifest toxicity. The effects of liposomes and polymeric nanoparticles in cancer chemotherapy have been investigated in recent years and there have been some interesting outcomes resulting in improved survival rates of the patients. Thus, the present study was carried out to investigate the effect of encapsulating TMZ and Patrin-2 into liposomes and microparticles separately in order to enhance the delivery. A validated HPLC system was used for the analysis of both TMZ and Patrin-2. First phase of our study involved the preparation of a delivery system of TMZ and Patrin-2 through liposomes in order to enhance the treatment of glioma. It involved the application of freeze-thaw and dehydration-rehydration methods to encapsulate the TMZ into liposomes. However, the desired encapsulation efficiency (EE %) of TMZ was not achieved using these methods, the maximum entrapment achieved with freeze-thaw method was 11.54 ± 0.70 % while for dehydration-rehydration method was 26.69 ± 0.34 %. Therefore the second phase focussed on preparing polymeric microparticles for continuous delivery of intact TMZ and Patrin-2 using the spray dry method. The maximum entrapment achieved using this method for TMZ was 64.32 ± 2.58 % while the maximum entrapment achieved for Patrin-2 was 68.47 ± 1.47 %, thus, this technique was found to be successful for the preparation of both TMZ and Patrin-2 loaded PLGA microparticles. Furthermore the release study of both TMZ and Patrin-2 was investigated using dispersion and dialysis methods. TMZ and Patrin-2 showed an initial burst release, however TMZ later showed decrease in concentration over the period of time while Patrin-2 showed a slow release with an increase in concentration. This novel study aids in comparing various methods used for investigating the preparation of TMZ loaded liposomes, and TMZ and Patrin-2 loaded microparticles. In preparation of liposomes based on this research dehydration-rehydration was found to be a more efficient method than the freeze-thaw method for encapsulating TMZ, while the spray dry method was found to be more effective than the emulsifying solvent evaporation method in obtaining the maximum EE % for TMZ and Patrin-2 for preparation of microparticles. The release profiles of TMZ and Patrin-2 from the microparticles was studied using the dispersion method and the dialysis bag diffusion technique however due to tome being the limited factor the technique could not be explored completely.
Evidence based review: positive versus negative effects of livestock grazing on wildlife. What do we really know?

More than a quarter of earth’s land surface is used for grazing domestic livestock. Livestock grazing is generally assumed to negatively affect wildlife, however, a number of studies have found positive impacts as well. We conducted an evidence-based review of the existing literature using a series of livestock- and wildlife-related search words to systematically query Google Scholar and Web of Science. A total of 807 sources were included in the final list, including 646 primary sources which reported original data. The majority of studies were conducted in North America (338) or Europe (123), with many fewer from Africa (57), Australia (54), Central/South America (43), or Asia (31). Most studies examined birds (330) and mammals (262), with fewer including reptiles (91) or amphibians (58). We extracted further information from studies that included mammals on positive, negative, and neutral effects of livestock grazing on mammals. We found that livestock change vegetation structure and cover in ways important to small mammals, while ungulates may be affected more by interference competition and changes in forage quantity and quality. Community-level total abundance of small mammals typically declines with grazing. Species richness of small mammals either declines or stays the same, as many studies found a change in species composition from ungrazed to grazed sites while the number of species remained similar. Individual species responses of small mammals vary. Voles, harvest mice, cotton rats, and shrews show consistently negative responses to grazing while deer mice, kangaroo rats, ground squirrels, and lagomorphs show positive or variable responses. In general, species adapted to open habitats are often positively affected by grazing, while species needing denser cover are negatively affected. Studies of wild ungulates are more variable in methodology and quality than those for small mammals. We found more negative (n = 86) than positive (n = 34) ungulate responses overall, however, most studies have been on browsers and mixed feeders, namely deer and elk, and there is little available data for other groups. Although data is limited, several of the grazing species in Africa may show a trend toward positive responses, suggesting possible facilitation. For a number of species, responses varied by season. We find a strong need for additional research on ungulates of varying diets and body sizes, especially in the developing world, and across longer time scales to examine possible tradeoffs between competition and facilitation from livestock.
Effects of fluid-induced shear stress on articular cartilage regeneration under simulated aspects of microgravity

Because a true microgravity environment results in a reduction of mechanical forces on the human body, possibly at each level of physiological organization, we have investigated the effects of applying a stimulus in the form of fluid-induced shear stress to regenerating articular cartilage cultured in an environment hypothesized to simulate aspects of microgravity. Significant alterations to the NASA-designed rotating wall vessel were made to create a unique bioreactor specifically designed for this study. This distinctive reactor not only allowed us to apply fluid-induced shear stress to tissue constructs, it allowed for control of its magnitude, and for independent control of distinct microgravity conditions. Simulated microgravity conditions were found to decrease the concentration of cells and extracellular matrix components as has been observed in true microgravity. Our results provide support that rotational rate in horizontally rotating cultures affects cellular events and may have a direct relation in the simulation of aspects of microgravity. Negligible to low levels of shear stress had no significant effect on tissue cellularity until a higher level of shear was applied, suggesting a possible threshold value. The application of shear stress was found to slightly decrease glycosaminoglycan levels. We have uncovered evidence that the effects of fluid-induced shear stress and simulated microgravity interact to affect cell numbers and extracellular matrix production in regenerating cartilage tissue. Results of the interaction studies, that are the first of their kind, showed varying response due to shear depending on the condition of microgravity, and varying response due to microgravity conditions depending on the level of shear.
Effectiveness of group model building in discovering hidden profiles in strategic decision-making

A hidden profile is said to exist when (a) information relevant to the decision at hand is distributed over different members of a decision-making group in such a way that each of the group members possesses unique information and (b) group members will need to pool these unique pieces of information in order to select a superior decision alternative. Hidden profiles give rise to inefficient sharing of information, therefore leading to suboptimal decisions. Strategic decision-making is hampered by difficulties in gathering, sharing and integrating information. Information feedback that is dispersed over group members is often ignored. This reflects the existence of hidden profiles. Group Model Building seems capable of discovering hidden profiles in strategic decisionmaking. The methodology needs investigation in controlled settings to further ground its value. We have conducted an experiment to test the effectiveness of Group Model Building on its contribution to enhancing information sharing and decision quality.
Prophylactic Flap Reconstruction of the Knee Prior to Total Knee Arthroplasty in High-Risk Patients

Insufficient soft-tissue coverage following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) may threaten prosthesis retention or compromise joint function. A retrospective review was conducted of all patients who underwent prophylactic flap reconstruction of the knee prior to TKA or salvage flap reconstruction over a 6-year period. Twenty-three patients underwent prophylactic flap reconstruction. Complications at the time of flap transfer were common (48%), however, all flaps survived. All 23 successfully completed subsequent TKA with no wound complications occurring at the time of TKA. Complications in the salvage group were also frequent (44%) and 3 required above knee amputation. Postoperative range of motion was significantly better in the prophylactic group, as well as when cutaneous flaps were chosen. Prophylactic flap reconstruction of the knee prior to TKA in high-risk patients is an excellent option in this small subset of patients, many of whom would not be offered TKA without addressing the compromised soft-tissue envelope first.
The perils with the misuse of predictive power

In early drug development, especially when studying new mechanisms of action or in new disease areas, little is known about the targeted or anticipated treatment effect or variability estimates. Adaptive designs that allow for early stopping but also use interim data to adapt the sample size have been proposed as a practical way of dealing with these uncertainties. Predictive power and conditional power are two commonly mentioned techniques that allow predictions of what will happen at the end of the trial based on the interim data. Decisions about stopping or continuing the trial can then be based on these predictions. However, unless the user of these statistics has a deep understanding of their characteristics important pitfalls may be encountered, especially with the use of predictive power. The aim of this paper is to highlight these potential pitfalls. It is critical that statisticians understand the fundamental differences between predictive power and conditional power as they can have dramatic effects on decision making at the interim stage, especially if used to re‐evaluate the sample size. The use of predictive power can lead to much larger sample sizes than either conditional power or standard sample size calculations. One crucial difference is that predictive power takes account of all uncertainty, parts of which are ignored by standard sample size calculations and conditional power. By comparing the characteristics of each of these statistics we highlight important characteristics of predictive power that experimenters need to be aware of when using this approach. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Joint Feature Selection and Classification for Multilabel Learning

Multilabel learning deals with examples having multiple class labels simultaneously. It has been applied to a variety of applications, such as text categorization and image annotation. A large number of algorithms have been proposed for multilabel learning, most of which concentrate on multilabel classification problems and only a few of them are feature selection algorithms. Current multilabel classification models are mainly built on a single data representation composed of all the features which are shared by all the class labels. Since each class label might be decided by some specific features of its own, and the problems of classification and feature selection are often addressed independently, in this paper, we propose a novel method which can perform joint feature selection and classification for multilabel learning, named JFSC. Different from many existing methods, JFSC learns both shared features and label-specific features by considering pairwise label correlations, and builds the multilabel classifier on the learned low-dimensional data representations simultaneously. A comparative study with state-of-the-art approaches manifests a competitive performance of our proposed method both in classification and feature selection for multilabel learning.
Nanotechnology in therapeutics : current technology and applications

Section A: Intelligent Therapeutics and Responsive Delivery Systems for Improved Absorption and Delivery A1. Concepts of Medical Chronobiology, Chronopharmacology and Chronotherapeutics as the Basis for Applications of Drug Delivery Technology A2. Feedback Control in Drug Delivery A3. Advances in Drug Delivery Technologies for Nanoparticulates A4. Synthetic Ligand-Receptor Interactions In Delivery Systems A5. Nanoscale Analysis of Mucus-Carrier Interactions for Improved Drug Absorption A6. Polymeric Gene Delivery Vectors Section B: Therapeutic Micro- and Nanodevices B1. Biohybrid Materials for Therapeutic Devices Section C: Nanostructured Therapeutic Materials C1. Biomimetic Systems: A Synergy of Scientific and Engineering Approaches C2. Hydrogel Nanocomposites For Intelligent Therapeutics C3. Nanotechnology for Treating Bone Disorders C4. Nanotechnology And Cancer Therapy C5. Nanostructured Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering Section D: Nanoparticulate Systems in Intelligent Therapy D1. Star Polymers and Dendrimers in Nanotechnology and Drug Delivery D2. Ionic Nanoparticulate Systems for Drug Delivery D3. Nanospheres of Intelligent Networks for Biomedical and Drug Delivery Applications D4. Shell Crosslinked Nanoparticles: A Progress Report of Their Design for Drug Delivery D5. Nanoparticulate Structures in Diabetes Treatment
The Neural Correlates of Desire

In an event-related fMRI study, we scanned eighteen normal human subjects while they viewed three categories of pictures (events, objects and persons) which they classified according to desirability (desirable, indifferent or undesirable). Each category produced activity in a distinct part of the visual brain, thus reflecting its functional specialization. We used conjunction analysis to learn whether there is a brain area which is always active when a desirable picture is viewed, regardless of the category to which it belongs. The conjunction analysis of the contrast desirable > undesirable revealed activity in the superior orbito-frontal cortex. This activity bore a positive linear relationship to the declared level of desirability. The conjunction analysis of desirable > indifferent revealed activity in the mid-cingulate cortex and in the anterior cingulate cortex. In the former, activity was greater for desirable and undesirable stimuli than for stimuli classed as indifferent. Other conjunction analyses produced no significant effects. These results show that categorizing any stimulus according to its desirability activates three different brain areas: the superior orbito-frontal, the mid-cingulate, and the anterior cingulate cortices.
Stochastic Exponential Robust Stability of Delayed Complex-Valued Neural Networks With Markova Jumping Parameters

This paper deals with the problem on stochastic exponential robust stability for a class of complex-valued interval neural networks with Markova jumping parameters and mixed delays, including both time-varying delays and continuously distributed delays. By applying the M-matrix theory and coupling with the vector Lyapunov function method, some sufficient conditions are derived to guarantee the existence, uniqueness, and stochastic exponential robust stability of the equilibrium point of the addressed system. The obtained results not only are easy to judge the dynamical behavior of the addressed system, but also are with lower level conservatism in comparison with some existing results. Finally, two numerical examples with simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed results.
Impaired Mitochondrial Energy Production Causes Light-Induced Photoreceptor Degeneration Independent of Oxidative Stress

Two insults often underlie a variety of eye diseases including glaucoma, optic atrophy, and retinal degeneration—defects in mitochondrial function and aberrant Rhodopsin trafficking. Although mitochondrial defects are often associated with oxidative stress, they have not been linked to Rhodopsin trafficking. In an unbiased forward genetic screen designed to isolate mutations that cause photoreceptor degeneration, we identified mutations in a nuclear-encoded mitochondrial gene, ppr, a homolog of human LRPPRC. We found that ppr is required for protection against light-induced degeneration. Its function is essential to maintain membrane depolarization of the photoreceptors upon repetitive light exposure, and an impaired phototransduction cascade in ppr mutants results in excessive Rhodopsin1 endocytosis. Moreover, loss of ppr results in a reduction in mitochondrial RNAs, reduced electron transport chain activity, and reduced ATP levels. Oxidative stress, however, is not induced. We propose that the reduced ATP level in ppr mutants underlies the phototransduction defect, leading to increased Rhodopsin1 endocytosis during light exposure, causing photoreceptor degeneration independent of oxidative stress. This hypothesis is bolstered by characterization of two other genes isolated in the screen, pyruvate dehydrogenase and citrate synthase. Their loss also causes a light-induced degeneration, excessive Rhodopsin1 endocytosis and reduced ATP without concurrent oxidative stress, unlike many other mutations in mitochondrial genes that are associated with elevated oxidative stress and light-independent photoreceptor demise.
Malicious User Detection Based on Low-Rank Matrix Completion in Wideband Spectrum Sensing

In cognitive radio networks, cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) has been a promising approach to improve sensing performance by utilizing spatial diversity of participating secondary users (SUs). In current CSS networks, all cooperative SUs are assumed to be honest and genuine. However, the presence of malicious users sending out dishonest data can severely degrade the performance of CSS networks. In this paper, a framework with high detection accuracy and low costs of data acquisition at SUs is developed, with the purpose of mitigating the influences of malicious users. More specifically, a low-rank matrix completion based malicious user detection framework is proposed. In the proposed framework, in order to avoid requiring any prior information about the CSS network, a rank estimation algorithm and an estimation strategy for the number of corrupted channels are proposed. Numerical results show that the proposed malicious user detection framework achieves high detection accuracy with lower data acquisition costs in comparison with the conventional approach. After being validated by simulations, the proposed malicious user detection framework is tested on the real-world signals over TV white space spectrum.
Graph Partition Neural Networks for Semi-Supervised Classification

We present graph partition neural networks (GPNN), an extension of graph neural networks (GNNs) able to handle extremely large graphs. GPNNs alternate between locally propagating information between nodes in small subgraphs and globally propagating information between the subgraphs. To efficiently partition graphs, we experiment with several partitioning algorithms and also propose a novel variant for fast processing of large scale graphs. We extensively test our model on a variety of semi-supervised node classification tasks. Experimental results indicate that GPNNs are either superior or comparable to state-of-the-art methods on a wide variety of datasets for graph-based semi-supervised classification. We also show that GPNNs can achieve similar performance as standard GNNs with fewer propagation steps.
Effects of emulsion parameters on relaxation behaviors for immiscible polymer blends

The relaxation behaviors of the binary immiscible blends reflected on the plots of the storage modulus and the imaginary part of complex viscosity were investigated using the Maxwell and the Palierne models. It was revealed that the peaks in the high- and low-frequency regions on the complex viscosity imaginary part plot are owing to the relaxations of the blend and deformed dispersed droplets, respectively. Based on these two models, six emulsion parameters (interfacial tension, relaxation times and viscosities of two components, and dispersed phase volume fraction) were investigated in terms of their effects on the shape features of the plots of the imaginary part of complex viscosity and the Cole–Cole. The results showed that the viscosities of two components and dispersed phase volume fraction play key roles in the radii of the two circular arcs on the Cole–Cole plot. Furthermore, the two circular arcs are well separated in the case of lower interfacial tensions and dispersed phase viscosities, shorter matrix relaxation times, and higher matrix viscosities and dispersed phase volume fractions. The total relaxation time of the deformed dispersed droplets increases with increasing the viscosities of two components, especially with decreasing the interfacial tension. Three types of polymer blends were prepared and their dynamic frequency sweep testing results demonstrated the effectiveness of the corresponding predicted results. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 39690.
Are we prepared for emerging flaviviruses in Europe? Challenges for vaccination

ABSTRACT Tick-borne encephalitis and West Nile fever are endemic flavivirus diseases in Europe. Climate change, virus evolution, and social factors may increase the risk of these flavivirus infections and may lead to the emergence of other flaviviruses in Europe that are endemic in (sub)tropical regions of the world. Control of the spread of flaviviruses is very difficult considering the cycling of flaviviruses between arthropod vectors and animal reservoir hosts. The increasing threat of flavivirus infections emphasizes the necessity of a sustainable vector surveillance system, an active animal health surveillance system and an adequate human surveillance system for early detection of flavivirus infections. Vaccination is the most important approach to prevent flavivirus infections. Effective inactivated whole virus vaccines against tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) infection are available. Implementation of TBE vaccination based on favorable cost-effectiveness estimates per region and per target group can reduce the disease burden of TBE infection. At present, several West Nile virus (WNV) vaccine candidates are in various stages of clinical development. A major challenge for WNV vaccine candidates is to demonstrate efficacy, because of the sporadic nature of unpredictable WNV outbreaks. Universal WNV vaccination is unlikely to be cost-effective, vaccination of high-risk groups will be most appropriate to protect against WNV infections.