Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
NANOCRYSTALS OF CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS FOR CANCER THERANOSTICS: DEVELOPMENT AND IN VITRO AND IN VIVO EVALUATION

OF DISSERTATION NANOCRYSTALS OF CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC AGENTS FOR CANCER THERANOSTICS: DEVELOPMENT AND IN VITRO AND IN VIVO EVALUATION The majority of pharmacologically active chemotherapeutics are poorly water soluble. Solubilization enhancement by the utilization of organic solvents often leads to adverse side effects. Nanoparticle-based cancer therapy, which is passively targeted to the tumor tissue via the enhanced permeation and retention effect, has been vastly developed in recent years. Nanocrystals, which exist as crystalline and carry nearly 100% drug loading, has been explored for delivering antineoplastic agents. Additionally, the hybrid nanocrystal concept offers a novel and simple way to integrate imaging agents into the drug crystals, enabling the achievement of theranostics. The overall objective of this dissertation is to formulate both pure and hybrid nanocrystals, evaluate their performance in vitro and in vivo, and investigate the extent of tissue distribution and tumor accumulation in a murine model. Pure and hybrid nanocrystals of several model drugs, including paclitaxel (PTX), camptothecin, and ZSTK474, were precipitated by the antisolvent method in the absence of stabilizer, and their size was further minimized by homogenization. The nanocrystals of PTX, which is the focus of the study, had particle size of approximately 200 nm and close-to-neutral surface charge. Depending on the cell type, PTX nanocrystals exerted different level of cytotoxicity. In human colon and breast cancer xenograft models, nanocrystals yielded similar efficacy as the conventional formulation, Taxol, at a dose of 20 mg/kg, yet induced a reduced toxicity. Biodistribution study revealed that H-PTX nanocrystals were sequestered rapidly by the macrophages upon intravenous injection. Yet, apparent toxicity was not observed even after four weekly injections. The sequestered nanocrystals were postulated to be released slowly into the blood circulation and reached the tumor. Tritium-labeled-taxol, in contrast, was distributed extensively to all the major organs, inducing systemic toxicity as observed in significant body weight loss. The biodistribution results obtained from radioactive analysis and whole-body optical imaging was compared. To some degree, the correlation was present, but divergence in the quantitative result, due to nanocrystal integrity and limitations associated with the optical modality, existed. Despite their promising properties, nanocrystal suspensions must be securely stabilized by stealth polymers in order to minimize opsonization, extend blood-circulation time, and efficiently target the tumor.
Effects of Conventional or Lower Doses of Hormone Replacement Therapy in Postmenopausal Women

Objective—The effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can affect many aspects relevant to cardiovascular disease, including vasomotor function, inflammation, and hemostasis. Recent studies have demonstrated that current doses of HRT exert a mixture of both protective and adverse effects. In the current study, we compared the effects of lower doses of HRT (L-HRT) and conventional doses of HRT (C-HRT) on a variety of relevant cardiovascular parameters. Methods and Results—This randomized, double-blind, crossover study included 57 women who received micronized progesterone 100 mg with either conjugated equine estrogen 0.625 mg (C-HRT) or 0.3 mg (L-HRT) daily for 2 months. L-HRT showed comparable effects to C-HRT on high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride levels, but not on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. C-HRT and L-HRT significantly improved the percent flow-mediated dilator response to hyperemia from baseline values (both P <0.001) by a similar degree (P =0.719). C-HRT significantly increased high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) levels from baseline values (P <0.001); however, L-HRT did not significantly change hsCRP (P =0.874). C-HRT and L-HRT significantly decreased antithrombin III from baseline values (P <0.001 and P =0.042, respectively). C-HRT significantly increased prothrombin fragment 1+2 (F1+2) from baseline values (P <0.001); however, L-HRT did not significantly change F1+2 (P =0.558). Of interest, the effects of C-HRT and L-HRT on hsCRP, antithrombin III, and F1+2 were significantly different (all P <0.001). C-HRT and L-HRT significantly reduced plasma PAI-1 antigen levels from baseline values (P =0.002 and P =0.038, respectively) to a similar degree (P =0.184). Conclusions—Compared with C-HRT, L-HRT has comparable effects on lipoproteins, flow-mediated dilation, and PAI-1 antigen levels. However, L-HRT did not increase hsCRP or F1+2 levels, and it decreased antithrombin III less than C-HRT.
Contribution to Revascularization by Reciprocal Random Skin Flaps

Background: The introduction of random skin flaps to plastic surgery has a major impact on wound closure and the reconstruction of normal and functional anatomical features, but the role of random skin flaps and the interactions between random skin flaps and recipients during random skin flap revascularization process remain to be fully elucidated. Methods: The authors endeavored to establish a reciprocal random skin flap model between green fluorescent protein (GFP)-transgenic and wild-type (wt) C57BL/6 mice. Blood vessel origination, growth directions and anastomosis positions were detected by a multitude of detective methods at postoperative days 3, 7, 14 and 21. Results: The results indicated that the reciprocal random skin flap model was successfully established between the two different mice; blood vessels originated from GFP-transgenic recipients grew into wt flaps, while blood vessels from GFP-transgenic flaps grew into wt recipients as early as day 3. It was promising and crucial to unveil vascular anastomoses between donor and recipient vascular networks occurring as early as day 3. Green fluorescent cell clusters increasingly augmented with significant differences among days 3, 7, and 14 (P < 0.05), but neither between days 14 and 21 (P >0.05), nor between two separate vascular networks at each time point. Conclusion: The authors harbored the idea that the random skin flaps played essential roles in promoting survival and were of vital significance to the ordered process of random skin flap revascularization by the outgrowth and by the ingrowths of capillary buds of skin flaps through a unique reciprocal random skin flap model.
Multiple Neural Oscillators and Muscle Feedback Are Required for the Intestinal Fed State Motor Program

After a meal, the gastrointestinal tract exhibits a set of behaviours known as the fed state. A major feature of the fed state is a little understood motor pattern known as segmentation, which is essential for digestion and nutrient absorption. Segmentation manifests as rhythmic local constrictions that do not propagate along the intestine. In guinea-pig jejunum in vitro segmentation constrictions occur in short bursts together with other motor patterns in episodes of activity lasting 40–60 s and separated by quiescent episodes lasting 40–200 s. This activity is induced by luminal nutrients and abolished by blocking activity in the enteric nervous system (ENS). We investigated the enteric circuits that regulate segmentation focusing on a central feature of the ENS: a recurrent excitatory network of intrinsic sensory neurons (ISNs) which are characterized by prolonged after-hyperpolarizing potentials (AHPs) following their action potentials. We first examined the effects of depressing AHPs with blockers of the underlying channels (TRAM-34 and clotrimazole) on motor patterns induced in guinea-pig jejunum, in vitro, by luminal decanoic acid. Contractile episode durations increased markedly, but the frequency and number of constrictions within segmenting bursts and quiescent period durations were unaffected. We used these observations to develop a computational model of activity in ISNs, excitatory and inhibitory motor neurons and the muscle. The model predicted that: i) feedback to ISNs from contractions in the circular muscle is required to produce alternating activity and quiescence with the right durations; ii) transmission from ISNs to excitatory motor neurons is via fast excitatory synaptic potentials (EPSPs) and to inhibitory motor neurons via slow EPSPs. We conclude that two rhythm generators regulate segmentation: one drives contractions within segmentation bursts, the other the occurrence of bursts. The latter depends on AHPs in ISNs and feedback to these neurons from contraction of the circular muscle.
Computing machine-efficient polynomial approximations

Polynomial approximations are almost always used when implementing functions on a computing system. In most cases, the polynomial that best approximates (for a given distance and in a given interval) a function has coefficients that are not exactly representable with a finite number of bits. And yet, the polynomial approximations that are actually implemented do have coefficients that are represented with a finite---and sometimes small---number of bits. This is due to the finiteness of the floating-point representations (for software implementations), and to the need to have small, hence fast and/or inexpensive, multipliers (for hardware implementations). We then have to consider polynomial approximations for which the degree-i coefficient has at most mi fractional bits; in other words, it is a rational number with denominator 2mi. We provide a general and efficient method for finding the best polynomial approximation under this constraint. Moreover, our method also applies if some other constraints (such as requiring some coefficients to be equal to some predefined constants or minimizing relative error instead of absolute error) are required.
Validity of Consumer-Based Physical Activity Monitors for Specific Activity Types.

PURPOSE Consumer-based physical activity (PA) monitors are popular for individual tracking of PA variables. However, current research has not examined how these monitors track energy expenditure (EE) and steps in distinct activities. This study examined the accuracy of the Fitbits One, Zip, and Flex and Jawbone UP24 for estimating EE and steps for specific activities and activity categories. METHODS Thirty subjects completed a structured protocol consisting of three sedentary, four household, and four ambulatory/exercise activities. All subjects began by lying on a bed for 10 min; 10 other activities were performed for 5 min each. Indirect calorimetry (COSMED) and researcher-counted steps were criterion measures for EE and step counts, respectively. The Omron HJ-720IT pedometer was used as a comparison of step count accuracy. EE and steps were compared with criterion measures using the Friedman repeated-measures nonparametric test and mean absolute percent error (MAPE). RESULTS All PA monitors predicted EE within 8% of COSMED for sedentary activity but overestimated EE by 16%-40% during ambulatory activity. All monitors except the Fitbit Flex (within 8% of criterion) underestimated EE by 27%-34% during household activity. EE predictions were accompanied with MAPE >10%. For household activity, the Fitbit Flex estimated steps within 10% of researcher-counted steps; all other monitors underestimated steps by 35%-64%. All monitors estimated steps within 4% of researcher-counted steps and displayed MAPE <10% during ambulatory activity. The Omron underestimated household steps by 74% but was within 1% for ambulatory steps. All monitors severely underestimated EE and steps during cycling. CONCLUSION Consumer-based PA monitors should be used cautiously for estimating EE, although they provide accurate measures of steps for structured ambulatory activity, similar to validated pedometers.
Average current mode control of switching power supplies

Current mode control as usually implemented in switching power supplies actually senses and controls peak inductor current. This gives rise to many serious problems, including poor noise immunity, a need for slope compensation, and peak-to-average current errors which the inherently low current loop gain cannot correct. Average current mode control eliminates these problems and may be used effectively to control currents other than inductor current, allowing a much broader range of topological application.
Population-based study of the prevalence of family history of cancer: Implications for cancer screening and prevention

Purpose: Family history assessment is gaining importance as a potential public health tool to help determine susceptibility to common cancers. Population-based data on the prevalence of having a family history of common cancers are scant.Methods: We queried survey questions from the National Health Interview Survey, an annual nationwide survey of approximately 36,000 households in the United States, to determine the prevalence of persons reporting one or more first-degree relatives with breast, colorectal, lung, prostate, or ovarian cancer.Results: Breast cancer was the most common condition noted for family members (7.74% of respondents), followed by lung cancer (7.10%), colorectal cancer (4.96%), prostate cancer (4.68%), and ovarian cancer (1.79%). A family history of cancer was more commonly reported by older persons, whites, women, and high-income groups.Conclusion: A substantial proportion of persons in the United States report having a close family member with cancer, and thus may be eligible for earlier or more aggressive cancer screening services.
Single-Carrier SM-MIMO: A Promising Design for Broadband Large-Scale Antenna Systems

The main limitations of employing large-scale antenna (LSA) architectures for broadband frequency-selective channels include, but are not limited to their complexity, power consumption, and the high cost of multiple radio frequency (RF) chains. Promising solutions can be found in the recently proposed family of single-carrier (SC) spatial modulation (SM) transmission techniques. Since the SM scheme's transmit antenna (TA) activation process is carried out in the context of a SC-SM architecture, the benefits of a low-complexity and low-cost single-RF transmitter are maintained, while a high MIMO multiplexing gain can be attained. Moreover, owing to its inherent SC structure, the transmit signals of SC-SM have attractive peak power characteristics and a high robustness to RF hardware impairments, such as the RF carrier frequency offset (CFO) and phase noise. In this paper, we present a comprehensive overview of the latest research achievements of SC-SM, which has recently attracted considerable attention. We outline the associated transceiver design, the benefits and potential tradeoffs, the LSA aided multiuser (MU) transmission developments, the relevant open research issues as well as the potential solutions of this appealing transmission technique.
Improved Yields of Soluble Substrates from Primary Sludge Fermentation under Alkaline Condition

A series of batch experiments on improving production of soluble substrates such as soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD), Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), soluble protein as well as soluble carbohydrate from primary sludge fermentation were conducted controlling pH at 4, 7, 10 and uncontrolled (the blank test). Results presented that pH 10 had great advantages over improvements of soluble organic materials especially for SCFAs than pH 7, 4 and blank test in any fermentation time. Sludge hydrolysis and acidification at pH 10 were more efficient than those at other pH values and the blank test. The maximal yields of SCOD (5755 mg/L) and total SCFAs (3510.86 mgCOD/L) were attained simultaneously at pH 10 on the 5th day. Meanwhile, soluble protein and carbohydrate were up to 1746.55 mgCOD/L and 226.41 mgCOD/L respectively, with increasing amounts in excess of 4 and 8 times of their initiative yields. Better hydrolysis and acidification produced more SCFAs, nevertheless, less SCFAs were consumed to be converted to methane, which resulted in large improvement of SCFAs production.
Oxfendazole Treatment of Sheep with Naturally Acquired Hydatid Disease

ABSTRACT A blinded, randomized placebo-controlled trial assessed the efficacy and safety of oxfendazole for the treatment of ovine hydatid disease. Cyst fertility and parasite viability were measured following daily, weekly, and monthly treatment schedules with 30 mg of oxfendazole per kg of body weight. The 12-week trial was conducted in 215 adult sheep in the central Peruvian Andes and was masked for both treatment group and scheduling. In this trial oxfendazole significantly reduced protoscolex viability relative to controls in all treatment groups. In the daily, weekly, and monthly groups, 100, 97, and 78% of sheep, respectively, were either cured or improved following treatment, compared to 35% cured or improved animals in the control group. However, daily dosing at 30 mg of oxfendazole per kg proved highly toxic to sheep, resulting in a 24% death rate in the daily group as compared to a 4 to 6% mortality rate in all other groups. If found safe in humans, oxfendazole may prove to be a useful and inexpensive treatment for cestode infections in humans. This study suggests that a staggered dosing regimen of oxfendazole, and possibly other benzimidazoles, may be as efficacious as daily treatment regimens for hydatidosis while decreasing both the cost and adverse effects associated with daily dosing.
Changing panorama of cerebral palsy in Sweden. VIII. Prevalence and origin in the birth year period 1991–94

This 8th Swedish population‐based cerebral palsy (CP) report comprises 241 children born 1991–94. The live birth prevalence was 2.12 per 1000. Excluding 7 postnatally‐derived cases, the gestational age‐specific prevalences were 86 for extremely preterm children, 60 for very preterm and 6 for moderately preterm, and 1.3 for term children per 1000. Spastic hemiplegic, diplegic and tetraplegic subtypes accounted for 33%, 44% and 6%, dyskinetic CP for 12% and simple ataxia for 4%. Neuroimaging had been performed in 90%. Probable aetiology was identified in 73% of preterm and 86% of term children. Among preterm children it was considered prenatal in 12%, peri/neonatal in 61% and unclassifiable in 27%, while it was 51%, 36% and 14% among term children.
Defining and identifying Sleeping Beauties in science

Significance Scientific papers typically have a finite lifetime: their rate to attract citations achieves its maximum a few years after publication, and then steadily declines. Previous studies pointed out the existence of a few blatant exceptions: papers whose relevance has not been recognized for decades, but then suddenly become highly influential and cited. The Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen “paradox” paper is an exemplar Sleeping Beauty. We study how common Sleeping Beauties are in science. We introduce a quantity that captures both the recognition intensity and the duration of the “sleeping” period, and show that Sleeping Beauties are far from exceptional. The distribution of such quantity is continuous and has power-law behavior, suggesting a common mechanism behind delayed but intense recognition at all scales. A Sleeping Beauty (SB) in science refers to a paper whose importance is not recognized for several years after publication. Its citation history exhibits a long hibernation period followed by a sudden spike of popularity. Previous studies suggest a relative scarcity of SBs. The reliability of this conclusion is, however, heavily dependent on identification methods based on arbitrary threshold parameters for sleeping time and number of citations, applied to small or monodisciplinary bibliographic datasets. Here we present a systematic, large-scale, and multidisciplinary analysis of the SB phenomenon in science. We introduce a parameter-free measure that quantifies the extent to which a specific paper can be considered an SB. We apply our method to 22 million scientific papers published in all disciplines of natural and social sciences over a time span longer than a century. Our results reveal that the SB phenomenon is not exceptional. There is a continuous spectrum of delayed recognition where both the hibernation period and the awakening intensity are taken into account. Although many cases of SBs can be identified by looking at monodisciplinary bibliographic data, the SB phenomenon becomes much more apparent with the analysis of multidisciplinary datasets, where we can observe many examples of papers achieving delayed yet exceptional importance in disciplines different from those where they were originally published. Our analysis emphasizes a complex feature of citation dynamics that so far has received little attention, and also provides empirical evidence against the use of short-term citation metrics in the quantification of scientific impact.
Lazy Gaussian Process Committee for Real-Time Online Regression

A significant problem of Gaussian process (GP) is its unfavorable scaling with a large amount of data. To overcome this issue, we present a novel GP approximation scheme for online regression. Our model is based on a combination of multiple GPs with random hyperparameters. The model is trained by incrementally allocating new examples to a selected subset of GPs. The selection is carried out efficiently by optimizing a submodular function. Experiments on real-world data sets showed that our method outperforms existing online GP regression methods in both accuracy and efficiency. The applicability of the proposed method is demonstrated by the mouse-trajectory prediction in an Internet banking scenario.
Redshifts of Galaxies around Arp 220 and Serendipitous Discovery of Three Star-forming Dwarf Galaxies at Redshift z ∼ 0.5

We present redshift measurements of four faint galaxies around the archetypal ultraluminous infrared galaxy Arp 220. These galaxies have significantly higher redshifts (z ∼ 0.036–0.091) than that of Arp 220 (z ≃ 0.018). Therefore, we conclude that they are background objects not physically related to Arp 220. Three of these faint galaxies located to the south of Arp 220 are a group of galaxies (or the brightest members in a cluster of galaxies) at z ≃ 0.09, as has been suggested previously on the basis of their associated soft X-ray emission. We also report the serendipitous discovery of three additional galaxies at redshift z ∼ 0.5, found along one of the slit positions. All three galaxies exhibit an [O II] λ3727 emission line. The spectrum of the brightest galaxy (mR ≃ 24.4) shows other strong emission lines: Mg II λ2798, Hβ, [O III] λ4959, and[O III] λ5007. The emission-line properties of these galaxies as well as their intrinsically low luminosities (MR ≥ -18.4) indicate that they are star-forming dwarf galaxies.
Vowel mispronunciation detection using DNN acoustic models with cross-lingual training

We address the automatic detection of phone-level mispronunciation for feedback in a computer-aided language learning task where the target language data (Indian English) is limited. Based on the recent success of DNN acoustic models on limited resource recognition tasks, we compare different methods of utilizing the limited target language data in the training of acoustic models that are initialized with multilingual data. Frame-level DNN posteriors obtained by the different training methods are compared in a phone classification task with a baseline GMM/HMM system. A judicious use of domain knowledge in terms of L2 phonology and L1 interference, that includes influence on phone quality and duration, are applied to the design of confidence scores for mispronunciation detection of vowels of Indian English as spoken by Gujarati L1 learners. We also show that the pronunciation error detection system benefits from a more precise signal-based segmentation of the test speech vowels, as would be expected due to the now more reliable frame-based confidence scores.