Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In‐vitro release of bupivacaine from injectable lipid formulations investigated by a single drop technique — relation to duration of action in‐vivo

The aim of this study was to develop an in‐vitro release method suitable for injectable slow‐release lipid formulations of local anaesthetics (or other drugs). We also aimed that the results of the in‐vitro measurements should have a clear relationship to duration of action in‐vivo. Six formulations of bupivacaine base in medium‐chain triglyceride‐glyceryl dilaurate mixtures were developed. A new apparatus was constructed for determination of their in‐vitro release profiles. A bulbous glass tube was fixed inside a standard glass bottle, which was then filled with release medium. A stirring magnet was enclosed in the perforated polypropylene cylinder holding the glass tube. The stirring created a continuous, rotating downward flow of medium inside the tube, which kept the lipid phase, introduced by means of a syringe, suspended as a single, free drop. Release profiles were obtained by sampling of the release medium for up to 72 h and analysis by gas‐liquid chromatography. The duration of action in‐vivo of the respective formulations was tested by the hot‐plate method in rats. The release profiles of bupivacaine in‐vitro were mono‐exponential for four formulations and bi‐exponential for the other two. There was a positive correlation between the proportion of glyceryl dilaurate in the formulation and the slow half‐life of release of bupivacaine. All formulations showed prolonged duration of action in‐vivo, median values within the range 4.5–12 h, as compared with a 2‐h effect of bupivacaine hydrochloride solution. A comparison of in‐vitro release curves and durations of action in‐vivo suggested that to maintain nerve blockade in‐vivo the formulations must release bupivacaine at a rate of approximately 350 μg h−1 under the in‐vitro conditions. To conclude, we designed and tested a novel apparatus for measuring release of a local anaesthetic (or other drug) from a fluid or semi‐solid formulation in‐vitro. Release rates obtained in‐vitro by means of this technique may be used to guide the development of formulations with suitable durations of action in‐vivo. The apparatus is, however, as yet a prototype. Rigorous evaluation of performance should be carried out on devices built to specific standards according to their intended application.
Coupled Thermo-Mechanical FEA of Three-Roll Cross Rolling Process for Rings with Small-Hole and Deep Groove

Ring parts with small-hole and deep groove such as duplicate gear and double-side flange, are widely used in various engineering machineries. Three-roll cross rolling (TRCR) is a new advanced plastic forming technology for the processing of rings with small-hole and deep groove. In this paper, a 3D coupled thermo-mechanical FE model for TRCR of ring with small-hole and deep groove is established under ABAQUS software environment. By simulation and analysis, the evolution and distribution laws of strain and temperature in the forming process are revealed, and the effects of the key process parameters on the deformation uniformity are explored. The results provide valuable guideline for the technological parameter design and optimization.
Diagnosis and management of sinusitis in the allergic patient

Allergy is often associated with sinusitis because the inflamed nasal mucosa may block ostial drainage from the sinus and the resulting stasis in the sinuses encourages development of infection. The new fools of nasal evaluation, endoscopy and computed tomographic scanning, are becoming essential in the evaluation of patients who have acute and chronic sinusitis. Nasal endoscopy provides a view of the nose, nasopharynx, sphenoethmoidal recess, and middle meatus to detect areas of inflammation or pathologic drainage. This examination should be followed by computed tomographic scanning, which reveals the fine structures and disease of the area. First-line treatment includes antibiotics and decongestants to control the infection, reduce tissue edema, facilitate drainage, and maintain ostial patency. Topical steroids (or cromolyn sodium) are helpful to reduce the mucosal swelling, particularly in allergic patients. Antihistamines are indicated to reduce the rhinorrhea in allergic patients but not in those with suppurative sinusitis. Functional endoscopic sinus surgery to facilitate drainage and permit appropriate ventilation should be reserved for patients no longer responsive to pharmacotherapy and those with anatomic deformities.
Shape Evolution of Carbon Epoxy Laminated Composite during Curing

The laminated composites undergo chemical deformation on cross-linking and thermal deformation while cooling during fabrication process. In thin laminates, due to large displacements and complex shape evolution, these deformations can only be explained by using nonlinear strain-displacement relationship. In the present article, the thermal and chemical deformations occurring in carbon/epoxy laminates are calculated together for the first time by considering a non-linear geometrical approach, to understand the evolution of shape and hence residual stresses induced during fabrication process.
Significance of Functional Status Data for Payment and Quality

To date, the Medicare Program has used functional status information (FSI) in patient assessment tools, performance assessment, payment mechanisms, and—most recently—in quality measures to inform consumer choice. This article explores the rationale for the collection of functional status data to promote innovative models of care and examines issues related to data collection for quality improvement, performance measurement, and payment. In this issue of the Health Care Financing Review, articles focus on collection and classification of functional status for payment and quality purposes.
Biological Interactions with Surface Charge in Biomaterials

Electrostatic Charge on Biomaterials Surface Electrical modifications of biomaterials' surfaces: Beyond hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity Photocatalytic effects in doped and undoped titania Surface charge measurements on biomaterials in dry and wet conditions Measurements of surface and interfacial charge and morphology in electrically modified materials Protein Interactions at the surface Immobilisation of enzymes on porous surface Fibrous proteins interactions with modified surfaces of biomaterials Antibody immobilisation on solid surfaces: methods and applications Cellular Interactions with Abiotic Surfaces Interactions of bone forming cells with electrostatic charge at biomaterials surface Interactions of biofilm-forming bacteria with abiotic surfaces Endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells (SMC) interactions at biomaterials surfaces Interactions of Bacteria and fungi at the surface Immunological response of electrostatic charge at the surface of biomaterials IV. Applications Community and hospital acquired Staphylococcal infections MRSA resistant textiles Inhibition of urological devices Encrustation Reduction of restenosis in cardiovascular stents Regulatory and safety issues related to biomedical devices
The Arabidopsis R-SNARE VAMP721 Interacts with KAT1 and KC1 K+ Channels to Moderate K+ Current at the Plasma Membrane[OPEN]

Opposing actions of vesicle trafficking proteins on K+ channel gating implicate a ‘handoff’ in binding and channel control during vesicle fusion. SNARE (soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor protein attachment protein receptor) proteins drive vesicle traffic, delivering membrane and cargo to target sites within the cell and at its surface. They contribute to cell homeostasis, morphogenesis, and pathogen defense. A subset of SNAREs, including the Arabidopsis thaliana SNARE SYP121, are known also to coordinate solute uptake via physical interactions with K+ channels and to moderate their gating at the plasma membrane. Here, we identify a second subset of SNAREs that interact to control these K+ channels, but with opposing actions on gating. We show that VAMPs (vesicle-associated membrane proteins), which target vesicles to the plasma membrane, also interact with and suppress the activities of the inward-rectifying K+ channels KAT1 and KC1. Interactions were evident in yeast split-ubiquitin assays, they were recovered in vivo by ratiometric bimolecular fluorescence complementation, and they were sensitive to mutation of a single residue, Tyr-57, within the longin domain of VAMP721. Interaction was also recovered on exchange of the residue at this site in the homolog VAMP723, which normally localizes to the endoplasmic reticulum and otherwise did not interact. Functional analysis showed reduced channel activity and alterations in voltage sensitivity that are best explained by a physical interaction with the channel gates. These actions complement those of SYP121, a cognate SNARE partner of VAMP721, and lead us to propose that the channel interactions reflect a “hand-off” in channel control between the two SNARE proteins that is woven together with vesicle fusion.
Lazy functional incremental parsing

Structured documents are commonly edited using a free-form editor. Even though every string is an acceptable input, it makes sense to maintain a structured representation of the edited document. The structured representation has a number of uses: structural navigation (and optional structural editing), structure highlighting, etc. The construction of the structure must be done incrementally to be efficient: the time to process an edit operation should be proportional to the size of the change, and (ideally) independent of the total size of the document. We show that combining lazy evaluation and caching of intermediate (partial) results enables incremental parsing. We build a complete incremental parsing library for interactive systems with support for error-correction.
Towards Open-Domain Semantic Role Labeling

Current Semantic Role Labeling technologies are based on inductive algorithms trained over large scale repositories of annotated examples. Frame-based systems currently make use of the FrameNet database but fail to show suitable generalization capabilities in out-of-domain scenarios. In this paper, a state-of-art system for frame-based SRL is extended through the encapsulation of a distributional model of semantic similarity. The resulting argument classification model promotes a simpler feature space that limits the potential overfitting effects. The large scale empirical study here discussed confirms that state-of-art accuracy can be obtained for out-of-domain evaluations.
Technology portfolio , relatedness and market value #

This paper discusses the impact of a firm’s technology portfolio on its market value. Two concepts are used to characterize a firm’s portfolio: the number of technological fields measured by the degree of technological diversification and the relatedness of the technologies within the portfolio. Based on a theoretical framework using an expanded Tobin’s q approach, it presents evidence for the hypothesis of a negative relationship between the number of fields and the market value, combined with a counterbalancing effect of relatedness caused by the mutual impacts of economies of scale and scope.
WiFi localization in 3D

Localization of mobile robots can be challenging in highly dynamic environments (airport terminals, stores, hospitals) yet these areas offer great potential for robotics applications. HighWiFi coverage provides a way to localize even low-cost robots that do not need to be equipped with expensive exteroceptive sensors or excessive computational power to run visual-based SLAM algorithms. Since current trend in robotics is in mass-deployment of low-cost, replaceable robots, we focus our efforts in this direction as well. Possible solution is combination of high-tech robots deployed as support assuring reliable localization for the low-cost robots that are actually doing the job. The proposed scenario is to use one SLAM robot to map WiFi signal strength in the working area and provide it to a low-cost robot to correct drift of its 6-DOF gyro-odometry localization system. For this purpose, we extend Gaussian-processes-based WiFi localization algorithms to full 3D and experimentally evaluate the proposed approach in 2 mapping and 7 localization sorties performed on different dates spanning four months.
Software Infrastructure for Natural Language Processing

We classify and review current approaches to software infrastructure for research, development and delivery of NLP systems. The task is motivated by a discussion of current trends in the field of NLP and Language Engineering. We describe a system called GATE (a General Architecture for Text Engineering) that provides a software infrastructure on top of which heterogeneous NLP processing modules may be evaluated and refined individually, or may be combined into larger application systems. GATE aims to support both researchers and developers working on component technologies (e.g. parsing, tagging, morphological analysis) and those working on developing end-user applications (e.g. information extraction, text summarisation, document generation, machine translation, and second language learning). GATE promotes reuse of component technology, permits specialisation and collaboration in large-scale projects, and allows for the comparison and evaluation of alternative technologies. The first release of GATE is now available.
Empirical Modelling of Real Life Financial Systems: the Need for Integration of Enabling Tools and Technologies

Understanding, analyzing, and constructing experimental models of real life financial systems is a wide-ranging task that requires an integration of different technologies and enabling tools and calls for a bridging of the gap between theory and application as well as research and development in this area. Business process modelling, intelligent state and agent-oriented modelling, data warehousing and data quality assessment tools, financial analysis tools, and client server technologies should tie up coherently to enhance knowledge acquisition in a global financial market. Players in the global financial marketplace, such as investors, rating agencies, financial service providers, analysts and consultants, are faced with a massive amount of explicit and implicit market information characterized by a high level of dependency and interrelationship. An automated environment which, as far as possible, depicts and captures all aspects of the real-life financial system, is needed to adapt to state changes in global financial markets. Such an environment should provide a flexible human computer interface backed with a high level of interaction, visualization and reporting capability, with minimal overhead coding requirements.
Development of an angiogenesis-promoting microvesicle-alginate-polycaprolactone composite graft for bone tissue engineering applications

One of the major challenges of bone tissue engineering applications is to construct a fully vascularized implant that can adapt to hypoxic environments in vivo. The incorporation of proangiogenic factors into scaffolds is a widely accepted method of achieving this goal. Recently, the proangiogenic potential of mesenchymal stem cell-derived microvesicles (MSC-MVs) has been confirmed in several studies. In the present study, we incorporated MSC-MVs into alginate-polycaprolactone (PCL) constructs that had previously been developed for bone tissue engineering applications, with the aim of promoting angiogenesis and bone regeneration. MSC-MVs were first isolated from the supernatant of rat bone marrow-derived MSCs and characterized by scanning electron microscopic, confocal microscopic, and flow cytometric analyses. The proangiogenic potential of MSC-MVs was demonstrated by the stimulation of tube formation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells in vitro. MSC-MVs and osteodifferentiated MSCs were then encapsulated with alginate and seeded onto porous three-dimensional printed PCL scaffolds. When combined with osteodifferentiated MSCs, the MV-alginate-PCL constructs enhanced vessel formation and tissue-engineered bone regeneration in a nude mouse subcutaneous bone formation model, as demonstrated by micro-computed tomographic, histological, and immunohistochemical analyses. This MV-alginate-PCL construct may offer a novel, proangiogenic, and cost-effective option for bone tissue engineering.
Robust Neuroprosthetic Control from the Stroke Perilesional Cortex

Intracortical brain–machine interfaces (BMIs) may eventually restore function in those with motor disability after stroke. However, current research into the development of intracortical BMIs has focused on subjects with largely intact cortical structures, such as those with spinal cord injury. Although the stroke perilesional cortex (PLC) has been hypothesized as a potential site for a BMI, it remains unclear whether the injured motor cortical network can support neuroprosthetic control directly. Using chronic electrophysiological recordings in a rat stroke model, we demonstrate here the PLC's capacity for neuroprosthetic control and physiological plasticity. We initially found that the perilesional network demonstrated abnormally increased slow oscillations that also modulated neural firing. Despite these striking abnormalities, neurons in the perilesional network could be modulated volitionally to learn neuroprosthetic control. The rate of learning was surprisingly similar regardless of the electrode distance from the stroke site and was not significantly different from intact animals. Moreover, neurons achieved similar task-related modulation and, as an ensemble, formed cell assemblies with learning. Such control was even achieved in animals with poor motor recovery, suggesting that neuroprosthetic control is possible even in the absence of motor recovery. Interestingly, achieving successful control also reduced locking to abnormal oscillations significantly. Our results thus suggest that, despite the disrupted connectivity in the PLC, it may serve as an effective target for neuroprosthetic control in those with poor motor recovery after stroke.
Symmetric Instability in the Outflow Layer of a Major Hurricane

AbstractA set of 327 dropsondes from the NOAA G-IV aircraft was used to create a composite analysis of the azimuthally averaged absolute angular momentum in the outflow layer of major Hurricane Ivan (2004). Inertial instability existed over a narrow layer in the upper troposphere between the 350- and 450-km radii. Isolines of potential and equivalent potential temperature showed that the conditions for both dry and moist symmetric instability were satisfied in the same region, but over a deeper layer from 9 to 12 km. The radial flow maximized at the outer edge of the unstable region. The symmetrically unstable state existed above a region of outward decrease of temperature between the cirrus overcast of the storm and clear air outside. It is hypothesized that the temperature gradient was created as a result of longwave heating within the cirrus overcast and longwave cooling outside the cloudy region. This produced isentropes that sloped upward with radius in the same region that absolute momentum surfaces.
Data-Driven and Predefined ROI-Based Quantification of Long-Term Resting-State fMRI Reproducibility

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a promising tool for neuroscience and clinical studies. However, there exist significant variations in strength and spatial extent of resting-state functional connectivity over repeated sessions in a single or multiple subjects with identical experimental conditions. Reproducibility studies have been conducted for resting-state fMRI where the reproducibility was usually evaluated in predefined regions-of-interest (ROIs). It was possible that reproducibility measures strongly depended on the ROI definition. In this work, this issue was investigated by comparing data-driven and predefined ROI-based quantification of reproducibility. In the data-driven analysis, the reproducibility was quantified using functionally connected voxels detected by a support vector machine (SVM)-based technique. In the predefined ROI-based analysis, all voxels in the predefined ROIs were included when estimating the reproducibility. Experimental results show that (1) a moderate to substantial within-subject reproducibility and a reasonable between-subject reproducibility can be obtained using functionally connected voxels identified by the SVM-based technique; (2) in the predefined ROI-based analysis, an increase in ROI size does not always result in higher reproducibility measures; (3) ROI pairs with high connectivity strength have a higher chance to exhibit high reproducibility; (4) ROI pairs with high reproducibility do not necessarily have high connectivity strength; (5) the reproducibility measured from the identified functionally connected voxels is generally higher than that measured from all voxels in predefined ROIs with typical sizes. The findings (2) and (5) suggest that conventional ROI-based analyses would underestimate the resting-state fMRI reproducibility.
Kenaf‐fiber‐reinforced poly(lactic acid) used for electronic products

We have developed high-performance biomass-based plastics that consist of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and kenaf fiber, which fixates CO2 efficiently. Adding this fiber to PLA greatly increases its heat resistance (distortion temperature under load) and modulus and also enhances its crystallization, so the ease of molding this material is improved. Eliminating the short particles from the kenaf fiber improves its effect on the impact strength. Kenaf fiber without the particles exhibits effects on these characteristics of PLA practically comparable to the effects of glass fiber. Furthermore, adding a flexibilizer (a copolymer of lactic acid and aliphatic polyester) to the composites improves their strength. These composites (PLA/kenaf fiber and PLA/kenaf fiber/flexibilizer) show good practical characteristics for housing materials of electronic products in comparison with petroleum-based plastics used in housing such as glass-fiber-reinforced acrylonitrile-butadien-styrene (ABS) resin. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 100: 618–624, 2006
Internet Engineering Task Force (ietf) Diameter Proxy Mobile Ipv6: Mobile Access Gateway and Local Mobility Anchor Interaction with Diameter Server

This specification defines Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) interactions between Proxy Mobile IPv6 entities (both Mobile Access Gateway and Local Mobility Anchor) and a AAA server within a Proxy Mobile IPv6 Domain. These AAA interactions are primarily used to download and update mobile node specific policy profile information between Proxy Mobile IPv6 entities and a remote policy store. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.