Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statistical Optimization of Oral Vancomycin-Eudragit RS Nanoparticles Using Response Surface Methodology

A Box-Behnken design with three replicates was used for preparation and evaluation of Eudragit vancomycin (VCM) nanoparticles prepared by double emulsion. The purpose of this work was to optimize VCM nanoparticles to improve the physicochemical properties. Nanoparticles were formed by using W1/O/W2 double-emulsion solvent evaporation method using Eudragit RS as a retardant material. Full factorial design was employed to study the effect of independent variables, RPM (X1), amount of emulsifier (X2), stirring rate (X3), volume of organic phase (X4) and volume of aqueous phase (X5), on the dependent variables as production yield, encapsulation efficiency and particle size. The optimum condition for VCM nanoparticles preparation was 1:2 drug to polymer ratio, 0.2 (%w/w) amount of emulsifier , 25 mL (volume of organic phase), 25 mL (volume of aqueous phase), 3 min (time of stirring) and 26000 RPM. RPM and emulsifier concentrations were the effective factors on the drug loading (R2 = 90.82). The highest entrapment efficiency was obtained when the ratio of drug to polymer was 1:3. Zeta (ζ) potential of the nanoparticles was fairly positive in molecular level. In vitro release study showed two phases: an initial burst for 0.5 h followed by a very slow release pattern during a period of 24 h. The release of VCM was influenced by the drug to polymer ratio and particle size and was found to be diffusion controlled. The best-fit release kinetic was achieved with Peppas model. In conclusion, the VCM nanoparticle preparations showed optimize formulation, which can be useful for oral administrations
Probiotic Potential and Antimicrobial Activity of Enterococcus faecium Isolated from Chicken Caecal and Fecal Samples

Enterococci are important inhabitants of the animal intestine and are widely used in probiotic products. A probiotic strain is expected to possess several desirable properties in order to exert beneficial effects. Therefore, the objective of this study was to isolate, characterize and identify Enterococcus sp. from chicken cecal and fecal samples to determine potential probiotic properties. Enterococci were isolated from chicken ceca and feces of thirty three clinically healthy chickens from a local farm. In vitro studies were performed to assess antibacterial activity of the isolated LAB (using agar well diffusion and cell free supernatant broth technique against Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis), survival in acidic conditions, resistance to bile salts, and their survival during simulated gastric juice conditions at pH 2.5. Isolates were identified by biochemical carbohydrate fermentation patterns using an API 50 CHL kit and API ZYM kits and by sequenced 16S rDNA. An isolate belonging to E. faecium species exhibited inhibitory effect against S. enteritidis. This isolate producing a clear zone as large as 10.30 mm or greater and was able to grow in the coculture medium and at the same time, inhibited the growth S. enteritidis. In addition, E. faecium exhibited significant resistance under highly acidic conditions at pH 2.5 for 8 h and survived well in bile salt at 0.2% for 24 h and showing ability to survive in the presence of simulated gastric juice at pH 2.5. Based on these results, E. faecium isolate fulfills some of the criteria to be considered as a probiotic strain and therefore, could be used as a feed additive with good potential for controlling S. Enteritidis in chickens. However, in vivo studies are needed to determine the safety of the strain. Keywords—Acid tolerance, antimicrobial activity, Enterococcus faecium, probiotic.
Face alignment by deep convolutional network with adaptive learning rate

Deep convolutional network has been widely used in face recognition while not often used in face alignment. One of the most important reasons of this is the lack of training images annotated with landmarks due to fussy and time-consuming annotation work. To overcome this problem, we propose a novel data augmentation strategy. And we design an innovative training algorithm with adaptive learning rate for two iterative procedures, which helps the network to search an optimal solution. Our convolutional network can learn global high-level features and directly predict the coordinates of facial landmarks. Extensive evaluations show that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods especially in the condition of complex occlusion, pose, illumination and expression variations.
In Vivo Articular Cartilage Regeneration Using Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells Cultured in an Alginate Scaffold: A Preliminary Study

Osteoarthritis is an inflammatory disease in which all joint-related elements, articular cartilage in particular, are affected. The poor regeneration capacity of this tissue together with the lack of pharmacological treatment has led to the development of regenerative medicine methodologies including microfracture and autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI). The effectiveness of ACI has been shown in vitro and in vivo, but the use of other cell types, including bone marrow and adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells, is necessary because of the poor proliferation rate of isolated articular chondrocytes. In this investigation, we assessed the chondrogenic ability of human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) to regenerate cartilage in vitro and in vivo. hDPSCs and primary isolated rabbit chondrocytes were cultured in chondrogenic culture medium and found to express collagen II and aggrecan. Both cell types were cultured in 3% alginate hydrogels and implanted in a rabbit model of cartilage damage. Three months after surgery, significant cartilage regeneration was observed, particularly in the animals implanted with hDPSCs. Although the results presented here are preliminary, they suggest that hDPSCs may be useful for regeneration of articular cartilage.
Distributional incidence of growth , mobility and dominance ( Incomplete rst draft y )

The distributional incidence of growth is generally analyzed by comparing the quantiles of the preand post-growth income distribution -e.g. the so-called Growth Incidence Curves. Such an approach based on an implicit re-ranking of individual incomes ignores income mobility by assuming that only post-growth income matters in social welfare. By contrast, this paper takes the view that "status quo matters" and that social welfare should logically be de ned on both inital and nal income. Dominance criteria that generalize those available for growth incidence curves are derived, which account for the inequality of individual income growth rates, conditional on initial income. These criteria also have implications for the analysis of income mobility. An application to the cross-country distributional feature of global growth illustrates the analysis.
Molecular Mechanisms Modulating the Phenotype of Macrophages and Microglia

Macrophages and microglia play crucial roles during central nervous system development, homeostasis and acute events such as infection or injury. The diverse functions of tissue macrophages and microglia are mirrored by equally diverse phenotypes. A model of inflammatory/M1 versus a resolution phase/M2 macrophages has been widely used. However, the complexity of macrophage function can only be achieved by the existence of varied, plastic and tridimensional macrophage phenotypes. Understanding how tissue macrophages integrate environmental signals via molecular programs to define pathogen/injury inflammatory responses provides an opportunity to better understand the multilayered nature of macrophages, as well as target and modulate cellular programs to control excessive inflammation. This is particularly important in MS and other neuroinflammatory diseases, where chronic inflammatory macrophage and microglial responses may contribute to pathology. Here, we perform a comprehensive review of our current understanding of how molecular pathways modulate tissue macrophage phenotype, covering both classic pathways and the emerging role of microRNAs, receptor-tyrosine kinases and metabolism in macrophage phenotype. In addition, we discuss pathway parallels in microglia, novel markers helpful in the identification of peripheral macrophages versus microglia and markers linked to their phenotype.
Adoption and success rates of perineal procedures for fistula‐in‐ano: a systematic review

Several sphincter‐preserving techniques have been described with extremely encouraging initial reports. However, more recent studies have failed to confirm the positive early results. We evaluate the adoption and success rates of advancement flap procedures (AFP), fibrin glue sealant (FGS), anal collagen plug (ACP) and ligation of intersphincteric fistula tract (LIFT) procedures based on their evolution in time for the management of anal fistula.
An Efficient Multidimension Metadata Index and Search System for Cloud Data

The ever increasing amounts of digital data being stored in public and private clouds are challenging users to access and manage the data. With the corresponding storage system reaches Petabyte-scale, or even Exabyte-scale, metadata access will become a severe performance bottleneck. Hence, this paper proposes an efficient multi-dimensional metadata index and search solution for cloud data. By proposing some new mechanism for K-D-B tree based index/search and implementing index partitioning technique, our system can achieve optimized performance in terms of memory utilization and search speed. Experiments show that our system performs much better as compared with existing solutions. In addition, our system can safely scale out in a distributed manner with guaranteed performance.
Dissecting the Cell Entry Pathway of Dengue Virus by Single-Particle Tracking in Living Cells

Dengue virus (DENV) is an enveloped RNA virus that causes the most common arthropod-borne infection worldwide. The mechanism by which DENV infects the host cell remains unclear. In this work, we used live-cell imaging and single-virus tracking to investigate the cell entry, endocytic trafficking, and fusion behavior of DENV. Simultaneous tracking of DENV particles and various endocytic markers revealed that DENV enters cells exclusively via clathrin-mediated endocytosis. The virus particles move along the cell surface in a diffusive manner before being captured by a pre-existing clathrin-coated pit. Upon clathrin-mediated entry, DENV particles are transported to Rab5-positive endosomes, which subsequently mature into late endosomes through acquisition of Rab7 and loss of Rab5. Fusion of the viral membrane with the endosomal membrane was primarily detected in late endosomal compartments.
Expressive and modular predicate dispatch for Java

Predicate dispatch is an object-oriented (OO) language mechanism for determining the method implementation to be invoked upon a message send. With predicate dispatch, each method implementation includes a predicate guard specifying the conditions under which the method should be invoked, and logical implication of predicates determines the method overriding relation. Predicate dispatch naturally unifies and generalizes several common forms of dynamic dispatch, including traditional OO dispatch, multimethod dispatch, and functional-style pattern matching. Unfortunately, prior languages supporting predicate dispatch have had several deficiencies that limit the practical utility of this language feature. We describe JPred, a backward-compatible extension to Java supporting predicate dispatch. While prior languages with predicate dispatch have been extensions to toy or nonmainstream languages, we show how predicate dispatch can be naturally added to a traditional OO language. While prior languages with predicate dispatch have required the whole program to be available for typechecking and compilation, JPred retains Java's modular typechecking and compilation strategies. While prior languages with predicate dispatch have included special-purpose algorithms for reasoning about predicates, JPred employs general-purpose, off-the-shelf decision procedures. As a result, JPred's type system is more flexible, allowing several useful programming idioms that are spuriously rejected by those other languages. After describing the JPred language informally, we present an extension to Featherweight Java that formalizes the language and its modular type system, which we have proven sound. Finally, we discuss two case studies that illustrate the practical utility of JPred, including its use in the detection of several errors.
Analyzing the effects of powder and post-processing on porosity and properties of electron beam melted Ti-6Al-4V

ABSTRACT Metal additive manufacturing techniques such as the powder-bed systems are developing as a novel method for producing complex components. This study uses synchrotron-based X-ray microtomography to investigate porosity in electron beam melted Ti-6Al-4V in the as-built and post-processed state for two different powders. The presence of gas porosity in the starting powder was shown to correlate to porosity in the as-built components. This porosity was observed to shrink after a hot isostatic press treatment, but grow following a subsequent heat treatment. Crystal plasticity simulations were used to observe the effects of various observed pore sizes on mechanical behavior under loading. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT IMPACT STATEMENT This work combined µSXCT and crystal plasticity simulations to characterize porosity through each processing stage of EBM Ti-6Al-4V. Gas porosity was detected in the as-HIPed state, and growth was observed after subsequent heat treatment.
Roles of the Glyoxylate and Methylcitrate Cycles in Sexual Development and Virulence in the Cereal Pathogen Gibberella zeae

ABSTRACT The glyoxylate and methylcitrate cycles are involved in the metabolism of two- or three-carbon compounds in fungi. To elucidate the role(s) of these pathways in Gibberella zeae, which causes head blight in cereal crops, we focused on the functions of G. zeae orthologs (GzICL1 and GzMCL1) of the genes that encode isocitrate lyase (ICL) and methylisocitrate lyase (MCL), respectively, key enzymes in each cycle. The deletion of GzICL1 (ΔGzICL1) caused defects in growth on acetate and in perithecium (sexual fruiting body) formation but not in virulence on barley and wheat, indicating that GzICL1 acts as the ICL of the glyoxylate cycle and is essential for self-fertility in G. zeae. In contrast, the ΔGzMCL1 strains failed to grow on propionate but exhibited no major changes in other traits, suggesting that GzMCL1 is required for the methylcitrate cycle in G. zeae. Interestingly, double deletion of both GzICL1 and GzMCL1 caused significantly reduced virulence on host plants, indicating that both GzICL1 and GzMCL1 have redundant functions for plant infection in G. zeae. Thus, both GzICL1 and GzMCL1 may play important roles in determining major mycological and pathological traits of G. zeae by participating in different metabolic pathways for the use of fatty acids.
Prevalence of salmonella organisms in dogs and the health implication in Aba, Abia State, Nigeria

The study was carried out to evaluate the prevalence rate of Salmonella in dogs in Aba city and the risk it poses to dog handlers as well as those that consumes it as a delicacy. The study was carried out using 125 Dogs obtained from five different veterinary clinics located in Aba within five local government area that make up the city. Rectal swabs were used. Dogs of all ages and sex were sampled. They include 42 (33.6%) of puppies, 60(48%) adult and 23(18.4%) geriatric dogs. Dogs of different breeds (local, mixed, exotic) were also sampled. Of the total 125 dogs sampled, only 16(12.8%) were positive for Salmonella. The percentage of exotic dogs sampled was 50.4% and have the highest representation than the other two groups (Local and Mixed). Ciprofloxacin was the most sensitive against Salmonella, recording 100% susceptibility while cloxacillin was the least susceptible 2%. The prevalence rate of Salmonella from this study is significant (P > 0.05). It ranges from 4% to 16% and this is not acceptable hence, dog owners should cook the meat they feed their dogs adequately and scavenging should be discouraged.
Debriefing in the intensive care unit: A feedback tool to facilitate bedside teaching*

Objective:To develop an assessment tool for bedside teaching in the intensive care unit (ICU) that provides feedback to residents about their performance compared with clinical best practices. Method:We reviewed the literature on the assessment of resident clinical performance in critical care medicine and summarized the strengths and weaknesses of these assessments. Using debriefing after simulation as a model, we created five checklists for different situations encountered in the ICU—areas that encompass different Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies. Checklists were designed to incorporate clinical best practices as defined by the literature and institutional practices as defined by the critical care professionals working in our ICUs. Checklists were used at the beginning of the rotation to explicitly define our expectations to residents and were used during the rotation after a clinical encounter by the resident and supervising physician to review a resident’s performance and to provide feedback to the resident on the accuracy of the resident’s self-assessment of his or her performance. Results:Five “best practice” checklists were developed: central catheter placement, consultation, family discussions, resuscitation of hemorrhagic shock, and resuscitation of septic shock. On average, residents completed 2.6 checklists per rotation. Use of the cards was fairly evenly distributed, with the exception of resuscitation of hemorrhagic shock, which occurs less frequently than the other encounters in the medical ICU. Those who used more debriefing cards had higher fellow and faculty evaluations. Residents felt that debriefing cards were a useful learning tool in the ICU. Conclusions:Debriefing sessions using checklists can be successfully implemented in ICU rotations. Checklists can be used to assess both resident performance and consistency of practice with respect to published standards of care in critical care medicine.
A Novel Feeder-Free Culture System for Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Culture and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Derivation

Correct interactions with extracellular matrix are essential to human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) to maintain their pluripotent self-renewal capacity during in vitro culture. hPSCs secrete laminin 511/521, one of the most important functional basement membrane components, and they can be maintained on human laminin 511 and 521 in defined culture conditions. However, large-scale production of purified or recombinant laminin 511 and 521 is difficult and expensive. Here we have tested whether a commonly available human choriocarcinoma cell line, JAR, which produces high quantities of laminins, supports the growth of undifferentiated hPSCs. We were able to maintain several human pluripotent stem cell lines on decellularized matrix produced by JAR cells using a defined culture medium. The JAR matrix also supported targeted differentiation of the cells into neuronal and hepatic directions. Importantly, we were able to derive new human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines on JAR matrix and show that adhesion of the early hiPSC colonies to JAR matrix is more efficient than to matrigel. In summary, JAR matrix provides a cost-effective and easy-to-prepare alternative for human pluripotent stem cell culture and differentiation. In addition, this matrix is ideal for the efficient generation of new hiPSC lines.
Heterodyne arrays at submillimeter wavelengths

Heterodyne receivers, which down-convert radio frequency (RF) signals to intermediate frequency (IF) signals – preserving the amplitude and phase information of the incoming radiation, are generally the detector of choice for high resolution spectroscopic studies in astrophysics and planetary remote sensing. Many interesting astronomical objects, such as galaxies, molecular clouds, star-forming regions, proto-stars, and planets have rich submillimeter spectra. Much can be learned from these spectra, including the structure, dynamics, chemistry, energy balance, mass, density, and temperature of the sources. High resolution spectroscopy is very often required to avoid line blending and resolve the line shapes. Heterodyne receivers provide both the sensitivity and resolution for such studies. Moreover, heterodyne receivers at submillimeter wavelengths are increasingly being used in medical imaging and contraband detection. However, it is clear that the future instruments, specifically the spacebased observatories with cold telescopes, will demand heterodyne arrays for higher sensitivity, greater mapping speed, large scale mapping ability, multiple line spectroscopy, and imaging capability. Passive and/or active heterodyne focal plane arrays would have profound impact on medical diagnostics, contraband detections, and astrophysical spectroscopy and imaging applications. However, only a handful of heterodyne array instruments at submillimeter wavelengths with a limited number of pixels are currently operational or being developed for astrophysical studies. In this paper we shall review the challenging issues in the development of heterodyne arrays with state-of-the-art detector sensitivities at submillimeter wavelengths. Such arrays are enabled only by higher levels of component integration with novel array concepts. Front-end architecture, including the choice of mixer elements and local oscillator (LO) injection schemes are critical to the overall design of such instruments, and will be addressed in this paper. I. INTRODUCTION
A Secure Re-encryption Scheme for Data Sharing in Unreliable Cloud Environment

To share encrypted data in cloud storage, data owner provides decryption keys to authorised users. When such a user is revoked, the encrypted data related to revoked user is re-encrypted and new decryption keys are re-distributed among the non-revoked users. In this paper, an efficient and secure re-encryption scheme has been proposed for data sharing in unreliable cloud environment. The scheme is built on top of Ciphertext-Policy based Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE), which will provide fine-grained access control to share data. The scheme can achieve user revocation without whole ciphertexts re-encryption and key re-distributions. In addition, re-encryption is not performed until a user requests for that data, which reduces overheads. Further, it does not need any clock synchronization. Moreover, the scheme is proven to be secured under Computational Bilinear Diffie-Hellman (CBDH) assumption. A comparison with the other notable work in this area shows that the performance is better in terms of functionality, computational and communication overheads.