Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ocular tolerability and in vivo bioavailability of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-coated polyethyl-2-cyanoacrylate nanosphere-encapsulated acyclovir.

Acyclovir-loaded polyethyl-2-cyanoacrylate (PECA) nanospheres were prepared by an emulsion polymerization process in the micellar phase and characterized. The influence of the presence of nonionic surfactant as well as other substances [i.e., 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HP-beta-CyD) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)], on formulation parameters and loading capacity was investigated. In particular, the presence of PEG resulted in an increase of mean size and size distribution. To obtain PEG-coated PECA nanospheres with a mean size of < 200 nm, Pluronic F68 at concentrations > 1.5% (w/v) should be used during preparation. The presence of PEG also resulted in a change in zeta potential, from -25.9 mV for uncoated nanospheres to -12.2 mV for PEG-coated PECA nanospheres. The presence of HP-beta-CyD elicited an increase of nanosphere size and size distribution, but zeta potential was not influenced. In vitro drug release from nanospheres was determined in both phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) and plasma. The presence of HP-beta-CyD and PEG did not influence the acyclovir release rate in plasma. In the case of release in phosphate buffer, PEG-coated nanospheres showed a slower release. Ocular tolerability of PEG-coated PECA nanospheres was evaluated by the in vivo Draize test. This colloidal carrier was well tolerated, eliciting no particular inflammation at the level of the various ocular structures. In vivo ocular bioavailability was evaluated by instilling 50 microL of the acyclovir-loaded nanospheres only once in the conjunctival sac of rabbit eyes. At various time intervals, aqueous humour acyclovir content was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Acyclovir-loaded PEG-coated PECA nanospheres were compared with an aqueous solution of the drug and a physical mixture of acyclovir nanospheres. The acyclovir-loaded PEG-coated PECA nanospheres showed a significant (p < 0.001) increase of drug levels (25-fold) in aqueous humor compared with the free drug or the physical mixture. This finding is probably due to an improved ocular mucoadhesion of PEG-coated PECA nanospheres.
An Osteologic Study of Cranial Opening of Optic Canal in Gujarat Region.

INTRODUCTION Optic canal is a bony canal situated in between the roots of lesser wings of sphenoid, lateral to body of sphenoid. It transmits optic nerve and ophthalmic artery, surrounded by meninges. Various authors have studied variations in skull foramina and correlated clinically, as variants in the body structures have been found to be associated with many inherited or acquired diseases. AIM The present study aimed to examine morphologic and morphometric variations in cranial openings of optic canals. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was undertaken in total 150 dry adult human skulls. The variations in size, shape, presence or absence and duplication or multiplication if any, in optic canal were observed bilaterally. Unusual features such as recess, fissure and notch were also observed bilaterally. Student's t-test was applied to compare size of cranial openings of optic canal on both sides. Similarly, morphologic features related with the canal were studied by calculating frequency and proportions of various parameters. RESULTS Optic canal was present in all 150 skulls studied bilaterally. The mean maximum dimension of the canal at cranial opening was 5.03±0.72 mm on right side and 5.02±0.76 mm on left side. The shape of the canal was ovoid at cranial opening in all the skulls studied. Duplication of optic canal was present in one skull on left side. Recess was found in 105(35%) sides of total skulls observed. Fissure was found in 20(6.67%) sides and notch was observed in 30(10%) sides of total skulls. CONCLUSION The optic canal showed variability in various parameters. Knowledge regarding variations in size, shape and unusual features on cranial opening of optic canal can be helpful to clinicians while approaching optic canal for various invasive procedures such as optic nerve decompression.
Potential Role of Thrombelastography in the Monitoring of Acquired Factor VIII Inhibitor Hemophilia A: Report on a 78-year-old Woman With Life-threatening Bleedings

A 78-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital because of syncope associated with hematomas in both legs. Acquired hemophilia A (AHA) with a low antifactor VIII antibodies activity was diagnosed. Whole blood (WB) thrombelastographic profile depicted a hypocoagulable state. During hospitalization, the patient experienced life-threatening bleedings in the neck and in the right thigh. FVIII concentrates and rFVIIa was safe and effective in controlling acute hemorrhagic symptoms. Immunosuppressive therapy was used successfully to eradicate the inhibitor. At discharge, FVIII inhibitor was absent and thrombelastogram showed a normal profile. Our report confirms that AHA is a heterogeneous condition in terms of risk of bleeding. Even though the criteria for the diagnosis of AHA is quite well defined, a laboratory test useful to predict the bleeding risk and monitor the response to treatment is lacking. ROTEM profile appears to be correlated with the response to treatment and with the eradication of the inhibitor.
Water justice: exploring the social dimensions of new irrigation technologies in northern Victoria, Australia

Water resource management is one of the most pressing human and environmental challenges of the 21st century. Technological approaches to improving the management of water feature prominently, with technology positioned as the solution to issues of competing interests and the achievement of water savings. This paper analyses the social dimensions of a regional-level irrigation technology, examining the piloting of Total Channel Control" technology in northern Victoria, Australia, as a case study. Water savings, organisational efficiency, on-demand ordering, occupational health and safety improvements, and many other benefits were anticipated to flow from this 'world first' technology. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and participant observation of an irrigation committee, this paper examines stakeholder accounts regarding piloting of the technology. We argue that in order to achieve justice and fairness in implementing regional irrigation technology, three essential criteria must be met: genuine consultation, participation and negotiation; responsive and respectful dialogue and communication; and mutual information exchange. As society shifts towards greater reliance on technological intervention to solve some of the most pressing dilemmas of the modern era, a more holistic approach focusing on the complexity of human interaction with the technology is vital.
Early career teachers' changes to practice, confidence and understandings in cooperative learning: a case study doctoral project update

Teacher retention is an issue in many education systems, and retaining early career teachers is even more problematic. There is a need for support and professional learning for beginning teachers. This paper explores results from classroom observations and interviews with two early career teacher participants after professional development in cooperative learning (CL). The classroom observations focussed on the implementation of cooperative learning, with follow-up interviews focussed on understandings of practice. Difference was found in the impact of professional learning between the two teachers (an early career teacher in her third year and another in her first year of teaching). Whilst both teachers made gains, the more experienced teacher made greater gains in understanding and practice, while the inexperienced teacher, improved in knowledge and practice but also struggled with other factors related to beginning teaching. The prevailing culture of the school also had a huge impact on the practice of these teachers. It is important to have a focus on pedagogy to enhance early career teachers’ professional accomplishment, as well as maintain the enthusiasm that they portray in these early years, if we are to retain quality teachers in the profession. Introduction/ setting the context It is acknowledged that there is a need to retain early career teachers in the profession by providing them with professional learning focused on their pedagogy. Gore, Williams and Ladwig have identified a distinct “neglect of pedagogy in the induction of early career teachers” (Gore, Williams, & Ladwig, 2006a, p.17). There has been a great deal of research that advocates the use of CL in schools to improve both social and academic outcomes. However there have been no previous studies that focus on early career teachers and their use of cooperative learning. A decision was made in the current study to focus the professional learning on CL as a pedagogical strategy that will help to sustain these teachers’ enthusiasm early in their careers, as well as develop and improve their students’ academic and social outcomes. In addition, the professional learning would teach them how to use action research when focusing on CL in their classrooms. This research methodology can be used as a tool to help teachers improve teaching practices, as well as gain confidence about their teaching
Propagation Channel Characterization for Amplify-and-Forward MIMO-Relaying Systems

In this contribution, we derive the spread function and power spectrum of the so-called ``relay channel'' along which electromagnetic waves propagate from a source station to a destination station via multiple amplify-and-forward (AF) relay stations. These results show analytically that the propagation over such a relay channel can be influenced by the propagation in individual ``hops'' and the responses of the relay stations. Furthermore, we find that the uncorrelated-scattering assumption is inapplicable for the AF-relay channels in the case where the relay stations receive and retransmit signals using mulitple antennas. We propose to simulate the relay channels by three steps: i) selecting channel models for individual ``hops''; ii) defining the correlations of model parameters among the hops; and iii) constructing realizations of relay channels by taking into account the responses of relay stations, which are specified by considering the response of antennas and the relay mode according to system configurations. We also show in this contribution that the spreads of a multi-relay channel in delay, Doppler frequency and directions are lower-bounded by the weighted summation of the spreads of individual source-relay-destination channels.
Adipocyte cell size enlargement involves plasma membrane area increase

The adipocyte enlargement is associated with an increase in the cytoplasmic lipid content, but how the plasma membrane area follows this increase is poorly understood. We monitored single-cell membrane surface area fluctuations, which mirror the dynamics of exocytosis and endocytosis. We employed the patch-clamp technique to measure membrane capacitance (Cm), a parameter linearly related to the plasma membrane area. Specifically, we studied whether insulin affects membrane area dynamics in adipocytes. A five-minute cell exposure to insulin increased resting Cm by 12±4%; in controls the change in Cm was not different from zero. We measured cell diameter of isolated rat adipocytes microscopically. Twenty-four hour exposure of cells to insulin resulted in a significant increase in cell diameter by 5.1±0.6%. We conclude that insulin induces membrane area increase, which may in chronic hyperinsulinemia promote the enlargement of plasma membrane area, acting in concert with other insulin-mediated metabolic effects on adipocytes.
Genetic diversity of ranch and feral American mink (Neovison vison Schreber, 1777) in Poland in relation to the natural population of the species

In Poland, the number of feral mink (Neovison vison) and the size of the fur-farming industry are growing. There is a concern that the gene pool of the wild living mink is being infiltrated by that of ranch animals. Three populations were analyzed: Polish ranch mink, feral animals from Poland, and, they were for the first time in Poland, compared with wild individuals from North America. The breeding history of the species and the main ways of introducing the American mink into new areas on different continents were considered. The final research included analysis of the polymorphism of 12 Mustelidae-specific microsatellite loci. It showed a similar level of genetic diversity in all the investigated populations. The research revealed the existence of geographically-specific subpopulations of feral mink in Poland, characterized by different origins, and indicated a small degree of introgression between Polish ranch and wild living populations in the past although the assignment simulation makes it clear that they are genetically distinct groups. The results are in accordance with previously reported models of colonization of Poland by this species and help to explain the influence of anthropogenic factors on the current status of this invasive species. Mixing of two separate genetic pools from the native range in Poland is a newly identified factor, shaping the genetic structure of ranch and feral populations of Neovison vison.
An Inkjet Printed Chipless RFID Sensor for Wireless Humidity Monitoring

A novel chipless RFID humidity sensor based on a finite artificial impedance surface (AIS) is presented. The unit cell of the AIS is composed of three concentric loops thus obtaining three deep and high-Q nulls in the electromagnetic response of the tag. The wireless sensor is fabricated using the low-cost inkjet printing technology on a thin sheet of commercial coated paper. The patterned surface is placed on a metal-backed cardboard layer. The relative humidity information is encoded in the frequency shift of the resonance peaks. Varying the relative humidity level from 50% to 90%, the frequency shift has proved to be up to 270 MHz. The position of the resonance peaks has been correlated to the relative humidity level of the environment on the basis of a high number of measurements performed in a climatic chamber, specifically designed for RF measurements of the sensor. A very low error probability of the proposed sensor is demonstrated when the device is used with a 10% relative humidity level discrimination.
Extracting Latent Topics from User Reviews Using Online LDA

As local business directory service sites like Dianping.com and Yelp.com are increasingly popular, user reviews are becoming more and more important in informing customers of product and service quality. The reviews can also provide meaningful insights to business owners. However, huge amounts of online user reviews are displayed in texts and are of high dimensionality. They also imply different latent topics. Therefore, it is intractable to pinpoint the demand of customers from a large amount of incremental user reviews manually. The goal of this paper is to help businesses discover user demands from enormous reviews of high dimensionality, which in turn will help improve their business. To this end, we propose using online Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) as topic model to discover latent topics from user reviews. We used the open dataset from Yelp Dataset Challenge, and further cleaned and filtered the dataset to focus on the user reviews of restaurants in Phoenix, Arizona, US. By running Online LDA over the cleaned dataset, we discovered 50 latent topics. In this paper, we present the breakdown of latent topics over all reviews and the word distribution of topics. Furthermore, the method adopted by this paper could prove useful to specific business owners in discovering user demands and points of interest. Keywords—natural language processing; topic model; latent dirichlet allocation; yelp reviews
Optimal Ordering Policy for a Perishable Commodity with Fixed Lifetime

This paper extends the classical single-item, multiperiod inventory model of A rrow , K arlin , and S carf to the case where a good in storage perishes exactly l periods after its receipt on order. Units are followed from the time they are purchased and enter the inventory until they are either issued or perish. For general l the paper obtains the optimal policy recursively and derives several properties of the solution.
Phonologically Informed Edit Distance Algorithms for Word Alignment with Low-Resource Languages

Edit distance is commonly used to relate cognates across languages. This technique is particularly relevant for the processing of low-resource languages because the sparse data from such a language can be signiﬁcantly bolstered by connecting words in the low-resource language with cognates in a related, higher-resource language. We present three methods for weighting edit distance algorithms based on linguistic information. These methods base their penalties on (i) phonological features, (ii) distributional character embeddings, or (iii) differences between cognate words. We also introduce a novel method for evaluating edit distance through the task of low-resource word alignment by using edit-distance neighbors in a high-resource pivot language to inform alignments from the low-resource language. At this task, the cognate-based scheme outperforms our other meth-ods and the Levenshtein edit distance base-line, showing that NLP applications can ben-eﬁt from information about cross-linguistic phonological patterns.
Comparison of amyloid plaque contrast generated by T2‐weighted, T  2* ‐weighted, and susceptibility‐weighted imaging methods in transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease

One of the hallmark pathologies of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is amyloid plaque deposition. Plaques appear hypointense on T2‐weighted and T 2* ‐weighted MR images probably due to the presence of endogenous iron, but no quantitative comparison of various imaging techniques has been reported. We estimated the T1, T2, T 2* , and proton density values of cortical plaques and normal cortical tissue and analyzed the plaque contrast generated by a collection of T2‐weighted, T 2* ‐weighted, and susceptibility‐weighted imaging (SWI) methods in ex vivo transgenic mouse specimens. The proton density and T1 values were similar for both cortical plaques and normal cortical tissue. The T2 and T 2* values were similar in cortical plaques, which indicates that the iron content of cortical plaques may not be as large as previously thought. Ex vivo plaque contrast was increased compared to a previously reported spin‐echo sequence by summing multiple echoes and by performing SWI; however, gradient echo and SWI were found to be impractical for in vivo imaging due to susceptibility interface–related signal loss in the cortex. Magn Reson Med, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
EVALUATION OF SOME MOLECULAR MARKERS AS SELECTION TOOLS FOR TOMATO MOSAIC VIRUS (TOMV) RESISTANCE IN SOLANUM LYCOPERSICUM L.

PASEV, G. , V. RADEVA–IVANOVA, D. GANEVA and D. KOSTOVA, 2016. Evaluation of some molecular markers as selection tools for Tomato mosaic virus (ToMV) resistance in Solanum lycopersicum L. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 22: 961–967 Tomato mosaic virus (ToMV) is one of the most economically important viruses on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in Bulgaria, easily transmitted mechanically and by seeds. Breeding, based on genetic controlled resistance, is the most effective and successful approach for combating the ToMV-tomato problem due to the dominant monogenic genetic control, governed by three single genes for resistance (Tm-1, Tm-2 and Tm-22). The aim of the current study was to investigate the reliability of some SCAR, CAPS and AS molecular markers for identifi cation of Tm genes for resistance in tomato breeding lines. Parallel to molecular study, screening tests with three ToMV pathotypes (0, 1 and 2) were carried out as control tests. The resistance to the three pathotypes was found in 6 breeding lines. Twenty ToMV resistant plants were subjected to molecular analysis. The CAPS marker revealed the presence of Tm-22 allele in homozygous condition in 12 ToMV resistant plants, whereas the AS markers (AS1, AS2 and AS3) confi rmed this result only in two plants. The remaining 10 reacted as heterozygous with genotype Tm-2/ Tm-22. Another eight ToMV resistant plants were determined by CAPS marker as heterozygous for Tm-22 gene (tm-2/Tm-22), which was confi rmed only in two plants by AS markers. The results obtained for the remaining six plants by AS markers were rather contradictory. Successful application of CAPS marker for genotyping the Tm-2 locus as well as confusing behavior of AS 2 marker during genotyping the Maritsa VCRI tomato breeding lines is discussed.
Identification of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, Pepper huasteco yellow vein virus and Pepper golden mosaic virus associated with pepper diseases in northern Mexico

Abstract New diseases in pepper plantations were discovered in La Comarca Lagunera (CL) region in September 2014, the severity of which increased by October 2016. Pepper plants exhibited mild and severe yellow leaf mosaic, deformation, stunting and chlorotic leaves. In addition, whiteflies were observed on symptomatic plants, suggesting a possible begomovirus aetiology. In this study, naturally infected pepper plants were collected during three consecutive years to identify the potential begomovirus present in pepper in CL. PCR detection using degenerate and specific primers indicated that 47 out of 49 pepper plants were infected by begomoviruses mainly in mixed infection. The complete begomovirus genomes were isolated from a representative symptomatic pepper plant and two clones for each begomovirus were fully sequenced for the corresponding year of collection (2014 to 2016). Phylogenetic analysis of complete genomes of CL begomovirus pepper isolates indicated a close homology with Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (designated TYLCV-CL) displaying 99.9–100% identity with TYLCV Sinaloa isolate, and the bipartite Pepper huasteco yellow vein virus (designated PHYVV-CL) displaying 94.5% and 84.2% identity with first PHYVV isolate from Tamaulipas for DNA A and DNA B, respectively, and 97–98% identity with PHYVV Sinaloa isolate for DNA B. In 2016, Pepper golden mosaic virus (designated PepGMV-CL) was also found that consisted of DNA-A and DNA-B genome displaying 97% and 93.5% identity with PepGMV isolate Tamaulipas. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a pepper disease associated with TYLCV in double or triple infection either with PHYVV and/or PepGMV in Mexico.
The 'Lost Generation': South Africa's 'Youth Problem' in the Early 1990s

This paper examines the social construction of a 'youth problem' in the early-1990s. It argues that the 'problem' was born in the minds of political leaders, developed into the generally racist concept of a 'lost generation' by the media, and fuelled and perhaps legitimated by the policy studies industry
Vision-based side vehicle detection from a moving vehicle

In this paper, a side vehicle detection system with real-time on-board vision is proposed. The system employs camera vision to detect side moving vehicles, and provides necessary warning to drivers and passengers when the vehicle is making lane change. Based on SURF, feature detection and comparison are applied to find the same features between two consecutive images and calculate the feature vectors. Further image analysis is performed based on the feature vectors to determine whether there are side moving vehicles. If any side moving vehicle is detected, the system will apply inverse perspective projection technique to estimate the positions of surrounding vehicles in Cartesian space. Then, the system will generate on-screen signs of safety, warning, or danger to inform drivers and passengers based on the estimated distance to side moving vehicles. The approach has been successfully validated in real traffic environments by performing experiments with two CCD cameras mounted on top of side mirrors of a roadway moving vehicle.