Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers as potential release modulators and oral bioavailability enhancers of vardenafil hydrochloride

Abstract Vardenafil hydrochloride (VAR) is an erectile dysfunction treating drug. VAR has a short elimination half-life (4–5 h) and suffers low oral bioavailability (15%). This work aimed to explore the dual potential of VAR-dendrimer complexes as drug release modulators and oral bioavailability enhancers. VAR-dendrimer complexes were prepared by solvent evaporation technique using four dendrimer generations (G4.5, G5, G5.5 and G6) at three concentrations (190 nM, 380 nM and 950 nM). The systems were evaluated for intermolecular interactions, particle size, zeta potential, drug entrapment efficiency percentages (EE%) and drug released percentages after 2 h (Q2h) and 24 h (Q24h). The results were statistically analyzed, and the system showing the highest desirability was selected for further pharmacokinetic studies in rabbits, in comparison to Levitra® tablets. The highest desirability (0.82) was achieved with D10 system comprising VAR (10 mg) and G6 (190 nM). It possessed small particle size (113.85 nm), low PDI (0.19), positive zeta potential (+21.53), high EE% (75.24%), promising Q2 h (41.45%) and Q24 h (74.05%). Compared to Levitra® tablets, the significantly (p < 0.01) delayed Tmax, prolonged MRT(0−∞) and higher relative bioavailability (3.7-fold) could clarify the dual potential of D10 as a sustained release system capable of enhancing VAR oral bioavailability.
Flux trapping experiments in single flux quantum shift registers

As the integration level of superconducting digital circuits increases, flux trapping in these devices becomes a serious problem. High resolution A/D converters and other high speed signal processing systems have been demonstrated with junction counts well into the 10/sup 3/ range. Such large circuits require special testing techniques to prevent flux trapping within the gates, which can reduce bias margins and cause malfunctions of these devices. We discuss the results of experiments using single flux quantum shift registers in which we have varied the ground plane hole pattern and magnetic shield degaussing procedure to minimize flux trapping in these circuits. The operating bias margins of the shift registers have been measured as a function of different testing procedures and ground plane hole designs. In situ degaussing of the magnetic shields aids in the reduction of flux trapping and gave the best results. Measurements of the permeability of mu metal at 4.2 K are discussed.
The Profitability of Retained Earnings

A recent paper by Baumol, Heim, Malkiel and Quandt (1970) (hereafter referred to as BHMQ), estimated the relative rates of return on retained earnings, debt, and equity financing in United States corporations. The present paper summarises some results of my recent study (chapter 5, 1971) which investigates the effect of external financing on the future profitability of British quoted companies. The results of this study, which differs both in methodology and data used, are then compared with the BHMQ results. The comparison yields two important insights into the interpretation of the BHMQ results, whilst confirming the general conclusion that retained earnings seem to be used less profitably than external finance.
Permanent molar pulpotomy with a new endodontic cement: A case series

The aim of this case series was to determine the clinical and radiographic success rate of pulpotomy, with new endodontic cement (NEC), in human mature permanent molar teeth. Twelve molars with established irreversible pulpitis were selected from patients 14 – 62 years old. The selection criteria included carious pulp exposure with a positive history of lingering pain. After isolation, caries removal, and pulp exposure, pulpotomy with NEC was performed and a permanent restoration was immediately placed. At the first recall (+1 day) no patients reported postoperative pain. One wisdom tooth had been extracted after two months because of failure in coronal restoration. Eleven patients were available for the second recall, with a mean time of 15.8 months. Clinical and radiographic examination revealed that all teeth were functional and free of signs and symptoms. Histological examination of the extracted teeth revealed complete dentin bridge formation and a normal pulp. Although the results favored the use of NEC, more studies with larger samples and a longer recall period were suggested, to justify the use of this novel material for treatment of irreversible pulpitis in human permanent molar teeth.
Deletion of ferroportin in murine myeloid cells increases iron accumulation and stimulates osteoclastogenesis in vitro and in vivo

Osteoporosis, osteopenia, and pathological bone fractures are frequent complications of iron-overload conditions such as hereditary hemochromatosis, thalassemia, and sickle cell disease. Moreover, animal models of iron overload have revealed increased bone resorption and decreased bone formation. Although systemic iron overload affects multiple organs and tissues, leading to significant changes on bone modeling and remodeling, the cell autonomous effects of excessive iron on bone cells remain unknown. Here, to elucidate the role of cellular iron homeostasis in osteoclasts, we generated two mouse strains in which solute carrier family 40 member 1 (Slc40a1), a gene encoding ferroportin (FPN), the sole iron exporter in mammalian cells, was specifically deleted in myeloid osteoclast precursors or mature cells. The FPN deletion mildly increased iron levels in both precursor and mature osteoclasts, and its loss in precursors, but not in mature cells, increased osteoclastogenesis and decreased bone mass in vivo. Of note, these phenotypes were more pronounced in female than in male mice. In vitro studies revealed that the elevated intracellular iron promoted macrophage proliferation and amplified expression of nuclear factor of activated T cells 1 (Nfatc1) and PPARG coactivator 1β (Pgc-1β), two transcription factors critical for osteoclast differentiation. However, the iron excess did not affect osteoclast survival. While increased iron stimulated global mitochondrial metabolism in osteoclast precursors, it had little influence on mitochondrial mass and reactive oxygen species production. These results indicate that FPN-regulated intracellular iron levels are critical for mitochondrial metabolism, osteoclastogenesis, and skeletal homeostasis in mice.
Ignoring the Multi-species Aspect of Labor Supply Decisions in Spatial Bio-economic Fishery Models

This paper analyzes the bias in fishermans predicted participation rates in the target fishery associated with ignoring the multi-species aspect of labor supply decisions in spatial bio-economic fishery models. Recent advancements have been made to simultaneously model the biology of a marine species and the strategic behavior of harvesters over both time and space in order to more accurately predict the effect of regulatory policies on harvester effort and resource population. These models assume a nested choice structure in which the harvester first faces a dichotomous decision between shifting for the target species or not on a given day and then chooses a location to finish conditional on participation. This structure implicitly groups all non-target species options together in the first nest forcing participation-specific coefficients to be the same for all outside options, including fishing for an alternative species and staying home, two very different choices. Using a complete 15-year panel of all fishing trips made by fishermen possessing a Florida spiny lobster license, including non-lobster trips, I show that the simplifying assumption of a dichotomous choice structure in the first nest is not innocuous and that the participation probabilities can change substantially with the addition of another species as an outside alternative.
Age‐related microstructural changes in subcortical white matter during postadolescent periods in men revealed by diffusion‐weighted MR imaging

Continuous maturation of cerebral white matter (WM) in the postadolescent period is not fully understood. To elucidate the time course and location of possible postadolescent maturational changes in cerebral WM, we studied 60 healthy male subjects who were in their second to seventh decade using diffusion‐weighted imaging. Mean diffusivity (MD) in subcortical WM was measured in 78 cortical regions in each subject's brain using an automated method. Regression analysis was used to model the age‐related change in MD by either a linear or a quadratic function in each region. Age‐related changes in subcortical MD were best modeled by either a linear function or a quadratic function in 27 regions including language‐related regions, visual or multimodal areas in the bilateral occipital and temporal lobes, limbic areas including the bilateral parahippocampal gyri, and the bilateral postcentral and left precentral gyri. In these regions, the MD rapidly decreased until middle age and thereafter reached a plateau. Our results revealed microstructural changes in local subcortical WM and suggests a continuing maturational process in postoadolescent periods. Hum Brain Mapp 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Collaborative Mobile Clouds: An Energy Efficient Paradigm for Content Sharing

On the way toward enabling efficient content distribution, reducing energy consumption and prolonging battery life of mobile equipment, an emerging paradigm, i.e., mobile cloud, which is based on content distribution, was proposed. As a mobile platform that is oriented toward content distribution, mobile cloud is also foreseen as an energy-efficient solution for future wireless networks. The benefits of using CMC for content distribution or distributed computing from social networking perspectives have been studied earlier. In this article, we first present the concepts of CMC and then discuss the energy-efficiency benefits from the system-level point-of-view as well as open challenges in designing a green CMC. Moreover, we investigate the problem of forming mobile clouds for the purpose of content distribution and energy-efficiency. Specifically, given a group of users interested in downloading the same content from an operator, an energy-aware based user selection and scheduling algorithm is proposed. Simulation examples show that a significant energy-saving performance can be achieved without depleting the battery of any user equipment by the proposed scheme. Also, the research potential is discussed in the context of CMC.
Public Policy in a Principal-Agent Framework

The principal-agent framework is a rapidly developing approach to the analysis of contractual relationships within the private sector. We argue that it should be a promising approach to the analysis of public policy commitments as well. As a matter of fact, it allows the statement of a number of basic public policy problems in terms of an integrated framework. The making and implementation of public policy involve fundamental contractual problems referred to as asymmetric information, moral hazard, bounded rationality and adverse selection. The Niskanen bureau model is a principal-agent model, but its general result is much more limited than previously recognized, which may be shown by employing the same mathematical structure as Niskanen himself uses.
Short-Term Plasticity Combines with Excitation–Inhibition Balance to Expand Cerebellar Purkinje Cell Dynamic Range

The balance between excitation (E) and inhibition (I) in neuronal networks controls the firing rate of principal cells through simple network organization, such as feedforward inhibitory circuits. Here, we demonstrate in male mice, that at the granule cell (GrC)-molecular layer interneuron (MLI)-Purkinje cell (PC) pathway of the cerebellar cortex, E/I balance is dynamically controlled by short-term dynamics during bursts of stimuli, shaping cerebellar output. Using a combination of electrophysiological recordings, optogenetic stimulation, and modeling, we describe the wide range of bidirectional changes in PC discharge triggered by GrC bursts, from robust excitation to complete inhibition. At high frequency (200 Hz), increasing the number of pulses in a burst (from 3 to 7) can switch a net inhibition of PC to a net excitation. Measurements of EPSCs and IPSCs during bursts and modeling showed that this feature can be explained by the interplay between short-term dynamics of the GrC-MLI-PC pathway and E/I balance impinging on PC. Our findings demonstrate that PC firing rate is highly sensitive to the duration of GrC bursts, which may define a temporal-to-rate code transformation in the cerebellar cortex. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Sensorimotor information processing in the cerebellar cortex leads to the occurrence of a sequence of synaptic excitation and inhibition in Purkinje cells. Granule cells convey direct excitatory inputs and indirect inhibitory inputs to the Purkinje cells, through molecular layer interneurons, forming a feedforward inhibitory pathway. Using electrophysiological recordings, optogenetic stimulation, and mathematical modeling, we found that presynaptic short-term dynamics affect the balance between synaptic excitation and inhibition on Purkinje cells during high-frequency bursts and can reverse the sign of granule cell influence on Purkinje cell discharge when burst duration increases. We conclude that short-term dynamics may play an important role in transforming the duration of sensory inputs arriving on cerebellar granule cells into cerebellar cortical output firing rate.
Species diversity and endemism in the Daphnia of Argentina: a genetic investigation

Although the temperate regions of South America are known to have a diverse daphniid fauna, there has been no genetic evaluation of the existing taxonomic system or of the affinities between the North and South American faunas. The present study analyses mitochondrial DNA sequences and allozyme variation to investigate species diversity in 176 Daphnia populations from Argentina. This work established the presence of at least 15 species in Argentina, six of which are either undescribed or are currently misidentified and two of which represent range extensions of North American taxa. Eleven of the Argentine species appear endemic to South America, while the remaining four also occur in North America. In the latter cases, the close genetic similarity between populations from North and South America indicates the recent exchange of propagules between the continents. While biological interactions and habitat availability have undoubtedly contributed to the observed species distributions, chance dispersal has apparently played a dominant role in structuring large-scale biogeographical patterns in this genus and probably in other passively-dispersed organisms. © 2004 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2004, 140, 171−205.
Sacred afterlives: Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth Melville and the politics of sanctity

Abstract This article adopts the motif of the “afterlife” to explore the sacred writing of two early modern Scottish women writers, Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth Melville. It suggests that the representation of sanctity and devotion in the major religious poetry of Mary and Melville is invested with political meaning which has been previously unrecognised. Accordingly, the devotional selfhood, or religious “self-incarnations”, of both women polemically mirror their doctrinal loyalties: respectively Roman Catholicism and radical Presbyterianism. Their poetic articulation of faith can, therefore, be interpreted as passionate political “defences” of that faith. The article analyses the intersection of their religious poetry with contemporary and posthumous representations of their piety, seeking to exemplify how this reveals the possibility that the poetry of both women is the attempt, conscious and unconscious, to invent a symbolic “afterlife”. The conclusion suggests that Scottish early modern women's writing as a whole has suffered from a critically uncertain “afterlife”; brief investigation of the possible reasons for the complex “invisibility” of this body of writing therefore brings the article full circle as it ultimately suggests that the fusion of the aesthetic, the spiritual, and the political in the religious writing of Mary and Melville may help to bring their work greater recognition.
Descriptive and Inferential Statistics for Supervising and Monitoring the Operation of PV Plants

This paper deals with the problem of supervising and monitoring a photovoltaic (PV) plant. First, an offline descriptive and inferential statistical procedure for evaluating the goodness of system performance is presented. Then, an online inferential algorithm for real-time monitoring and fault detection is introduced. The two methodologies utilize the energy output of inverters as input data and are valid for both Gaussian and non-normal distribution of data. The procedures have been tested on a real PV installation, and results are reported for the case of a grid-connected PV plant in Italy for which one PV module over 132 resulted in being badly connected.
A study on the role of remittances in Fiji’s economic growth: an augmented solow model approach

In the context of the ongoing current global economic downturn, mobilization of foreign exchange earnings has assumed considerable importance. By adopting an augmented Solow model approach, this paper examines the long-run growth effects of Fiji’s inward remittances during a threedecade period (1979-2008). The paper also discusses some important policy implications arising out of the study findings.
Telepath: Understanding Users from a Human Vision Perspective in Large-Scale Recommender Systems

Designing an e-commerce recommender system that serves hundreds of millions of active users is a daunting challenge. To our best knowledge, the complex brain activity mechanism behind human shopping activities is never considered in existing recommender systems. From a human vision perspective, we found two key factors that affect users’ behaviors: items’ attractiveness and their matching degrees with users’ interests. This paper proposes Telepath, a vision-based bionic recommender system model, which simulates human brain activities in decision making of shopping, thus understanding users from such perspective. The core of Telepath is a complex deep neural network with multiple subnetworks. In practice, the Telepath model has been launched to JD’s recommender system and advertising system and outperformed the former state-of-the-art method. For one of the major item recommendation blocks on the JD app, click-through rate (CTR), gross merchandise value (GMV) and orders have been increased 1.59%, 8.16% and 8.71% respectively by Telepath. For several major ad publishers of JD demand-side platform, CTR, GMV and return on investment have been increased 6.58%, 61.72% and 65.57% respectively by the first launch of Telepath, and further increased 2.95%, 41.75% and 41.37% respectively by the second launch.
Lignin from Micro- to Nanosize: Applications

Micro- and nanosize lignin has recently gained interest due to improved properties compared to standard lignin available today. As the second most abundant biopolymer after cellulose, lignin is readily available but used for rather low-value applications. This review focuses on the application of micro- and nanostructured lignin in final products or processes that all show potential for high added value. The fields of application are ranging from improvement of mechanical properties of polymer nanocomposites, bactericidal and antioxidant properties and impregnations to hollow lignin drug carriers for hydrophobic and hydrophilic substances. Also, a carbonization of lignin nanostructures can lead to high-value applications such as use in supercapacitors for energy storage. The properties of the final product depend on the surface properties of the nanomaterial and, therefore, on factors like the lignin source, extraction method, and production/precipitation methods, as discussed in this review.
Rapid simultaneous measurement of multiple cytokines using 100 µl sample volumes − association with neonatal sepsis

Early diagnosis of neonatal infection has proved problematic due to the inadequacy of currently available laboratory tests. Neonatal sepsis is associated with an increase in plasma‐derived cytokine levels, but an increase of a single cytokine cannot identify neonatal sepsis specifically and multiple cytokine levels are required. The time constraints and relatively large volume of plasma required to measure multiple cytokines from newborn infants by conventional enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) techniques is prohibitive. We therefore applied cytometric bead array (CBA) technology for simultaneous measurement of multiple cytokines from a group of 18 term neonates with infection confirmed by culture and a control group. ‘Normal’ ranges were established for each cytokine from 1–7‐, 8–14‐ and 15–21‐day‐old newborns. There was no significant change in the levels of cytokines from infants in different control age groups, suggesting that basal cytokine levels are unchanged in the first 3 weeks of life. In the patient groups, however, there was a significant difference in several cytokines between the different age groups. Interleukin (IL)‐6, IL‐10 and IL‐12 were increased significantly in the 1–7‐day‐old patient group compared to either the 8–14 and 15–21 age group, suggesting that infection in utero is associated with increased levels of these cytokines compared to infection acquired following birth. When individual patient cytokine levels were compared to normal control reference ranges, two patients failed to show significant elevation of any cytokine tested. All other patients showed elevated levels of between one and nine cytokines tested (mean of 4·6). There was no correlation between elevated cytokine levels and types of infective organism or patient age. In conclusion, neonatal sepsis is associated with the elevation of multiple plasma cytokines. The use of CBA kits is a rapid, easy, low sample volume and sensitive method to measure multiple plasma cytokines.
Morphological Variation in Anuran Limbs: Constraints and Novelties

Anurans have three primary types of locomotion: walking, jumping, and swimming. Additionally, they may dig, climb, grasp, etc. All adult anurans have four limbs, with four fingers on the hands and five toes on the feet. We summarized and updated knowledge on the interspecific variation within anuran limbs, then discuss how developmental constraints (e.g., in size) and novelties may have influenced anuran diversification through the locomotion. We analyze morphological variation from limb bud stages up to the final limb form resulting from certain skeletal organization and growth. We find limited morphometric variations in the skeleton of different developmental modules (i.e., skull, trunk, urostyle, limbs) indicate that the anuran body shape is largely constrained. We identify specializations of the stylopodium, zeugopodium, and proximal carpals/tarsals that have evolved to facilitiate saltatorial locomotion. We show that the anuran prepollex and prehallux are not vestigial digits and that they have come to serve specialized function. Medial rotation of the manus in anurans appears to have evolved to help distribute the force of impact upon landing at the end of a jump. Additional skeletal elements in anuran limbs are intercalary elements and sesamoids. The intercalary elements appear within neobatrachians and are integrated with digital pads in lineages capable of locomotion on smooth vertical surfaces. They have allowed arboreal anurans to occupy a wide range of arboreal habitats.