Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recent advances in co-delivery systems based on polymeric nanoparticle for cancer treatment

Abstract Cancer is a broad term for a class of prevalent diseases as one in three people develop cancer during their lifetime. Although, there are few success stories of cancer therapy, most of the existing medications do not lead to complete recovery. Because of the complexity of cancer, usually a single therapeutic approach is insufficient for the suppression of cancer growth and metastasis. Simultaneous loading and co-delivery of different agents with different physiochemical characteristics to the same tumors have been suggested for minimizing the dose of anticancer drugs and achieving the synergistic therapeutic impacts in cancers treatment. Intense work to develop nanotechnology-based systems as a suitable option for cancer treatment is currently underway. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the co-delivery systems based on polymeric nanoparticles including polymeric micelles, dendrimers, poly-d,l-lactide-co-glycolide, polyethylenimine, poly(l-lysine) and chitosan for efficacious cancer therapy.
Framing the Individual Investor: The Case of Capital Guaranteed Funds

Expected utility theory assumes that the representation of a decision problem does not affect the decision itself. Unfortunately, many examples of framing exist whereby a change in the wording of a problem leads to other preferences. We apply the idea of framing to capital guaranteed funds. Capital guaranteed funds provide individual investors with an efficient way to build in capital protection and still earn a return proportional to e.g. the performance of the stock market. Based on an experiment, we show that investors are willing to put the interest on a time deposit at stake in order to earn a higher income. In this way, capital guaranteed funds serve a good purpose. However, the frame used to disclose information about the fund to the investor, matters. Investors tend to choose in a different way when they know characteristics of the probability distribution of the potential gains/losses. These findings clearly call for a closer attention of regulators.
Complications and Solutions in Presurgical Nasoalveolar Molding Therapy

Objective: To outline three main categories of nasoalveolar molding complications, describe their etiologies and manifestations, and prescribe preventive and palliative therapy for their proper management. Estimates of the incidence of each complication also are provided. Materials and Methods: Data were collected retrospectively from the charts of 27 patients with complete unilateral cleft lip and palate treated by the first author (D.L.-B.) at the University of Puerto Rico (n = 12) and the Medical College of Georgia (n = 15). Confidence intervals for the true incidence of each complication were calculated using exact methods based on the binomial distribution. A significance level of . 05 was used for all statistical tests. Results: Of the soft and hard tissue complications considered, only one (tissue irritation) had an estimated incidence greater than 10%. Compliance issues were of greater concern, with an estimated incidence of 30% for broken appointments and an estimated incidence of 26% for removal of the nasoalveolar molding appliance by the tongue. Conclusions: Although benefits outnumber the complications, it is important to address all complications in order to prevent any deleterious outcomes.
An equational axiomatization of associative Newman algebras

An associative Newman algebra is a Newman algebra in which the binary multiplicative operation x is associative for all elements belonging to the carrier set of the considered system. In [2], p. 265 and p. 271, Theorem 5 and Example E10, Newman has established that such an algebraic system is a proper extension of his complemented mixed algebra, and that it is a direct join of an associative Boolean ring with unity element and a Boolean lattice (i.e. a Boolean algebra). Moreover, he has shown there that this system can be constructed by an addition of a rather weak formula, viz. Kl given in section 1 below, as a new postulate, to the axiom-system formulated in [2] of Newman algebra. On the other hand, it is almost self-evident that an associative Newman algebra is not necessarily a Boolean algebra. In this note it will be shown that the addition of formula Kl mentioned above, as a new postulate, to the set of axioms of system S3 discussed in [3] allows us to construct a very simple and compact equational axiom-system for associative Newman algebra.
Overview of Mouse Models of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the loss of neurons in specific regions of the nervous system, notably in the substantia nigra pars compacta and, in most cases, by the deposition of intraneuronal inclusions named Lewy bodies. These pathological alterations have profound effects on the brain function, leading to the progressive development of various symptoms, the most prominent being the impaired initiation of voluntary movements caused by the loss of dopamine signaling in the basal ganglia. Here, we provide an overview of the mouse models of Parkinson's disease, with the goal of guiding selection of the most appropriate model for studying the question at hand. Pharmacological approaches targeting dopamine signaling and toxins leading to selective degeneration of nigral neurons are used to validate symptomatic treatments that aim at restoring effective dopaminergic function for motor control. Alternative mouse models are based on genetic modifications that are meant to reproduce the inherited alterations associated with familial forms of Parkinson's disease. Although genetic models have most often failed to induce overt degeneration of nigral dopaminergic neurons, they provide essential tools to explore the multifactorial etiology of this complex neurodegenerative disorder. Curr. Protoc. Mouse Biol. 4:121‐139 © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Allergenicity of mare's milk in children with cow's milk allergy.

BACKGROUND Cow's milk allergy is a common disease of infancy and early childhood. If the baby is not breast-fed, a substitute for cow's milk formula is necessary. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate, in vitro and in vivo, the allergenicity of mare's milk in a population of selected children with severe IgE-mediated cow's milk allergy. METHODS Twenty-five children (17 male and 8 female) aged 19 to 72 months (median age 34 months) with IgE-mediated cow's milk allergy were selected for this study. All the children underwent skin prick tests with cow's milk and mare's milk and double-blind placebo-controlled oral food challenge (DBPCOFC) with fresh cow's milk, fresh mare's milk, and, as placebo, a soy formula (Isomil, Abbott, Campoverde, Italy). We performed immunoblotting of cow's and mare's milk developed with IgE from allergic children. RESULTS All the children showed strong positive skin test responses to cow's milk (4+); 2 children had positive skin test responses to mare's milk (2+). All children had positive DBPCOFCs to cow's milk; one child had a positive DBPCOFC to mare's milk. No children reacted to the placebo (Isomil). In the cow's milk, some proteins are able to strongly react with human IgE; when the sera are tested with mare's milk, the bands corresponding to the same proteins are recognized by a lower percentage of sera. CONCLUSION These data suggest that mare's milk can be regarded as a good substitute of cow's milk in most children with severe IgE-mediated cow's milk allergy. It would be prudent, however, to confirm its tolerability by a supervised titrated oral challenge test.
The Identification of Trademark Filing Strategies: Creating, Hedging, Modernizing, and Extending Brands

The purpose of paper is to explore companies’ trademark portfolios in detail. Companies’ trademark portfolios are not loose agglomerations of trademarks but, instead, contain complex structures that coherently protect a company’s brand. I develop and apply a technique that reveals the inherent structure of trademark portfolios. This allows an assessment of how brands are protected by trademarks and how trademark filing strategies produced these portfolios. Trademarks protect brands and make them visible. Brand management decisions can therefore be observed through trademarks. When new products are introduced, brand management deals with decisions to either create new brands or use existing ones. Such decisions require trademark filings which reflect both the creation of new brands as well as the development of existing brands through hedging, modernization, and extension.
Onychomycosis: strategies to improve efficacy and reduce recurrence

Fungal infections may be difficult to treat for several reasons. It is important to obtain the correct diagnosis, and select the appropriate antifungal agent and route. General considerations that may be associated with recurrent infections are, a genetic predisposition and suboptimal bioavailability of drug, resulting in insufficient concentration at the target site. The aetiologic organism, the severity of disease, other coexisting diseases, concomitant drug intake, and the presence of fungal infection at other sites are some factors that determine the choice of antifungal therapy and its route of administration, oral vs. topical lacquer. Local factors such as the thickness of the nail, presence of lateral onychomycosis, longitudinal spike, dermatophytoma and severe onycholysis are some factors that may determine the choice of secondary measures such as mechanical or topical treatment. Booster or supplemental therapy may be of benefit when the response to initial treatment is poorer than expected and unlikely to result in complete response. Steps should be taken to reduce the possibility of recurrence once cure has been achieved.
Immune reactivity in a mouse model of familial ALS correlates with disease progression

Objective: The cause of motor neuron death in ALS is incompletely understood. This study aims to define the potential involvement of nonneuronal immune-inflammatory factors in the destruction of motor neurons in mutant superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD1) transgenic mice as a model of ALS. Background: The presence of activated microglia, IgG and its receptor for Fc portion (FcγRI), and T lymphocytes in the spinal cord of both patients with ALS and experimental animal models of motor neuron disease strongly suggests that immune-inflammatory factors may be actively involved in the disease process. Methods: The expression of immune-inflammatory factors was followed in both human mutant (G93A) SOD1 transgenic mice and human wild-type SOD1 transgenic mice, at different ages (40, 80, and 120 days). Fixed, frozen, free-floating sections of the lumbar spinal cord were stained with antibodies against CD11b, IgG, FcγRI, intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), CD3, and glial fibrillary acidic protein. Results: The earliest change observed was the upregulation of ICAM-1 in the ventral lumbar spinal cord of 40-day-old mutant SOD1 mice. IgG and FcγRI reactivities were detected on motor neurons as early as 40 days and on microglial cells at later stages. Microglial activation was first evident in the ventral horn at 80 days, whereas reactive astrocytes and T cells became most prominent in 120-day-old mutant SOD1 mice. Conclusion: The upregulation of proinflammatory factors during early presymptomatic stages as well as the expansion of immune activation as disease progresses in mutant SOD1 transgenic mice suggest that immune-inflammatory mechanisms could contribute to disease progression.
Shareability and Locality Aware Scheduling Algorithm in Hadoop for Mobile Cloud Computing

Using different scheduling algorithms can affect the performance of mobile cloud computing using Hadoop MapReduce framework. In Hadoop MapReduce framework, the default scheduling algorithm is First-In-First-Out (FIFO). However, the FIFO scheduler simply schedules task according to its arrival time and does not consider any other factors that may have great impact on system performance. As a result, FIFO cannot achieve good performance in Hadoop for mobile cloud computing. In this paper, we propose a novel scheduling algorithm, called FSLA (FIFO with Shareability and Locality Aware). FSLA is a FIFO-based scheduling policy that considers locality of required data and data sharing probability between tasks. The tasks requesting the same data can be gathered, easily batch processed, and thus reduce the overhead of transferring data between data nodes and computations nodes. The simulation results show that compared to FIFO, FSLA can reach 65% improvement in system performance.
Gathering lots of data on a small budget

Open-source hardware and software technology can redefine data collection Many science research projects rely on specialized electronic devices and software to gather data that often come with a high price tag. Advances in open-source hardware and software are occurring at an astounding rate, but scientists are often slow to take advantage of these for purposes beyond their original scope. Here, we advocate that open-source technology can be easily applied in science research to collect large data sets, at the same time reducing costs and increasing the repeatability of experiments.
Force fields for silicas and aluminophosphates based on ab initio calculations.

We address the problem of finding interatomic force fields for silicas from ab initio calculations on small clusters. It is shown that the force field cannot be determined from cluster data alone; incorporation of bulk-system information into the force field remains essential. Bearing this in mind, we derive a force field based on both microscopic (ab initio) and macroscopic (experimental) data. This force field combines accuracy with transferability to other polymorphs. The possibility of parametrizing other elements is also demonstrated.
The shared-memory language pSather on a distributed-memory multiprocessor

Parallel Sather (abbreviated as pSather) [3] is a parallel extension of the object oriented language Sather. Sather [6] is a simplified, optimized variant of Eiffel [5]. Sather has a very simple syntax, offers parameterized classes, object-oriented dispatch, multiple inheritance and strong typing, pSather adds constructs to create asynchronously executed threads and a special H0~IITOR class that provides features for implementing synchronization mechanisms. One goal of pSather is to support shared-memory abstractions. Two implementations, one on a sharedmemory multiprocessor (Sequent Symmetry) and another on a uniprocessor (Sparc stations) have worked relatively well. We therefore began work on a distributed memory implementation (in particular for the CM5) to test the suitability of the language for distributed-memory systems and to discover parallel constructs which provide both ease of programming and good performance on a distr ibuted-memory machine. In the process of porting pSather to the CM-5, we extended the design of the pSather runtime support for distributed-memory machines. The compiler/runtime support provides a "global address space" so that the language continues to support a shared-memory model. Also required were new treatments of shared variables and of remote accesses, procedure and thread invocations and MONITOR operations. The design for the runtime system is complete and a preliminary version of pSather is running on the CM-5. This abstract describes the experience in the design and implementation of the runtime system. We are implementing several medium-sized applications in pSather on CM-5. The emphasis is on providing support for the full range of data structures and exploiting this in challenging applications. We now also have designed further language constructs which are useful for programming in a non-uniform shared memory model. Language design, however, is not the focus of this abstract.
Context-dependent substroke model for HMM-based on-line handwriting recognition

Describes context-dependent substroke hidden Markov models (HMMs)for on-line handwritten recognition of cursive Kanji and Hiragana characters. In order to tackle this problem, we have proposed the substroke HMM approach where a modeling unit "substroke" that is much smaller than a whole character is employed and each character is modeled as a concatenation of only 25 kinds of substroke HMMs. One of the drawbacks of this approach is that the recognition accuracy deteriorates in the case of scribbled characters, and characters where the shape of the substrokes varies a lot. We show that the context-dependent substroke modeling which depends on how the substroke connects to the adjacent substrokes is effective for achieving robust recognition of low quality characters, The successive state splitting algorithm which was mainly developed for speech recognition is employed to construct the context dependent substroke HMMs. Experimental results show that the correct recognition rate improved from 88% to 92% for cursive Kanji handwriting and from 90% to 98% for Hiragana handwriting.
Knowledge Augmentation and Growth in International SMEs

Previous research suggests that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can acquire new knowledge when operating and in international markets and, thereby, enrich their limited resource base. In this study, we examine the growth implications of this new knowledge. Building on the internationalization literature, the knowledge based view (KBV) and Penrose’s theory of the growth of the firm we propose that the new knowledge is a malleable resource enhancing different growth outcomes. Our results indicate that the accumulated experiential knowledge in international markets contributes to a firm’s growth advantage in international markets and to further internationalization. In addition, the study shows that it provides the basis for entrepreneurial actions such as venturing into new markets and research new international customers. However, our results also suggest that this new knowledge has no, or very little, effect on SME growth in the domestic market.
Singular perturbation theory in control of nonlinear systems with uncertainties

In this paper, a control approach is proposed for stabilization of nonlinear systems in the presence of both matched and unmatched uncertainties. By combining the time scale separation and backstepping, first, high-gain filters are designed to estimate the uncertainties, and then, a fast dynamical equation is derived which the solution is found to approximate the ideal virtual/actual control inputs. In this approach the problem of “explosion of complexity” caused by the traditional backstepping technique is eliminated. Finally, the simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Functions, Targets, and Outcomes of Specific Forms of Social Aggression: A Daily Diary Study

ABSTRACT The authors investigated 8 specific forms of social aggression (SA) in terms of the functions they serve, the characteristics of the peers targeted by them, and the outcomes associated with using the behaviors. Two hundred and seventeen fifth- and seventh-grade boys and girls completed a structured daily diary for 5 consecutive days in their English classes. Participants reported on their own acts of SA. Girls reported using SA overall more frequently than boys, but most specific forms of SA were used equally often by both genders. Consistent with study hypotheses, different forms of SA were associated with different functions, targets, and outcomes. Gender and grade moderated many of these associations. The need for greater understanding of the underlying processes associated with SA, including the role of gender, are highlighted.
Analysis and Modeling of Thermal Effect and Optical Characteristic of LED Systems With Parallel Plate-Fin Heatsink

Based on the photoelectrothermal (PET) theory, prediction methods for the thermal effect and optical properties of the light-emitting diode (LED) systems mounted on a given parallel plate-fin heatsink are proposed in this paper. With the PET theory and the heatsink characteristics (heat transfer coefficient, equivalent radius for heat source, fins efficiency), it is possible to accurately quantify junction temperature, heat dissipation coefficient, optical power, and luminous flux of the LED systems. The prediction model consists of a series of optical and thermal evaluation, with which it is simple for LED system designers to comply. The proposed model has been validated using LED sources, which shows good agreement between the calculated and experimental results.
DOES THE TRADE‐OFF BETWEEN GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION SELECT FOR FEMALE‐BIASED SEXUAL ALLOCATION IN COSEXUAL PLANTS?

We analyzed sexual allocation in cosexual plants while taking the trade‐off between growth and reproduction into consideration and showed that this trade‐off does not select for female‐biased sexual allocation. There are two problems in sexual allocation: optimizing the amount of resources allocated to reproduction in a growing season and equalizing the resources allocated to the male and the female functions. If these two are possible at the same time, equal resource allocation to the male and the female functions is the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS; given that the fitness gains through the male and the female functions are proportional to the amount of the resources allocated to these functions). Biased sexual allocation only occurs when constraints make it impossible to simultaneously optimize allocation to reproduction and allocation to male and female functions. However, even if female‐biased sexual allocation occurs due to the addition of other constraints, the trade‐off between growth and reproduction itself is not an important factor that selects for female‐biased sexual allocation.
Impact of the Polymorphism Near MC4R (rs17782313) on Obesity- and Metabolic-Related Traits in Women Participating in an Aerobic Training Program

Abstract The C/T polymorphism (rs17782313) mapped 188 kb downstream of the melanocortin-4 receptor gene (MC4R) shows a strong relationship with an increased body mass index (BMI) and the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, the information on polymorphism’s potential modifying effect on obesity- and metabolic-related traits achieved through training is still unknown. Therefore, we decided to check if selected body measurements observed in physically active participants would be modulated by the genotype. The genotype distribution was examined in a group of 201 Polish women measured for chosen traits before and after the completion of a 12 week moderate-intensive aerobic training program. A statistically significant relationship between the glucose level and the genotype was identified (p = 0.046). Participants with CC and CT genotypes had a higher glucose level during the entire study period compared with the TT genotype. However, our results did not confirm the relationship between the C allele and an increased BMI or other obesity-related traits. Additionally, we did not observe a near MC4R C/T polymorphism x physical activity interaction. However, our results revealed that majority of obesity-related variables changed significantly during the 12 week training program. The effect sizes (d) of these changes ranged from small to medium (d = 0.11-0.80), whereas the largest effect (d = 0.80; i.e. medium) was reported for the fat mass content (FM). We found a relationship between the near MC4R C/T polymorphism and an increased glucose level, and it is thus a candidate to influence type 2 diabetes. Interestingly, after the 12 week training program, participants with the C (risk) allele with fasting hyperglycemia had a normal glucose level. Although, this change was not statistically significant, it shows an important trend which needs further investigation.