Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preparation and comparative evaluation of liquisolid compacts and solid dispersions of Valsartan

The aim of the present study was to increase the solubility of a poorly water soluble BCS class II drug, valsartan. Liquisolid technology and solid dispersion by kneading method were techniques used to improve the solubility of the drug by using non-volatile solvents and some hydrophilic carriers. Liquisolid compacts were prepared by dissolving the drug in suitable non volatile solvents. The various non volatile solvents used were PG, PEG, and glycerine. The carrier coating materials play an important role in improving the solubility of the drug. The dissolution rate of the drug was increased by using propylene glycol as non-volatile solvent at 20:1 ratio of carrier to coating material. Solid dispersion by kneading method were another attempt to improve solubility the various carrier materials used were PVP K 30, PEG 6000 and mannitol, these carriers are used in various ratios to improve its solubility. The dissolution rate of drug using solid dispersion kneading method with mannitol was increased at 1:3 ratio. The DSC and FTIR studies revealed no drug excipients interactions, whereas XRD revealed the reduced crystalinity of drug, which showed enhanced solubility. From the results it was concluded that the liquisolid compacts enhanced the solubility of valsartan in comparison to traditional solid dispersion method. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3329/sjps.v4i2. 10440 S. J. Pharm. Sci. 4(2) 2011: 48-57
The effects of non-attendance information therapy on the control of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C) in type 2 diabetic patients

Introduction: Patient education plays an important role in the control of diabetes. Nonattendance education, enabling elimination of limitations caused by time and space and facilitating the relationship between patient and care liaison is an effective, simple, and cheap method. The aim of this study is determination of the effects of nonattendance information therapy on the control of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C) in type 2 diabetic patients in Isfahan. Materials and Methods: The present study was an interventional semi experimental study with pretest and post-test and control groups. Statistical population were type 2 diabetics patients of the Isfahan Endocrine and Metabolism Research Center, of whom 64 people were randomly selected and divided into intervention and control groups. First, the preliminary data were collected using the HbA1c test in patients. Then, the intervention group received training package and Short Message Service (SMS) for eight weeks. After one-month incubation period, HbA1c was again determined in both groups. Data were analyzed using t-test, paired t-test and Mann–Whitney U and Chi-square tests. Results: Results showed that diabetes patients’ HbA1c in the intervention group was significantly lower after the intervention through training packages and SMS service compared to before the intervention (P < 0.001). Comparison of the two groups showed that there was a significant difference in the HbA1C between the intervention and control groups (P = 0.048). Conclusion: Follow-up of education of patients with type 2 diabetes through training packages and SMS services had significant effects on the control of the patients’ HbA1C. Also due to the low cost and high effectiveness of this method, it is recommended to health-care providers and treatment groups. This study also showed that having medical librarians along with treatment group can have a positive effect on the type 2 diabetic patients’ health.
Expression of executive control in situational context: Effects of facilitating versus restraining cues on snack food consumption.

OBJECTIVES To examine the effects of executive function (EF) on objectively measured high-calorie snack food consumption in 2 age groups and to explore the moderating influence of environmental cues. METHODS In Study 1, 43 older adults (M(age) = 74.81) and in Study 2, 79 younger adults (M(age) = 18.71) completed measures of EF and subsequently participated in a bogus taste-test paradigm wherein they were required to rate 3 highly appetitive (but high-calorie) snack foods on taste and texture. Grams of snack food consumed was measured covertly in the presence randomly assigned contextual cues (explicit semantic cues in Study 1; implicit visual cues in Study 2) that were facilitating or restraining in nature. RESULTS Findings indicated that in both age groups, stronger EF predicted lower consumption of snack foods across conditions, and the effects of EF were most pronounced in the presence of facilitating cues. CONCLUSIONS Older and younger adults with weaker EF tend to consume more high-calorie snack food compared with their stronger EF counterparts. These tendencies appear to be especially amplified in the presence of facilitating cues.
Alcohol drinking and deprivation alter basal extracellular glutamate concentrations and clearance in the mesolimbic system of alcohol‐preferring (P) rats

The present study determined the effects of voluntary ethanol drinking and deprivation on basal extracellular glutamate concentrations and clearance in the mesolimbic system and tested the hypothesis that chronic ethanol drinking would persistently increase basal glutamate neurotransmission. Three groups of alcohol‐preferring (P) rats were used: ‘water group (WG),’ ‘ethanol maintenance group (MG; 24‐hour free choice water versus 15% ethanol)’ and ‘ethanol deprivation group (DG; 2 weeks of deprivation). ’ Quantitative microdialysis and Western blots were conducted to measure basal extracellular glutamate concentrations, clearance and proteins associated with glutamate clearance. Chronic alcohol drinking produced a 70–100% increase of basal extracellular glutamate concentrations in the posterior ventral tegmental area (4.0 versus 7.0 μM) and nucleus accumbens shell (3.0 versus 6.0 μM). Glutamate clearances were reduced by 30–40% in both regions of MG rats compared with WG rats. In addition, Western blots revealed a 40–45% decrease of excitatory amino transporter 1 (EAAT1) protein, but no significant changes in the levels of EAAT2 or cystine‐glutamate antiporter in these regions of MG versus WG rats. The enhanced glutamate concentrations returned to control levels, accompanied by a recovery of glutamate clearance following deprivation. These results indicated that chronic alcohol drinking enhanced extracellular glutamate concentrations in the mesolimbic system, as a result, in part, of reduced clearance, suggesting that enhanced glutamate neurotransmission may contribute to the maintenance of alcohol drinking. However, because the increased glutamate levels returned to normal after deprivation, elevated glutamate neurotransmission may not contribute to the initiation of relapse drinking.
Preschoolers out of adults: Discriminative learning with a cognitive load

This paper explores novel predictions from the spontaneous overtraining interpretation of human discrimination shift learning (Sirois & Shultz, 1998a). Results from six experiments where adults perform a discrimination shift task with or without a cognitive distractor are reported. In three experiments with a concurrent distractor task (Experiments 1A, 2A, and 3A), performance of adults is comparable to what would be expected from preschoolers performing only the learning task. These adults show no dimensional transfer from initial learning, unless new attributes are introduced in shift learning. On the same tasks without a cognitive load (Experiments 1B, 2B, and 3B), performance is typical of normal adults. The discussion focuses on the relative ability of competing theoretical models (i.e., levels of processing, attentional mediation, and perceptual differentiation) to account for these data.
Diagnosis of inflammatory pseudotumor of the liver: value of CT.

OBJECTIVE Inflammatory pseudotumor of the liver is a localized mass consisting of a fibrous stroma and chronic inflammatory infiltrate without anaplasia. Diagnosis of this rare disease is important to avoid surgery. The purpose of this study was to determine if CT is useful in the diagnosis of this lesion. SUBJECTS AND METHODS CT scans of nine patients with a proved diagnosis of inflammatory pseudotumor of the liver were reviewed. Diagnosis was made by the surgical resection in three patients and by percutaneous biopsy in six patients. Six patients had symptoms and laboratory data suggesting active inflammation caused by the pseudotumor. The remaining three patients were asymptomatic. CT scans were performed with IV administration of the contrast material; scans were obtained in the portal venous and delayed phases in six patients and in the delayed phase in three patients. CT scans were analyzed for the number and size of the hepatic masses, and the degree and pattern of contrast enhancement on portal venous phase and delayed-phase images. RESULTS Eight patients had a solitary hepatic mass, and one patient had two masses on the CT scan. The average size of the masses in the symptomatic patients (8.3 cm) was larger than that in the asymptomatic group (3.6 cm). CT scans in the portal venous phase showed a variable degree of contrast enhancement (seven masses). At least a part of seven masses, six of which were in symptomatic patients, showed greater contrast enhancement on delayed-phase CT scans than on the normal liver parenchyma. No constant pattern of enhancement was observed on delayed-phase CT scans in asymptomatic patients. CONCLUSION Inflammatory pseudotumor of the liver should be included in a differential diagnosis in patients with a hepatic mass on a CT scan, especially when patients are symptomatic and the mass is fairly large and solitary showing contrast enhancement greater than that of liver parenchyma on delayed-phase CT scans. Percutaneous biopsy should be performed to obtain a histologic confirmation.
Differential Impact of Environmental Policy Instruments on Technological Change: A Review of the Empirical Literature

This survey reviews the empirical literature on the impact of environmental policy instruments on the rate and direction of technological change. The survey is explicitly focused on the empirical identification of the hypothesis to expect a stronger impact from market-based incentives than from non-market alternatives. The general picture emerging from the recent literature is that there is a clear impact of environmental policy on invention, innovation and diffusion of technologies. Although studies on a differential impact are still very scarce, the available evidence suggests that innovators look carefully for rent opportunities, which in turn depend on the specific incentives signalled by the type of (environmental) policy.
Simple and low-cost re-authentication protocol for HeNB

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) defined a new architecture, called Home eNode B (HeNB). The 3GPP has also presented a protocol for communications between HeNB and core networks for mutual authentication. To reduce the authentication costs associated with communication, computation and energy, this paper proposes a simple and low-cost re-authentication protocol that does not compromise the provided security services. The proposed protocol uses as the re-authentication parameter a Master Session Key (MSK) that has already been computed in the initial authentication, and does not require the full initial authentication to be repeated. Moreover, the proposed protocol does not modify the 3GPP infrastructure, and is easily applied to the HeNB system. Finally, the security of the proposed protocol is verified by Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications (AVISPA) and Burrows-Abadi-Needham (BAN) Logic; detailed evaluations of performance are also given. The analysis results illustrate that the proposed protocol can achieve at least 50% cost reduction in communication and 58% cost reduction in energy. The computational cost is also reduced by half compared with the initial authentication.
On LMI approach to admissibilization of discrete-time descriptor systems

This paper develops a one-step LMI-based test for the admissibilization of linear discrete-time descriptor systems. For any admissibilizable system, the proposed method can generate a set of constant feedback gain matrices to make the closed-loop system admissible. The technical ingredients of our approach are the projection lemma and the coordinate transformation. The former introduces two instrumental variables into an LMI condition to characterize admissibility and the latter simplifies the representation of compensated descriptor pair by vanishing certain matrix blocks in the equivalent system representation. Combining them with the induced fact that all solution variables to the mentioned LMI condition possess some special block structures, the difficulty of generating nonlinear terms from applying compensation is successfully overcome. The numerical tractability of the results is illustrated by an example.
Neuropeptide Y resists excess loss of fat by lipolysis in calorie‐restricted mice: a trait potential for the life‐extending effect of calorie restriction

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is an orexigenic peptide that plays an essential role in caloric restriction (CR)‐mediated lifespan extension. However, the mechanisms underlying the NPY‐mediated effects in CR are poorly defined. Here, we report that NPY deficiency in male mice during CR increases mortality in association with lipodystrophy. NPY−/− mice displayed a rapid decrease in body weight and fat mass, as well as increased lipolysis during CR. These alterations in fat regulation were inhibited by the lipolysis inhibitor, acipimox, a treatment associated with reduced mortality. The lipolytic/thermogenic signaling, β3‐adrenergic receptor/hormone sensitive lipase, was markedly activated in white adipose tissue of NPY−/− mice compared with that of NPY+/+ mice, and thermogenesis was controlled by NPY under negative energy balance. These results demonstrate the critical role of NPY in the regulation of lipid metabolic homeostasis and survival via control of lipolysis and thermogenesis in a state of negative energy balance.
Current sharing in multiphase ZVT boost converter

Paralleling converters is a good choice for designing high frequency and high power converters. Nevertheless there must be a mechanism to share the load among phases to achieve all the benefits of parallel operation. A simple method to achieve current sharing is paralleling converters with high impedance. The ZVT Boost converter has interesting properties: Zero Voltage Transition, less semiconductors stress and high input impedance, what can be used as a passive lossless current sharing method. It has been analyzed in this paper, getting a complete model, where the impedance has been studied. A 2-stages 600 W prototype has been designed to test the current sharing.
Consumption of fluid skim milk promotes greater muscle protein accretion after resistance exercise than does consumption of an isonitrogenous and isoenergetic soy-protein beverage.

BACKGROUND Resistance exercise leads to net muscle protein accretion through a synergistic interaction of exercise and feeding. Proteins from different sources may differ in their ability to support muscle protein accretion because of different patterns of postprandial hyperaminoacidemia. OBJECTIVE We examined the effect of consuming isonitrogenous, isoenergetic, and macronutrient-matched soy or milk beverages (18 g protein, 750 kJ) on protein kinetics and net muscle protein balance after resistance exercise in healthy young men. Our hypothesis was that soy ingestion would result in larger but transient hyperaminoacidemia compared with milk and that milk would promote a greater net balance because of lower but prolonged hyperaminoacidemia. DESIGN Arterial-venous amino acid balance and muscle fractional synthesis rates were measured in young men who consumed fluid milk or a soy-protein beverage in a crossover design after a bout of resistance exercise. RESULTS Ingestion of both soy and milk resulted in a positive net protein balance. Analysis of area under the net balance curves indicated an overall greater net balance after milk ingestion (P < 0.05). The fractional synthesis rate in muscle was also greater after milk consumption (0.10 +/- 0.01%/h) than after soy consumption (0.07 +/- 0.01%/h; P = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Milk-based proteins promote muscle protein accretion to a greater extent than do soy-based proteins when consumed after resistance exercise. The consumption of either milk or soy protein with resistance training promotes muscle mass maintenance and gains, but chronic consumption of milk proteins after resistance exercise likely supports a more rapid lean mass accrual.
Subspace Clustering with Missing Data

1 Subspace clustering with missing data can be seen as the combination of subspace clustering and low rank matrix completion, which is essentially equivalent to high-rank matrix completion under the assumption that columns of the matrix X ∈ Rd×N belong to a union of subspaces. It’s a challenging problem, both in terms of computation and inference. In this report, we study two efficient algorithms proposed for solving this problem, the EM-type algorithm [1] and k-means form algorithm – k-GROUSE[2], and implement the two algorithms on both simulated and real dataset. Besides that we will also give a brief description of recently developed theorem [1] on the sampling complexity for subspace clustering, which is a great improvement over the previously existing theoretic analysis [3] that requires impractically sample size, e.g. the number of observed vectors per subspace should be super-polynomial in the dimension d.
Attachment Style, Stigma and Psychological Distress among HIV+ Adults

This study explored the role of adult attachment style in reported experiences of HIV-related stigma, stress and depression in a diverse sample of HIV+ adults. Participants (N = 288) recruited from AIDS service organizations were administered the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, CES-D, HIV Stigma Scale and a health information questionnaire. Adult romantic attachment style was significantly associated with perceived stress, depression and HIV-related stigma. Results of regression analyses supported contentions that in addition to HIV symptomatology, other psychosocial risk factors such as attachment style and stigma contribute to perceived stress and depression among HIV+ men and women.
Scavenging Systems for Reactive Carbonyls in the Cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803

To elucidate the scavenging systems of sugar- and lipid-derived reactive carbonyls (RCs) in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 (S. 6803), we selected proteins from S. 6803 based on amino-acid (AA) sequence similarities with proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana, and characterized the properties of the GST-fusion proteins expressed. Slr0942 catalyzed the aldo-keto reductase (AKR) reaction scavenging mainly sugar-derived RCs, methylglyoxal (MG). Slr1192 is the medium-chain dehydrogenase/redutase (MDR). It catalyzed the AKR reaction scavenging several lipid-derived RCs, acrolein, propionaldehyde, and crotonaldehyde. Slr0315 is a short-chain dehydrogenase/redutase (SDR), and it catalyzed only the reduction of MG in the AKR reaction. Slr0381 catalyzed the conversion of hemithioacetal to S-lactoylglutahione (SLG) in the glyoxalase (GLX) 1 reaction. Sll1019 catalyzed the conversion of SLG to glutathione and lactate in the GLX2 reaction. GLX1 and GLX2 compose the glyoxalase system, which scavenges MG. These enzymes contribute to scavenging sugar- and lipid-derived RCs as scavenging systems.
Cognitive Preconditions for Responses to Fairness: An Object Retrieval Test of Inhibitory Control in Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella)

The authors explore the evolution of one cognitive mechanism required for altruistic behavior: the capacity to inhibit prepotent responses. Specifically, the authors used an object retrieval task to investigate whether capuchins (Cebus apella) can inhibit a prepotent strategy of reaching directly for a food reward. Success in this task varies across species and across development, but is also known to depend critically on the maturity of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the cortical area implicated in rejecting small payoffs in an Ultimatum Game. Capuchins easily inhibit the tendency to reach directly for food in the object retrieval task, successfully employing an alternative reaching strategy even in the first session of performance. This contrasts with the performance of closely related tamarin monkeys, who performed less well despite extensive training. These results provide the first evidence that capuchins likely exhibit human-like inhibitory control in tasks previously linked to the function of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, such as the Ultimatum Game.
The metabolic regulation and vesicular transport of GLUT4, the major insulin-responsive glucose transporter.

I. Introduction GLUCOSE is the primary energy source for the brain under normal physiological circumstances and is acutely taken up by other mammalian cells for immediate use as metabolic energy or for storage as glycogen in liver and muscle. It also serves as a precursor to a variety of metabolites in many, if not all, tissues. Glucose is released into circulation from the liver in the fasting state as a result of glycogen breakdown and is used (oxidized) for the energetic needs of contraction in skeletal muscle. The entry of glucose into the blood is a function of the nutritional state of the mammalian organism, and the postprandial clearance of glucose from the circulation is tightly regulated by insulin. The mechanism of this regulation is the focus of this review. Since the cell membrane is impermeable to glucose, it is transported by specific carrier proteins or transporters that span the cell membrane and allow the binding and transfer of glucose across the hydrophobic lipid bilayer. Two general cl.
Diastolic flow characteristics of severely impaired left ventricles: A pulsed doppler ultrasound study

Left ventricular inflow was studied with pulsed Doppler echocardiography in 12 normals and 12 patients with a dilated left ventricle as a result of ischemic heart disease. To study the influence of left ventricular relaxation on both the transmitral and apical diastolic flow patterns, we applied range ambiguity. This provides simultaneous display of Doppler shifts obtained at different depths. The diastolic Doppler shift curves at the mitral valve and apical level in normals had the same time of onset, whereas there was an apparent time delay in the patients with heart disease (range 160–360 ms). This might be caused by absence of a normal apical wall motion in these patients.