Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of co-solvents on the stability and bioavailability of rapamycin formulated in self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems

Objective: This work aims to investigate the influence of various types and different contents of co-solvent on the stability and bioavailability of rapamycin formulated in self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems (SMEDDS). Methods: A series of SMEDDS of rapamycin were prepared with different co-solvents [including PEG 400/ethanol (F1), glycerol/ethanol (F2), propylene glycol (F3), glycerol formal (F4), transcutol P (F5)]. Drug stability in aqueous media at different pH values and in vitro dispersion of SMEDDS were investigated prior to bioavailability assessment. The storage stability of rapamycin in formulations was also evaluated. Results and discussion: The AUC values of rapamycin following oral administration of F1, F3–F5 to rats were significantly higher than those of Rapamune® and F0 (SMEDDS without co-solvent). Interestingly, a tendency toward increased bioavailability was seen in F1–F5, which presented the better drug stability in pH 1.2 aqueous media. However, a further increase of the content of co-solvent did not effectively improve the oral bioavailability of rapamycin. Compared with F0, F1–F5 presented significant improvement of drug storage stability. More specifically, the more−OH per unit mass co-solvent had, the better stability rapamycin presented in formulation. Conclusions: The data obtained in present study highlight the importance of co-solvents on the stability and bioavailability of rapamycin formulated in SMEDDS. Besides solubilizing drug and increasing the dispersion rate, co-solvent could markedly affect the stability of rapamycin whether in different aqueous media or during storage and contribute to the improved oral bioavailability; it can also appropriately decrease the content of surfactant without compromising the absorption of drug.
Reports of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) – CFP Monitoring – expansion of indicators (STECF-18-15)

Commission Decision of 25 February 2016 setting up a Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, C(2016) 1084, OJ C 74, 26.2. 2016, p. 4–10. The Commission may consult the group on any matter relating to marine and fisheries biology, fishing gear technology, fisheries economics, fisheries governance, ecosystem effects of fisheries, aquaculture or similar disciplines. This report deals with CFP Monitoring – expansion of indicators.
Envisioning a Future Contemplative Science of Mindfulness: Fruitful Methods and New Content for the Next Wave of Research

Mindfulness is an ancient spiritual practice as well as a unique behavioral technique involving the cultivation of non-judgmental, non-reactive, metacognitive awareness of present-moment experience. Given the growing interest in mindfulness across numerous academic and clinical disciplines, an agenda is needed to guide the next wave of research. Here, we suggest four areas that, in our view, are important for a future contemplative science of mindfulness: performance-based measures of mindfulness, scientific evaluation of Buddhist claims, neurophenomenology of mindfulness, and measuring changes in mindfulness-induced gene expression. By exploring these domains, the wisdom of the meditative traditions may be complemented by leading-edge empirical research methodologies.
Green-oriented Knowledge Transfers in global markets: technologies, capabilities, institutions

The development of green technologies represents a key driver in the transition towards environmentally sustainable societies. Among environmental challenges, the implementation of national climate policies and international efforts to face the threat of climate change has been particularly effective at triggering the production of climate-friendly innovation in developed countries. This effectiveness has been acknowledged by several studies which observed that, for example, the production of patents related to renewable energy technologies has sharply increased over the last decades. However, the battle against climate change is far from being over. As the share of greenhouse gases emissions in developing countries is sharply growing, how to promote the transfer of available green technologies to these countries is one of the main challenges that policymakers are facing in recent years. Understanding the mechanisms behind technology transfer of “environmental” knowledge and how such transfer happens among countries with heterogeneous economic conditions and different capabilities is a complex exercise. In this report we provide an overview of the literature on green knowledge transfer and, more importantly, on how such literature can be strengthened to deepen the understanding of the interactions that are at stake. The conceptual analysis is aimed at offering a platform to set in-field projects with stakeholders (research/business oriented), to concretely implement the elaboration and general best practice identification for knowledge and technology transfers in the green economy transition.
Factors Influencing Performance Of Construction Of Power Generation Infrastructure Projects In Kenya: A Case Of Kenya Electricity Generating Company, Olkaria, Naivasha

xiii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Background of the study . 1 1.2 Statement of the problem . 4 1.3 Purpose of Study . 5 1.4 Objectives of the Study . 5 1.5 Research Questions . 5 1.6 Significance of the Study . 6 1.7 Delimitation of the study . 6 1.8 Limitation of the study . 6 1.9 Assumptions of the study . 7 1.10 Definition of significant terms used in the study . 8 1.11 Organization of the Study . 9 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW . 10 2.
The Internationalization of SMART FIT: Challenges to the Sustainability of an Innovative Model in the Fitness Industry

After failing in the sophisticated gym market and then joining a family business, Edgar Corona launched Smart Fit – a low cost / low price model in the fitness industry, which has reached unbelievable growth in a short period of time. The firm was established in Brazil in 2009 and, as of mid-2016, had already expanded to several Latin American markets and is the absolute industry leader in the continent. However, the model seems easy to copy – so Smart Fit management has to develop a package of benefits and expand rapidly. The question is: Can Smart Fit sustain its high-growth path?
Establishing limits to agriculture and afforestation: A GIS based multi-objective approach to prevent algal blooms in a coastal lagoon

Biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision can compete with other land uses due to its incompatibility with many productive activities. The need for multifunctional landscapes that simultaneously provide food security, maintenance of ecological functions and fulfill welfare requirements is evident. Multi-objective optimization procedures can select between different land uses in each parcel of the territory, simultaneously satisfying contrasting objectives. Each solution (a map) represents a spatial configuration of land uses, generating spatial alternatives and offering flexibility to conduct discussions among social actors. In order to prevent eutrophication we developed a methodological approach for planning land-use transformations in productive territories, considering ecological processes from the beginning. A two-objective approach was used to allocate different land uses in the most suitable sites (objective one) that simultaneously minimize nutrients exportation (objective two). The land uses allocation was Pareto optimal and was conducted by integer linear programming. According to the relative importance given to each objective, two types of land use allocation were obtained, one dominated by agriculture but where a threshold of phosphorus load was exceeded, and another one where conservation and livestock ranching on natural grasslands prevailed and the phosphorus load decreased dramatically. This spatially explicit tool helps decision makers to design multifunctional landscapes for sustainable development and promote social discussions.
Conception d'un sondeur de canal MIMO Caractérisation du canal de propagation d'un point de vue directionnel et doublement directionnel

Depuis l'apparition des premiers reseaux radiomobiles cellulaires analogiques au d´ebut des annees 70, nous avons assiste a une explosion de la demande en systemes de communication sans fil. Les services concernes par les telecommunications sans fil se sont depuis etendus a la transmission de donnees et aux applications multimedia. Devant la necessite d'avoir des debits eleves tout en garantissant une certaine qualit´e de service, les techniques MIMO (Multiple Input - Multiple Output) apparaissent comme tres prometteuses. En utilisant plusieurs antennes simultanement en emission et en reception, ces systemes exploitent la dimension spatiale pour la transmission de l'information. Ainsi la mise en oeuvre de ces techniques permet d'aboutir a une amelioration substantielle des debits et/ou des performances des liaisons numeriques. Comme dans toutes les etudes systemes, une analyse approfondie du canal de transmission et des mecanismes de propagation associes s'avere indispensable. Si dans un contexte classique, la caracterisation et la modelisation du canal peuvent se limiter au domaine temporel, il est n´ecessaire pour les systemes MIMO de considerer la dimension spatiale au meme niveau que la dimension temporelle. Une modelisation precise et realiste du canal dans le domaine spatial est d'autant plus importante dans un contexte MIMO, puisque le gain par rapport a un systeme classique en terme de debit et/ou de performance est largement tributaire des proprietes spatiales du canal. C'est dans ce contexte que s'inscrit le travail presente dans ce document. Cette these a pour objectif la conception d'un systeme de mesure performant permettant d'approfondir la connaissance du canal de propagation MIMO pour la bande UMTS.
Effects of Metal Gates and Back-End-of-Line Materials on X-Ray Dose in ${\rm HfO}_{2}$  Gate Oxide

The effects of 10-keV and 400-keV endpoint-energy bremsstrahlung x-rays have been studied using the Monte Carlo simulator, MRED, for MOS capacitors with HfO2 gate dielectrics and TiN and TaN metal gates. We compute the reduction in dose that occurs for 10-keV x-ray irradiation of thin HfO2 gate dielectrics sandwiched between the metal gate and the Si substrate. We quantify the effects of back-end-of-line metallization layers, including copper interconnects, W vias, and borophosphosilicate glass (BPSG) and SiO2 passivation layers for low and medium energy x-rays. For thick metallization stacks irradiated by 10-keV x-rays, dose enhancement or attenuation can occur, depending on material type and overlayer thicknesses. For similar stacks irradiated with 400-keV endpoint-energy bremsstrahlung x-rays, significant dose enhancement is observed.
Supply chain risk mitigation: modeling the enablers

Purpose – Supply chain risk management assumes importance in the wake of organizations understanding that their risk susceptibility is dependent on other constituents of their supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to effective supply chain risk mitigation by understanding the dynamics between various enablers that help to mitigate risk in a supply chain.Design/methodology/approach – Using interpretive structural modeling the research presents a hierarchy‐based model and the mutual relationships among the enablers of risk mitigation.Findings – The research shows that there exists a group of enablers having a high driving power and low dependence requiring maximum attention and of strategic importance while another group consists of those variables which have high dependence and are the resultant actions.Practical implications – This classification provides a useful tool to supply chain managers to differentiate between independent and dependent variables and their mutual relatio.
Spatial wise image co-clustering: a new approach for image pair segmentation

Image similarity measurement is one of the key research areas in pattern recognition and image retrieval. The paper presents a new, clustering based approach, called Image Co-Clustering. The term co-clustering is related to cosegmentation, where two or more images are segmented simultaneously. The proposed approach simultaneously clusters feature vector sets from two images. Generated clusters represent similar parts in both images. To have visually coherent clusters, spatial constrains should be imposed onto the clustering algorithm. The key difficulty is to impose spatial constrains in such a way, that the same objects having different locations, rotations and scales on two images are captured in the same cluster. The proposed spatial constraining is called partial spatial constraining.
The combined influence of task accuracy and pace on motor variability in a standardised repetitive precision task

Thirty-five healthy women, experienced in pipetting, each performed four pipetting sessions at different pace and accuracy levels relevant to occupational tasks. The size and structure of motor variability of shoulder and elbow joint angles were quantified using cycle-to-cycle standard deviations of several kinematics properties, and indices based on sample entropy and recurrence quantification analysis. Decreasing accuracy demands increased both the size and structure of motor variability. However, when simultaneously lowering the accuracy demand and increasing pace, motor variability decreased to values comparable to those found when pace alone was increased without changing accuracy. Thus, motor variability showed some speed-accuracy trade-off, but the pace effect dominated the accuracy effect. Hence, this trade-off was different from that described for end-point performance by Fitts' law. The combined effect of accuracy and pace and the resultant decrease in motor variability are important to consider when designing sustainable work systems comprising repetitive precision tasks. Practitioner summary: Variability in movements and/or muscle activities between repeats of the same repetitive task is associated with important occupational outcomes, including fatigue, discomfort and pain. This study showed that simultaneously decreasing accuracy and increasing pace in short-cycle repetitive work led to decreased motor variability in arm movements, indicating less favourable ergonomics conditions.
A novel cardiac equivalent moving dipole solution

We propose a novel approach for localizing a cardiac equivalent moving dipole, by which only the maximum and the minimum values measured at two magnetic field measurement sites are employed in solving the inverse problem. The numerical experiments verify that the operation speed of this approach is faster than that of the previous equivalent moving dipole solution, which applies an iterative algorithm and 36-channel measurements by a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) system. Its localization error depends on the interval of two sites on a measuring plane. We also show the results of two sets of magnetocardiography (MCG) data, which illustrate the feasibility of this approach for localizing a cardiac equivalent current source in ST-T segment without using a realistic torso model. Moreover, the magnetic field produced by Ohmic current is discussed.
The Relationships between Self – Defeating Behavior and self-esteem among Jordanian College Students

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-defeating behavior and self-esteem among Jordanian college students at Yarmouk University. The sample consisted of (435) students (182) of them were males, and (253) were females. all were selected randomly from students who were enrolled in the second semester of year 2011/2012 at the Yarmouk university. The results indicated that students who have a level of fair achievement have more of self-defeating behavior than their peers of very good level of achievement. This mean the achievement level can be good predictors of students' self-defeating behavior. Also the result revealed that females have a higher level of self-esteem more than their males' peers. However the differences between students were not statistically significant at ( &.05). Moreover, The results indicated that no significant difference were found between students by their gender, years in college, , high schools grade point average regarding their level of self-defeating behavior or the total level of self-esteem. Also no significant relationship was found between selfdefeating behavior and self-esteem among students.
Edge preserving filtering by combining nonlinear mean and median filters

The authors introduce a very general class of nonlinear filters, called mapping order-statistics filters (MOSFs). A subclass of the MOSFs, called L/sub p/-mean median filters (L/sub p/-MMF), is treated in detail. Theoretical analysis and computer simulations shown that the L/sub p/-MMF removes one kind of impulse noise as well as the nonlinear mean filter and attenuates Gaussian and uniformly distributed noise efficiently. The main advantages of the L/sub p/-MMF are that it can preserve edges as well as the median filter and can remove both the positive and negative impulse noise simultaneously. Further theoretical analysis shows that a finite-length discrete signal always converges to a fixed-point signal (root signal), if the same L/sub p/-MMF is applied iteratively. A necessary condition for a signal to be a root signal is found and proved. This necessary condition is also valid for the FIR-median hybrid filter. <<ETX>>
ERP IMPLEMENTATION EFFECT ON INTERNAL CONTROL OF CORPORATE BANKING IN INDONESIA STOCK EXCHANGE LISTING IN 2014-2016

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a single data entry system that provides many benefits for the company, one of them an increase in internal controls. This study aims to determine the factors that affect the internal control of companies using ERP implementation variables as independent while the size of the company and leverage as control variables. The samples used were banking companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2014-2016. The results showed that ERP implementation has no effect on the company's internal control, while the size of the company's control variables showed significant results.
Three new dominant drug resistance cassettes for gene disruption in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Disruption‐deletion cassettes are powerful tools used to study gene function in many organisms, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Perhaps the most widely useful of these are the heterologous dominant drug resistance cassettes, which use antibiotic resistance genes from bacteria and fungi as selectable markers. We have created three new dominant drug resistance cassettes by replacing the kanamycin resistance (kanr) open reading frame from the kanMX3 and kanMX4 disruption‐deletion cassettes (Wach et al., 1994) with open reading frames conferring resistance to the antibiotics hygromycin B (hph), nourseothricin (nat) and bialaphos (pat). The new cassettes, pAG25 (natMX4), pAG29 (patMX4), pAG31 (patMX3), pAG32 (hphMX4), pAG34 (hphMX3) and pAG35 (natMX3), are cloned into pFA6, and so are in all other respects identical to pFA6–kanMX3 and pFA6–kanMX4. Most tools and techniques used with the kanMX plasmids can also be used with the hph, nat and patMX containing plasmids. These new heterologous dominant drug resistance cassettes have unique antibiotic resistance phenotypes and do not affect growth when inserted into the ho locus. These attributes make the cassettes ideally suited for creating S. cerevisiae strains with multiple mutations within a single strain. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The influence of variety type on dilute acid pretre atment-hydrolysis responses of sugarcane bagasse

This study evaluated the influence of variety type on dilute acid pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis responses in terms of xylose, glucose and total combined sugar yields of eight varieties of sugarcane bagasse. The pretreatment was carried out in small tubular reactors. The materials were pretreated under five different conditions and hydrolysed with a standard enzyme dosage (15 FPU/g water insoluble solids, WIS). Pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis responses showed xylose, glucose and combined sugar ranged from 7.0 to 19.6; 12.7 to 32.4 and 28.5 to 54.4 g/100g dry raw material, respectively. The variability of sugar yields was attributed to breeding technology and type of varieties. The xylose yield was not always consistent with the verity type or breeding technology. The cellulose digestibility was significantly affected by the variety type for most of classical breeding varieties and was less obvious for precision breeding varieties. It was also established that most of precision breeding varieties were superior in digestibility than many classical breeding varieties. These findings will significant contribution to the sugarcane development with the aim of selecting sugarcane with highly hydrolysable fibres in conjunction with high biomass and sucrose yield per hectare to make lignocellulose to ethanol process affordable.
Multi-level Reconfigurable Self-organization in Overlay Services

Large-scale decentralized systems organized in overlay networks are complex to manage. Such systems integrate organizational complexity in the application-level resulting in low abstraction and modularity in their services. This thesis introduces a multi-level conceptual architecture for overlay services. An overlay service is a large-scale decentralized system organized in overlay networks that provides generic application capabilities. Two overlay services introduced in this thesis provide a proof-of-concept for the higher abstraction and modularity that can be achieved with this architecture. The first overlay service builds and maintains overlay networks that are self-organized in different tree topologies according to different application criteria. The second overlay service performs a function-indepencent and routing-independent decentralized aggregation of values that are distributed in a network and continuously changing. Experimental evaluation studies the performance trade-offs imposed by this generic design. This thesis studies overlay services in the application domain of the Smart Power Grid. More specifically, overlay services are used in demand-side energy management to perform (i) load-shifting and (ii) demand-adjustment in a fully decentralized fashion. The evaluation of this approach is grounded in the current reality and practice of the Smart Power Grid.