Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Co-loading of Levodopa and Curcumin Using Brain-targeted Protocells as a Drug Delivery System for Improving the Efficacy of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD), one of the most common movement and neurodegenerative disorders, is challenging to treat, partly because the blood-brain barrier blocks passage of most drugs. Levodopa is a common clinical drug for controlling the symptoms of PD, but it only replenishes the missing dopamine, can’t protect dopaminergic neurons. While curcumin as a neuroprotective agent has been reported for treatment of PD. Herein, we present a novel organic-inorganic composite nanoparticle with brain targeting (denoted as lf-protocells) for co-delivery of levodopa and curcumin, and demonstrate its attractive use as a biocompatible platform for PD treatment. The nanoparticle system is comprised of a lactoferrin (lf) modified lipid bilayer (LB) containing curcumin as its outer membrane and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) containing levodopa as its supporting inner core. Our studies illustrate that the lf-protocells have a size of about 180 nm and spherical morphology, and can be used to co-load levodopa and curcumin efficiently. Further, a cell model and a mouse model induced by rotenone (Rot) and MPTP respectively are used to investigate the effects of binary-drug loaded lf-protocells on PD. Our results demonstrate that the combination of curcumin and levodopa alleviate the apoptosis of PD cells, enhance the cell viability as compared to levodopa used alone; levodopa together with curcumin also efficiently decrease the expression of a-synuclein, increase the expression of tyrosine hydroxylase in SH-SY5Y cells, and transform more levodopa into dopamine for supplement the loss of the brain. Moreover, the resulting binary-drug loaded lf-protocells ameliorate oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction as compared to combination of free drugs. In addition, testing in a mouse model indicate that lf-protocells can improve significantly the motor function and distribution in brain compared with unmodified protocells. In conclusion, binary-drug loaded lf-protocells show much better therapeutic efficacy in both the cell model and the mouse model of PD than single free drug and lower toxicity than bare MSNs. These results suggest that lf-protocells can be used as a promising drug delivery platform for targeted therapy against PD and other diseases of the central nervous system.
Incorporating Environmental Realism into the Toxicity of Nanoparticles to Early Life Stage Fish

Incorporating Environmental Realism into the Toxicity of Nanoparticles to Early Life Stage Fish by Audrey Jayne Bone Environment Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Richard T. Di Giulio, Supervisor ___________________________ P. Lee Ferguson ___________________________ Stephen Diamond ___________________________ Joel N. Meyer ___________________________ Heather M. Stapleton An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environment in the Graduate School of Duke University 2015 Copyright by Audrey Jayne Bone 2015 iv Abstract As the production and use of nanoparticles (NPs) has increased, so has concern over their effects on the environment and aquatic organisms. Since the majority of research on the toxicity of NPs has been performed using controlled laboratory conditions, little is known about their effects in more complex environments. The goal of this dissertation is to understand how incorporating increasing levels of environmental complexity affects the study of NP toxicity to early life stage fish. In particular, goals included evaluating the impact of increasing environmental complexity on silver NP (AgNP) toxicity to young Atlantic killifish and zebrafish and exploring how photocatalytic degradation of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) by TiO2 NPs affected toxicity to young zebrafish. In order to incorporate high environmental complexity into AgNP toxicity studies, a range of experimental systems were used. First, mesocosms built to simulate freshwater North Carolina wetlands were dosed with gum Arabic-coated AgNPs (GAAgNPs), polyvinylpyrollidone-coated AgNPs (PVP AgNPs) and AgNO3 as the most ecologically relevant scenario. Mortality induced by samples taken from these mesocosms to embryonic and larval Atlantic killifish was compared to mortality induced by samples prepared in the laboratory. For embryonic killifish, samples taken from the mesocosms caused significantly less mortality than samples prepared in the laboratory for all types of silver. However, for larval killifish, toxicity of GA-AgNPs
Cyclists and red lights: a study of behaviour of commuter cyclists in Melbourne

The primary aim of this research was to investigate the behaviours of cyclists and their interactions with vehicles at signalised intersections. The findings presented are from a three week observational study of Melbourne commuter traffic. An unobtrusive video camera was used at two intersections to observe all road users during morning in-bound and afternoon out-bound peak hour traffic, 5,420 cyclists were observed. A minority of cyclists who faced a red light rode through the intersection, including 3 per cent of morning cyclists and 11 per cent of afternoon cyclists. An in-depth analysis of the afternoon cyclists identified three distinct types of behaviours: (i) the racers who approached an amber light, accelerated but entered the intersection on the red signal; (ii) the impatients who stopped and waited, then rode through the still red-signalised intersection; and (iii) the runners who rode through the red-signalised intersection without stopping. The results focus on the three types of behaviour at red lights. Males were more likely to continue through the red light than females and the majority of males who rode through red lights were runners. The findings are important as they differentiate between the types of red light running behaviour and highlight factors influencing cyclists risk exposure. The study is part of a larger research project investigating cyclist-driver interactions. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E217612.
MIL: Music Exploration and Visualization via Lyric and Image

In this paper, we introduce MIL: a music exploration prototype which integrates music (M), image (I), and lyrics (L), for efficiently visualizing and browsing music collections. MIL utilizes a novel structure, music semantic graph (MSG), to organize music collections in a hierarchical way by leveraging lyrics and acoustic cues of music. Each node of MSG corresponds to a music concept and is associated with a cluster of music tracks. MIL offers users a novel way to efficiently explore and scan music collections by using lyrics and image information. In addition, the proposed prototype supplies an easy-to-use interface to visualize MSG hierarchically. The user study shows that our prototype can effectively and efficiently help users to browse, search, and scan music collections.
EBITDA Index Prediction Using Exponential Smoothing and ARIMA Model

Forecasting has become essential in different economic sectors for decision making in local and regional policies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to use and compare performance of two linear models to predict future values of a measure of real profit for a group of companies in the fashion sector, as a financial strategy to determine the economic behavior of this industry. With forecasting purposes, Exponential Smoothing (ES) and autoregressive integrated moving averages (ARIMA) models were used for yearly data. ES and ARIMA models are widely used in statistical methods for time series forecasting. Accuracy metrics were used to select the model with best performance and ES parameters. For the real profit measure of the financial performance of the fashion sector in Colombia EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) was used and was calculated using multiple SQL queries.
Influence of Tyre Inflation Pressure on Fuel Consumption, Vehicle Handling and Ride Quality - Modelling and Simulation

It is well understood that fuel economy directly influences the CO2 emissions in vehicles. Thus, a straightforward approach to reduce the tailpipe CO2 emissions is to reduce the overall fuel consumption of the vehicle. In this thesis work the role of tyre inflation pressure on the fuel economy is investigated. Apart from the benefits of reduced fuel consumption, tyre pressure also plays an important role in deciding vehicle handling and passenger comfort. Three mathematical vehicle models have been developed in the Matlab/Simulink® interface, to capture and represent the influence of tyre pressure on fuel consumption, vehicle handling and ride characteristics. The first model is a full-vehicle model developed to enable quick and reliable estimation of fuel consumption with the change in tyre pressure. The second model is a two-track vehicle model developed to study the changes in vehicle lateral behaviour when the tyre inflation pressure is changed. The third model is a half-car model that is designed to evaluate the changes in vertical acceleration response of the vehicle with change in tyre pressure. When the full-vehicle model was simulated for the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC city cycle), fuel consumption reduction up to 5 % was observed simply by increasing the tyre inflation pressures from 2 bar to 3 bar. The vehicle handling also improved considerably especially when tyre pressure was maintained higher on the outer wheels and lower on the inner wheels of the vehicle in a turn. For smooth roads found within city limits, it was observed that the tyre pressure affected the ride comfort only marginally. However as road roughness increased, the impact of tyre pressure on ride comfort also increased. Through these findings, a foundation is established for the development of a dynamic Tyre Pressure Regulating System (TPRS) that is capable of regulating the tyre pressure in all four wheels, independently and continuously.
Encyclopedia of bioprocess technology : fermentation, biocatalysis, and bioseparation

The five--volume set of the Encyclopedia of Bioprocess Technology presents the applications and established theories in biotechnology--focusing on industrial applications of fermentation, biocatalysis and bioseparation. It is an essential resource for anyone working in industrial biotechnology, biochemistry, genetics and microbiology laboratories, pharmaceutical firms, regulatory agencies and chemical and environmental engineering companies.
Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access-Based Handover for Throughput Enhancement

As non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technology is considered as a new multiple access scheme in cellular networks, a new handover decision algorithm and operational procedure need to be investigated. In this paper, we apply the NOMA technique to handover situations for throughput enhancement in cellular networks. We first derive the condition of NOMA-based handover (NOMA-HO) theoretically to increase the handover user rate while guaranteeing the rate of paired user in the target cell. From this condition, we define a new measurement parameter called Interference to Background Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (IBINR) and design a practical NOMA-HO procedure for the measurement of IBINRs and the handover decision. Results show that the proposed NOMA-HO scheme significantly improves cell-edge user throughput compared with the classical OMA-based handover schemes.
A Study on the Preemption Control Strategies Considering Queue Length Constraints

Currently, the signalized intersections in Korea are operated without providing an emergency vehicle preemption control strategy. Thus, it might threaten the safety of the pedestrians and drivers on highways when an emergency vehicle faces congested traffic conditions. The existing preemption control is activated when an emergency vehicle is detected along a path. This enables emergency vehicles to progress uninterrupted, but it also increases the delay of other vehicles. In this paper, a revised preemption control strategy considering queue length restrictions is proposed to make both a progressive movement of an emergency vehicle and reduce delay of other vehicles simultaneously. By applying the preemption control strategy through a simulation study, it was shown that delay of an emergency vehicle decreased to 44.3%-96.1% and speed increased to 8.8%-42.0% in all 9 cases as compared with a conventional signal control. The existing preemption control is superior for oversaturated conditions (v/c >1.0) or a link length less than 200m. However, the preemption control considering queue length constraints shows better performance than the existing preemption control when the v/c is less than 0.8 and a link length is longer than 500m.
EVALUATION OF ODOT ROADWAY/WEATHER SENSOR SYSTEMS FOR SNOW AND ICE REMOVAL OPERATIONS. PART I, RWIS

This object of this report was to help the Ohio Department of Transportation determine the best way for serving the state's winter maintenance needs, focusing on how many and what kind of road weather information systems (RWIS) stations to deploy. The project involved a literature review, several field visits with winter maintenance personnel in Ohio, other states, and Switzerland. In addition, a survey was conducted of winter maintenance personnel nationwide, as well as a product review. The report also discusses lifetime cost estimates for RWIS, deployment and implementation plan considerations and Ohio RWIS deployment plan recommendations and conclusions. A bench test of pavement sensors is included in Part II as a separate document.
Reptile smuggling is predicted by trends in the legal exotic pet trade

Western countries are less frequently implicated in illegal wildlife trade (IWT), contrasted with other transnational consumers, yet substantial evidence suggests that they contribute prominently. Live animal smuggling presents a suite of biosecurity concerns, including invasive species and disease risks. Here, we compared the live alien reptile species smuggled to Australia (75 species) to the legal trade of live reptile species in the United States (US) and constructed a Bayesian regularized model to predict the species most likely to be of greatest future smuggling risk to Australia. Australia has particularly strict import laws barring the entry and keeping of alien reptiles and maintains detailed biosecurity seizure records. Almost all smuggled reptile species were found in the legal US exotic pet market (98.6%), and we observed an average time lag of 4.2 years between a species first appearing in the US market and its subsequent detection in Australia. A species popularity in US pet stores, popularity on international online markets, and the number of years in US import-export records were all positively associated with the probability of species being smuggled to Australia. Our predictive model provides a much-needed early-warning guide for future biosecurity enforcement of the IWT and provides a framework for anticipating future trends in wildlife smuggling.
Field of View Effects on a Direct Manipulation Task in a Virtual Environment

It is important for designers of virtual reality (VR) systems to understand how properties of the system interact with human processes to impact overall system performance. The following experiments investigated the field-of-view (FOV) characteristics of a VR system and how they affected aimed movement behavior across a natural and virtual environment. Utilizing three levels of FOV, and two levels of task difficulty, subjects performed a reciprocal tapping task. FOV was found to differentially affect movement time performance between the two environments for the moderate level of task difficulty, but not for the more highly difficult level. This significant effect for longer movement times in the virtual environment was traced to the smallest FOV, involving those targets appearing outside the instantaneous FOV. Movement times in the virtual environment were also uncharacteristically nonlinear across target configurations within the same level of difficulty. These findings, as well as other movement time differences between environments, are discussed in terms of image resolution, stereopsis and helmet weight considerations.
An experimental investigation of the ground vortex created by a moving jet

A 1 inch circular jet moving over a fixed ground board was studied in the NASA Langley Research Center Vortex Research Center. The jet passing over the ground board at a height of three nozzle diameters creates a ground vortex which was measured by a pattern of Endevco high response pressure transducers. The results are compared to existing data to determine the effect of the ground boundary eliminated by the moving jet. The penetration of the vortex both forward of and latterly to the impact point of the jet on the ground. The resulting ground vortex penetration forward of the impact point is reduced by approximately 30 percent and the lateral penetration is reduced by 50 percent over that experienced from a stationary jet over a stationary ground board with a free stream velocity.
Spreadsheet Calculations for Jets in Crossflow: Opposed Rows of Inline and Staggered Holes and Single and Opposed Rows with Alternating Hole Sizes

The primary purpose of this jet-in-crossflow study was to calculate expected results for two configurations for which limited or no experimental results have been published, namely: (1) cases of opposed rows of closely-spaced jets from inline and staggered round holes and (2) rows of jets from alternating large and small round holes. Simulations of these configurations were performed using a Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation) spreadsheet implementation of a NASA-developed empirical model which had been shown in previous publications to give excellent representations of mean experimental scalar results, suggesting that the NASA empirical model for the scalar field could confidently be used to investigate these configurations. The supplemental Excel spreadsheet is posted with the current report on the NASA Glenn Technical Reports Server (http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov) and can be accessed from the Supplementary Notes section as TM-2010-216100-SUPPL1.xls. Calculations for cases of opposed rows of jets with the orifices on one side shifted show that staggering can improve the mixing, particularly for cases where jets would overpenetrate slightly if the orifices were in an aligned configuration. The jets from the larger holes dominate the mixture fraction for configurations with a row of large holes opposite a row of smaller ones although the jet penetration was about the same. For single and opposed rows with mixed hole sizes, jets from the larger holes penetrated farther. For all cases investigated, the dimensionless variance of the mixture fraction decreased significantly with increasing downstream distance. However, at a given downstream distance, the variation between cases was smaller.
Organic Logic Circuits: Fabrication Process and Device Optimisation

Initial research in the field of organic electronics focused primarily on the improvements in material performance. Significant progress has been achieved in the case of organic field effect transistors, where reported mobility values are now over 5 orders of magnitude higher than those of early devices. As a consequence, the use of organic transistors is now being considered for real-world applications in the form of integrated logic circuits. This in turn presents many new challenges, as the logic circuit requirements are more demanding on the transistor characteristics and corresponding fabrication processes.This thesis investigates the feasibility of organic technology for its potential use in future low-cost, high-volume electronic applications. The research objectives were accomplished by practical evaluation of an organic logic circuit fabrication process. First, recent advances in the fabrication of organic circuits in terms of transistor structure, material usage and fabrication techniques are reviewed. Next, a lithographic logic circuit fabrication process using PVP gate dielectric and TIPS-pentacene organic semiconductor adapted from state of the art fabrication process is presented. The logic circuit design decisions and the methodology for the fabrication process are thoroughly documented. Using this process, zero-Vgs and diode-load inverter circuits were successfully fabricated. However, the process is in need of further refinement for more complex circuit designs, as the fabrication of a comparator circuit consisting of 11 transistors was unsuccessful.Two optimisation techniques that are compatible with the logic circuit fabrication process were also explored in this work. To improve the capacitive coupling of the dielectric layer, the use of a polymer nanocomposite dielectric was investigated. The nanocomposite is prepared by blending PVP solution with a high-k inorganic nanoparticle filler, barium strontium titanate. Using the nanocomposite dielectric, both single transistors and integrated logic circuits were successfully fabricated. This is the first report on the use of PVP and barium strontium titanate nanocomposite dielectric with a lithographic based logic circuit fabrication process. The use of PFBT modified Au contacts for the fabrication process was investigated to improve theperformance of the contact electrode layer. Using PFBT, mobility increased by one order of magnitude over untreated Au electrodes for the PVP and TIPS-pentacene transistors.