Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biomedical applications of polyglycolic acid (PGA)

Biyobozunur polimerler, biyobozunurluk ve biyouyumluluk ozelliklerinden dolayi biyomedikal uygulamalarda buyuk potansiyele sahip olup yaygin sekilde kullanilmaktadir. Biyobozunur polimerler yapilarinda hidrolitik olarak kararsiz fonksiyonel gruplar (ornegin, esterler, anhidritler vd.) icerirler. Bu hidrolitik olarak kararsiz gruplar kolayca hidroliz olabilmekte, veya mikroorganizmalar tarafindan yenilebilmektedir. Bu sayede polimerlerin bozunmasi gerceklesir. Biyobozunur polimerler bircok biyomedikal alanda (ornegin; ilac salinimi, discilik, ortopedi, ve doku muhendisligi) etkili bir bicimde kullanilabilmektedir. Poliglikolik asit (PGA) oldukca iyi bozunma davranisindan dolayi tip alaninda yaygin sekilde kullanilan bir materyaldir. Ancak, PGA polimerlerinin biyomedikal uygulamalari alaninda sinirli sayida arastirma mevcuttur. PGA bircok cozucu icerisinde cozunememekte ve hizli bir sekilde bozunmaya ugramaktadir. Bu derleme hidrolitik olarak bozunabilen PGA’ nin biyomedikal alanda kullanimindaki yenilikleri aciklayacaktir.
EVALUATION OF THE EFFICACY AND CHARACTERIZATION OF AN ANTI-ACNE CREAM CONTAINING HERBAL EXTRACTS

The main objectives of the present study were to formulate and to evaluate an anti-acne cream based on alcoholic extracts of Thymus vulgaris, Rosa centifolia, Rosmarinus officinalis and Saponaria officinalis and to evaluate the efficacy and the sensorial characteristics of the emulsion. Firstly, the in vitro antimicrobial activity of the herbal extract was evaluated by agar-well diffusing method. Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 12602, Escherichia coli ATCC 29998 and Candida albicans ATCC 10231 were selected as test microorganisms. In the second part of the study, the efficacy of an oil-in-water cream containing ethanolic extracts and non-comedogenic ingredients was established in a prospective non-randomized study on twelve volunteers using the cosmetic product twice daily. The activity of sebaceous glands on the mid forehead, cheeks and chin was assessed by measuring the sebum level with the Sebumeter device (Courage Khazaka). The subjective characteristics of the cream base were evaluated by the volunteers, following a 1 to 10 scale and reported by filling an evaluation questionnaire. The obtained results were statistically significant and revealed the efficacy of the tested cream, which reduced the seborrhoea after 4 weeks of cream application. The product was well tolerated and appreciated by the volunteers regarding its spreadability, penetration ability and lack of stickiness.
Emotion Valence Shifts in Humorous Metaphor Misunderstandings Generation

In our previous work we proposed an idea of a system abl e to 1 generate humorous metaphor misunderstanding during conv ersations with users, employing the mechanism of salience imbalance. However, according to existing research in the field of cognitive science, lexical salience imbalance might not be enough to constitute humorous metaphors. Another important factor in this process can be emotive salience imbalance, i.e. emotional shifts, which occur within metaphorical expressions. In this paper we propose how to employ this mechanism in our system, by implementing an emotion from text detector.
Combination Treatment of Natural Compounds and Integrative Therapies for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Each year millions of Americans seek acute care for mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), which is often associated with a range of debilitating sequelae including cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and motor deficits [1]. New evidence indicates that neuroinflammatory responses, excitotoxicity, and oxidative stress may directly contribute to the emergence and maintenance of these chronic postconcussive symptoms (PCS) [2]. In instances of traumatic axonal injury, accumulations of tau and amyloid peptides can form, which may be an early sign of neurodegeneration linked to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease [3]. Given the multiple mechanisms underlying PCS, it is reasonable to suggest that successfully preventing or attenuating PCS cannot be accomplished via pharmacological agents with a single mode of action. Herein, we propose that a combination of natural compounds and intergrative therapies with systemic effect may provide a comprehensive treatment strategy for addressing the secondary injury following mTBI.
Omental Flap in Breast Reconstruction

Objectives: The use of omental flap for breast reconstruction was reported by the Romanian surgeon Kiricuta in 1963, since that time some surgeons tried to use the omen tum either pedicled or free for breast reconstruction. It can be used after partial or total mastectomy. Aims: The aim of this chapter is to address indications, limitations, contraindications, and technique of omental flap for breast reconstruction. Technique: This flap could be retrieved by either a small midline laparotomy or prefer - ably by laparoscopic harvesting. Details of retrieval, tips and tricks are highlighted in this chapter. Conclusions: Omental flap is a strong working horse in breast reconstruction after partial or skin sparing mastectomy (SSM). It can be free or pedicled. It could be retrieved by minilaparotomy or preferably by laparoscopic harvesting omental flap (LHOF). It is a simple, safe, and reliable flap that mimics the natural contour of the breast. In about 30% with volume insufficiency it can be used with an implant as a cover with low complica - tion rate and good esthetic outcome.
The Concept of Moral Imagination – an Inspiration for Writing and Using Case Histories in Business Ethics?

The paper presents a discussion of how the concept of moral imagination can enrich the process of moral deliberation in case discussions when teaching business ethics. The author links the discussion to experiences of having written a case where the goal was to generate a wider and more comprehensive learning process. The process then may yield - depending on the case and the use of moral imagination - the creation of entirely new solutions in ways that are novel, economically viable and morally justifiable.
Comparison of ZnO nanoparticles and ZnCl2 induced germ cell apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans

Comparison of ZnO nanoparticles and ZnCl2 induced germ cell apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans by Brittany O’Donnell April, 2014 Director: Xiaoping Pan DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY There is inadequate research data available on manufactured ZnO nanoparticles. Manufactured nanoparticles are widely used in various products and production of manufactured nanoparticles is becoming increasingly abundant. Humans are exposed to ZnO nanoparticles in products such as sunscreen, toothpaste, and cosmetic products. Due to the frequent human contact with nanoparticles, such as ZnO, research on the resulting biological effects is highly significant. In this study, we utilized the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) to investigate the effects ZnO nanoparticle exposure can have on germ cell apoptosis and key genes involved in the apoptosis pathway. ZnCl2 (Zn) serves as a comparison of toxicity with ZnO nanoparticles in this study. It is known that ZnO nanoparticle exposure can have a severe effect on the reproduction process in C. elegans, however, it has yet to be tested whether or not ZnO nanoparticles affect germ cell apoptotic machinery as a possible mechanism of reproductive toxicity. Worms were exposed on an agar medium containing concentrations of ZnO nanoparticles and ZnCl2 (range, 6.14×10 , 61.4, and 614 μM Zn). ZnO nanoparticles and ZnCl2 both significantly increased the number of apoptotic cells as compared to the control in the 61.4 and 614 μM treatment groups (p<0.05). However, ZnO nanoparticles significantly induced nearly 2× more average apoptotic cells in the 61.4 μM treatment than the ZnCl2 at the same concentration. This relationship was observed in both the bristol N2 wild type (N2) and MD701 (bcIs39 [(lim-7)ced-1p::GFP + lin-15(+)]) strains. Genes involved in the apoptosis pathway (ced-13, ced-3, ced-4, ced-9, cep-1, dpl-1, efl-1, efl-2, egl-1, egl38, lin-35, pax-2, and sir-2.1) were changed in response to ZnO nanoparticle exposure. Cep-1/p53 was significantly up-regulated in the 614 μM treatment (p<0.05). In the CEP1 loss of function mutant, no significant increases were observed in germ cell apoptosis as compared to the control in any treatment group (p>0.05). Therefore, the increased apoptosis resulting from ZnO nanoparticle exposure is likely CEP-1 dependent. Following exposure, possible ZnO nanoparticles were observed in vivo in the worms using transmission electron microscopy, suggesting that the worms can possibly absorb the nanoparticles via various routes. Comparison of ZnO nanoparticles and ZnCl2 induced germ cell apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans A Thesis Presented To The Faculty of the Department of Biology East Carolina University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Brittany O’Donnell April, 2014 ©Copyright 2014 Brittany O’Donnell Comparison of ZnO nanoparticles and ZnCl2 induced germ cell apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans by Brittany O’Donnell
Wireless Sensor Networks: A Study on Congestion Routing Algorithms

Data's generated in Wireless Sensor Networks may not all alike, some data's are more important than other data's and they may have different delivery requirements. If congestion occurs in the Wireless Network, some or more important data's may be dropped. But in our project we handle this problem by addressing differentiated delivery requirements. We propose a class of algorithms that enforce differentiated routing based on the congested areas of a network and data priority. The basic protocol, called Congestion-Aware Routing (CAR), discovers the congested zone of the network that exists between high-priority data sources and the data sink and, using simple forwarding rules, dedicates this portion of the network to forwarding primarily high-priority traffic. Since CAR requires some overhead for establishing the high-priority routing zone, it is unsuitable for highly mobile data sources. To accommodate these, we define MAC-Enhanced CAR (MCAR), which includes MAC-layer enhancements and a protocol for forming high- priority paths on the fly for each burst of data. MCAR effectively handles the mobility of high-priority data sources, at the expense of degrading the performance of low-priority traffic.
Geographical Relationships of New Zealand Fern Flora

THEORETICAL DISCUSSIONS on the relationships of the New Zealand flora have been confined mainly to the classical works of Hooker (1853), Oliver (1925), and Skottsberg (1915), and in these little reference was made to the nonflow­ ering plants. Cockayne (1928) included fern species in his various lists of elements and as­ sociations, but did not deal with the fern flora as a unit. Cheeseman (1925) and the revised edition of Dobbie (1951) listed distributions outside New Zealand for the individual fern
Clinical Application of Liver Stiffness Measurement Using Transient Elastography: A Surgical Perspective

Liver biopsy (LB) remains the gold standard for assessing the severity of liver fibrosis; however, LB is often limited by its invasiveness, sampling error, and intra-/inter-observer variability in histological interpretation. Furthermore, repeated LB examinations within a short time interval are ineligible in real clinical practice. Thus, due to the pressing need for non-invasive surrogates, over the past decade, significant progress has been made in non-invasively assessing liver fibrosis. Of the methods now available, transient elastography (TE) appears to be an excellent tool for assessing liver fibrosis and also has some prognostic value in surgical settings. Recent studies have proposed the extended role of TE in the surgical field, based on the concept that TE values show significant correlations with portal hypertension and hepatocellular carcinoma development. TE appears promising in predicting postoperative short-term outcomes such as hepatic insufficiency or complications and long-term outcomes such as recurrence or liver-related death. Furthermore, TE may be useful in predicting the severity of liver fibrosis progression due to recurrence of hepatitis C virus infection or other underlying liver diseases after transplantation. TE cannot completely replace other tests accompanied with hepatic surgical treatments, including LB, endoscopic examination, hepatic venous pressure gradient evaluation, or the indocyanine green retention test. However, TE represents an important non-invasive tool that enables more efficient and tailored management strategies for patients who were treated with liver resection or transplantation. This review discusses extended TE applications in the surgical setting, such as hepatic resection or transplantation.
Sexual Anxiety and Sexual Identities: Implications for Prescription Drug Misuse

ii Acknowledgements.iv Vita.v List of Figures . vii List of Tables . viii Chapter 1: Introduction.1 Chapter 2: General Strain and Minority Stress.4 Chapter 3: Prescription Drug Misuse: A Rising Trend.10 Chapter 4: Methods.14 Chapter 5: Results.23 Chapter 6: Discussion.44 References.51 Appendix: Figures and Tables.58
Syddansk Universitet The role of exercise combined with tocilizumab in visceral and epicardial adipose tissue and gastric emptying rate in abdominally obese participants Protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background: Exercise reduces the amount of visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and the risk of cardiometabolic diseases. The underlying mechanisms responsible for these exercise-induced adaptations are unclear, but they may involve lipolytic actions of interleukin-6 (IL-6). Contracting skeletal muscles secrete IL-6, leading to increased circulating IL-6 levels in response to exercise. The aim of this study is to investigate whether IL-6 is involved in mediating the effects of exercise on visceral and epicardial adipose tissue volume and glycaemic control. Methods/design: Seventy-five physically inactive males and females aged > 18 years with a waist-to-height ratio > 0.5 and/or waist circumference ≥ 88 cm (females) or ≥ 102 cm (males) are being recruited to participate in a 12-week intervention study. Participants are randomly allocated to one of five groups (1:1:1:1:1). Two groups consist of supervised endurance exercise training combined with the IL-6 blocker tocilizumab (ET) or saline used as placebo (EP), two groups consist of no exercise combined with tocilizumab (NT) or placebo (NP), and one group consists of resistance exercise and placebo (RP). Although the study is an exploratory trial, the primary outcome is change in VAT volume from before to after intervention, with secondary outcomes being changes in (1) epicardial adipose tissue, (2) pericardial adipose tissue and (3) gastric emptying. Depots of adipose tissue are quantitated by magnetic resonance imaging Gastric emptying and glucose metabolism are assessed using mixed-meal tolerance tests. Discussion: Understanding the role of IL-6 in mediating the effects of exercise on visceral and epicardial adipose tissue and glycaemic control may lead to novel therapeutic approaches in the prevention of cardiometabolic diseases. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02901496. Registered on 1 August 2016 and posted retrospectively on 15 September 2016.
Fire and post-fire performance of circular steel tube confined reinforced concrete columns

Fire and post-fire behaviours of reinforced concrete columns confined by circular steel tubes, also known as circular steel tube confined reinforced concrete (STCRC) columns, are investigated in this paper. 5 full-scale specimens exposed to fire and 47 specimens after fire exposure were tested. Temperatures across the sections, displacement versus time curves, fire resistance, load versus displacement responses and load-bearing capacities were measured and discussed. A finite element (FE) model was developed using the program ABAQUS, and validated against the test results from the present study. Simplified design methods were proposed for predicting the fire resistance and residual load-bearing capacity of the STCRC columns under and after fire exposure, respectively.
Sections of surface bundles

A bundle with base $B$ and fibre $F$ aspherical closed surfaces has a section if and only if the action $:\pi_1(B)\to{Out}(\pi_1(F))$ factors through $Aut(\pi_1(F))$ and a cohomology class is 0. We simplify and make more explicit the latter condition. We also show that the transgression $d^2_{2,0}$ in the homology LHS spectral sequence of a central extension is evaluation of the extension class. Examples with hyperbolic fibre and no section (based on ideas of Endo) added.
Trends in bowhead whales in West Greenland: Aerial surveys vs. genetic capture-recapture analyses

We contrast two methods for estimating the trends of bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) in West Greenland: (1) double platform visual aerial survey, corrected for missed sightings and the time the whales are available at the surface; and (2) a genetic capture-recapture approach based on a 14-yr-long biopsy sampling program in Disko Bay. The aerial survey covered 39,000 km2 and resulted in 58 sightings, yielding an abundance estimate of 744 whales (CV = 0.34, 95% CI: 357–1,461). The genetic method relied on determining sex, mitochondrial haplotypes and genotypes of nine microsatellite markers. Based on samples from a total of 427 individuals, with 11 recaptures from previous years in 2013, this resulted in an estimate of 1,538 whales (CV = 0.24, 95% CI: 827–2,249). While the aerial survey is considered a snapshot of the local spring aggregation in Disko Bay, the genetic approach estimates the abundance of the source of this aggregation. As the whales in Disko Bay primarily are adult females that do not visit the bay annually, the genetic method would presumably yield higher estimates. The studies indicate that an increase in abundance observed between 1998 and 2006 has leveled off.
Benefit-Cost Assessment of Different Homestead Vegetable Gardening on Improving Household Food and Nutrition Security in Rural Bangladesh

Homestead vegetable gardening can play a significant role in improving food security for the resource poor rural households in developing country like Bangladesh. The present study quantifies costs/benefits of traditional and developed homestead vegetable production systems, and analyzes the underlying factors contributing to food security. The result suggests that developed gardening has better performances in terms of calorie intake and economic performances over traditional but the optimal calorie intake with least-cost technology could be a feasible livelihood strategy for resource poor people. The result also suggests that education, sex, and garden area have significant effect on food security. The occupation and family size are also positively associated with food security.
Variation in risk seeking behavior in a natural experiment following a large negative wealth shock induced by a natural disaster

An ongoing challenge in behavioral economics is to understand the variations observed in risk attitudes as a function of their environmental context. Of particular interest is the effect of wealth on risk attitudes. The research in this area has however faced two constraints: the difficulty to study the causal effects of large changes in wealth, and the causal effects of losses on risk behavior. The present paper address this double limitation by providing evidence of the variation of risk attitude after large losses using a natural disaster (Brisbane floods) as the setting for a natural experiment.
Automatic Racket-Based Ball Dropping Point Analysis System

This paper introduces depth-slicing technique (DST) to detect and analyse dropping points of the ball for racket-based sports. Conventionally, dropping points of the ball is detected and recorded manually either on the spot or through sport video. As such, those approaches are very tedious and time-consuming. Furthermore, the detection of the dropping point is very subjective to human's judgement. There are different methods to obtain information for ball dropping points, but our major emphasis is on DST, which represents the object surface as points of cloud and are analysed based on a distribution map. In our research, sliced depth map sequences where the depth interval, also known as "interval of interest" which is just above the ground is captured using cost-effective RGB-D sensor, namely Microsoft Kinect sensor. With such implementation, the dropping points of the ball can be easily detected and stored. The racket based sport dataset that collected in this research is tennis. The data is statistically analysed by performing different experiments and results are obtained by a graph plotting. Conclusions are drawn from these results in order to enhance athlete's performance.
The Local Explanatory Model: A Study of Assumed Causes of Tuberculosis in Rural Nepal

Tuberculosis (TB) constitutes one of the major public health problems in Nepal. Our theoretical framework, in this paper, is to explore people's understanding of the culturally constructed reality, the local explanatory model, for causes of Tuberculosis. The ethnographic data were collected from 'Solubang' village of Pyuthan district in 2005 and 2012/13. The finding shows that assumed and suggested cause(s) of TB are multiple but most often within a framework of great uncertainty. Compared to 2005, people were better aware of the need for timely treatment in 2012/13. The arrival of the biomedical anti-TB medicines has changed the situation for the better and is widely recognized but perception on causes of TB and its prevalence have not changed drastically, and mortality rates have not decreased at the speed hoped for.
Interannual variability of the 10–25‐ and 30–60‐day variation over the South China Sea during boreal summer

The interannual variability (IAV) of the intraseasonal variation (ISV) over the South China Sea (SCS) was investigated, focusing on the relationship between the 10–25‐ and 30–60‐day variation. Both ISV activities over the SCS had larger IAV than those of the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. The 10–25‐ (30–60‐) day variation was relatively active when the 30–60‐ (10–25‐) day variation was suppressed in June, July and September. The IAV of the ISV during early summer (June–July) was related to the IAV of the SCS monsoon onset. A late (early) onset was accompanied by active 10–25‐ (30–60‐) day variation. The IAV of the ISV could be divided into early and late summer (September), because there was little persistence between these two periods. Moreover, large‐scale circulation anomalies associated with the IAV had different spatial structures in these two periods.