Off-Label Use of Prescription Drugs should be Regulated by the FDA

The FDA does not subject all uses of drugs to a rigorous approval process. There are many justifications given for this. I lay out a system that divides drug-indication sets into four categories: (1) FDA approved; (2) effective; (3) insufficient information; and (4) ineffective. Each category is treated differently so manufacturers have an incentive to get as many indications into the FDA approved category as possible. Physicians will be required to submit de-identified patient data and when prescribing drugs for indications that have insufficient data. They, or their patients, may not be reimbursed for that care unless it is part of a study. My system saves money, improves health care, and advances medical knowledge at the cost of decreased physician autonomy and possibly slightly higher regulatory cost to drug manufacturers

Netizens, Academicians, and Information Professionals\u27 Opinions About AI With Special Reference To ChatGPT

This study aims to understand the perceptions and opinions of academicians towards ChatGPT-3 by collecting and analyzing social media comments, and a survey was conducted with library and information science professionals. The research uses a content analysis method and finds that while ChatGPT-3 can be a valuable tool for research and writing, it is not 100% accurate and should be cross-checked. The study also finds that while some academicians may not accept ChatGPT-3, most are starting to accept it. The study is beneficial for academicians, content developers, and librarians

Spatial Variation in Personal Exposure of Parking Attendants to Traffic Emissions in an Urban Conurbation

This study presents temporal and spatial variations in personal exposure of parking attendants in a busy conurbation in the northern part of the UK. Two traffic related pollutants - carbon monoxide (CO) and ultrafine particulates (UFP), mainly associated with urban drives, have been considered for two distinct locations- one, in the city centre and the other in a suburban area of Leeds, a prominent city in West Yorkshire. The monitoring of pollutants was conducted while parking attendants carried out their duty along the streets during different times of the year to capture the seasonal fluctuations. Our results show a wide variation in exposure levels for both CO and UFP, marked both by seasonal and daily characteristics. There seems to be considerable variations in exposure levels depending on the location of the parking attendants with respect to traffic activity. Specifically, the level of exposure closer to market areas within the city centre, despite located in open spaces but closer to congested streets were found to be much higher owing to frequent stopping, stopping and idling of cars in search of parking spaces. This demonstrates the merit in setting up transport interchanges and park-and-ride schemes away from busy streets to ameliorate the exposure levels

Interatomic potentials for mixed oxide (MOX) nuclear fuels

We extend our recently developed interatomic potentials for UO_{2} to the mixed oxide fuel system (U,Pu,Np)O_{2}. We do so by fitting against an extensive database of ab initio results as well as to experimental measurements. The applicability of these interactions to a variety of mixed environments beyond the fitting domain is also assessed. The employed formalism makes these potentials applicable across all interatomic distances without the need for any ambiguous splining to the well-established short-range Ziegler-Biersack-Littmark universal pair potential. We therefore expect these to be reliable potentials for carrying out damage simulations (and Molecular Dynamics simulations in general) in nuclear fuels of varying compositions for all relevant atomic collision energies

Investigations on chitosan-carboxymethyl guar gum complexes interpolymer complexes for colon delivery of fluticasone

The present study was designed to formulate colon release tablets of fluticasone by employing cross linked chitosan (CH) and carboxymethyl guar gum (CMG) interpolymer complexes (IPC). Matrix tablets were prepared by wet granulation method using IPC as binder and coating agent. The IPC were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The uncoated and coated tablets were tested for their suitability as colon specific drug delivery system by in vitro dissolution studies. The coated tablets were evaluated for their pharmacodynamic performance after oral administration to TNBS induced ulcerative colitic rats. FTIR studies demonstrated that the IPC was formed through an electrostatic interaction between –COO− groups of CMG and –NH3+ groups of CH. Tablets formulated with 50:50 CH:CMG as binder and coated with the respective ratio of IPC was capable of protecting the drug release in stomach and small intestine and delivering the drug in the colon. Histopathology of the rat colon after oral administration of these IPC film coated tablets revealed significantly greater (p<0.05) reduction in TNBS-induced ulcerative colitis The study confirmed that selective delivery of fluticasone to the colon can be achieved using cross-linked CH and CMG polysaccharides.Keywords: Chitosan; Colonic delivery; Carboxymethyl guar gum; Cross-linking; Guar gum; Fluticason

Emerging perspectives on environmental burden minimisation initiatives from anaerobic digestion technologies for community scale biomass valorisation

This paper provides an extensive review of anaerobic digestion (AD) systems, with a specific focus on community scale digesters for urban applications, processing either municipal organic waste exclusively or as mix feed. Emphasis is placed on reducing the systems scale environmental impact of AD technologies, including pre- and post-treatment stages, alongside biogas production. Developments to-date in AD system research in Europe and in the Asia region have been compared, providing a comprehensive evaluation of current practice, elucidating the areas of further potentials. The scope of this review is two-fold – one, covering AD technologies including a cohort of simple and integrated wet and dry systems, which can be operated as continuous flow designs in single- or multi-stages. Two, focusing more on practices in digestate handling that minimise environmental impacts arising from their storage and land application. From an environmental perspective, we note the following trends emerging in the literature for processing urban waste that need further exploitation: dry AD (60-85% moisture) is suitable for low organic loads, mainly owing to resource savings in terms of water usage; co-digestion has shown better buffering capability, especially for two-stage digestion of food-based feed stocks; separating the digestate into liquid/solid fractions is effective for handling post-digestion emissions, mainly for mitigating ammonia volatilisation to air and phosphate leaching to soil. We report responses to a survey, conducted for this review, highlighting the contemporary issues and challenges - with particular focus on the operational, social and management issues from an Indian perspective. There is need for follow-up of running plants to ensure their environmental performance. Such initiatives will have to consider managing of pollution footprints from AD, alongside the current drive for its widespread implementation for two incentives: greenhouse gas mitigation and fossil-fuel independence

Pancreatic Pseudocyst: Therapeutic Dilemma

Pancreatic pseudocyst develops in both acute and chronic pancreatitis. It is an entity likely to either remain asymptomatic or develop devastating complications. Despite being diagnosed easily, treatment exercise is still at crossroads whether in the form of internal or external drainage or endoscopic, laparoscopic, or open intervention with a good radiological guidance. The therapeutic dilemma whether to treat a patient with a pancreatic pseudocyst, as well as when and with what technique, is a difficult one. This paper is intended to get information about diagnostic and therapeutic exercises most appropriate for acute and chronic pancreatic pseudocyst

Bioadhezivne vaginalete s klotrimazolom: priprava i evaluacija

In this study, a bioadhesive dosage form of clotrimazole was designed using a combination of bioadhesive polymers Carbopol 934P, sodium carboxymethylcellulose and sodium alginate in different ratios. The bioadhesive strength was evaluated by measuring the force required to detach the tablets from porcine vaginal mucosal membrane. The strong interaction between polymer and mucus lining of the tissue helps in increasing the contact time and permits localization of activity. Carbopol 934P showed maximum bioadhesion and required maximum force for detachment; the force required for detachment was directly proportional to its content. The formulations were tested for their swelling behavior using agar gel plate method. The swelling index was a function of the concentration of the hydrophilic polymer and the formulations containing Carbopol 934 P and sodium carboxy methylcellulose were found to swell to a greater extent than those containing carbopol and sodium alginate. In vitro release studies showed that the batch consisting 2: 1 ratio of Carbopol 934P: sodium alginate (batch C3) released clotrimazole over 24 h. The similarity factor showed that the dissolution profiles of fresh and aged tablets was similar, suggesting good stability of vaginal tablets prepared using a combination of Carbopol 934P and sodium alginate.U radu je opisana priprava bioadhezivnih vaginaleta s klotrimazolom, kombinacijom nekoliko bioadhezivnih polimera u različitim omjerima (Carbopol 934P, natrijeva sol karboksimetilceluloze i natrijev alginat). Bioadhesivnost je određena mjerenjem sile koja je potrebna za odvajanje tablete s vaginalne mukozne membrane svinje. Zbog jake interakcije između polimera i mukoze produljilo se vrijeme kontakta pripravka s kožom i lokaliziralo djelovanje lijeka. Maksimum bioadhezije postignut je uz Carbopol 934P, a sila potrebna za odvajanje pripravka bila je proporcionalna njegovom udjelu. Pripravcima je ispitana sposobnost bubrenja koristeći metodu s agarnim pločama. Indeks bubrenja ovisio je o koncentraciji hidrofilnog polimera. Pripravci s karbopolom i karboksimetilcelulozom jače su bubrili od pripravaka s karbopolom i natrijevim alginatom. In vitro ispitivanja pokazala su da se iz pripravaka s omjerom karbopola i natrijevog alginata u omjeru 2 : 1 (pripravak C3) oslobađao klotrimazol tijekom 24 h. Profil oslobađanja bio je sličan iz svježe pripravljenih i starih vaginaleta, što ukazuje na njihovu stabilnost

Adapt then Unlearn: Exploiting Parameter Space Semantics for Unlearning in Generative Adversarial Networks

The increased attention to regulating the outputs of deep generative models, driven by growing concerns about privacy and regulatory compliance, has highlighted the need for effective control over these models. This necessity arises from instances where generative models produce outputs containing undesirable, offensive, or potentially harmful content. To tackle this challenge, the concept of machine unlearning has emerged, aiming to forget specific learned information or to erase the influence of undesired data subsets from a trained model. The objective of this work is to prevent the generation of outputs containing undesired features from a pre-trained GAN where the underlying training data set is inaccessible. Our approach is inspired by a crucial observation: the parameter space of GANs exhibits meaningful directions that can be leveraged to suppress specific undesired features. However, such directions usually result in the degradation of the quality of generated samples. Our proposed method, known as 'Adapt-then-Unlearn,' excels at unlearning such undesirable features while also maintaining the quality of generated samples. This method unfolds in two stages: in the initial stage, we adapt the pre-trained GAN using negative samples provided by the user, while in the subsequent stage, we focus on unlearning the undesired feature. During the latter phase, we train the pre-trained GAN using positive samples, incorporating a repulsion regularizer. This regularizer encourages the model's parameters to be away from the parameters associated with the adapted model from the first stage while also maintaining the quality of generated samples. To the best of our knowledge, our approach stands as first method addressing unlearning in GANs. We validate the effectiveness of our method through comprehensive experiments.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure