Dissolution and drug release profiles of phosphate glasses doped with high valency oxides

This paper investigates phosphate glasses incorporating vanadium and molybdenum oxides for effective management of dissolution and drug release. These glass formulations are found to reduce the rate of dissolution from the glass surfaces. The drug functional groups of vancomycin molecules loaded by immersion showed stronger hydrogen bonding with Vanadium doped glasses and consequently lower rate of drug release over 2 weeks indicating better surface attachment with the drug molecules and slow drug release profiles. This can be explained by the strong adherence of drug molecules to glass surfaces compared with the molybdenum containing glasses (PM5 and PM10). The strong attachment relates to hydrogen bonding between the amino-functional groups of vancomycin and the hydrated P-O-H groups in the glass network. In conclusion, the rate of dissolution of doped glasses and the rate of drug release can be administered to deliver the drug molecules over weeks

Le droit à un délai raisonnable devant la cour de cassation d'Egypte

Des liens étroits rattachent depuis plus de deux siècles les droits français et égyptien, en particulier depuis l'adoption de codes d'inspiration française sous le règne d'Ismail (1863-1879). Le mode de raisonnement juridique et l'organisation des juridictions sont aujourd'hui encore très semblables dans les deux pays. Ils disposent que le pouvoir judiciaire est tenu, dans un État de droit, de garantir à ses citoyens le droit à un procès équitable et dans un délai raisonnable. Ce droit, reconnu par les instruments internationaux de protection des droits de l'homme, a été consacré par les constitutions égyptiennes successives. Or, depuis de nombreuses années, la Cour de cassation d'Égypte ne semble plus en mesure de respecter le droit à être jugé dans un délai raisonnable. Quelle est dès lors l'utilité d'une justice équitable et indépendante si le justiciable est contraint d'attendre près de dix ans avant de voir justice faite ? La juridiction suprême ayant la charge d'unifier la jurisprudence peut-elle supporter une situation à ce point dégradée ? L'amélioration des délais tient à des points de procédure, à des mécanismes de filtrage, mais également à des questions d'organisation du travail, de bonne diffusion de la jurisprudence, qui interrogent bien au-delà les capacités de régulation du système judiciaire. La présidence de la Cour de cassation d'Égypte a souhaité, via une expertise collégiale originale rassemblant magistrats et chercheurs, bénéficier des connaissances scientifiques et techniques disponibles et de recommandations qui éclairent sous un jour complet la situation difficile de cette instance

Word matching using single closed contours for indexing handwritten historical documents

Effective indexing is crucial for providing convenient access to scanned versions of large collections of historically valuable handwritten manuscripts. Since traditional handwriting recognizers based on optical character recognition (OCR) do not perform well on historical documents, recently a holistic word recognition approach has gained in popularity as an attractive and more straightforward solution (Lavrenko et al. in proc. document Image Analysis for Libraries (DIAL’04), pp. 278–287, 2004). Such techniques attempt to recognize words based on scalar and profile-based features extracted from whole word images. In this paper, we propose a new approach to holistic word recognition for historical handwritten manuscripts based on matching word contours instead of whole images or word profiles. The new method consists of robust extraction of closed word contours and the application of an elastic contour matching technique proposed originally for general shapes (Adamek and O’Connor in IEEE Trans Circuits Syst Video Technol 5:2004). We demonstrate that multiscale contour-based descriptors can effectively capture intrinsic word features avoiding any segmentation of words into smaller subunits. Our experiments show a recognition accuracy of 83%, which considerably exceeds the performance of other systems reported in the literature

Modeling Sitagliptin Effect on Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4 (DPP4) Activity in Adults with Hematological Malignancies After Umbilical Cord Blood (UCB) Hematopoietic Cell Transplant (HCT)

Background and Objectives— Dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) inhibition is a potential strategy to increase the engraftment rate of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. A recent clinical trial using sitagliptin, a DPP4 inhibitor approved for type 2 diabetes mellitus, has shown to be a promising approach in adults with hematological malignancies after umbilical cord blood (UCB) hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT). Based on data from this clinical trial, a semi-mechanistic model was developed to simultaneously describe DPP4 activity after multiple doses of sitagliptin in subjects with hematological malignancies after a single-unit UCB HCT. Methods— The clinical study included 24 patients that received myeloablative conditioning followed by 4 oral sitagliptin 600mg with single-unit UCB HCT. Using a nonlinear mixed effects approach, a semi-mechanistic pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic model was developed to describe DPP4 activity from this trial data using NONMEM 7.2. The model was used to drive Monte-Carlo simulations to probe various dosage schedules and the attendant DPP4 response. Results— The disposition of sitagliptin in plasma was best described by a 2-compartment model. The relationship between sitagliptin concentration and DPP4 activity was best described by an indirect response model with a negative feedback loop. Simulations showed that twice a day or three times a day dosage schedules were superior to once daily schedule for maximal DPP4 inhibition at the lowest sitagliptin exposure. Conclusion— This study provides the first pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic model of sitagliptin in the context of HCT, and provides a valuable tool for exploration of optimal dosing regimens, critical for improving time to engraftment in patients after UCB HCT

A novel multivariate STeady-state index during general ANesthesia (STAN)

The assessment of the adequacy of general anesthesia for surgery, namely the nociception/anti-nociception balance, has received wide attention from the scientific community. Monitoring systems based on the frontal EEG/EMG, or autonomic state reactions (e.g. heart rate and blood pressure) have been developed aiming to objectively assess this balance. In this study a new multivariate indicator of patients' steady-state during anesthesia (STAN) is proposed, based on wavelet analysis of signals linked to noxious activation. A clinical protocol was designed to analyze precise noxious stimuli (laryngoscopy/intubation, tetanic, and incision), under three different analgesic doses; patients were randomized to receive either remifentanil 2.0, 3.0 or 4.0 ng/ml. ECG, PPG, BP, BIS, EMG and [Formula: see text] were continuously recorded. ECG, PPG and BP were processed to extract beat-to-beat information, and [Formula: see text] curve used to estimate the respiration rate. A combined steady-state index based on wavelet analysis of these variables, was applied and compared between the three study groups and stimuli (Wilcoxon signed ranks, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests). Following institutional approval and signing the informed consent thirty four patients were enrolled in this study (3 excluded due to signal loss during data collection). The BIS index of the EEG, frontal EMG, heart rate, BP, and PPG wave amplitude changed in response to different noxious stimuli. Laryngoscopy/intubation was the stimulus with the more pronounced response [Formula: see text]. These variables were used in the construction of the combined index STAN; STAN responded adequately to noxious stimuli, with a more pronounced response to laryngoscopy/intubation (18.5-43.1 %, [Formula: see text]), and the attenuation provided by the analgesic, detecting steady-state periods in the different physiological signals analyzed (approximately 50 % of the total study time). A new multivariate approach for the assessment of the patient steady-state during general anesthesia was developed. The proposed wavelet based multivariate index responds adequately to different noxious stimuli, and attenuation provided by the analgesic in a dose-dependent manner for each stimulus analyzed in this study.The first author was supported by a scholarship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT SFRH/BD/35879/2007). The authors would also like to acknowledge the support of UISPA—System Integration and Process Automation Unit—Part of the LAETA (Associated Laboratory of Energy, Transports and Aeronautics) a I&D Unit of the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Portugal. FCT support under project PEst-OE/EME/LA0022/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A non-invasive method for measuring blood flow rate in superficial veins from a single thermal image.

Computer vision is a field that includes methods for processing, analyzing, acquiring and understanding images to produce numerical or symbolic information to develop methodologies and solutions for many problems in many fields. Here the concept of computer vision is being used for understanding certain human physiology and behaviors using thermal imaging alone or in conjunction with other imaging modalities. The applications of this work span a wide range of studies in human-machine interfacing vis-à-vis feedback controls that can be used to remotely determine whether a patient is in need of medical assistance or to help integrate young children with learning challenges into a public classroom setting that can require monitoring vital signs and physiological cues without the need for contact-based sensors such as electrocardiogram (ECG) or electroencephalogram (EEG), which limit a subject’s physical capabilities during operational scenarios. In this thesis, a general framework is proposed to find an easy way to measure the blood flow using thermal camera to help detecting cots and vascular diseases (Venous disease, Arterial disease). In this thesis, a general framework is proposed to use a thermal image based measurement technique for the volumetric flow rate of a liquid inside a thin tube. This technique makes use of the convection heat transfer dependency between the flow rate and the temperature of the flowing liquid along the tube. The proposed method can be applied to diagnose superficial venous disease non-invasively by measuring the volumetric blood flow rate from a FLIR LWIR single thermal image (Mahmoud et al., 13)