A COBRA/TRAC, Best-Estimate Analysis of a Large-Break Accident in a PWR Equipped with Upper Head Injection

This report is about the Best-Estimate Analysis of a Large-Break Accident in a PWR Equipped with Upper Head Injection. It also documents about the simulation of a double ended (200 percent), cold leg break, loss-of-coolant accident in a PWR Equipped with Upper Head Injection

A COBRA/TRAC, Best-Estimate Analysis of a Large-Break Accident in a PWR Equipped with Upper Head Injection

This report is about the Best-Estimate Analysis of a Large-Break Accident in a PWR Equipped with Upper Head Injection. It also documents about the simulation of a double ended (200 percent), cold leg break, loss-of-coolant accident in a PWR Equipped with Upper Head Injection

Effects of the blending ratio on the design of keratin/poly (Butylene succinate) nanofibers for drug delivery applications

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the use of proteins as biocompatible and environmentally friendly biomolecules for the design of wound healing and drug delivery sys-tems. Keratin is a fascinating protein, obtainable from several keratinous biomasses such as wool, hair or nails, with intrinsic bioactive properties including stimulatory effects on wound repair and excellent carrier capability. In this work keratin/poly (butylene succinate) blend solutions with functional properties tunable by manipulating the polymer blending ratios were prepared by using 1,1,1,3,3,3‐hexafluoroisopropanol as common solvent. Afterwards, these solutions doped with rho-damine B (RhB), were electrospun into blend mats and the drug release mechanism and kinetics as a function of blend composition was studied, in order to understand the potential of such mem-branes as drug delivery systems. The electrophoresis analysis carried out on keratin revealed that the solvent used does not degrade the protein. Moreover, all the blend solutions showed a non‐ Newtonian behavior, among which the Keratin/PBS 70/30 and 30/70 ones showed an amplified orientation ability of the polymer chains when subjected to a shear stress. Therefore, the resulting nan-ofibers showed thinner mean diameters and narrower diameter distributions compared to the Ker-atin/PBS 50/50 blend solution. The thermal stability and the mechanical properties of the blend elec-trospun mats improved by increasing the PBS content. Finally, the RhB release rate increased by increasing the keratin content of the mats and the drug diffused as drug‐protein complex

Discovering temporal regularities in retail customers’ shopping behavior

In this paper we investigate the regularities characterizing the temporal purchasing behavior of the customers of a retail market chain. Most of the literature studying purchasing behavior focuses on what customers buy while giving few importance to the temporal dimension. As a consequence, the state of the art does not allow capturing which are the temporal purchasing patterns of each customers. These patterns should describe the customerâ\u80\u99s temporal habits highlighting when she typically makes a purchase in correlation with information about the amount of expenditure, number of purchased items and other similar aggregates. This knowledge could be exploited for different scopes: set temporal discounts for making the purchases of customers more regular with respect the time, set personalized discounts in the day and time window preferred by the customer, provide recommendations for shopping time schedule, etc. To this aim, we introduce a framework for extracting from personal retail data a temporal purchasing profile able to summarize whether and when a customer makes her distinctive purchases. The individual profile describes a set of regular and characterizing shopping behavioral patterns, and the sequences in which these patterns take place. We show how to compare different customers by providing a collective perspective to their individual profiles, and how to group the customers with respect to these comparable profiles. By analyzing real datasets containing millions of shopping sessions we found that there is a limited number of patterns summarizing the temporal purchasing behavior of all the customers, and that they are sequentially followed in a finite number of ways. Moreover, we recognized regular customers characterized by a small number of temporal purchasing behaviors, and changing customers characterized by various types of temporal purchasing behaviors. Finally, we discuss on how the profiles can be exploited both by customers to enable personalized services, and by the retail market chain for providing tailored discounts based on temporal purchasing regularity

Neuroactive steroids in depression and anxiety disorders: Clinical studies

Certain neuroactive steroids modulate ligand-gated ion channels via non-genomic mechanisms. Especially 3 alpha-reduced pregnane steroids are potent positive allosteric modulators of the gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA(A)) receptor. During major depression, there is a disequilibrium of 3 alpha-reduced neuroactive steroids, which is corrected by clinically effective pharmacological treatment. To investigate whether these alterations are a general principle of successful antidepressant treatment, we studied the impact of nonpharmacological treatment options on neuroactive steroid concentrations during major depression. Neither partial sleep deprivation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, nor electroconvulsive therapy affected neuroactive steroid levels irrespectively of the response to these treatments. These studies suggest that the changes in neuroactive steroid concentrations observed after antidepressant pharmacotherapy more likely reflect distinct pharmacological properties of antidepressants rather than the clinical response. In patients with panic disorder, changes in neuroactive steroid composition have been observed opposite to those seen in depression. However, during experimentally induced panic induction either with cholecystokinine-tetrapeptide or sodium lactate, there was a pronounced decline in the concentrations of 3 alpha-reduced neuroactive steroids in patients with panic disorder, which might result in a decreased GABAergic tone. In contrast, no changes in neuroactive steroid concentrations could be observed in healthy controls with the exception of 3 alpha,5 alpha-tetrahydrodeoxycorticosterone. The modulation of GABA(A) receptors by neuroactive steroids might contribute to the pathophysiology of depression and anxiety disorders and might offer new targets for the development of novel anxiolytic compounds. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Basel

Empowerment or Engagement? Digital Health Technologies for Mental Healthcare

We argue that while digital health technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, smartphones, and virtual reality) present significant opportunities for improving the delivery of healthcare, key concepts that are used to evaluate and understand their impact can obscure significant ethical issues related to patient engagement and experience. Specifically, we focus on the concept of empowerment and ask whether it is adequate for addressing some significant ethical concerns that relate to digital health technologies for mental healthcare. We frame these concerns using five key ethical principles for AI ethics (i.e. autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and explicability), which have their roots in the bioethical literature, in order to critically evaluate the role that digital health technologies will have in the future of digital healthcare

Predicting the probability that higher profits could be achieved by adopting PA

Algorithms were developed to predict spatial variation of yield and quality within winter wheat crops intended for bread-making. Bayesian networks were used to predict spatial probability maps of yield and quality based on data sources including yield maps, fertiliser applications, soil variables and Sentinel 2 satellite data. Results presented here for five UK fields show that there was a 65% likelihood of achieving a grain protein premium with variable rate nitrogen application compared to 50% with uniform N. Achieving this premium would increase revenues by £150/ha. A similar comparison for five German fields did not demonstrate a higher probability of profit

Kupffer Cells Hasten Resolution of Liver Immunopathology in Mouse Models of Viral Hepatitis

Kupffer cells (KCs) are widely considered important contributors to liver injury during viral hepatitis due to their pro-inflammatory activity. Herein we utilized hepatitis B virus (HBV)-replication competent transgenic mice and wild-type mice infected with a hepatotropic adenovirus to demonstrate that KCs do not directly induce hepatocellular injury nor do they affect the pathogenic potential of virus-specific CD8 T cells. Instead, KCs limit the severity of liver immunopathology. Mechanistically, our results are most compatible with the hypothesis that KCs contain liver immunopathology by removing apoptotic hepatocytes in a manner largely dependent on scavenger receptors. Apoptotic hepatocytes not readily removed by KCs become secondarily necrotic and release high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB-1) protein, promoting organ infiltration by inflammatory cells, particularly neutrophils. Overall, these results indicate that KCs resolve rather than worsen liver immunopathology

On a coupled PDE model for image restoration

In this paper, we consider a new coupled PDE model for image restoration. Both the image and the edge variables are incorporated by coupling them into two different PDEs. It is shown that the initial-boundary value problem has global in time dissipative solutions (in a sense going back to P.-L. Lions), and several properties of these solutions are established. This is a rough draft, and the final version of the paper will contain a modelling part and numerical experiments